Our Christmas Secrets

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Marvel Comics

"This is ridiculous, Rogers." Natasha regressed in her usual husky voice, stubbornly averting her acute grayish- green eyes away from the towering and empowering super-soldier blocking the exit of the alleyway. Sighing out an impatient breath, testy she'd leaned her lithe and dangerously curved frame against the cold wall, her gleaming stiletto heel lodged in the brownstone.

She pulled on her jacket's hood, obscuring her face with shadowy allure. Her advantaged when engaging combat. She stared at him, unnerved. She didn't care if he was the greatest American hero or the First Avenger. She wanted to escape from the cold, and find warmth shelter as the heavy snowfall begun obstructing her point of entry. She had made in her best interest to avoid conformation from winter's breath.

Tonight, just wasn't an exception. "You know it's kind of hard to multi -task when you're fighting with potential frostbite."

Steve was crouched low on a trash dumpster; he was dressed fully in his stealth royal blue uniform revealing the indentations of rippling, firm muscles underneath the Kevlar material. The hard cowl was strapped over his face and his eyes vivid sky- blue eyes shimmered and burned with fiery defiance.

He carried all the parts of virtue, integrity, determination and resilience. There wasn't a bad bone in his body. He was true to his word, never wore false emotions and no condemnation welled in his blue eyes. He was a good soldier and she was a vindictive spy. They weren't equally matched. She lived in a dark chasm and he was lost in the old world. He was reborn by greatness, truth and trust, and she was resurrected when the chains had broken from the Red Room.

He fought to defend the innocent lives-the weak and scared, and she slayed men to get her answers. It wasn't right; it was destructive, cruel and unforgiving. It was her method of survival. They were reflections of themselves and sometimes she wondered if he was her guardian angel.

Natasha never believed in the existence of angels, just the darkest of her demons.

She watched the chiseled lines of his youthful and square jaw flew, and he stared at the building adjacent from their position. He was focused on the mission, and his alloy shield was latched over his wrist. His lips fastened into a tight, and he breathed in the frigid air. "Natasha," a harsh whisper came from his throat. "Stay focus. I can't afford any mistakes with this mission. I've got someone very important counting on us." he affirmed, setting his jaw.

Natasha stiffed her pink lips, and glowered darkly at him. "I really do see that the big deal is, Rogers. I know it's Christmas Eve, but unlike your noble spirit, I have other obligations to attend to...Tonight I'm not in the giving mood." Steve spared a glance over his shoulder, and weakly smirked at the sourish expression etched in her ivory features. "Of course you had to be the hero this Christmas Eve...Take on a few missions and save a few lives. That's what Captain America does, he saves people and shovel old ladies driveways. Do you ever give yourself a break?" she asked, dryly, purposely trying to cut through his hardened barriers.

"I can't afford too," Steve replied, smacking his boots on the ground. He twisted his massive form around, leveling his blue eyes with her. "Christmas is a time for family and cheerful memories. Something I used have before I enlisted." he murmured softly. "I try to make a difference when it comes to helping those in need, Natasha. Everybody needs help-especially at Christmas."

Bringing her stiffened fingers to her lips, Natasha breathed out warm air against the frigid leather. "This is what you do for Christmas? You wait for someone to call out for aid?" she asked, Steve's face expressionless and his stern blue eyes glint in the shadows cloaking over his face. A strange feeling was twirling inside her knotted gut, a tight sense of lethal anticipation and tingling hunger, burning across her cool skin. She felt oddly discontented with herself. She tore her eyes away from him after several moments of staring at the powerful clenched of his jaw, realizing that she just felt...incomplete. Something was taking her...Something carnal and unexpected.

Steve jumped down off the Dumpster, and then he positioned his muscular form into a stance of attack, his hips rolled and legs separated as he preparing to sprint across the snow covered road. For a second time, Natasha shot her an intense glare, but he lowered his head down, and drew out a long and frigid breath.

