Widow Sisters and Friends (Restoring Our Broken Hearts)

Setting Up the Captains

Summary: When Yelena starts teasing Steve about crushing on Carol, Natasha comes in. She, of course, happily joins in, not about to miss an opportunity to mess with one of her brothers. However, she quickly realizes that Steve might actually have feelings for the other captain in question.

   "Natashka, tell him," Yelena declared suddenly as soon as Natasha came into the gym. Natasha furrowed her brow, looking at her sister quickly as she glanced between the blonde and her latest victim that she had found in the one and only Steve Rogers.

Natasha had been planning to innocently come into the gym for some training, wondering where Yelena had gotten off to in the compound. However, the moment that she entered, she found her sister, and it became startlingly clear that she was not going to just be able to innocently train this time.

She had already done her stretches before coming down, and she was fully prepped to start working out, so she headed over to the treadmill that was on the opposite side of Steve.

As she grew closer, she only got a better look at the situation. She quickly noticed how Yelena looked far too pleased with herself and Steve looked extremely uncomfortable.

"What are we discussing?" Natasha tentatively asked, stepping up onto the treadmill. She did not want to step right into the conversation without being fully informed. Besides, with what she knew at this point, she was not even prepared to start a conversation at all.

"Look, I came in and found Star Spangled Speedo and Boomer in here talking and working out together. As soon as they saw me, she left the room, and he looked embarrassed. He was watching her while she left, and then it magically occurred to me that they must be attracted to each other," Yelena declared, and Steve looked even more red in the face at her caressing of the word.

Natasha paused, taking in the expressions on both of their faces. Yelena did not really seem to be interested in this endeavor for the sake of making their two friends happy and seemed to be way more interested in the aggravation aspect of it. And honestly, given how Steve was reacting, Natasha could not resist joining in. Plus, given just how worked up he was about this, she wondered if there might be something to Yelena's accusations, and while Yelena was not in it for really getting them together, Natasha was more than willing to try setting them up for real.

"That's ridiculous. We're friends, and we were just talking. A guy and a girl can talk without it being weird. Besides, it wouldn't work," he argued unhappily, and Natasha noted that he was protesting far too much for it to be a thought that he found entirely repulsive. He seemed almost like how Peter was when they discussed MJ.

"I don't know... I think you and Carol would be cute together," Natasha acknowledged, trying to bite back her smile, and Steve just groaned deeply.

"Really? You, too?!" he cried, terribly unhappy that he had lost a potential ally. Natasha started up the treadmill and began running on it carefully, picking up speed.

"Oh, come on. She's been single for like sixty or so years. You've been single for eighty or so years. Sounds like a match made in heaven," Yelena told him with a far too wide smirk. He let out a long, deep breath, shaking his head as he tried to recollect his cool.

Natasha never knew him to get this worked up when she teased him about some girl in the past, which further gave her reason to believe that he might actually have some sort of real feelings about their other resident captain.

"She's hardly ever here," he finally argued, and Yelena just looked around him to gaze at Natasha and throw it back to her to argue their point that they both had so efficiently taken up.