Romanogers Oneshots

A Quiet Night In

Summary: Is it a movie date while the world stands still?

"Steve?" Natasha asks in the silence of the dimly-lit room. Her feet are propped up on the table. This is where she stays, waiting for calls from the far reaches of the universe for some way to fix everything that has gone wrong.

He has another place he is willing to sleep. She doesn't know why he hasn't left yet.

Sometimes, he just sits there until she loses tack of time. It is quiet. It is so quiet, the way the whole world is now.

"Yeah?" he asks, a little startled. He looks up and over at her, across the room. He smiles a bit sheepishly, apologetic for not listening as attentively as he could have.

"Don't you have somewhere to be?" Natasha asks, a little wryly.

"Like where?" Steve asks, and she can't quite tell if he is playing along or genuinely in a bit of a rush to get on his feet and go, to do something. She knows that almost everyone who is left is itching to do something that is well beyond their grasp. "Did I miss something?" he asks, upon sitting up on the edge of his seat, the chair turning a little on its swivel.

Natasha smiles weakly and shakes her head.

"Not a thing, Cap," she assures him. She shakes her head, looking at the hologram transmitter that allows her to see the others from such long distances away when they call. "Don't think the calls I get here are the kinds of things you miss in a daydream."

"I wasn't daydreaming," Steve says, slumping back a bit in the chair as he relaxes. Natasha thinks he looks a bit disappointed.

"What, that's not manly enough for you?" she asks.

"Nah. I've got no problem with daydreaming. Daydream all the time. Or, at least, I used to. I just think 'daydreaming' sounds more like looking forward to something. I spend a lot of my time looking back. Even... before..." he explains, trailing off before he can finish it.

"I know," Natasha says to answer the silence he lapses into. She draws her knees back toward her chest and then sets her feet on the floor. She pulls herself a little closer to him in her chair, the desk still between them.

Before she can remind herself of all the reasons she shouldn't, her gaze flits up and down over his familiar frame. He's well-built – handsome and strong and steady. He has even started shaving again, though she thought the rugged look did do him some good for a while. She remembers all those days at the Triskelion and around D.C., looking for women he should ask out. She wonders just how many of them are gone now.

"Had any dates lately?" she asks him abruptly as she makes herself look away.

Steve snorts, taken off-guard by a question she hasn't asked him in a long time.

"No. You?" Steve retorts.

"You know, I don't get out much."

"Maybe you should. If nothing else the fresh air might do you some good," he suggests, and she can tell he means it with syrup-thick sincerity.

Natasha glances at the ceiling.

"I know I could fly out of here tonight and not worry for a second about my carbon footprint. I need to be here," she insists, flitting carefully over the reason why. She doesn't want to talk about it. "If I need a walk I'll let you know."

Steve's eyes widen, his eyebrows lifting a bit.

"Really?" he demands of her.

Natasha knows he knows he wasn't meant to take the last comment seriously, but her brow knits down a bit and she decides to give him an almost noncommittal nod.

"Really," she says. She glances over toward the area not far away where her bed is partitioned off without a full wall between it and this room. She needs to be on-call as much as she can.

"Hey, do you want to watch a movie?" she asks abruptly.

Steve – who has trusted her for so long now it's a little hard to remember when she had looked into his eyes and seen nothing but suspicion – follows her gaze and nods. She thinks he swallows hard. She wonders and then forces herself not to.

"Sure," he agrees.

About fifteen minutes later, Natasha comes around the partition with a plastic bowl of microwave popcorn. Steve is leaned back against one side of her bed, leaving as much space for her on the other as possible. He is fully clothed except for his shoes, but he looks comfortable there.

Natasha crawls along her bed and makes it a point of sitting just close enough to let her leg brush against his when she makes herself comfortable.

He doesn't recoil anymore. He trusts her, and she wonders whether or not that's a good thing.

Half an hour into the movie, she has her head leaned against his shoulder and he moves his arm to accommodate her.

She wonders what, if anything, this means to him. It isn't the first time, but it never has been the first for anything else. She wonders if she is tempting him – fairly or unfairly – or if this is what it's like to simply have a friend the way he had suggested such a long time ago.

Sometimes they make morbid commentary about the actors who are gone now when they appear on the screen. Other times, she hears him chuckle as he seems to honestly lose himself to the story. She looks up at him sometimes, watching the bluish light filter across his face.

She has lost so many people, but at least the world still has him.

A/N: Sorry that this one is a short one, just an idea I had