She had caught Maria staring at her often in the past few weeks. She wondered what it was about.

Had she done something wrong?

For a moment it did cross her mind that Maria might be in love with her, but she quickly brushed that notion off. She found it impossible to see why anyone who knew the personality behind the looks could fall in love with her, unless they were stupid or insane.

'And Maria is neither of those things.' she thought, almost sadly.

Almost.

It occurred to her; one day maybe a month or so later, that she never asked herself whether she was in love with Maria. Discarding all of her doubts and scorns about love, she thought long and hard about it as she practised on the shooting range at SHIELD.

'It wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing to be in love with her,' a small insignificant voice in her head said, but it was quickly drowned out by the louder, logical voices. There was no logic in love.

She looked up, stealing a quick glance at Maria, who had been sparring with Clint but was now taking a break, but noticed Maria was already staring at her.

She looked away again, down at her gun and swore silently because she'd gone as red as her hair, like some idiotic schoolgirl.

'Love is for children.' the smaller voice had been allowed to grow larger and stronger in her anger and confusion, and it cheerfully reminded her that she was being childish. Absolutely, obviously, childish.

Natasha quickly squashed the voice down again, but it had grown too powerful to fully exterminate.

She let it live.

She had been assigned a stake-out mission for the next month in Chicago.

She liked stake-outs. She liked Chicago- they had pizza and she loved pizza.

The one thing she wasn't happy about was her partner on this lovely mission.

Maria.

Brilliant. Lovely. Positively wonderful.

That small-but-now-quite-large voice could not be allowed to resurface on this mission and possibly corrupt it.

She tried pleading her case to Director Fury, but predictably was met with unsatisfying results.

"Please, sir. Steve needs practice. I'll take Steve. Or Clint. Hell, I'll take Phil. Just don't make me do this with Maria." she moaned. Yes, she admitted she was moaning. It was a desperate time.

"Agent Romanoff, you need to man up and stop acting like your world has ended. You and Agent Hill WILL be doing this mission together. You need the experience of working with another woman." Director Fury said. Natasha winced.

"But-" she tried again.

"You do this mission with her or so help me I will ban you from pizza, vodka and sparring for two months." Fury said.

Natasha lowered her head in defeat.

"Now get the fuck out of here. Your plane leaves tomorrow at seven a.m., so make sure you're not late."

She nodded and started to trail dejectedly out of the debriefing room when she was stopped once again.

"Cheer up. You'll probably get laid several times." Fury called to her, making other agents crane their heads to look at the scene, obviously taking great enjoyment in watching Agent Romanoff turn a rare shade of red. She glared at them all then scurried to her room to pack.

Seems like the voices were so loud even Fury could hear them.

The flight passed in silence, with Natasha attempting to control her blushing. Once they reached Chicago they hurried top their hotel- in silence- and checked in- in silence.

They went up to their room- in silence, apart from the worker who seemed insistent to show them the way even though SHIELD had supplied them with the blueprints to the building and the time to memorize them yesterday.

Once in there though, they faced a problem.

The worker continued chatting merrily as Maria and Natasha set down their luggage.

There was only one bed.

Natasha could feel herself slowly and agonizingly dying inside, partly out of embarrassment and partly out of glee because oh my God I'm technically going to be sleeping with Maria oh my God what do I do oh-

"Will that be all?" the worker cut into her excited train of thought.

Natasha looked at her name tag and found out she was called Felicity.

"There's only one bed." she croaked dryly.

Felicity wavered for a minute, checking her notes furiously.

"It says here there's supposed to be one bed. Is there a problem?" she asked nervously.

Natasha cursed in Russian.

Fury.

Just when she was about to inform Felicity that yes, there was in fact a problem, Maria was speaking and the voice was screaming again, determined to be heard.

"It's fine, don't worry. We'll manage." Maria smiled dazzlingly. Natasha could almost feel Felicity falling under her spell, being charmed by the other agent's … Well, everything.

"Alright, that's enough of that." she murmured out the corner of her mouth to Maria.

"Thank you." she said, closing the door. "We'll be fine form here."

She shut the door firmly and tuned to Maria, who was smirking at her.

"Why didn't you ask her for another bed?" Natasha demanded, ignoring the voice, which was extremely hard because it was telling her to kiss Maria and she was agreeing with it and-

"I didn't want us to look suspicious. If Fury has us listed for one bed then he obviously has a plan." Maria shrugged, placing her suitcase on the bed.

Fury had a plan, alright.

She turned away and stalked into the bathroom.

She needed to shower, to wash the voice out of her head.

Natasha slid into the right side of the bed awkwardly. She always had the side that was facing the door. It made it easier to see if anyone was going to come in.

Maria turned off the main light, so the only light was from the little bedside lamp, and slid in next to Natasha.

'Next to' was the light definition. Natasha had turned so she was nearly hanging off the edge- she didn't trust herself not to do anything stupid.

She shivered from the cold, and that gave the voice an idea, and it wouldn't shut up.

So Natasha gave in to the voice and it yelled with joy, but she calmed down and began to execute her plan.

She shivered again.

"It's cold outside." she said, leaning back onto the pillow and looking at Maria. Maria nodded.

"Yeah, I didn't actually expect it to be this cold." she said, undoing her bun so her hair tumbles down her shoulders, and the voice is screaming at Natasha and telling her to get a bloody move on.

"On missions, Clint used to cuddle me if it was cold," Natasha pouts, playing it up big time.

Maria laughs a bit and raises an eyebrow.

"Sorry, Natasha, but I'm not just your personal teddy bear."

Natasha scowls playfully. "What if I freeze to death?" an idea pops into her mind and her eyes light up dangerously.

"I'll have to tell Director Fury that you're being a bad partner." she mocks dangerously.

Maria props herself up onto her elbows. "Are you trying to blackmail me into cuddling with you?"

Nat rolled her eyes. "If I say yes does that mean it's worked?"

Maria rolled her eyes back and smiled teasingly. "Goodnight Nat." she said, rolling over and turning out the light and plunging them into darkness.

Natasha took a few moments to adjust to the dark then stealthily moved up the bed until she could put her arms around Maria. She smiled and sighed contentedly.

She felt the other woman tense for a bit. "What are you doing?" she asked, sounding less amused than she had with the light on.

"Technically you didn't say I couldn't put my arms around you." Natasha replied cheerily.

Maria grunted and rolled over again so she was facing Natasha. She wrapped her arms around the other woman's waist and buried her head in Natasha's neck. "Happy now?" she breathed.

Natasha smirked. "Wonderful."

"Get some rest." Maria said. "And wipe that smirk off your face."