"The reason why I called out for this, Natasha, it's because I want show the real truth and reason why I chose not to spend my Christmas at the Avengers Tower." His plump bottom lip protruded into a solemn frown as he added. "I have secrets as well..." he deadpanned out a sigh, and sucked back the cold air before he turned his neck and met her confused stare. "Every Christmas Eve, I wear my uniform for this little boy who has a weak heart...A birth defect. He is five, strong and loves to role play Captain America with me. Lately, he hasn't been doing that good...I try to make it special for him."

Hearing the measure of sentiment in his words, Natasha felt a dull ache penetrate in the layers of her heart. She lifted her gaze, searching for a true resolve of the meaning of Christmas. When she commanded herself to move, her legs wobbled. Her trained eyes narrowed at his large footprints in the snow. She clenched and unclenched her jaw, feeling ashamed and downright ugly for judging his heart.

Coldness.

No warmth or delay of pulse.

She felt hollow, and her bones jostled as squalls of snow buffeted over her jacket. "Steve...I didn't know that you make miracles happen for kids. It is a miracle, even though I don't remember what Christmas is about thanks to the horrors of my past." She froze; there was still some form of barrier there that obstructed her from reaching him. "I owe you an apology, Rogers."

"Natasha," his soft voice invaded her ears once again, and yet she refused to look at him. "You have nothing to feel guilty over. I keep a lot hidden because sometimes a secret doesn't have to be broken in order for it to become revealed-" He smiled weakly, and shuffled his boots closer to her, his arm extended out, as he settled a gloved hand on her tensed shoulder. "Stay here...I will be back in a few minutes." he said in breathy voice. His head tilted just a little bit for her to feel his plush lips ghost over her ear. "Don't freeze on me,"

Before she could answer him with irreverent retort, Steve raced out of the alleyway, his shield gleaming as he met a small boy, frail and bundled up in winter gear.

Steve crouched down, and removed a small wrapped package from one of his belt pouches, handing it to the wheezing child. And then, the young captain lifted his little friend up into his broad arms, embracing him into a massive, brotherly hug and stroked the boy's back, with a soothing brush over his gloved hand. "Merry Christmas, Carter." he whispered with a smile, feeling the boy's head rest on his armored shoulder.

The boy closed his eyes, faintly, "Merry Christmas, Cap." he whispered against Steve's uniform.

Natasha felt a pang of self-resentment as she watched the super-soldier bring the boy up the steps, and hand Carter back to an older woman, his mother obviously. Furrowing her eyebrows, she wandered if Steve was truly an angel in those silent moments when she stared at the happiness beaming from the pale child's thinned face.

Am icy shudder ran along her spine, and she kicked the point of her boot into a pile of snow near a trash can. With a flare of light erupting in her soul, Natasha responded to her heart, she took a few sharp breaths, clearing her damaged weaves that muddled her mind, and locked her grayish eyes on her prime target...Steve Rogers.

"For once do something good in your life, Natalia," she murmured, the throb of her heart thundering against her chest. She pulled back her hood, allowing loose scarlet curls to tumble over her shoulders. Closing her eyes, she steadied her pulse, taking a moment to rediscover the sensation of falling snowflakes caress over her skin. For the first time in her lifetime, Natasha felt her lips hold a real smile-no masquerade, just the true beauty that had been contained ever since she entered the Red Room and became a stranger in her own reflection.

"Merry Christmas, Carter," Steve waved at the boy, and then he stiflingly descend the steps, boots crunched against the ice encased wood, and his head lowered, his warm expression melted into a pained grimace. His jaw flexed as he felt the weight of his burdens pile over the broad expanse of his shoulders, he carried everyone's pain, their fears and hope. He wasn't Santa Claus, but an inspiring symbol who represented everything people had lost when childhood dreams became veiled by distrust hearts, terror and the dark shadow warfare.

He'd walked the streets of Manhattan, searching for his existence while observing the restless souls passing him on the sidewalks, controlled by their choices and mistakes. He spent many nights trying to find an understanding of the hidden truths darkened from the wrong ideals, deception and falsehoods of reformation.

Tonight, Steve had been searching for something deeper, something slightly dangerous to seize control over, as he moved one foot in front of the other and began to trudge to the sidewalk. And he quirked his lips into frail smile as he looked intently at the reflections of lights against the ice beneath his leather combat boots.

