Fic: Sharing Life (And Canned Green Beans)
Month of Friendship: Steve + Natasha “food”
The first entry in my Month of Frienship, which is still open for prompts!
Today’s prompt was Avengers: Steve + Natasha “food”
Summary: It’s Thanksgiving, and Steve is hiding in the second living room on the 8th floor of the penthouse apartments with a can of green beans.
Word Count: 1,300~
Steve knew it was all for him. He’d mentioned the other day that, growing up in the Great Depression, Thanksgiving for him had generally been a meatloaf made of more bread than meat, with a ketchup glaze. His mother had had an apple candy pie recipe that didn’t call for anything more than apples and some sugar and nuts, so they’d had that too. Sometimes the butcher down the street would sneak Steve a little slice of ham, to ‘fatten him up’.
He hadn’t been complaining. It honestly didn’t even cross his mind that those stories might be something to complain about. It was how everyone was, back then. Steve marvels, as he always does, at how he has to add back then.
He’d just been sharing his own story, coming right on the heels of Clint’s reminiscing about how one of the clowns at the circus used to stick popsicle sticks in his candy apples to make them candy turkeys.
But then the next day, he’d come down to a table laden with everything he never got to see at his own table on Thanksgiving growing up, and he’d known. Tony had given him that little half smile as he’d said happy turkey day Cap, that one that made him look like he was desperate for a pat on the head and also like he’d ravage any hand that dared to try. All Steve could do was smile and thank him, and try to breath through his mouth to avoid the oddly noxious smell of all those different food smells hitting him at once.
Tony had flinched, just a little, but before Steve could say anything, Tony had gotten a call from Pepper and left. Steve had only waited the 30 seconds it took for Tony to get in the elevator to flee from the perfectly roasted turkey.
He’d hidden in the second living room on the 8th floor of the penthouse apartments (and god, a part of him shrivels up and dies at all that money) when Natasha found him. He’d been eating canned green beans, which were a guilty pleasure. Tony always looked like he’d caught Steve doing something really foul, which was rich coming from Tony. But Steve couldn’t help it. He just liked the taste of the canned beans better than the fresh ones. The first time he’d eaten a fresh one was after waking up in the 21st century, and it had just tasted wrong. The canned ones were the ones his mother had dished up for him, ten years ago (and 100 years ago) when he was a kid. They were the ones that tasted like home.
“Thanksgiving is a very American tradition,” Natasha said without preempt. Steve liked that about her.
“Well, we are the ones who invented it,” he said, smiling a little. “Threw me off a little when I was in Europe.” He ate another green bean, and remembered the way Peggy’s eyebrows had creased when he’d tried to explain Thanksgiving without referencing the whole fleeing England thing. He was a little surprised by how much it didn’t hurt to remember the way she’d rolled her eyes when she’d realized what he was doing. It still did hurt of course, but it was an almost sweet pain.
“The first time I ever celebrated was with Clint. It was an apple he’d whittled into a turkey shape.” She tucked her toes under his thighs. She did that sometimes. Ostensibly for warmth, but considering Steve’s seen her stand for hours under freezing, pelting rain without batting an eyelash he doesn’t give much credence to that. He thought it was about comfort, but he wasn’t sure whether it was for him or for her. He liked to think it was a bit of both.
“Think he’d make me one?” Steve thought that he could dip it in wax, keep it in his room. He didn't really have anything besides his clothes there right now, for all that Tony kept trying to shove him into expensive boutiques to add a little personality, jesus, here take my card, no not that stupid gold one, take the black diamond one.
“I think you don’t have a choice.” She jabbed him with her toes, but she was so straight faced that he couldn’t quite tell if it was just her shifting around or if she was trying to make a point. She took a handful of roasted peanuts out of one of the pockets that Steve couldn’t quite believe existed in that catsuit of hers. He was pretty sure Natasha magicked them out of thin air. She passed one to him, and he crunched it gratefully. “The first rule of growing up hungry is to hoard food when you have it,” she said in answer to his unasked question.
He blinked. Somehow he hadn’t realized that Natasha had probably also grown up hungry. The special kind of starving that was so slow you forgot you were dying most of the time. He knew that Clint kept candy stashes everywhere he went, but he hadn’t realized Natasha did too. If he knew now, it was because she wanted him to. He wasn't quite sure what to make of the Black Widow sharing even a tiny bit of her past with him.
“Did you know the first Thanksgiving was one broken by the Pilgrims shortly after their landing, celebrated with raw oysters and wine?” She said, breaking him out of his musings.
“Oysters?” He wrinkled his nose. “No I didn’t.”
“Strange, I thought being Captain America meant you had to know everything about America.” Her voice was perfectly bland, but he could see the corners of her mouth curl up ever so slightly.
“Because you know everything about Russia,” he said, nibbling a soggy green bean.
“People seem to think I should,” she said, and gestured for the can. He hesitated, fingers curling unconsciously tighter around the little metal container. He only realized what he was doing when the metal groaned beneath his too-strong fingers. The can moved slowly between their hands, and there was a moment when they were both holding it that Steve thought inexplicably of the way his mother’s face used to glow in Church, lit by a thousand candles and open with joy in a way that he almost never got see.
He took his hand back sluggishly. Natasha took tiny, dainty bites of one limp bean, before tilting back the can and taking one huge chomp. She slurped as she swallowed, and it was so inexplicably normal that it was so incredibly weird and Steve burst out laughing. She chewed around the giant lump in her mouth and glared at him. He laughed harder.
She threw the fork at him with deadly accuracy, but he deflected it with a coaster. It stuck into the wall, quivering, and the sight of it just made Steve howl harder. It was so very normal and so very not that he nearly fell off the couch. And then Natasha used the power of leverage and made him actually fall off the couch, so he was just a heap on the floor, laughing so hard that he started crying.
Once he’d started he couldn’t stop. He dragged in one ragged breath after the other, tears slipping down his cheeks as he shook helplessly.
Natasha slipped down next to him in one fluid movement. “Breaking bread is a sacred thing,” she said softly, “We do not have Thanksgiving, but to share food is to share life.” Natasha stroked his hair, and dropped bits of bean into his open mouth. She didn’t try to wipe away his tears. He was hopelessly grateful for that. He realized, in a flash of clarity, that Clint making her that stupid turkey apple was the first time Natasha had ever shared food with someone.
He chewed reverentially, humbled. “We’ve already saved each other’s lives.” He couldn’t stop himself from pointing out. “Lots of times.”
“There’s a difference between saving a life and sharing it,” she corrected him calmly, feeding him another bean with her fingertips.
He didn’t quite have anything to say to that. So he just closed his eyes and savored the taste of metallic vegetables. They really did taste like home.