To Find Love: Romanogers One-Shots

It's All Uphill From Here: Part 4

"You gonna film this, Wilson?" Bucky asks, struggling to fit his whole body on the narrow sheet. Sam already has his phone out and doesn't bother answering. Bucky gives him two thumbs up then starts down the hill.

It turns out the baking sheets work wonderfully. Steve and Natasha decide to stick to the normal sled, but Sam and Bucky are having too much fun on the metal sheets to heed their warnings. It's their fifth time down and Sam suggests they go at the same time. Steve doesn't have enough time to tell them it's a bad idea before they're flying down the hill together. Unfortunately, luck is not on their side and Sam hits a bump. He spirals out of control, knocking Bucky off his baking sheet and sending him flying. Natasha and Steve wait to go running down after them until they see blood on the snow.

Bucky is fine, but Sam is missing half a tooth and his lip is bleeding from where the chipped tooth stabbed him. Natasha packs a snowball for him to hold on his mouth then gathers up the baking sheets. Steve grabs his sled and Bucky helps guide Sam back to the car so they can make an impromptu trip to the hospital.

They end up being told Sam's lip will need stitches and a dentist will have to fix his tooth. Mrs. Wilson shows up ten minutes after Bucky calls her and scolds them both for doing something so stupid. Steve and Natasha split a bag of Dorito's from the vending machine, watching in amusement as both of their friends are yelled at in the front lobby in front of several guests. (Sam's lip is fine after a couple of days, but the dentists can't fix his tooth until after Christmas so he struggles to eat anything that isn't a smoothie; Steve's unamused, Natasha just laughs, and Bucky doesn't let him live it down.)

* * * * *

Natasha's spring recital is more important this year. She gets her role soon after school starts back up and practices hard every day. She's applied to various dance schools all over the world in hopes of getting an offer as well as enough scholarships to cover almost all the costs. With her dancing one of the leading roles in Sleeping Beauty for her studio's advanced dance recital, everything kind of hinges on a flawless performance.

Steve's already incredibly proud of her. She's danced her entire life and moved up the ranks so quickly that as of last year, she'd been sponsored to attend a more prestigious dance academy in New York. It's about an hour away by subway, but she goes every day and every evening she comes back absolutely glowing. She's never been more exhausted and Steve's worried she's pushing herself too hard, but he's also never seen her so alive and happy so he doesn't ask her to stop.

"I'm fine, Steve," she assures him one evening after he voices his concern. She's only just arrived back from practice even though he knows her class ended three hours ago. It's only eight o'clock in the evening, but her eyes are drooping and she's falling asleep on his bed. They're supposed to be working on a lab project together, but Natasha can hardly focus.

"Just don't burn yourself out, alright?" he asks. She nods and looks back down at the notebook lying underneath her. She picks up her pencils and scribbles another note from her textbook. When Steve asks her a question only two minutes later, she's fast asleep. He smiles and quietly gets up from his desk. He knew she'd fall asleep which is why he'd insisted she take his bed while he took the desk.

Carefully, so as not to wake her up, he moves her notebook and sets it aside. Next, he grabs her textbook and puts it on the floor before pulling a spare blanket over her. She moans happily and relaxes even more. Steve smiles and softly kisses her cheek, something he's started doing more often.

"Goodnight," he whispers, turning off his desk light and walking across the hall to her room. When she wakes up in his room the next morning, she'll be confused about why they switched rooms. Until then, though, Steve wasn't going to risk waking her up just so he could spend the night in his own bed. Besides, with free-range in her bedroom, he can steal back all his hoodies she's slowly started stashing away.