"Is this a test?" he reconciled his past with a faint breath, and curled his fingers into a rigid fist as he became caught in the moment of crossfire on the greatest and most lethal battlefield: love.

Inhaling the intoxicating scent of strawberry wavering from her body, Steve lifted his head, his light cobalt eyes stolen a glance at her standing halfway in the division of light and snow.

"Natasha," he breathed, falling into the lure of a distant place away from the new world he had awoken up to, he was stumbling, wounded by his guilt and cowardice of not being brave enough to ask Peggy Carter to dance with him; he never believed in chance-only faith, trust and love. There was nothing more abiding then the partnership of a man and woman taking on their battles in life, but Natasha and he were strangers, barely connected in the spindling web of passion. Deep, beyond the semblance of Captain America, Steve knew that he had to let go of Peggy, time has stolen her from him, and she lived a good life without him being her shield.

You absolutely don't know a bloody thing about a woman.

When Peggy Carter entered his meek life everything had changed.

The British agent looked beyond his small stature and frail exterior. She'd never displayed discomfort when he coughed after running a few laps. Her rich chocolate eyes never held pity and disgust when she looked at him. She was the only woman who saw the real Steve Rogers, not the asthmatic, clumsy and nervous boy who was always too dumb to walk away from a fight. And after Project Rebirth, after his sickly frame morphed into a powerful a mass of firm muscle and strength, she still found him. He'd been Steve Rogers the Brooklyn kid to her, not the vigilant Captain America, the raider of the fray and protect of the weak.

He had always been humble, gentle and honest. He never displayed qualities of the other soldiers with women; he wasn't the handsome, cocky and brazen James Barnes. He was a gentleman, rare and real to any dame he crossed paths with, his blue eyes never held lust or hunger for a woman's touch, although he craved to feel a woman's lips crush against his. And he loved Peggy. He loved her from the first moment he saw her at Camp Lehigh, dressed in her dark brown uniform with bronze buttons; giving the recruits a firm welcome with her savory English accent and a hard fist into a jaw. She carried fire within her petite form, and allowed no man to dance circles around her. When he kissed her during the high speed chase in the hanger, the heat of her bright red lips had given the strength to carry on his mission.

His fate had become sealed in a coffin of ice and he was frozen under the arctic waters. His heart had shattered the moment he heard Peggy's voice fade out from the radio. It haunted him in his dreams; images of her in the red valet dress became crushing torment as all of his time had been stolen. Everything they shared and could have had was a glimpse-an illusion of a great life together.

He wanted to grow old with her, dance on the creaking hardwood floor of their home, and watch her age beautifully in his arms. It could have been the greatest award for an old soldier to cherish, but he was lost and the dream died with the tears she released when she mourned for him and lived seventy years without him-no wedding rings, hospital visits that ended with him holding his child and tarnished photographs of collected memories on dressers. Just a faint brush of hope that one day he would return to her, and they would share that dance of a lifetime.

After he had awoken on the table, blood thawed and ice melted off his muscles, Phil Coulson had been standing there at his side, holding the pocket compass with Peggy's picture glued against the damaged silver. He had gone to see her a few times in the nursing home, but her mind was frail from memory, and she was lost inside old regrets, and even though she never said them to his face, he saw each one welled in her dimming brown eyes. Staring his beautiful girl wither into an old shell underneath blankets and it a place where bright souls became captives in their own bodies, it was heartbreaking, and painful, to watch her breath in the shadows of her room.

I couldn't leave my best girl. Not when she owes me a dance.

Steve made sure he held his lifetime promise, and spent a fair amount of time with her, talking to her about the old days when they were young fighters with the SSR. He owed her so much, she had been part of the reason why he became Captain America, through her love and inspiring voice, he took the risk and endured the injections of the serum because he knew she was there watching him with a heavy heart.

When he emerged from the egg shaped injection chamber, drenched, tall and hot with ripping muscles, she had been there to greet him with a bright smile. That was always the one thing he saw when he sealed away the new world, she was his light, curly brown hair, fiery brown eyes and full red lips. Her warm kiss repaired his heart, gave him a chance to love, but that Peggy, the British Operations Supervisor of the Strategic Scientific Reserve and skilled agent, was long gone. The truth of she held in her aging eyes revealed to him that he was just a friend-a voice to bring her back into the past. That's where she could always find him.

