Hi guys, a little author's side note:

Each chapter is named after a song played in the movie 'Moulin Rouge!'. The title of the story itself, "Ne me quitte pas", belongs to a song written and sung by Jacques Brel, also sung beautifully by Nina Simone, which translates to "Don't leave me", so there's a little teaser as to how this story would go….heh heh. Don't you just love angst?

All rights to the movie 'Moulin Rouge!' and the Marvel characters displayed all go to their respective owners.

STEVE POV

Alive.

That was the first word that popped into Steve's mind when he stepped foot on the train station platform in Paris. Amidst an ocean of moving bodies, his eyes soaked in the blur of colors around him. A bright pink fur coat here. A blue fedora there. Black suits. Brown suits. Red gloves. Green hats. All different colors yet all moving in unison. All moving to the steady rhythm of the train as it pulled out of the station, sending small vibrations throughout the platform. The heartbeat of the city.

It felt exciting, exhilarating moving to Paris, amidst the retaliation of his folks back in Brooklyn. But after the passing of his mother, and a following year or so of some soul-searching (as cheesy as that sounds), Steve finally decided to explore his passion for art, something that he wanted, for a long time, to be more than a petty hobby, as some critics have claimed it to be, but an actual career. So of course, his mind instantaneously went to Paris. And sure enough, here he was.

A small smile appeared on Steve's lips as he placed his dull grey newsboy cap on his head, sweeping a few blond strands from his eyes as he did so. With two small brown suitcases in hand, and a few dollars in his pocket, Steve succumbed to the tug of the current, following the mass of people onwards to their own respective lives, as he tried to find his own in the city.

The building was rundown, its bricks turning this slightly yellowish brown color. Even though its disrepair was apparent, Steve's apartment back home was far worse. He looked down at the letter in his hands, and back up. Twice. Then thrice. Shrugging his shoulders slightly, he pocketed the letter and headed up the stairs to see the apartment he would be living in. His best friend back in Brooklyn, Bucky, had some friends, connections in the city, and after a few beers or so, Steve was able to get an address. After a few weeks of correspondence, and convincing letters, he had finally landed a roommate, whom he was about to meet in about…

Three.

Two.

One.

His knuckles rapped on the door. Nothing. Steve knew someone was home, for his ears caught the faint whistle of machinery and once or twice, a string of foul words. He knocked once more, with a little more insistency.

Finally, a man, eyes strapped with black goggles, appeared behind the now slightly opened door. With black hair standing on end, and work grime apparent on anything and everything on him, the man had an eccentric edge to him, standing a few inches shorter than Steve as he stripped his eyes off its protective gear, tucking it in the depths of his partly gelled hair. A smirk appeared on the man's lips as he dried off his hands on his smeared grey tank top, leaning on the door frame as he did so.

"So you're the 'Captain' I've been hearing all about from Barnes," he says in a nonchalant manner.

"What?" Steve had not mentioned anything about this in his letters. He subconsciously made a little mental side note to murder Bucky if he ever went back to Brooklyn.

"Little childhood nickname your mother calls you by, as Barnes has told me" the man replied, his smirk deepening, "little Captain America, mama's boy extraordinaire."

With sweaty palms, Steve mumbled back, "It's Steve Rogers actually, and whom do I owe the pleasure?"

"Tony Stark," The man answered with an exaggerated wave of his outstretched hand.

Steve, sighing as he did so, shook Tony's hand with mild reluctance. So this was the man he was rooming with for the foreseeable future. He found his mind repeatedly reminding himself why he had come to Paris in the first place.

"Please just call me Steve," He replied as his hand fell back to his side.

"No can do, Cap, I've taken quite a liking to it," Tony teased as he opened the door, letting Steve through, "It's already growing on me."

Steve wished he could say the same about the apartment. With wallpaper peeling off, and the stench of something burning hanging in the air, the apartment felt cramped and cluttered, despite its large, open size. Blueprints were strewn all over, like leftover confetti from one hell of a party. Metal parts laid across the floor, like land mines in a battlefield, shining as the late afternoon sun began its descent beyond the horizon. A glass of half finished whiskey laid on a wooden table pushed up against a corner of the room. Slightly yellowing double glass doors stood in the middle, feeding into a tiny balcony off the side of the apartment. Tony hurried in after Steve, locking the door behind him with a not-so reassuring click.

"So, welcome," Tony said, gesturing to the space as if it was a masterpiece, "to my humble abode."

"It's...quaint." Being nit picky about an organized studio space, Steve struggled for the words to describe the room without sounding rude.

