HIS MOM ISN'T PLEASED when he tells her that he isn't going to be able to make it for his grandmother's 90th birthday. And he had to listen to a whole long lecture over the phone (that never gets old) of how he could just quit his horrible job; also, the notion of his family not understanding why he puts up with his terrible boss for three years even when he's being treated like a sack of potatoes.

"I know you don't get it, mom. And I'm sorry I can't make it. Tell Gammy I'm sorry, okay?" He sighs, cutting off his mom's rambling. "Mom, wha—what do you want me to tell you? She's making me work the weekend. No, I'm not... no. Listen, I've worked really hard for this opportunity to throw it all the way, okay? I can feel my big break coming. Just trust me on this, please. And yes, I'm sure that dad is pissed but we take all of our submissions around here very seriously."

When he sees his boss emerging from the corner of his eye, he scrambles to say goodbye.

"I'll get back to you as soon as I can, okay?" And he hangs up before his mom could say anything else.

He releases a sigh. "Was that your family?" He looks up and sees Natasha staring down at him curiously, hand perched on her hip like a final level boss.

"Yes."

"Did they tell you to quit?"

Steve chuckles humorlessly. "Every single day." The phone rings again. He picks it up. "Miss Romanoff's office." There's a beat of silence as Natasha waits for him to finish. "Oh... yeah, okay. All right."

He turns to her as soon as he hangs up. "Pierce wants to see you upstairs immediately."

Natasha groans in frustration, and Steve gets the feeling that she already knows what it's about, and that she wasn't too thrilled about it. "Okay. Come get me in ten minutes. We have a lot of work to do."

"Okey-dokey, boss."

"Stop that."

"Sorry."

And so he spends the next minutes of his life doing his job, which only means answering calls for his boss and writing down notes, and potentially drafting his next art piece that would only be rejected once again by Natasha Romanoff.

He's in the middle of sorting out the file of paperwork for the spring collection when the phone rings again. He picks it up before he can even think. "Miss Romanoff's office." The voice on the other end sounds familiar, yet he can't help but pinpoint who exactly. "I'm sorry, to whom am I speaking?"

"Steve, it's Jemma. I work for Phil Coulson, remember?"

"Oh, Jemma. Hey, how are you? Why are you calling?"

"I actually, uh, need to speak to Natasha."

"I'm afraid that's not possible because she's in a meeting right now."

"Then interrupt her."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"She's in a meeting with Pierce. It sounded urgent."

"So? This is more important. Interrupt her now."

Steve sighs again for the umpteenth time. "If I get fired for this, I blame you."

He places the phone on hold and proceeds to Alexander Pierce's office. 

"Good morning, Steve." The other lobbyist, Helen, says with an enthusiastic smile. Steve raises a hand to greet her back. 

When he reaches Pierce's office, his knuckles hover over the door, contemplating what to do. "Ah, screw it. Your life's miserable either way," he mutters to himself before knocking on the door. 

"Hi," is what he first says. From the looks of it, they were in the middle of a heated discussion right now but, hey, he's just doing his job, right?

"Excuse me, we're in a meeting." Alexander Pierce says to him, sitting behind his desk while Natasha was standing in front of him, babbling about something that Steve didn't know the context of.

"Sorry to interrupt."

Natasha turns to him, looking annoyed. "What? What?"

"Jemma from Mr. Coulson's office just called. She's on the line," he explains rationally, still only halfway inside the room.

"I know."

"She's on hold. She needs to speak with you right away. I told her you were otherwise engaged. She insisted, so... sorry."

Steve was expecting a snappy outburst like she normally does, but, to his confusion and mild shock, all he got was a weird look from her. And a long stare. What is happening.

"So..." he trails off, still not understanding why she was suddenly looking at him like she was introspecting every part of his body and planning to dismember him or something. Then she's looking between him and Pierce. Back and forth.

Again, he didn't know what's happening.

"Miss Romanoff?" he asks, carefully.

"Uh." She says, then is suddenly ushering him to come inside. Steve still isn't getting it. His eyebrows furrowed deeper. "Come here!" she hisses a bit more loudly now.

Still totally lost, Steve follows her command and steps inside. Hands in his pocket, he surveys the room and tries to decipher the situation he's currently in.

Natasha starts speaking. "Sir, I, uh... understand. I understand the predicament we're in. And, um." She looks back at him. And he's still standing, looking awfully lost. "And there's, uh... well... something that you should know."

She's walking back to his side, beside him, and he's watching her like a fish out of sea because he has no idea what she's doing. Or why she's suddenly patting her chest and invading his personal place by being less than a foot near him.

Then she finally draws the line when he hears her say something that he's completely sure would've granted him his deathbed right then and there.

"We're, uh, we're getting married."

Steve glances down at his chest, the spot that she just affectionately patted down, then back at Natasha, then at Pierce, then at everywhere. Because the thing she just said isn't making sense. And he's sure that Natasha Romanoff never never made sense.

But she repeats the same thing again. "We're getting married," and she pats him on the chest, on the same spot, just as affectionately as she did.

His mouth hangs wide open, still not processing what the fuck is going on.

"Who is—who is getting married?"

"You and I. You and I are getting married! Yes."

Obviously, he didn't share the same excitement laced in her voice.

But whatever the fuck this is, there has to be some sort of shithole explanation for this later on. And he just needs to go along with whatever her lunatic of a boss is planning to do, because the sooner this is all over, the sooner he can get back to his desk.

"Right... we are... we're getting married," he says hesitantly, as if he isn't believing it himself, because, really, he couldn't believe something he didn't understand.