"I've had a good life, Steve," Peggy choked up, her brown eyes leaking tears when she lifted her aged spotted hand off the wrinkled blankets, and placed her shriveled fingers on his chiseled face, looking longing into the crystal azure sea of his eyes, "You haven't live yours...You can't muck this chance up." she said in a wheezing voice, brushing her fingers softly over his clenched jaw. "I'd be damned if you lived this new life alone without the right partner."

Steve lowered his eyes down, trying to suppress the moisture blurring his vision. "I don't know how to live anymore Peggy," he sighed, struggling to confess those words to her. "For the longest time I wanted fight for what I believed in...I never wanted people that I loved to get in the way of my battles. I am a captain nothing else. How can I move on when I'm stuck in the past...I wanted to spend this life with you." He swallowed as tears rolled down his firm cheeks, and landed on her small hand. "I'm old, Peggy...Even though I don't look it...I can feel it...My heart is old."

"Steve," she closed her eyes, trying so hard not to cry in front of him. "You were chosen for a reason...This world needs you to guide us back into the rays of hope. You can't give your strength and heart up because of regrets. I know you feel the guilt about losing Barnes...He will always be a part of you, but you can't hide away from this mission. The world will always need someone brave enough to fight the battles that we are so damned to fight for ourselves."

She gestured a shaking hand to his shield propped against the dresser. "You are a symbol of how great men can be...Not just a recreated of soldier...but a virtuous man who never backs down even when in the thick of danger his life becomes threatened. That's why you became Captain America, Steve. You are and always will be the good Brooklyn kid." She declared, setting her frail hand over his strong heart. "A great man..."

Steve encompassed his large hand over her small one, "Stop saying that I'm a good man, Peggy." He lowered his dismal blue eyes, and heaved out a vehement sigh, all the while he looked genuinely into her rich brown eyes, still imagining her as the young and fiery woman in uniform. Tenderly, he brushed warmth over her knuckles, and felt his soul protest against her raspy breathing. " I'm just someone who fights for the little guys."

Peggy nodded, silently, "You will always be a good to me...One the best, Captain Rogers," She breathed, and then coughed, as tears begun to roll down her wrinkled tears. "You were chosen not because of your determination to fight in the war, but because of your heart to stop it. You are a blessing to this world, Steve, and my only regret is that you will never come to understand that..."

Sealing his eyes shut, Steve took a moment to make the hardest choice he had ever done in a uniform, taking an easy step closer to the edge; he removed his helmet, throwing it to the ground and he swallowed, and then called out, trying to alleviate the tension into frosty air. "Natasha, would do me the honor of leading me in a dance?"

Natasha playfully shrugged. She racked her brain, trying to think of the moment she felt his powerful blue eyes penetrate within her, and then responded with a husky voice, "I guess I can make an exception since it's Christmas," she yelled back, and then raced across the street, and collided her slender frame against his firm torso, her arms instantly wrapped over his thick neck. "Sorry if I hurt you, Rogers" she whispered evenly with a touch of seduction in her purring voice, and she felt his arm enclose over her hips.

"Yeah, I bet you are," he said, hoisting up his shield, rubbing it against her lower back, edge trailing along her spine and curves. He held her close, not pulling away as the soft swells of her ample breasts pressed against the muscles of his chest. He tilted his head down, resting his forehead against as her head while the softness of his lips came into contact with her ivory skin, he held a searing kiss there and his nose dug into the mass of her disheveled hair. She pulled away slightly, staring into his intense blue eyes; her thumb outlined the arch of his lip.

"I haven't done this in a long time," Steve whispered lowly, against her skin, and twirled their bodies around, and made her collapse gently against a hood of a parked car. The alarm blared in their ears for a few seconds, but instead of launching himself up, Steve kept his firm eyes focused on her. He brought his hand to her face; threading scarlet ringlets in between his fingers while his shield rested underneath her.

