Natasha had to put her head on her knees because she couldn't stop laughing now that she'd gotten started. Actual belly-laughs, the extremely genuine kind - and it wasn't that it was hilarious, it was just. It was a lot of things, it was funny, a little, it was six leaps ahead of where she actually was, it was touching on another level, and there was no other way it could come out of her but something that sounded as happy as it made her feel. God, Carol Danvers was honestly one of the treasures of the world. She was so fucking lucky to be someone important to her, it was nothing Natasha ever forgot.
"Okay - okay, I'm sorry, give me a second," she said, and stopped wheezing, but when she looked at Carol, her eyes were bright. Like she kind of wanted to hug her and wasn't not thinking about it. "All right. Unpacking that in order: you're not out of the loop. I haven't been broadcasting it, I've been sitting with it because, like anything, it almost never ends up being as simple as it'd be nice if things could be. Second: I'm not desperate to move out. At all. I like living with you. It's really nice to live with you and have somebody to - you know, talk about things at the end of the day, for one thing, and for another, I couldn't leave Goose, we're just starting to bond. I am not desperate to go anywhere. I'm also almost 40 years old and I'm not going to kiss somebody a couples and assume that means it's time to wake up every morning under the watchful gaze of a painting where me and all my friends are mermaids. Which is something he owns."
No choice about it, this time: she did wrap an arm around Carol's back and squeezed, once, a half-hug that she dropped as soon as she started, in case there was any objection. "And no. This is slow, and new, and... I honestly have no actual idea what the plan is here, but he's allowed to fuck up without fear of bodily harm, and so am I."