The Prince And The Rose

15 - Handcuffs

Steve would maintain to the day he died that it was Natasha's fault, although that was not, in all honesty, true. It was actually Tony's fault, although neither of them would admit it and allow him that satisfaction.

Apparently spring-loaded handcuffs were a thing. They hadn't been before, but when Tony got bored, weird things happened.

Nat and Steve were the only people in the Tower; the others had left for various reasons (also Tony's fault, as it would later turn out). The handcuffs were sitting harmlessly on the counter, and Natasha, bored, picked them up, examining them. They were closed, so she opened them… and they both snapped shut again, one mostly harmlessly, the other around her wrist near her hand.

"Shit," she grumbled. The cuff was pinching her wrist, so she slid it down and examined it. She could probably pick it open, she just needed to get a pin of some kind.

Steve saw her walking past and gave a snort of laughter. "How the hell did that happen?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

She stopped and put her hands on her hips, the cuffs clanking obnoxiously. "Apparently Tony thinks snap-action handcuffs are a good idea now."

"Snap-action?"

"Yeah. They snap closed. Get the picture?" She started to go but Steve wasn't done yet.

"Seriously, Natasha? You accidentally got your hand stuck in handcuffs?"

She was in no mood for his teasing, and told him so. "Well then you come over here and try to avoid getting your wrist caught in the damn things."

He snorted but strolled over, holding out his(muscular and attractive) forearm. "This is ridiculous," he said, rolling his eyes.

Natasha opened the other side of the handcuffs and help them open under his wrist. As he went to say something else, she let go.

His reflexes were just a moment too slow, and there was a painful jerk on her wrist as he tried, belatedly, to pull his hand away. "Ah, crap. Natasha!" he protested.

"See? Snap-action. Now come on, I need to get a bobby pin or something to open them."

He trailed along behind her as she took the elevator to her suite, where she had any number of tools and tricks that she could use to open the handcuffs.

It should have been simple.

But of course, Tony being Tony had decided that he wanted to play a little trick on whoever put the cuffs on because when she inserted a small pin into the keyhole and started fiddling around, she realized to her horror that it was not, in fact, a keyhole at all. It was just a small, ordinary hole in the metal.

"Damn it!" she yelped, chucking the pin across the room. "Stark!"

"What?" Steve said, his mock-irritated attitude disappearing. "Natasha, please tell me you can get us out of these things."

"Well… Probably. It's just going to require more work than I expected."

Steve stared at her in disbelief, then back at his wrist. "Oh."

The two of them hadn't spent much time together lately, a situation which Natasha blamed on Steve because it definitely wasn't her who was being withdrawn and too professional and a stuck-up dork all the time. She hadn't managed to pry an explanation out of Steve yet because he simply refused to discuss it, claiming that he wasn't avoiding her.

"So… how do we get them off?" he asked, holding up his hand.

"I'm sure Tony has some tools in his workshop that we can use," she said dismissively. "Come on."