Summary: she hates when he’s right, but she hates it even more when he knows he’s right and won’t shut up about it. or, he likes to do her hair more than she does.
Pairing: Husband!Chris Evans x Black!reader
i don’t hate it anymore, thankfully.
“Y’know,” he said as he entered the bedroom they shared from his shower, his waist wrapped in a towel, white steam trailing behind him from the hot bathroom. “I could ask what you’re doing, though I’m not entirely sure I’d like to know.”
“I’m not entirely sure I’d want to tell you.” His wife shrugged without missing a beat. She didn’t want to tell him that she learned a new hair-braiding technique on social media and decided to give it a try, only to stop halfway because her hands began to cramp.
“Well, it seems to me that you started on your hair and got tired.”
She hated how he just knew stuff.
And of course, she’d expected him to already have known what she was up to.
She didn’t have to tell him what was happening, because he just knew her. He knew that this would be bound to happen, especially now that she’s home full-time. When she isn’t working, she scours the Internet to find something new to do; today’s activity must’ve been hair related. She knew he would tease her for quitting her hair halfway through (like she usually does); but sometimes, she just loses interest, or her hands cramp up, she can’t help it.
“And here I was, about to offer my services to help. But no, you don’t deserve it since you’ve chosen to be mean to me.” His feet padded across the brown carpet floor over to their dresser to pick out clothes for an interview later in the day. “I was ready and willing to be the helpful husband.”
“Were you?” she retorted.
“Yup.” He discarded the towel around his waist, displaying his chiseled frame for his wife to see just because he could. He dressed himself, putting on a plain black button-up shirt and dark jeans despite the interview being conducted via video conference. “I was. I’d consider myself a nice guy, doll. I’m very helpful when I’m needed.”
He finally carried himself over to her, who was sat on their shared bed with her back against the headboard. He leaned over her tauntingly. “You sure you don’t want help?” he mumbled, lips brushing hers in a way that intimidated her.
“Fine.” He gave a peck to her bottom lip, standing up straight and heading toward the door. “I’ll be in the dining room if you need me…until then, have fun.”
He winked at her before exiting the room.
Did she mention how much she hated when he was right?
There aren’t many times when he’s just right about things, but when he is…it makes her blood boil. It’s not just that he was right, it’s the gloating that follows.
It makes her want to make him sleep on the porch.
After his interview—which had to have gone well, from the sounds of his infectious laughter coming from downstairs—she sent him a reluctant text.
Okay. Fine. You win. Can you come help me now? My hands hurt.
First, it was quiet. Then, there was a loud cackle that made her hands cramp more.
She heard his footsteps (along with Dodger’s, for obvious reasons) bound up the stairs. He let out a breath as he entered the room, holding back laughter. “You rang?”
She cut her eyes at him, but softened her eyes when Dodger jumped onto the bed next to her and rested his head on her thigh.
He moved her so that he could sit behind her, the bed sinking to accommodate his frame. She sat in between his legs. “Show me what you were trying to do.” He motioned to her phone that was tossed to the side.
She showed him a set of box braids that, to him, looked a little different that what he was used to. “Here.”
He usually helped her with her hair when she wanted to do protective styles like this—either she gets sleepy and she asks him to finish; or her hands cramp; or she gets bored; or he gets bored…
Regardless of why, the fact of the matter is now he knows how to do her hair and she planned to use it to her advantage—without the gloating, preferably, but she can only ask so much of him.
“Why do they look different than the other ones?”
“They’re knotless.” She replied. “I saw them on Twitter and tried to do it.”
“It’s too hard.” She groaned, plopping her head behind her on her husband’s chest.
He sat her up and looked at her hair. “You didn’t get very far.” He noted. She’d completed about four braids before he went to his interview, and since then, she’d only done two more. “How about we do the rest the way we know how, okay? It’ll go by faster.” He kissed her temple.
“Ugh.” She gave up. “Fine.”
“I know that’s not what you want—”
“—but you’re tired and I know you’re not going to help me until the end, and I don’t know how to do them the knotless way.” She felt him shrug. “Or, you can just have these four and be done.”
She nudged his chest with her elbow, making him chuckle.
He started reluctantly, first taking the rat-tailed comb and creating a part in the back of her head that spanned from ear-to-ear in width. She reminded him gently as she turned on the television, “don’t forget the gel”; and he knew all about the gel, by the way. The gel that smelled like heaven but was sticky and hard and was oddly fluorescent in color, and he had to use it because, “it keeps things neat”.
If it were up to him, they wouldn’t use the gel at all. But it’s her hair and what she asked for, and all he wanted was to make her happy.
Taking a piece of synthetic hair from its wrapping and folding one strip over the other like she taught him, he pressed it to the square part of her hair, braiding it into her scalp.
She’ll admit, he’s gotten quite good at it.
She won’t tell him that, of course—his ego’s already the size of Jupiter. But she will say, it’s a lot cheaper to have the two of them tackle the apparent feat of doing her hair as opposed to having to pay someone to travel all the way to their home to do the same job. In her mind, she was much more willing to spend the $80 on buying the hair and supplies, than the $250 (plus a generous tip) to pay one of her friends to do it.
He got on a lot easier than she seemed to. He completed six braids by the time Belle’s father was taken into the Beast’s castle; he’d done another five by the time Belle and the Beast played in the snow.
They made some conversation as he braided, but it was mostly her reminding him not to braid too tight. “It’ll pull when it’s time for them to come out.”
“I know, I know.” He replied gently, tapping her on the shoulder to hand him the gel when he needed more to lubricate his fingers.
Thankfully, these ones were were relatively large in size. Where they would usually be doing this all day, he was closer to being done in four hours. By the time he got towards the top of her head, Beauty and the Beast was over and she—much to his dismay—put on Age of Ultron.
