Terrible headcanons:
Wherever Steve is living, no matter if it’s in DC or Brooklyn, the Avenger’s tower or a cramped cabin at sea, at any given moment Natasha is either in the process of or has already broken into it.
Steve can never catch her; she is Schrodinger’s Russian.
And while she certainly has the skills to make it appear as if no one had been there, that’s not really Natasha’s jam. She’s doing Steve a service. She is being an awesome friend.
Sometimes Steve will return to wherever it is that he sleeps (where he closes his eyes, where he falls unconscious, where he is completely unprotected and what the hell this isn’t funny, except it totally is, Steve, get with the program) – he will return, and he will find that she has brought him a little gift.
It is a gift of home decor.
She has found enormous American flag blankets and draped them fetchingly along his couch. She has found flag throw pillows and placed them artfully on his bed. She once carefully replaced all his dishes with ones that had the Declaration of Independence printed on them in full; on one fateful occasion, she found a framed Mount Rushmore lovingly rendered on crushed black velvet with generous layers of glittery acrylics. (That, she put in a place of honor above his television, with a picture rail and directional lighting.)
Her personal best, though, is the time Steve went to the deli down the street, talked for a few minutes with the owner, helped an elderly man at the crosswalk, and gave the rest of his spare cash to the homeless vet on the corner before returning home, opening his bathroom door, and finding that she (or someone that she had inexplicably let into his very private rooms, jesus Nat why) had somehow in the intervening time completely redecorated it in the most surreal and gut-heaving rendition of country-craft Americana that could possibly be managed in the time allotted. There were aw-shucks red and white gingham curtains on the window, tied back with burlap ribbon. The toilet paper was in a stand-up Uncle Sam holder whittled from basswood and handpainted by someone’s no-doubt-very-talented aunt. The now apple-scented handsoap was in its own knitted cozy with a red chicken motif along the bottom. The curtain was, naturally, styled as a cheery patchwork quilt. And the entire room had been retiled in a jaunty red-white-and-blue striped and starred pattern that only a severely colorblind or, failing that, terribly insane person could love.
The floor tiles shifted a little when he stepped on them, rendering an unfortunate dip in the previously perfect grouting. That was the only sign that the room hadn’t always looked as if the proud vendors of a town-wide craft fair had vomited noisily all over his home.
Natasha has never admitted this was her doing. She has, in fact, never admitted to doing any of it. Steve, she will always say very seriously from where she has propped herself on several flag pillows, are you sure you didn’t do it?
She will stretch her legs, and curl deeper into the flag blanket she would have immediately claimed upon entering his living room. Pretty sure it looks like your kind of thing, Steve, she will say, and at no point whatsoever, no matter how long Steve waits, will she admit to how she got into his building, went up the stairs, broke into his apartment and placed a four-foot mounted fish above the toilet without a single goddamn witness.
Natasha will always just smile. (She is an awesome friend.)
(via primarybufferpanel)
