An Unlikely Romance - The Avengers (Part 2)

Business Lunch

The next few days went by mostly without notice. Once again you woke up after a night drinking fairly heavily without the slightest hangover... and all that on about three hours' worth of sleep. You had already noticed your need for sleep decreasing a while back, but the fact that it was continuing on long after whatever experiment was done to you had you a bit worried. If things kept going like this, soon you'd barely have closed your eyes and you would already be wide awake.

It made you wonder what was going on, but you weren't sure if you should point it out to anyone else. You weren't going to tell Fury, that much was certain - you were still making sure to stay in your bedroom for a minimum of six hours a night just so he didn't wonder why you were up wandering around so much during the night. But you were starting to wonder if telling Natasha or Clint might be okay. Sure, they were still obviously working for Fury, but they were at least trying to make you feel comfortable around them - something Fury hadn't done in... well, however long it had been since you first woke up in that cell.

But every time you got close to sharing with them, you wondered what would happen if you revealed too much. If you gave away info that wasn't in the samples they took and that you hadn't shared before. They know about your improved hearing an eyesight, and you had no idea about what they might have learned from all those experiments... but if they didn't already know about your sleep cycle and hangover immunity, what happened when you told them about it? Would they send you back into a full lockdown, some new underground facility? Would Fury restart his experiments? You wanted to trust Clint and Natasha...

But how could you when Natasha seemed to be a different person every week?

You had thought she would run out of faces to wear eventually - you figured sarcastic, snarky, and only slightly angry at you would be her new norm. But now she was getting friendly. Almost... too friendly? You didn't think you'd be so unhappy for her to ease up and stop scowling at you quite as much, but you were. Maybe it was because it felt so unnatural. For as much time as you'd spent around her, you still couldn't read her properly... something just felt off.

You were actually contemplating that very fact one night while doing the dishes when you heard a knocking on the door to your apartment. You were halfway caught off-guard by the knock, and it took you a few moments to compose yourself.

"Uh, c-come in?"

Your words were hesitant, and your hands paused their scrubbing of the dish in your hand just in time for the door to slowly creak open. Natasha peeked her head in the open door, looking almost as curious and surprised as you did.

"You sure about that one? You seem pretty nervous, and I even knocked," Natasha teased, her red locks dancing around her face as she smirked at you.

"Ah- yeah, come in," you assured, tweaking your neck toward the living room. "I'm just working on dishes, kind of got lost in thought."

"No problem, you don't need clean dishes tonight anyway," Natasha said, stepping into your apartment more fully and shutting the door behind her. Now that she was inside you saw she was carrying two plastic containers of food, either leftovers or something she'd prepped for this.

"Wait, did you... did you *cook* for me?" You said, actually laughing as you looked at both of the sizeable containers. "I've got to admit, I've been expecting you to do a lot of things - put a gun to my head, pin me to the ground with my arm behind my back, kneecap me... cooking food was *not* something I *ever* imagined you doing."

"What, you think I can't cook?" Natasha asked, raising an eyebrow at you.

"I'm pretty sure you can cook - hell, I'm pretty sure you can do anything at this point," you said, still chuckling.