"Back in the day," Steve reminisced over his third round of Asgardian mead, "men courted women, not the other way around."

"Yes," Natasha hissed with what sounded like personal affront. She'd been buried in the stuff since Thor brought it back, but this was the first Steve cast a truly disturbed eye at his friend's dark glower. "Back in the day," she growled before a slew of low cuss words in Russian.

Steve had fielded his third request for a date from an altogether modern female unconcerned with his chivalric tales of 'back in the day' within the last twenty-four hours, and the whole thing got wearying, but Natasha looked as though she were attempting to exorcise a decade perhaps, not a bad week.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Steve asked. He pulled over the mead to refill his glass.

Natasha spat something else out in Russian before shaking her head violently. "Barton wouldn't know how to court if I ordered him to with a bulleted list."

Steve hadn't realized he needed to stop drinking before he asked such a loaded question (Natasha sometimes would talk about her feelings when prodded), and the table wore most of the mead Steve had been swallowing. "Uh..."

"I swear, I have been beautiful and beguiling and all but dragged him off in the night," she ranted feelingly, "and he has never once asked me out. I gave him the hypothetical and he thought I wanted to get you to ask me out. As if." She snorted.

Steve felt a little dazed.

"You'd be easy." She patted his arm. "That's a good thing." Her eyes narrowed. She sipped her mead. "I'll drag him away in the night."

"Why not ask him out?" Steve fell back on the hated modernism, feeling it safer than what Natasha was proposing.

She glared at him. "It is beneath me."

"Let me talk to him then."

She glared at him, then looked thoughtful, then downed some more mead and nodded. "All right, Steve. One week to civilize Hawkeye." Then she shot him that rare, genuine smile of amusement that told him he was doomed.

Bwahahahahaha, poor Natasha. And poor Steve! He did NOT sign up for this! XD

No, he did not. I do love giving her some serious UST.

Natasha's totally going to have to drag Clint away in the night, isn't she?

This is of course after Clint misinterprets Steve's attempts as Steve asking Clint how Steve should ask Natasha out. ;)

Gah. This is a fic I'm going to have to write isn't it? You horrible, horrible enabler.

Well -- shenshen77 didn't make me this icon for nothing!

=D

Hey, you're worth it :P

Hehe, I have a slight feeling that's a conversation they'll both regret come morning (and sobriety).

"Barton wouldn't know how to court if I ordered him to with a bulleted list." -- AWESOME

:giggles: But she'll never admit it.

So glad you liked!