Title: Crackers, Wine, and Good Company

Paring: Natasha Romanoff X Shy!Reader

Warnings: new years, kissing, bisexuality, science 

Spoilers: noope

Request: SakuraBlossomsinJuly

Author's Note: Happy New Year! See you, 2017!

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The best part of working in a lab, was not the fact that you could work also on your own scientific things. Well, it's a great fact, and you did that, quite often. But no. The best part of working in a lab was that you could do your job, and not talk to anyone else. In your high school yearbook, you'd been voted most likely to live alone (as a joke), and best introvert (for real). It was a miracle that you'd even been selected from the graduating class to work alongside the Avengers themselves, but still, it happened, and as a scientist, and as a very shy person, it was amazing.

You worked alongside Dr Banner, and Dr Cho, and on the odd occasion when she breezed into town, Thor's ex-girlfriend Dr Foster. But three people who talked to you were enough for your quota, and you did your best to keep to yourself and do the best work to aid the Avengers in their quest to better humanity.

That was until you saw Natasha Romanov.

You'd seen girls before, oh boy, yes, you've seen girls before. Girls with perfect hair and rude tendencies. Girls with long legs and sarcastic comebacks. Girls flirting the bi-curious line and running back to boys after a kiss. But when you saw the ex-Agent, your eyes grew wide, pulse grew fast, and you turned heel and walked the way she was not. In that zero point zero two second lapse, you saw how incredibly gorgeous she was. Hair so straight, could give a paper cut. Smile so perfect, it could kill a man. Eyes that could probably do that too.

You ran back off to your lab, the results for Mr. Stark still in hand, and heart racing faster than ever before in your life. If she was the Black Widow, then, well, you'd be a caterpillar. Prey. Your experience of dating girls in your life made you practically vowed off love, and as a woman whose heart went to men and women, that meant something. Being publicly dumped and humiliated one too many times did that.

But Dr Banner caught on to it.

"Tony said he didn't get the atom-based Vibranium blaster theory paper last month," He said, pushing a scuffed pink mug of terrible coffee toward you. "And the report on the improved arrows for Barton yesterday." You cup the mug in your hands, unable to look at your co-worker and friend. "I thought I gave them to you to pass on."

You mumble something, and then, realising it was too inaudible, say, "I got distracted. Sorry."

Bruce pulls up a stool beside you. "Distracted? You're the best scientist I have here – you helped me calculate the differentiation between the X-Gene and that of an Inhuman." He places a hand near your own, and says, "Is everything okay?"

You nod. "Y-yeah. Just...I don't want to be a runner anymore. If that's okay with you."

He cracks a smile. "Sure, ________. You don't have to do anything you're not comfortable with, I'm not a monster," he chuckles, and taking a sip of his mug, pats you softly on the shoulder. "I got results back from the forensics, and you wouldn't believe what the alien material found has traces of..."

Natasha Romanov was not an idiot. She also was not the brilliant scientist who worked with Banner, who she was curiously intrigued about. Every time she saw her (h/c) hair tied back to satisfy the lab rules, her bright (e/c) eyes behind the safety goggles, Nat wanted to ask her to coffee. It had been a while since she found herself falling for a woman, not since her childhood friend Marina. But when she saw her fleeing every time they locked gaze, Natasha decided to ask about it. She was a former agent, a former assassin, and if she could not have a chance at the person who made her heart go pitter-patter, then it was not worth it.

While training, she asked Clint. He said he didn't know a thing about her, and then after she finished him off with a roundhouse kick and pinned him down with his arms behind him, gave up and said to try asking Tony for more information, since he was the guy who hired people.

So, she did. But when Nat rounded the corner to Tony's suite, she was met with the sight of him and his fiancé Pepper in a compromising position. She turned heel, and decided to ask Steve instead...only to remember he'd taken Bucky and himself to someplace in the wilderness to escape the fireworks and whole shebang with New Years Eve. She understood. PTSD was a bitch.

Tired of walking around the facility like a moron, Nat decided to take the fight to where the source was – she was no Sherlock Holmes, but she was smart. If her mystery girl was a scientist, worked with Dr Banner, and wore one of those insufferable yet adorable lab coats, she'd be in the science wing of the facility. She met gaze with Bruce rounding the corner, and stopped him from going any further.

"Hey," she said.

He nodded. "Hi."

Nat chewed the inside of her cheek. "I heard you have a lab assistant." She muttered, scuffing the sole of her boots upon the floor. "Came to welcome her."

Bruce raised an eyebrow. "________'s been here for almost two months, Natasha..." he scoured her face for evidence of any ulterior motive, and found he couldn't read her. "and since when do you just drop into the labs?"

She shook her head, hating the fact that two years ago she had a fling with the guy, and still had to work with him even though it was most certainly over. "Ugh. Never mind." She turned heel, and walked off, the echo of her heeled-boots clip-clopping away.