He secured her into a submissive stance, releasing laboring pants of breath. "I'll lead," he spoke in a fierce and resolute tone, making her body shiver from the hunger burning in his unyielding shine of smoldering blue obscured by the shades of relentlessness thralls of conformed guilt. She saw everything beyond his piercing stare, all his pain and delusions of hidden truths he desired to unveil.

Steve stared at her; severe blue remained changeless and focused. His shadowed gaze captured the flickers of ember inside the depth of his darkened pupils. He allowed her to see the keyholes of his torn soul. One side of his chiseled face was lit by the warm glow of city light. The other side, cloaked with shadow as he continued to stare into the golden crescents entrapped in her darkened eyes. She observed the stillness in his eyes, the glimmers of darker nightmares. They were both unveiling and understanding each other in the silence formed between them. They had a treasured connection, and shared the same world inside their somber hearts.

His hovering lips were inches from her imploring mouth, she felt the heat radiate, barely touching her soft flesh, their noses touched and configured into a perfect diamond of symmetry with the halves of their face. Natasha stroked her fingers through his ruffled golden locks, and he closed his eyes preparing to feel everything. There was no more doubt, fear or condemnation. He was all hers-Steven Rogers and Captain America.

Natasha pressed her gloved hand flat on his chest, coveting to feel his warm pectorals underneath her fingertips, feeling the thumping of his heart beat jostle through her bones. The sensation of his body heat sent a tingling shock wave of vehemence over her, and then made things to out of control. Under her coat, Natasha felt the blood rushed down and through her, creating a surge of avidity she couldn't restrain. She flinched, an eruption of impulse consumed in her veins. "Steve," she said low and throaty. She'd been holding in her pain for too long, she needed to release everything into him. Instead of running, her eyes clamped shut and she allowed tears to flow down her chilled face.

His chest tightened. He breathed, nestling his face into the mass of scarlet cloaking her shoulders as he wrapped his arms around her, hand slipped out of the straps of his shield and he cried into her hair, letting his torso settle firmly against her like a security blanket. Heat seeped out of him, dulling his ache and love for her, at the same time leaving him in impasse of choice and feeling. It became a profound sense of guilt. Guilt for not telling her how much he loved her, how much she reminded him of Peggy and how much she kept him standing on solid ground.

"Natasha," he spoke soft and imploring, lifting his head off her shoulder. A sad smile graced his features. His blue eyes held a serious and dire look when he narrowed his gaze at her face. He'd come to conclusion after a few years of being her partner, saving her from the darkness and holding her as an anchor when she drown in the red sea of her past. She had betrayed him countless times with false truths, wounded him with lies, but he always found reason to forgive her. He'd always thought it was impossible to love her. She was dangerous. He'd seen her at her best though, a good soldier in the field and a good woman when moments of trust really mattered as the world exploded around them, bullets pierce their skin and knifes cut through their bleeding hearts.

She'd never given him a chance to say the words, not that he needed to, because she knew how to read his emotions. Even though he had lost love back in the ice, he still held on to it. He sighed and framed his hand along her jaw, moving his thumb over her upper lip and rediscovering the joy of her.

"What do you see when you look at me?" she asked, her green eyes penetrating, and soft pinkish lips parted slightly; she searched for the truth beyond his changeless stare. "I don't want you to think as me as the Black Widow, because that's only part of me, I don't like her when I'm with you, I don't allow the part to invade the moments we have together. I'm not some heartless killer anymore. I have a name. I have a story etched in my scars. You can't pretend that you overlook that on my file." She mashed her teeth into her bottom lip, feeling the tears cling to her eyelashes, refusing to release them down her face. "For once stop being Captain America with me, and show me the real you...I mean the man who didn't come out of a bottle...The man I would gladly share a dance with if he had the courage to ask me."

She looked his features, from the commanding to the boyish richness that beamed against the slivers of faint moonlight streaking over their still bodies. She wanted to taste glistening ivory of his skin, and the salt and sweetness that unleashed from his pores, and feel the way his muscles flexed and full lips curved as he spoke with honesty laced in his voice. He never lied to her. Sometimes she believed that he never could make up a fib and used it. His eyes were the main focus of her gaze, the soulful embers of blue, steady and trusting. He was perfect.

