Author´s notes: Hi, this is my first fanfiction. I got inspired to write after watching Captain America: The Winter Soldier, I loved the chemistry between Steve and Natasha, so I plan on exploring that. There is going to be some action on the story too, so keep calm, I´ll uptade as soon as I can!

English is not my first language so forgive me if there are any mistakes in my writing. Hope you guys like it!

Also, I don´t own any of the avengers or marvel characters.


CHAPTER 1

Steve Rogers is sitting on the edge of his bed, staring out the window. His big suite that Tony Stark had designed for him on the Avengers Tower is still dark. He is awake for a couple of hours, thinking about the bad dream he had…again…about Bucky. It had been almost one year since the incident with the Winter Soldier. Steve tried tracking him down, between missions, with no success. He thinks that maybe, if Natasha or even Barton were here, they could help him but they both had to disappear after what happened to S.H.I.E.L.D.

Then, Steve's thoughts linger on Natasha. He looks at his nightstand and opens the top drawer. He stares at a key chain with a big white star on it, and remembers her words on the note: "It remind me of you. Nat." It was the first of many trinkets Natasha had sent to him. She sends them now and then and when he receives one, it is the only time he is a little relieved, knowing that she is alive. The others came without a note, but he knew it was from her because all of them had a white star on it somewhere. His favorite was a wooden music box. It has a moon and white stars painted all over the lid. He picks it up and opens it, it plays Clar de Lune and he remembers hearing it once or twice when he was on Europe long time ago. And now every time he hears it, it makes him think of her. He misses her. They had become partners and friends, he trusted her with his life. He knew she had to be careful, to not be found, but sometimes he wishes she would give him just a hint of where she was so that he could go to her, or maybe say when she was going to return to New York so that he could stop looking for her in every corner of the city, like she was going to show up out of nowhere. He looks back at the window and sees the sun rising. Putting the music box back in the drawer, he decides it´s time to clear his head with a morning run, so he changes into his running outfit and leaves his room to grab a bite in the kitchen.


Steve finishes his breakfast alone, it´s 6:30. Tony, Bruce and Thor are never awake this early, unless they have a mission or something. So he cleans his dishes, goes to the elevator and pushes the lobby button hearing Jarvis greets him: "Good morning Captain."

"Good morning Jarvis." Steve answers back the A.I. despite the fact that he finds that talking to a computer is a little strange, since they didn't have that 70 years ago. He also thinks it is creepy, because it reminds him of his encounter with Dr. Zola inside the Bunker in Camp Leigh.

At the lobby, Steve is walking toward the front door looking at his watch to start the chronometer, as he hears Jarvis say: "Welcome back, Miss Romanoff."

Steve immediately looks up, the front door is open and Natasha is standing there."It´s good to be back Jarvis" she replies to Jarvis.

Steve stops and stares at her, not believing his eyes as she walks toward him with a smile on her face, her red locks brushing on her shoulders. His heart almost stopped, he was so glad that this time his wishes were granted and the beautiful redhead spy was standing in front of him.

Natasha stops in front of the tall soldier, meeting his eyes as she says: "Hey Cap, going for a little run? I would go with you, but I am a little tired of running."

Steve laughs and can´t resist the urge to hug her, so he throws his arms around her shoulders and replies: "It´s so good to see you, Natasha!"

Natasha lets go of the bags she is holding on each one of her hands and hugs him back, putting her arms around his waist and pressing her face lightly against his chest: "It´s good to see you too, Steve!" She feels so good in his strong embrace. She was used to being alone when she was under cover, it had been part of her training to never need anyone, but this time she had missed Steve Rogers, more than she is willing to admit to herself. That is part of the reason she kept sending him something every time she changed locations, because deep inside she wished she was returning to New York, to be near him.

Steve notices her bags on the floor as they hold each other. He realizes that she came here to stay with them and not on a mission, so he lets go of Natasha to take a good look at her, the smile still on his face as he says: "So, no more running for you! Let me help with your bags then."

Natasha almost forgot he is such a gentleman, and how perfect his smile is, so she smiles back at him, saying: "It´s okay Steve I got it, I don´t want to spoil your morning run."

"I insist!" Steve replies already taking the bags on his hands. "Besides, I can run later." He says turning to the elevator.

Natasha admires him for a moment, his muscles moving as he walks back to the elevator, and she thinks: "I guess he can afford to miss one run, he´s still very fit, he looks so good…" she takes a deep breath but then shakes her head to get rid of that thought and follows him inside the elevator.

Steve asks Jarvis to take them to Natasha's floor and Natasha says playfully: "I see you're getting used to the modern world."

Steve glances at Natasha with a half-smile and answers: "Well, I'm trying to."

When they arrive at her floor, Steve gets out of the elevator and turns right on the corridor, leading Natasha to her room saying: "This floor has been empty for some time, since it´s yours and Barton´s floor. Barton´s room is to the left. My room is one floor above with Thor´s room and Bruce and Tony´s rooms are one floor above us."

Natasha follows him to the door of her room, where he stops and says: "It has a biometric lock, needs your fingerprint so…"

Before Steve finishes his sentence , Natasha puts her thumb to the screen of the lock, it makes a beep and the door slides open. She enters the room and says: "Wow, this is bigger than some of the apartment I have stayed!"