Bruce rounded on you after he talked to Natasha, interrupting your mid-afternoon meditation. You'd almost finished, but he pressed pause on your phone. Now you'd have to start all over again. Opening your eyes, you were met with the familiar head of curls, and an unfamiliar look on his face that looked like he knew something you didn't know. Well, he was in his late forties, he defiantly did know some things you didn't know.

"I know why you didn't deliver those files to Tony," he said, sitting before you on the floor. He wasn't barefooted, like you, his shoes were on your yoga mat. You winced internally. "You have a crush."

Your eyes grew wide. "What? How? No. No!" you gave it all away just like that, and to prove it, your face grew red. You hung your head. "Dr Banner, I'm – I tried to be professional, but I'm just not good around people, and Mr. Stark's office is all the way around the other –,"

He chuckled. "I know you're shy, ________, but Natasha is only human too."

If it were possible, your face grew even redder, and hotter. "Please, please don't tell her."

Bruce frowned. "Tell her? Geez, I'm trying to help you here, not be cruel." He places a hand in yours, and says, "She all but told me she likes you too, ________. Caught her walking in here, and she gave it all away."

You look up. "She's just so pretty, I can't even get words to come out when I see her," you tell him. "I'm twenty-nine, not nine, and this isn't Elementary school and she isn't one of the girls in grade ten who outed me for being bi." You blurt out. "I'm an adult! I should be better at this!"

Bruce nods. "If it's any consolation, I too am terrible at relationship stuff. I didn't get a real chance with Betty until after I became the Hulk. Sometimes it takes a while for people to get to the right place." He consoles you, and withdrawing his hand, goes to stand. "I mean, not everyone is a Tony."

You laugh at that, but really, you're just sad that it isn't true.

Natasha is a very, very intelligent woman. She can calculate where a man will be by his gait, even if she's outside a building. She can shoot a gun with her foot. She can also, apparently, be lured not by the evils of her past, but a co-worker, and that is where she is right now. A very smart woman, stuck outside the facility on a balcony, wearing less clothes than what one requires for the middle of winter.

She watches as Clint walks away through the glass of the door. She calculates how much force it would take to kick down the door, but does not attempt it. It's the Avengers facility, everything is reinforced. Nat huffs, and turns to see the view from the balcony.

"Oh – hi. Hey." Her eyes turn to the person who spoke. It's ________. Her hair is loose, and she's wearing clothes ill-suited to the outdoors. Her face is red, like every other time it is that Nat sees ________, except, this time, it's so cold out that it does not quite show. "I would have thought the person to come rescue me from out here wouldn't end up being locked out too."

Nat raises an eyebrow. "You got locked out? Barton?"

________ shakes her head, rubbing her arms for warmth. "No, Dr Banner. Said he left data out here for our experiment...I'm an idiot."

Nat harrumphs. "I'm an idiot too. Clint said he parked the Quinjet on stealth-mode, and couldn't remember where."

________ laughs at that. It's a small laugh, like a chuckle, but to Nat, it's the most beautiful thing she's heard, and she has also heard people pardon her for her terrible past before becoming an Avenger. But then ________'s laugh ends, and instead, she speaks with a solemn tone, "I – I'm sorry for running away from you every time I saw you." She apologises, voice small. "I'm not that great at people skills, and, new people, and you're really pretty –," she claps a hand over her mouth, and groans, "sorry..."

Nat smiles. "Well, I think you're really pretty."

The door opens, and stepping through, Wanda Maximoff holds a platter of assorted nibble foods. Literally stepping through the metal of the door, Vision holds a bottle of sparkling juice in one hand, and champagne in the other. They place the items on the table, and Nat and ________ watch in silence, amazed that all it took was that confession to get someone to come out. But then, instead of letting them go, Vision pulls out a couple of heated blankets, and glasses, and takes his leave.

"Hey!" ________ cries out, seeing those two locking the door behind them. "What –,"

The watch on Nat's wrist read four digits. 23:58.

"________, I don't know about you, but I have no New Years Eve plans, got given a whole lot of food, a warm blanket, and are hanging out with a cute girl," Nat says, sitting at the table, looking out over the expansive grounds of the Avengers facility, the beautiful forest, "I'm staying out here."

________'s eyes widen. "It's new years'?"

Nat laughs at that, and tugs the wrist of the scientist who had earned a place in her heart. "Yeah, it is. C'mon, sit, let's eat crackers and drink wine and watch terrible fireworks." ________ yields, and sitting beside Nat, they share a blanket, and both nurse a glass of bubbles. "Have anyone in mind for a new year's kiss?"

The loud bang! of a firework hisses to life, spraying the stars above with patterns of golden and red lights. ________'s breath hitches, amazed at the sight, and turning to Nat, cradling her face with her hand, she says, "I think I do."

Nat believes the year ahead will be the greatest. ________ knows it will be.