Hello, everybody!

I'm back with another Romanogers piece! This idea just kinda popped into my head and I couldn't get rid of it. I suppose it is inspired some by those tumblr posts that show couples painting on each other, and considering our very own Steve Rogers is an artist, I thought this was perfect :)

I don't own Captain America.

Enjoy!

-:-

"I want to paint on you."

Natasha looked up at Steve and blinked, not sure that she had heard him correctly. She had been sitting on the floor, curled up in a blanket, reading a book. Why she was on the floor, she didn't know. She was pretty sure it was a habit she'd picked up from Clint, considering he seemed to situate himself as high as he could get, or as low, no matter what room he stepped into. Steve watched her, standing as he twisted his hands nervously in front of him.

"What?" she finally asked.

Steve exhaled. "I just had an idea, and well I would like—I want to paint on you. Your body, I mean."

Natasha was about to ask him why, but he honestly looked like he'd explode if she questioned his motives. So she nodded and gave him a little smile. "Okay."

Steve let out another breath and smiled. He shut the door and stepped further into the room, giving her a quick kiss before heading over to his desk. Natasha watched as he rummaged through one of the larger bottom drawers, where he kept most of his art supplies. She watched him pull out various tubes of paint and brushes, several rags and a couple pallets.

"Need me to do anything?" she asked as she put away her book and tossed the blanket on their bed.

"Not…yet…" he trailed off. She smiled to herself. He tended to get like this when art was involved—half in reality, half in his head, already thinking about what the finished product would look like. He got the smallest crease, right between his eyes, a constant look of concentration whether he was drawing or painting or something in between.

"Okay, so I was thinking—" Steve stopped mid-sentence when he turned around and saw her. "Oh."

Natasha glanced down and remembered she wasn't wearing anything but a pair of white panties and her oversized sweater. When Steve had come into the room before, her lower half had been covered with the blanket. Natasha looked back up at Steve with a little smirk playing on her lips. His eyes, darker with desire, traveled up and down her body. He'd always been fairly confident around her, but there were times like this, whether she was dressed in next to nothing or tilted her head just the right way or gave him a certain kind of smile, that he absolutely crumbled before her. Even now, his ears were tipped with just enough pink to betray him.

Her appearance didn't shake his confidence too much, though. Steve stepped forward and set his supplies down on the bed, his eyes never leaving her. And then he took the needed steps over to her and cupped her face gently between his hands, those hands that could crush her bones just as easily as they could throw his shield. Seconds later his mouth was pressed against hers, soft and sweet. Then he was scooping her up into his arms, hitching a leg under her knees as her arms wrapped around his neck in an attempt to pull him impossibly closer.

Steve set her down on the bed, and he continued to stand, legs pressed against the edge of the bed. Their bed. The one they'd shared for months now. Even before they had started dating—which was still weird to think about sometimes, that she was dating Captain America—they still sometimes wound up in each other's beds, needing the company or the warmth or the security of lying in each other's arms, whether it was after a particularly draining mission or after having an exceptionally terrible nightmare. So when they actually moved in together, sleeping in the same bed was as natural as breathing. Everything with him came so naturally that it almost scared her. But any doubts she had, whether they were in the past or for the future, he could make them vanish with just a look.

He was holding her face in between his hands again, thumbs brushing over her cheeks, feather light. Even if Natasha had anything to say in the moment, she wouldn't have been able to. The absolute adoration and raw, unadulterated love in his eyes made her speechless, made her heart ache in a beautiful way. From the touch of his fingers against her skin to the warmth that radiated from him, it went all the way down into her bones. She would never be able to explain that when he looked at her, she felt whole again. Broken and born anew every time his gaze met hers. She felt safe. Safe in a way that she had never felt in her entire life. He'd helped her bottle up her demons and keep them at bay. And even when they got loose, he'd hold her. He wouldn't say anything, just keep her in his arms until the nightmares and the feeling of blood on her hands subsided.

He kissed her softy again, hands reaching down to grab the hem of her sweater. He tugged it up her body, fingers skimming against her skin, making her shiver despite the heat flooding her entire being. He pulled the garment over her head, tossing it somewhere behind hm. If he was surprised by the fact that she wasn't wearing a bra, he didn't say anything. He dropped a kiss onto her shoulder, before moving his lips across her collarbone, and then the column of her throat. Natasha surrendered to him, let him touch her however he wanted, let him worship her. Because that's what this was. This wasn't about sex. It was about something far more intimate, something that could only be told about through the touch of his fingers against her spine, to the soft kisses he dotted along her neck. In the moment, she was a goddess, subject to the adulations he was laying upon her.

"I thought we were painting?" she sighed breathlessly, threading her fingers through his hair as he ducked down to kiss her stomach.

"We are," he responded just as softly. Steve pressed one more kiss to her mouth before pulling back and giving her a soft smile. "Lay down, I'll be right back."

Natasha smiled to herself as Steve padded into the bathroom. She grabbed a pillow for her head and lay down on her stomach, making herself comfortable as Steve came back with a towel and a glass of water. He turned some music on, loud enough so there was some background noise, but not quite loud enough for Natasha to easily make out what song was playing. Not that she minded—she was completely focused on Steve.

