To Find Love: Romanogers One-Shots

Snowy Dilemmas

Summary: Everyone knows Steve hates the cold so it's no surprise that as soon as the power goes out in the Compound he goes to find a blanket. It's no secret Steve had bad memories associated with the cold, but perhaps only he and Clint know that Natasha has the same problem despite never mentioning it out loud.

The power going out was not something that occurred often. In fact, it had never happened to Tony in his entire life. Despite this fact, he was prepared for such an occurrence so while Sam and Clint whined about their video game not saving, Tony disappeared downstairs to turn on the backup generators. He flipped the switch and turned to leave, but nothing happened. He frowned and turned back to the generators, flicking the switch a couple more times. When nothing continued to happen, he investigated further. It didn't take long to discover the generators had never actually been installed and all this time, they'd been sitting in the basement unhooked to the Compound's system and were neither charged nor of any use at the moment.

"Great," Tony grumbled, making a mental note to fix that when the power returned and he could see better. He trudged up the stairs to deliver the bad news, unsurprised to see Steve already reaching for one of the fuzzy blankets they kept in a closet near the living room.

"Why aren't there any lights?" Clint asked. Tony begrudgingly told them all the generators had never been installed and they were on their own until the power returned.

"So find some candles or flashlights we can use if it gets dark," Tony instructed. Wanda and Vision went into the kitchen and immediately started looking for candles and matches. Sam and Clint put away their game controllers and opened the curtains all the way to let in as much light as possible.

While everyone was looking for candles and flashlights, Steve wandered down the dark halls to find Natasha. Just like he'd figured she would be, she was snuggled under a pile of blankets reading near her window. For someone who hated even the slightest draft, she loved reading near the floor to ceiling window in her room. Steve was secretly sure it was because she had a good excuse for wrapping herself in bunches of blankets, but he never asked.

"Hey," he said, walking into her room and shutting the door behind him. Natasha looked up and smiled, shifting on her beanbag chair to make room for him. Steve wrapped the blanket he'd grabbed around his shoulders then sank down beside her. He squirmed under her arm, laying his head on her folded legs and sighing happily when she let go of her book with one hand to run her fingers through his hair.

"What's up?" she asked, looking away from her book for a moment. Steve looked up at her, about to ask if she knew the power was out before realising she most likely did not.

"Power went out," he told her. Natasha's fingers stilled in his hair for a second before resuming their previous motion. "Generators aren't hooked up either, so we're down to blankets and candles."

"It'll come back on soon," Natasha replied. The power was rarely out for a long time, but even she could see that the storm outside might prevent it from coming back for the next few hours. "Besides, you're a great heater. I'll be fine," she assured him. Steve nodded then closed his eyes while she returned to her book.

Unfortunately, it wasn't too long before it was too dark to read and with no lights to read, Natasha was bored. Steve's eyes were closed, but she knew he wasn't asleep, so she didn't feel bad about trying to move out from underneath him. As expected, his eyes opened and he moved so she could climb out of her blanket cocoon. In that moment, not having turned on her room heater earlier on in the day backfired as she was hit with a wall of cold air, halting her in her tracks. Her arms wrapped around her body immediately but before she could shiver, Steve was wrapping his blanket around her shoulders and pulling her to his chest. His body heat combined with the warm blanket heated her back up and she pressed her back further into his chest.

"You really should turn your heater on more often," he mumbled, pressing a kiss to her ear. She shrugged as best she could while wrapped in his arms and blanket.

"But then I'd overheat when you stay the night," she replied with a grin. Steve shook his head in amusement and pulled away from her, walking towards her bedroom door. Natasha waddled after him, struggling to keep the huge blanket from dragging on the ground and tripping her.

They found the rest of the team huddled in the living room playing cards with a flashlight hanging from the ceiling. Natasha figured it was best not to ask how they'd gotten it up there after spotting a scrape on Clint's cheek. As soon as the others noticed them walk into the living room, though, they were forced to join the game as well. Sam tried to explain what was going on while Tony dealt them both cards, giving Natasha a strange look only briefly when she nearly sat on Steve's lap. She ignored him in favour of looking at her cards.

"Are you sure we can't just watch you guys play?" she asked. Sam smirked and shook his head.

"Get a bad hand?" he teased. Natasha rolled her eyes but didn't answer. The last thing she needed to tell Sam was that she could probably beat them all in two plays. Tony may not be able to do card tricks, but she had gotten a pretty great hand.

"I guess you'll just have to wait and see, huh Bird Boy?" she retorted. Sam frowned but moved his attention from her to Wanda who was making her play. At least when the power came back on five minutes later, Sam had an excuse about being distracted and allowing Natasha to win even if no one bought it.