affliction

twelve

Beth's POV

I step out of the elevator and walk into the kitchen. Steve is at the island chopping vegetables and Nat is bending over, putting something in the oven.

"Tiny! There you are. Was beginning to think I was gonna have to stay and finish."

I make my way over to the sink to wash my hands. "Nah, just got side tracked, couldn't find my leggings." I dry my hands and stand beside him. "What are we making?"

He passes me the knife he was using. "I'm not exactly sure, something Natasha wanted. I was given the job of putting together the salad bowl. You can take over now, I'm gonna go change."

I nod and start cutting the rest of the tomatoes. He had already done about half of them, plus a few heads of lettuce. Once I start cucumbers, I remember why I offered to help Nat in the first place.

"Hey, Nat."

"What's up?" She finishes what she was doing over by the oven and comes to stand beside me.

I stop chopping and squint at her. "Why did you make that face at me and Bucky earlier when Tony told you I had the knife to his throat?"

I can see her trying to hide her smile. "What do you mean?"

I gasp. "You know, don't you! How did you find out?"

She laughs a little. "Babe, despite Tony being a billionaire, he didn't pay the extra money for soundproof walls."

I smack my back of my hand to my face. "Oh my god. That's mortifying."

She puts her hand on my shoulder and shakes me a little. "It's fine, I really don't care. Do what you gotta do, get yours babe." She smacks my butt and walks back over to the oven. "Also, knife play? That's kinky. I love it." I laugh loudly and continue cutting up the various vegetables that are laid out for me.

Sam walks in the room a minute or two later. "Hey guys-" he suddenly shields his face with his arms, "WOAH, who the hell gave her a knife?"

I roll my eyes. "Calm down or I might use it on you."

Tony walks in as I say this and looks at me cutting up onions. "1, who gave her a knife, 2 how are you cutting those without pouring tears right now?"

Sam speaks up first. "That's what I said!"

I roll my eyes again. "1, Rogers gave me the knife, and unless you two want to do this yourselves, I would really like for the comments to go to a bare minimum. 2, I wear contacts and I'm bad about not cleaning them. It kind of acts like a barrier."

Tony's hand is smacked to his face. Sam just stares at me in shock. Tony speaks, "Oh my god. Your eyeballs are going to fall out. We're gonna have a blind fighter. Not even a cool one that can use sound to fight, just one that bumps into shit and won't want our help because she's 'independent.'"

I grip the knife harder in my hand. I hear Nat behind me, "B, put it down."

I turn around, "How did you even know? You're facing the other way."

She turns her head to look at me. "I could smell the fear coming off of them. It reeks."

I try to hide my smile as I roll my eyes. "They're gonna get themselves impaled if they don't chill out. Maybe I should go ahead and do it to one of them, just so they know I'm not kidding."

She laughs and shrugs. "Go for it. They're basically kids, gotta let them hurt themselves to learn."

"Um, hello. Miss. Scissorhands? We're right here. We can hear you."