And the Seventh
By: InitialA
Disclaimer: I don't own anything in the Marvel universe.
The first time Steve saw Natasha naked, he was surprised. Not that a woman was actually naked in front of him (that had happened before, though not always with his prior knowledge of impending nakedness), but that she had a small line of tattoos across her left hip. They arched over the curve and continued onto the small of her back. She distracted him with a kiss before he could ask; it wasn't until later, when she was curled into the crook of his arm and they passed a bottle of water between themselves, that he broached the topic. "I never knew you had tattoos," he said, wiping some sweat from his forehead.
It was a point of pride that she was more out of breath than he was. "Why? I can face down an army of rampaging insurgents, surely I can face a needle a few times."
"I don't mean it like that. I just thought... they're distinguishing marks. That's not common for a spy."
"I have make-up for it. It's not that often that I strip fully naked when I'm working, usually by the time I'm down to underwear I'm about to finish a job anyway."
He pushed back a few murderous thoughts; she'd taken care of that problem herself. "Are they significant in any way?"
She smiled. "Everything I love, I get tattooed on myself."
Steve glanced down at them again. There were six. "Only six?"
"Well... not everything, I suppose. Tattooing the entirety of the Eastern Moon menu on my hip would be harder to cover up."
He laughed. She chuckled, and twisted, pointing at each one. "I do have this Chinese character. It means "food" or "provide". I'm a provider, a support. The eagle is for S.H.I.E.L.D. It's risky, but without them I would be in a terrible place."
"And Clint?" Steve asked quietly.
"The eagle is holding an arrow, see?" It was small; the tattoo was probably no bigger than his thumbnail, but there it was. "For both."
Clint was a rarely discussed subject between them, as was the more intimate side of her missions; Clint had given them his blessing, but Steve had a few lingering doubts after Tony had mentioned his initial irritation at their flirting. Natasha brushed his chin with her fingers, bringing him back to her. "Part of me will always love Clint. There's many kinds of love, and I can't ever repay him for what he did for me."
He wasn't sure that made him feel entirely better, but she brought the attention back to her ink. There was a ballet slipper, one of the few things she missed about her childhood; an eye, with the iris formed to look like an arc reactor, for Tony and Pepper. "The most striking thing I noticed about Pepper was the way she looked at people. She might not be able to get in your head and figure things out right away, but when she looks at you, you can't help but think she's reading all of your secrets anyway," Natasha explained.
"Tony, though?" Steve asked, his voice reaching a little bit of a whine.
"Oh stop it," she chided gently. "He's a good man, when you get to know him. And he's got this annoying way of making you want to take care of him, because he's so incompetent at doing it himself."
Steve felt a pout coming on. Natasha flicked his nose gently. "I won't bother showing you the rest of you're going to sulk about it."
"Sorry."
She pointed to another. It was a straight line intersected with a wavy line. "In Ghana, this means "two witnesses contradict each other, and one is telling the truth." I think that describes me fairly well, a reminder to love myself and all sides of me."
The last one, five swirls enclosed in a circle, she explained, "And this one was an Aztec war god's coat of arms. There's really no subtle symbol for battle or fighting."
"I see," Steve said, tracing the small line of symbols.
She yawned; there were goosebumps covering her side where his fingers slid across her, so she wasn't fooling him. He grinned, and easily lifted her up on top of him. She squeaked in surprise: another point of pride. He liked being able to make her break her usual silent, stoic manners. "I'd have thought you were tired after the last time," Natasha commented lightly.
"There are a couple of perks that come with the serum," he admitted.
She leaned down near his ear and whispered, "Show me."
A few weeks later, Natasha returned from a mission to Spain. She was debriefed, and taken back to the apartment she kept, despite Tony's insistence that he had designed a floor just for her in the Avengers Tower. She frowned when her key locked the door, rather than unlocking it. Surely she hadn't left it unlocked the entire time she was gone. Her hand went automatically to the small pistol she kept at her back. She checked to make sure it was loaded (three bullets: one warning shot, one wound, one kill, she calculated) and threw open the door. Nothing was out of place, and the unmistakable scent of curry wafted through the doorway. She sighed in exasperation, holstering the pistol again, and stalked into the kitchen. "Steve, I could have killed you."
He looked over his shoulder. "Better to make you think first, rather than draw and fire in surprise, don't you think?"
"Shut up," she told him, kissing his cheek. "I'm going to go wash the dye out of my hair."
"You look good with dark hair!" He called after her.
She was toweling her hair dry when he slipped into the bedroom. He slid his hands across her hips, and she winced, sucking in a breath. He backed off immediately, putting his hands up. "What's wrong?"
Natasha looked a bit disappointed. "Nothing, it's just sore... Well I was hoping not to show you like this..."
She twisted to show him: a seventh tattoo, still a raw. He bent down, looking. This one was at the front of her tattoo line, still on her pelvic bone, and larger than the others. Black and sketchy, it was an image of him that he recognized as a self-portrait doodle he had done himself some weeks before. "Nat..."
"I took it," she said, and fumbled for the right words. "It's... it's more you. Drawing. Than the shield is, or anything else they use to identify you. And it's how you see yourself. I..." She was cut off by him kissing her roughly.
When they parted, he rested his forehead against hers. "I love you too."