Let’s be clear: she only puts on Marvel movies to fawn over her husband (and his castmates)—she already watched all the movies before they were married and knew their respective plots.
“Do we have to?” He groaned. “I’d really appreciate it if we watched something else.”
“Why?” she groaned back, mocking him playfully, reaching behind her and pinching his thigh. “You look pretty in your outfit.”
She laughed, watching the man that swept her off her feet quite literally fly through the air, his red, white, and blue shield in tow. Her eyes darted to the same shield that sat framed in a case in the corner of the room.
(He planned to move it to its own display in the living room, but he hasn’t gotten around to it yet.)
As if he read her thoughts, he mumbled to himself, “I gotta move that shield downstairs.”
“You said you were going to do it last week,”
“I meant to,” he turned her head to the side so he could start a new braid above her ear. “but I got sidetracked with work—I had meetings all week last week, remember?”
She nodded slowly in understanding, her head beginning to ache on her neck from having to remain still for so long.
She sat up straighter when she felt him get closer to the front of her head. She held up a mirror to see where his most recent part stopped, then she parted her own hair in the same way, taking pieces of synthetic hair and starting on the very front.
“Now you want to help me?” he laughed. “I’m almost done.”
“I needed a break.” She shrugged.
“I think four hours is plenty of break time, don’t you?”
After another hour-and-a-half of them braiding her hair and debating—some would call it “bickering”—about why he wouldn’t dress Dodger up as Captain America for Halloween this year, they were finished.
She sighed, the tightness in her scalp irritating, but soothing in the same.
Her husband got up from behind her. Going into their bathroom, he went in the cabinet and took out a vile of oil, small and made of glass with a dropper for a lid. It was a combination of oils—some he’d heard of, some he hadn’t—that she liked to put on her hair to maintain its sheen.
He also took the time to grab her hair mousse and satin scarf, two other things that didn’t have much meaning to him until he married her.
He sat back on the bed. Wordlessly filling up the dropper, he dripped the oil onto her scalp, making her jump at first. He made sure to coat all her partings. Then he pressed his fingertips to her scalp, rubbing in gently the product.
“You okay?” he mumbled in her ear as he massaged her.
She nodded with a hum; her eyes closed in relaxation.
If there was one thing they enjoyed doing together, it was her hair.
He didn’t quite know why either. He liked helping her, yes; he liked talking with her as they did this, of course—but what was it about these kinds of moments that made his heart flutter?
There was something about massaging her scalp that made him feel closer to her. It was almost more intimate than sex, in his mind (which was saying a lot).
After a while, he stopped. She wanted to turn her head and whine to him to continue, but then she felt it.
She felt the cold foam on top of her head. Shuddering, she asked, “What’s that?”
“Mousse.” He said simply. “I’ll rub it in and then tie you up.”
She giggled childishly, “You’re gonna tie me up?”
“Yeah.” He kissed her forehead. “But not like that. Not yet, at least.” He pinched her side, which was something he always managed to do to be playful no matter how full his hands were.
He ran the product all through her scalp and down the shafts of her braids, the irritation immediately relieved. When he finished, he tied her scarf over her hair, making sure it was secure but not too tight.
She turned to him, resting her head on his shoulder softly and kissing his scruffy neck. “Thank you, baby.”
“You don’t have to thank me, honey. This is what I’m here for.”
That made her heart flutter.
They sat like that for a while—her resting against him, and his arms around her protectively, careful not to pull her newly-installed extensions that they—ahem, he—worked hard on.
“You still have to do your ends, doll.”
Ugh. She hated that part; she always ended up burning herself somehow.
“Yeah, I know,” she sat up and stood, stretching her tired muscles. Her shirt rose just a bit, her brown tummy on display.
He almost licked his lips in lust.
Almost. He was trying to behave.
“I’m gonna go boil some water.” She yawned, trudging out of the room and to the linen closet to get two towels—one to wrap around her shoulders, and another to dry the ends of her hair once she soaked them.
In the time it took for her to get downstairs and into the kitchen to set a pot of water on the stove to boil, he’d changed into his loungewear and followed behind her. He found her seated at the kitchen table, half asleep. He tried to be quiet, but he startled her awake.
“Sorry.” He said, sitting in the open seat next to her.
She yawned again, “It’s fine.”
He found it adorable that she always got so sleepy after they finished her hair. He didn’t know if it was because of her having to sit still for so long, or if it was the scalp massage he’d given her. He didn’t really care why, because that meant he’d have another excuse to cuddle up to her.
The water soon gurgled from the stove, its heat steaming the screen of the above microwave oven. She stood, wrapping a towel around her shoulders and going to the stove. He emerged behind her, deciding that he would do it for her (since she always ended up injured).
Holding the pot by its handle, he gently dipped the ends of her braids into the hot water, taking the other towel to wring the hair dry. He did this twice, making sure that all her hair had gotten submerged and wrung.
She held her breath, clutching tightly the towel around her shoulders. She trusted him, obviously, but she still was terrified.
It took him all of five minutes to finish. By then, her arms grew tired, so she was grateful. He dumped the hot water down the sink’s drain, setting the pot back on the stove to cool down before he washed it.
Meanwhile, removing the towel from her body, she continued to wring out excess water from her ends so that they didn’t drip when she made her way upstairs to clean up. “I’m gonna put these in the wash, okay?” she kissed her husband’s cheek.
She smiled, thankful to have this man in her life.
“I love you, too.” He replied, kissing her hair.
tags (from sign-up sheet): @justtwhst @lokisbitch27
other tags: @cyberdoshee @honeychicanawrites @lovlisumi
gracieabrams
2087
ellievsbear
snowghoul
origamiaround
gamechangershow
