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The phone buzzed in the nightstand drawer at 3:27 a.m. Natasha was awake before the second vibration, though it took her longer than that to place the sound. A threat? Perimeter breach? Contact? Yelena? Yelena.
Adrenaline shot through her in time with the buzzing. It had been months without so much as a peep from her sister. She scrambled up, and it was only as she was extracting herself from the tangle of sheets that she realized she was also extracting herself from a tangle of limbs. An arm looped over her waist, the warm wall of chest at her back, and a foot hooked around her calf like it was the most natural thing in the world
Rogers.
Which, fine, maybe it had happened before, and had kept happening nearly every night on the ridiculously lumpy mattress in the ridiculously tiny safe house. Neither of them had decided to broach the subject, because acknowledging it meant admitting it was anything to be talked about. Letting it exist, without defining it as either safe and warm or very very bad, was better.
Schroedinger’s sleeping arrangements, or something.
“Nat…?” Steve mumbled into his pillow, voice slurred with sleep, wondering where his very comfortable partner had slithered out of his grasp to.
Natasha’s arm shot out to cover his mouth, shushing him and finally answering the phone, somewhat breathless.
“Yelena?” Desperation creeped into her voice despite herself.
“Natasha!” Yelena’s voice on the other end, unmistakably her and unmistakably and blessedly alive. Natasha let out a breath in pure relief. “I only have a few minutes to talk, so—”
“Jesus, it's 3 a.m. here! I was asleep! You’re okay? Are you okay? Talk to me.” She sat up straighter in bed, releasing her hold on Steve, cupping the phone closer to her ear.
“Jeez, okay! I’m trying to talk to you! I’m fine. I’m okay. I actually called because—”
Natasha froze. Because behind her, entirely too audible in the quiet room, Steve had rubbed the sleep from his eyes, propped himself up with an aggravating amount of grogginess for a super soldier, and asked: “Is she okay?”
Oh, shit.
A pause.
“Natasha. Was that a man’s voice?”
Natasha closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. Steve tried to mumble a little sorry, to which she put her hand out in a stop talking right now before I kill you gesture.
“...No.”
“Sestra, do you have a man in your bed? At 3 a.m.?” Yelena questioned, delight blooming in her voice.
“It’s not…no. We don’t have time for this, Yelena—”
“Wait, aren't you still on the run? With Captain America and the birdman? Wait! Is that Captain America in your bed?”
Natasha inhaled. “Yelena, for the love of God—”
“I have been shot at every day for weeks, and this is the first thing I find out when I get a secure line, that my sister is sleeping with Captain America! Ohhh, this is the best day of my life.”
“It's a two-bedroom safehouse with one half decent mattress, it's not—" Natasha ran a hand through her hair. Steve, damn him, was sitting all the way up now, his hair sleep-mussed, and doing absolutely nothing to hide the smile he was fighting. Natasha, on the other hand, was fighting for her life. “We’re not sleeping together. We, it’s—it’s not a thing. Focus. Talk to me about the widows.”
There was a sound on the line like Yelena had flopped backward, thoroughly satisfied with herself. Her voice sharpened when she spoke again, all business, the switch flipping the way Natasha recognized because it was the exact same switch in her own head. “Three more out of Vienna last week. Two are already placed…Melina got them new names, new lives, far away from anyone who'd recognize the old ones. The third is still deciding if she wants to run or if she wants to die. I told her that's not really a choice she gets to make, and then Alexei kidnapped her so she wouldn’t kill herself. She’s doing a little better now, so we'll see.”
The widow on the other line shook her head. Leave it to Alexei to kidnap someone in the name of kindness. “That’s…good. I think. And you? Are you being careful?”
“Yes of course I'm careful, Natasha. I'm always careful." A beat. “I found the usb drive you sent me. There's a lot in it. Melina and I will take time to go through all of it and figure out who's still operating under the old protocols.”
“Send me what you can, when you can.”
“I will.” Yelena's voice softened, just slightly, the way it did when she let the mask slip for half a second before remembering to be insufferable again. “It's slow, sestra. But it's working. I'm getting them out.”
“That's really good, Yelena.” Nat smiled, aware of her eyes beginning to fill with tears. “I’m…really proud.”
“Da.” A pause, and then, wickedly: "Also I want details. Later. Full details."
Natasha sighed, the moment over. “There are no details! It’s…tactical!”
“Captain America is in your bed at 3 a.m., Natasha, and you answered the phone all breathless. There are definitely details.”
Natasha shook her head, smiling fondly despite her irritation. “Yelena. Will you come find us? Please? When it’s safe?” She didn’t care how watery her voice came out. She didn’t want to waste any more of her life without her beautiful, irritating, incredibly strong sister.
That gave Yelena pause, a real pause, not a teasing one. "Yeah," she said, quieter. "Yeah, I'll come. Soon. I miss—" She stopped herself, cleared her throat, recovered instantly. "I miss having someone to make fun of in person. Phone jokes aren’t the same. I can’t see your stupid flustered face."
"I miss you too," Natasha said, and meant it so much it ached. It was strange, for Nat to be the emotional one in this relationship, but here she was.
"I have to go. Line's not safe much longer." A rustle, and then, pointedly and loudly, right before the click: “Tell Steven Rogers I said hello, and that if he breaks my sister's heart I know several ways to disappear a body that the Red Room never even taught her.”
The line went quiet after that.
Natasha huffed a laugh and set the phone back on the nightstand. She sat with her hands in her lap for a moment, picking at a loose thread on her shirt before she finally sniffed and turned back to Steve. She found him watching her with an expression that was entirely too fond for three in the morning. And entirely too fond for two people who were absolutely, definitely not doing whatever it was Yelena thought they were doing.
“How’s she doing?” he asked, head resting on his palm.
“She's good.” Natasha exhaled, some knot in her chest she hadn't fully realized was there loosening. “She's getting them out, Steve. The widows. She's actually doing it. Everything I thought I did years ago…she’s actually doing it.”
“That's incredible.” He said it like he meant it completely, no hesitation.
The hesitation came when he reached out to tug her back down into the warmth of the blankets. He was always better at speeches than knowing how far to blur the line with her. He paused halfway, hand twitching by her side, as he weighed whether now would be a good time for words of affirmation or if—
She eyed his uneasiness (endearing, really), before her lips quirked of their own volition into an adoring smile. She carded a hand through his messy, grown-out hair, muttering something about bedhead and a Russian word that sounded suspiciously like a pet name. He closed his eyes at the sensation and let out a contented noise in the back of his throat.
Her caress emboldened him, and, eyes still closed, Steve snaked his arms around her waist and gently tugged her back to him. Natasha hoped he didn’t see the cheesy grin she wore as she let herself be pulled under, back into Steve Roger's orbit.
She found, in this 3 a.m. limbo, that any resistance she so carefully maintained to his pull was gone. Hazily, she found she didn’t really mind at all.
“You okay?” he murmured.
“Yeah.” She settled against his chest, and if she pressed a little closer than strictly necessary, neither mentioned it. “Yelena says hi, by the way. She heard you.” She poked the arm resting near her ribs. “And also threatened to kill you.”
“Sounds like family,” Steve said, and she felt the laugh rumble through him before she heard it, and gave up fighting her own smile in the dark where he couldn't see it anyway. “You’re not gonna make us get up now, are you?”
She hummed a little, pulling his forearm tighter around her. “No.”
Steve laughed again, and Natasha went back to sleep feeling more at peace than she had in months.