Natasha found herself holding her breath as she watched him. He set the cup of water down on the bedside table, then placed the towel out next to her, spreading his art supplies out onto it. He fiddled around with his supplies some, that little crease appearing between his eyes again as he picked up tubes of paint and brushes, examined them, and laid them back down on the towel. And when she got tired of craning her neck over her shoulder to try and see what he was doing, she slid her arms under the pillow and propped her chin up. Just as her eyes were about to close she felt his lips against her back. Steve kissed all the way up her spine, across her shoulders, all as his fingers traced up and down the backs of her thighs. God, he was driving her crazy. But she loved it. The intensity of the fire that was racing through her veins was addictive, and she wanted more. She wanted more until she combusted at his touch.

But just as it was getting good, he pulled away. She didn't protest, though. She waited. And soon enough she felt a hand resting against her skin. "Try not to move," Steve told her quietly.

Natasha had barely mumbled a response to show that she'd heard him when she felt the paint brush against her skin. She nearly gasped. The paint was cold against her skin—an odd but not completely unpleasant feeling. After a moment she was able to relax, sinking further into the cushion of their bed. She wished she could have watched Steve paint. She loved the look of concentration and focus he got on his face, loved watching his hands move across paper or canvas—and now skin—as if they were performing some kind of dance. This was almost better, though. She could always manage to sneak a peek at what he was working on—unless she happened to be the model—but this was all a secret. She had no idea what he was painting, and no matter how hard she tried to decipher the lines as he stroked them across her body, she still couldn't figure it out. He could have been painting smiley faces and hearts for all she knew.

Natasha didn't know how much time had passed, but it was spent well, so she didn't really care. The brush strokes against her skin were soothing and she could slowly feel her back being mapped out with paint. Every once in a while she would feel Steve's lips against her skin, in a spot that he hadn't painted yet. Then he would pull back just as she started to move, and he would scold her, teasingly whispering in her ear before kissing her neck. At least when he'd kissed her before she hadn't been covered in paint. She could have made a move if she had really wanted. Now she was completely at his mercy. It made her feel a little out of control and it was absolutely exhilarating. The paint, the soft kisses, the teasing remarks. The other Avengers—mostly, Tony…okay, all Tony—teased Steve about being some prudish, take-orders virgin. Even now, when he most definitely was not a virgin anymore. If only they knew how in control and confident he could be when he was just with her.

"All done," Steve announced, and Natasha heard the clink of several brushes as he dropped them into his cup of paint water. "Don't move, though. I want to get a couple of pictures."

Natasha obliged, letting him get a few pictures with his phones before grabbing his actual camera. Steve had gone through a small photography phase. He'd mostly stopped, except every once in a while—times like this—he'd dig it out and take dozens of photos. He'd download the pictures to his laptop and then tuck the camera away again. He was really quite good at it—she figured he'd be good at any kind of art he tried—so Natasha didn't know why he'd stopped. The only answer she'd gotten when she'd asked was that he preferred to use his hands. And of course he'd said that teasingly and seconds later she'd been pressed against the wall, their lips locked and desperately trying to rip each other's clothes off.

After a couple dozen shots and a few different poses, Steve smiles, satisfied, and offered her a hand. She took it and let him pull her towards him.

"So," she started, giving his cheek a kiss. "You gonna show me, or do I have to guess?"

Steve chuckled. "As amusing as that would be, I'm not gonna make you guess. Here," he said, holding the camera out to her. His paint covered hands ran up and down her arms as she took the camera and opened up the photos he'd just taken.

Natasha's mouth dropped open into a little o. In the span of just a couple hours Steve had turned her body into a garden.

She could feel Steve's gaze on her, but she was completely transfixed by the photos he'd taken of her, and even more so of what they showed. He had painted a whole array of flowers across her back, stretching across her flesh as if they were wings. She recognized the red roses, the blue forget-me-nots. The others she wasn't familiar with, but she was sure Steve had a reason for picking them. Sitting in the middle of it all was a delicate black widow spider. It was beautiful in a deadly way, its web tangled among the flowers, just enough of its underside showing that she could see the scarlet hourglass shape that made it so infamous.

"It's beautiful," Natasha breathed, eyes still fixed on the camera as she scrolled through the photos a second time. She could feel it now. She could feel the brush strokes once again, and instead of meaningless lines, she could feel them as they created the soft curve of a petal, could feel the spider's legs being drawn across her skin.

Steve took the camera from her hands and set it down, before tilting her chin up and giving her a sound kiss. "I'm glad you like it."

"I don't want to wash it off," she told him.

"It's okay," he assured her with a smile. "We have picture proof."

"Well, if you insist, I wouldn't mind the company in the shower," she teased, dancing away just as he tried to pull her in for another kiss.

Steve groaned. "I need to clean this stuff up,"

"Better hurry then soldier." She gave him a smile and shimmied out of her panties.

His eyes darkened, and before she could escape into the bathroom, he caught her arm and pulled her against his chest. And despite the paint all over her back, he wrapped his arms around her as he kissed her.

"Yes, ma'am," he whispered against her mouth.

When he pulled back, his arms were smeared with paint, and Natasha got the feeling that it definitely wouldn't be a short shower.

-:-

Hope you guys liked it! I might sketch something up of what Steve painted on her, but we'll see how that goes with my busy schedule.

It would really mean a lot if you guys took a moment or two to leave a review; I love hearing your thoughts!

Thanks for reading!

-DaughterOfPoseidon333

P.S. If you liked this, I have a few more other completed Romanogers stories, as well as a longer 1940s AU that for these two that I'm currently working on.