"Yes." Natasha echoes, chuckling with fake enthusiasm that Steve knows all too well.

"Isn't he your secretary?" Pierce asks.

"Assistant." Steve corrects.

"Executive, uh... assistant secretary. Titles." Natasha adds, putting more of a fake smile and laugh for show. "But, it wouldn't be the first time one of us fell for our secretaries. Would it, sir?"

Pierce chuckled, confused. "I'm sorry?"

"With Lacquisha, remember?" Natasha reminds him, and Pierce says nothing in embarrassment, slightly turning red.

Steve could've find this all amusing, but he was still in the middle of processing how on earth did he get tangled up in this office mess. And to think earlier, he thought being late was the worst thing he'd ever done in his career. He spoke too soon.

If only he'd woken up earlier today, maybe this wouldn't have happened.

And the more Natasha speaks, the more he just doesn't understand. It was as if the words were coming in and out of his other ear. "So, yeah... the truth is, you know, Steve and I, we're... we're just two people who aren't meant to fall in love but we did."

"No..." Steve shakes his head.

"All those late nights in the office and weekend art fairs. Yeah."

"No..."

"Something happened." Natasha says, flashing him a smile as she glances at him.

Steve returns her gaze, faking a smile but looking as uncomfortable as ever. "Something." And the way he says it almost made Natasha want to kick him because he couldn't sound more sarcastic.

"Yeah, tried to fight it and can't—can't fight a love like ours."

Pierce looks like he was trying hard to contain his laughter, especially when Natasha wraps an arm around Steve so stiffly to pull him closer to her, and he wasn't making any effort more than her to sell this... whatever this is.

"So, uh... are we good? Are we good with this? Are you happy?" Natasha asks Pierce, gesturing between her and Steve. "Because, well, we are happy. So happy," she finishes off with a sweet laugh.

And if it weren't for Steve being so lost, he would've actually noticed how good her acting was. She was almost a natural at it.

"Natasha." Pierce interrupts.

"Yes?"

"It's terrific." Surprisingly, he sounds genuine. "Just make it legal, hmm?" He points at the ring on his finger.

"Oh, legal! Yeah, well, then that means we, uh, we need to get ourselves to the immigration office to sort so we can work this whole mess out. Right?" she playfully pokes Steve's chest. "Thank you very much, sir. We will do that right away. Thank you very much, thank you."

Steve could do or say nothing else, but nod along.

And you could imagine the looks being thrown his way the moment he and Natasha got out of that room. With everything happening so fast, he mistakenly forgot to return Jemma's call and accidentally left her on hold for God knows how long. 

Apparently, good news travels fast in the office server when it comes to boss and assistant romance kind of things. 

NATASHA AND STEVE ARE GETTING MARRIED?

Hushed voices and whispers filled the office floor.

"Here they come..."

"Yeah, Rogers, you're the best!"

"What is he thinking?"

"Really, man. Her?" Sam Wilson cracks up laughing as he passes by, with Steve only shooting him a half confused, half irritated look.

As soon as they are inside Natasha's office, he's waiting for her to say something. Anything. Because he needed to know what the hell just happened back there, and he deserves to know why this time.

But Natasha carried on her work duties as if everything that happened a moment ago was completely normal.

Steve just couldn't take it anymore.

"What?" she asks, finally noticing him staring at her.

Really, what?

"I don't understand what's happening." Steve blatantly states.

"Relax, this is for you too." She says it is so nonchalant that it makes Steve's blood boil. 

What he hates the most about her is her complete inability to act human with functioning emotions for even just a split second, and all he wanted was a nice, decent explanation like any normal human being would do after what just happened earlier—but then again, she wasn't human, she was a complete witch.

"Oh really? Do explain." Steve demands, not bothering to keep his voice low anymore. He's pissed, and he lets her know it.

"They were going to make Brock chief."

The numbers still weren't adding up. "So naturally I would have to marry you?" he deadpans.

"And what's the problem? Like you were saving yourself for someone special," she rudely claims, which only infuriates him more because she's missing the entire point of this conversation.

"I like to think so," he counters back, "besides, as far as I know, what you're planning to do is illegal."

Natasha lets out a humorless laugh, not even sparing him a glance as she usually does because she's too busy with her work. "They're looking for terrorists, not publishers."

"Natasha."

"Yes."

"I'm not going to marry you."

"Sure you are."

"No."

"If you don't marry me, your dreams of touching the lives of millions with visual art are dead." Natasha explains, finally looking at him as she puts her pen down.

She sighs, "Brock is going to fire you the second I'm gone. Guaranteed. That means you're out on the street alone, looking for a job. That means all the time that we spent together, all the lattes, all the canceled dates, all the midnight Tampax runs, were all for nothing and all your dreams of being an editor are gone."

Steve pales.

"But don't worry, after the required allotment of time, we'll get a quickie divorce and you'll be done with me. But, until then, like it or not, your wagon is hitched to mine. Okay?"

Steve is at lost for words.

The phone rings again.

Natasha smiles at him sweetly, gesturing to where the phone is. "Phone."

So, he really has no other choice left, is there?

And this is his life now, isn't it?

.・゜-: ✧ :- 

a/n:

i love this movie sm

to those who haven't seen the movie yet, let me clear it up: natasha is forcing steve to marry her so she can avoid deportation back to her home country, russia, because she was denied a work visa to stay in america.

ofc, steve hates her so he hates this proposal.

also, steve's ambitious career goal is to be a visual graphics editor... which idk if it's a real thing in the real world but i gotta connect his artistic skills somehow in an office setting so... lol.

but i imagine his job being the one that's designing book graphics, covers, layouts etc.