The room is an open concept with high ceilings, it has a lounge area with modern furniture, a mini bar and a big LED TV, then a door to the right that leads to the closet and bathroom, then a king size bed next to a huge widow that goes around the corner with a beautiful view of New York city buildings around them.

"Is yours this big too?" Natasha asks as she touches the white couch.

Steve enters the room looking around: "Yes, but mine has darker color furniture and a blue wall behind the bed." Steve says as he notices her wall was a pale red.

"Of course, Captain America gotta have a white and blue room!" Natasha says looking back at him with a goofy smile on her face. Steve chuckles as Natasha turns around and walks toward the window saying: "I´m sure Stark has thrown on yours faces how generous he is."

Steve starts walking toward the bed: "Yes, a dozen of times at least."

Natasha stops at the widow admiring the view: "I´ve missed New York." She says almost to herself.

Steve, due to his with his super hearing ability hears that and replies as he puts her bags down next to the bed: "Yeah, it´s a great city. Much has changed since I was a kid, but I still love it."

Natasha remembers how Steve was stuck for 70 years on the ice, she felt bad for him, all the time and friends he had lost. She then asks: "Any luck with Bucky?"

Steve walks to stand beside her and stares out the window too: "No, Sam and I tried tracking him, but he is really hard to find, I guess he had training like you." He looks at her.

Natasha bites her lower lip and then turns to meets his eyes: "Now that I´m here, maybe I can help you, but you gotta know that even if we do find him, there is a big change he´ll not recognize you and we´ll have to fight him again."

Steve takes a deep breath and looks back out the window: "I know." He wants to find him because he knows that the Winter Soldier is not Bucky, his friend was brainwashed and he has to save him somehow, he owes him that much and Natasha may be the only person that can help him with that.

Steve's mind is playing back their encounter with Bucky on D.C., when the Winter Soldier almost killed Fury and shoot Natasha after chasing her on the street full of innocent people, and thinking about putting Natasha back in that kind of danger, not that she can´t handle it, but if something bad happened to her, he could never forgive himself. She was his friend too.

Natasha can see his jaw muscles tense as he puts his hands inside his pocket. "Steve…" she calls him and rests a hand on his arm.

Steve returns to reality when her hand touches him. He looks at her green eyes and says: "You just got back Natasha. I don´t want to put you through this right now."

Her brown frowns as she knows immediately what he is thinking: "You know I can take care of myself! I offer my help because I want to help you!" She says that with emphasis on the I. "And this time we will be ready to face him if we have to!"

Steve almost forgot that she could read him so well just by looking at him. He presses his lips together and thinks: "Will we? Will I be ready to face Bucky again?", and then he says: "Thank you Natasha, but I have to think about it. Let´s talk about this later, okay."

Natasha gives him an intimidating look and is about to talk back when she hears footsteps, so she turns to the door of her room and Tony Stark is walking in.

"Hey, look who decided to show up! I hope I'm not interrupting anything." Tony says seeing the serious expression on their faces.

Right now Steve doesn´t want to ruin the happiness he is felling by being near Natasha again with Bucky´s dilemma, so he mentally thanks Tony for appearing. He takes his hands out of his pockets and turns to Tony: "No Tony, and even if you were, you would interrupt anyway. I thought you were sleeping."

Tony walks all the way to stand in front of them: "Nope, I was working on the lab, Jarvis alerted me that Miss Romanoff was in the building." He turns to Natasha and gives her a quick kiss on the cheek: "How are you doing redhead?"

Natasha is still mad at Steve for not letting her finish her argument, but being the spy that she is, she puts a playful smile on her lips and says looking at Tony: "I´m good, making myself at home at the Stark…no no…Avengers Tower! It´s all very you, I could see the flashy words on the building from inside the plane as I got here."

Steve chuckles at the comment.

Tony is enthusiastic about it: "I know, right! I thought since we are a team now, I would change the name so you can feel more welcome. How do you like your room, have you checked the bar?" He says as he walks to the minibar and grabs a bottle "I got some top notch vodka for you, being a Russian I'm sure you´ll like it! Wanna taste it?"

Natasha isn´t surprised that Tony wants to start drinking at 7:00 in the morning, so she grabs the bottle from his hands taking a look at it and recognizing the expensive brand, but she puts the bottle down on the counter of the bar: "That really is a good one, thanks, maybe later Stark. Why don´t you show me around the tower first?"

Tony gives her a smile: "My pleasure!" He is proud of everything he had done on the tower, so he is more than glad to make the tour with Natasha. "Let´s start with the training room. It occupies two entire floors on the tower and has all the best equipment and gadgets." He puts a hand to the side of his mouth, leans closer to her and says in a low voice: "It cost me a small fortune too!" And then he pulls back and raises his voice again: "But you know me, I love sharing my toys with my friends, that´s how generous I am!" He starts walking out of the room.

Natasha turns to Steve and shakes her head in disbelieve of how Tony hasn´t changed a bit. Steve just shrugs his shoulders and smiles at her. Then they follow Tony out of Natasha´s room.