A reddish tinge blushed and crept across his sharp cheekbones. "I don't know how to dance," he felt his voice rumble against his throat.

Natasha felt the urge rolled her eyes at him, but she didn't. "Rogers, you've been dancing with me ever since we became partners." she responded with sincerity in her coherent voice, strange and unfamiliar for her own ears to hear. Their foggy breaths union in the space of their face, he was hovering over her lips. They exchanged a look and serious look, as she lifted up her hand to his mouth, fingers brushed over the uniform, soft and fleeting, and brought her hand to his jawline, petting against the skin. "I never want to stop dancing with you..."

He was reserved for a long moment, but the way his blue eyes glittered under the amber halo of street light above them gave her the answer. Natasha sighed, resettling her hand on his broad shoulder. She listened to his heart thumping powerfully against his chest, and outlined the embossed star with an absent sway of her fingers. He seized her wrist, and pushed her arm away from him.

"When you that you owed me for saving your life, I only gave you part of my answer," Steve managed to say, his light blue eyes focused on her, intent and loving. His long lashes swept over his knife-edged cheeks. When he looked at her again, his own pain mirrored in her shadow and alluring teal eyes. He swallowed hard, and the world faded into a blur. It was just her in the clarity of his vision.

Her green eyes, plump lips and red hair. He leaned in closer to his nose nudged against her own. Closer and afraid, and he stroked his finger through her locks, brushing the wispy strands of the ivory skin, and noticing freckles, faint but beautiful freckles on her cheek and jaw. He stared, unblinking and unwavering beauty. She was beautiful. It made his heart shudder in his chest. His throat sore. "You have saved my life... More than you can ever imagine, Natasha."

She smiled beautifully. Her eyes softened with acceptance and warmth. She interlaced her fingers with his, holding his hand into the envelope of warm flesh. She brought it closer to her chest and placed his palm flat on her left breast. She allowed him to feel her heart and whispered, looking steadily into his crisp eyes. "It belongs to you," she spoke with truth in her low voice. "No one else, Rogers."

As soon as Natasha sensed his resistance she leaned forward and kissed him. It was brief and gentle. The same pressure of her warm lips against his trembling mouth. She caressed the pads of her fingers over his smooth jaw and held her lips over his, feeling the ache rattle in her chest. She listened to him inhale sharply, feeling the hot air dance over her frigid skin. Then she pulled away, fearing attachment as the taste of his savory mouth became a gloss on her satisfied lips.

The once grim and wounded soldier was finding love for the first time. He was falling in love with her. Inside his shell, the bleeding heart was beating to its own rhythm. He remembered her explaining about different kisses at the pizza joints and coffee shops, they would meet each other on Friday nights after their missions. This one had meaning.

Natasha felt his body pulsing against the curves of her stomach. She pressed harder into his mouth, tongues rattling on the rooftops of their mouths as she indulged his passion with sheer and heated delight.

"Steve," she whispered, knowing the moment of freedom from the shackles of the Red Room had been demolished with the glistening water in his light eyes. "I want you to know..." she swallowed thickly. " I want to be your best girl..."

"…You already are, Natasha." The First Avenger whispered shakily.

Steve did his best to restrain his emotions yet he felt the dam beginning to break. His lips burned feverishly where she had touched them with her own and her words of affection pushed him further towards the brink. Looking into her teary green eyes was like looking into the abyss that slowly but surely began to swallow him whole. Gazing upon her unearthly beauty he found himself frozen before her in awe and love. Many of course desired her from afar, but only for her beauty as though she were an object or more rather: a work of art.

They did not appreciate her true beauty beneath her flawless exterior. It was that innate beauty from within that made her all the more loving…and desirable. Steve knew himself to be truly cursed to blessed with her love and devotion but unable to accept it. 'I love her…' He thought to himself.

He delicately swallowed as he felt the heat radiating off her flesh from where his hand rested against her breasts. She made no motion to withdraw from his touch. Their intense gazes were locked on each other and neither noticed that they were both drifting closer to one another as though being drawn by magnets. Unconsciously, his hand came to her shoulder and held her close. He felt her breath on his lips. Instantly, his skin began to tingle and burn.

"Tasha…" His eyes fell to her lips.

Natasha lightly pushed back the sweaty gold tendrils out of his eyes. Her green irises softened into pools of molten warmth. She squinted at the corners of her eyes and took in the sight of his chiseled features heated by relishing warmth because of her forbidden kiss. She blinked, slowly. Her eyes filled with moisture as tears streamed down her cheeks. When she looked at him again, her murky world faded into a blur of rose.

Freedom. Love. Hope.

Her fingers slid down tenderly over the curves of his angular face and she sealed her lips shut for a moment and then finally breathed out her answer, "I am yours, Steve." she said with clarity in her voice. "I desire us to have a life beyond the past... I don't care about scars we have." She traced his upper lip with her thumb. "You are my shoulder and your lips don't need to fear to kiss me... Anymore."

Self-control abandoned him, Steve's lips closed around hers instantly. This kiss was not as chaste as the first. It was heated and filled with an outpouring passion that could not be stopped. Months – years - of restrained feelings and desires began to surface. Steve could not help himself as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close until she was settled into his body. All while at the same time, pushing away that voice of logic and protest at the back of his mind that told him to stop.

Their lips moved against each other's with an unrelenting force. They felt their hearts racing in their chests, their breathing hard and their passion growing into full lust. Steve's faint stubble on his jaw tickled Natasha's flesh as her hands and fingernails gripped his thick biceps. His musky scent and the deep rumbling of his chest drove her wild to the point a soft purr came from the back of her throat.

Taking a bold initiative, Natasha placed both her hands against his chest, and pushed into the firm muscle of his pectorals. The super-soldier blinked in surprise until Natasha lips pressed down onto his again. Natasha could scarcely form any thoughts as all his senses were taken over by her.

She brought him down, and rested flatly over the length of him. The soft swells of her breasts rubbed against his firm torso. Her trim stomach arched upwards and palms buried into the broadness of his shoulders. She felt untamed and driven by flames of passion erupting from her core. She hovered over his face; long scarlet curls cascaded down his arms. She deepened further into their kiss, sucking the fervid air from his lungs and devouring the sweetness of his soft lips.

Steve knew they were both headed down a dangerous path; that's what they were both doing was forbidden and punishable by death or condemnation, and yet nothing ever felt more right than having Natasha in his arms. Fate had dealt them both a cruel hand by placing them in positions where they could not have each other. That would not stop them from standing defiant in the face of it.

As their kissing deepened, and the skies grew darker, both lovers had begun to lose sight and focus of the world surrounding them. It wasn't until the images of Peggy Carter vanished into the thick of his red haze clouding his mind that he fully gave himself to Natasha. He wasn't afraid anymore to place his heart in her hands. He loved her, although he never said it on their missions or casual dates at coffee shops. He was ready to let his past go, ready to define his future. He knew it wasn't going to be an easy road to take, but he also knew that she -the infamous and elusive Black Widow was going to be at his side when his world will go dark. Her lips kept his secrets and his heart kept hers.

His eyes flew open and he broke his kiss from her, and he whispered heat against her swollen lips, "I love you, Natasha." he confessed, so clear and fill of declaration.

For the first time, Natasha erased all doubt from her mind and looked into the grace shining from his eyes, and she wondered if he was really her angel sent down from the heavens to save her soul and shield her heart.

"I love you..." She echoed, her eyes falling shut and lips falling apart as Steve's lowered and cloaked another kiss over her beseeching lips, and then suddenly almost like it had been time to be the perfect interruption, Steve's Starkphone chimed with Tony's number displayed on the screen. Quickly, he removed it from his uniform's belt compartment, and dared himself to glance at the text message, while his lips were still latched on Natasha's.

-Hey Spangled Shorts,

I just wanted to give you the heads up that Thor and Banner are now involved in a competitive game of wiping out the Egg Nog. Things will get messy if you don't show up with that shield of yours.

Tony.

P.S

We're doing secret Santa...

Steve detached his softened lips from Natasha's swollen mouth, framing her face with his hand, and then he smiled zealously, while he sent a small text message back.

-Natasha and I will be there when we can ...

Steve.