It didn't seem that Tony heard him as he kicked some of his metal parts over to one side of the apartment, the side closer to the wooden table. Steve, rather unceremoniously, dropped his suitcases on the bed furthest away from the table, clicking the lock open on the one with his art supplies. He could feel Tony's eyes side-glancing at him as he brought out his portable easel and set it against the wall adjacent to the bathroom. By the time Steve had set up most of his supplies, with tubes of paint set neatly on a stool, along with his array of brushes and palette knives, Tony had distinguished the boundaries of the room. Steve's half was clear and neat with Tony's being much less so. It was better now with all of Tony's toys clumped in a corner. He could actually appreciate the expanse of the apartment, with its high ceiling and open concept.

"So, you're an aspiring artist?" Tony said, breaking Steve's reverie.

"Yeah," Steve said, nodding back as he approached the double glass doors, opening them up to step on the balcony, "been one ever since I could see."

"I get the feeling," He heard Tony reply as he followed Steve outside, glass of whiskey clinking in his hands, "I, myself, am an aspiring inventor, mechanic, engineer...whatever you wanna call it."

He downed the remains of the whiskey at an alarmingly fast rate. "Ever since I had hands, I'd been tinkering away."

Steve nodded, with clasped hands hanging partly over the railings. He let his eyes wonder, as he knew they did best. Bright lights illuminated the silhouette of buildings, the hum of the city raging on into the now settling evening. But one odd structure stood out among these, which was quite an accomplishment considering Paris and its effortless vigor. A windmill shaped building rose out of the masses of brick structures, decorated in a loud and bright fashion, pulsating as if it was its own living being.

Eyebrows furrowed and eyes locked, Steve pointed the building out to Tony, "What on Earth is that?"

"That my friend is the Moulin Rouge," Tony said, with a hint of slyness tugging at his words.

"Moulin. Rouge," Steve echoed, feeling the peculiar sensation of the words rolling off his tongue.

"What exactly is it for?" Steve says, cocking his head towards Tony, whose playful smile was starting to make him regret the question ever slipped from his lips.

"Oh, tonight's going to be fun."

Dressed in a suit a size too small, and his blond hair sleeked back in Tony's gel, Steve stood staring up at the massive windmill, with its blades dripping in a myriad of changing colors, the words 'Moulin Rouge' flashing in the sky in time to the beat of music, so strong that it sent shivers up his spine. He felt Tony clasp both hands on his shoulders, squeezing them as he shoved him forward.

"Cap," Tony said, his own voice dripping in excitement, "You, my friend, have not lived."

And once again, with Tony pushing him on, Steve succumbed to the tug of the current, as he slipped under, swallowing him whole.

Mesmerizing.
The Moulin Rouge was nothing short of it. Unlike the train station, whose myriad of colors moved in an organized manner, the sensations found here were the embodiment of pleasure and chaos itself. Everywhere his eyes looked, colors, bodies, were intertwined in an eternal dance as the 'Diamond Dogs' of the Moulin Rouge searched the crowd for the suitors who would lay with them tonight. Men in black and white clashed with girls of a thousand colors. The resulting riot of color was an artist's dream.

Steve reached for the tiny, leather bound sketchbook tucked in his breast pocket, his fingers clasping for the three colored pastels he kept with him always. Red. Yellow. Blue. The three colors that made the world. Before his fingers could reach them, he felt a hand grasp his shoulder, and another on his cheek. Searching blue eyes pulled from their surroundings, Steve's had come to rest on two expectant hazel ones, peeking up from mascara-dripping eyelashes. A closed-lip smile drenched in bright pink lipstick grew larger and larger as they drew closer to his lips.

Steve stepped back, catching the woman off guard, both stumbling out of the trance that had pulled them in. With a hand in his hair, he stuttered an apology to the woman, leaving her looking after him, an insulted grimace plastered on her face. Pushing past countless moving bodies, Steve finally found a secluded table to collect his thoughts. He knew for a fact that he was no good with dames. He only ever talked to them when Bucky had dragged him to bars and parties, and those conversations usually ended with him left alone on a couch, or at a corner, his sketchbook tucked in the crook of his arm, a pencil or pastel working away at the page. And moving to Paris had not stopped that cycle. Nor did Steve try to.

With a pastel in his hand, and eyes flitting back and forth from scene to page, Steve let his mind go, and his fingers with it. Swirling across the page, his hand worked furtively, each stroke, each purposeful detail capturing the larger than life party as it raged on into the night. His concentration wavered as his eyes came to rest on a smug Tony, sauntering towards him with none other than a bottle of whiskey in hand and an exposed collar, revealing faded red marks snaking its way down his neck, disappearing into the depths of his white-button up shirt.

"Is this a party or what?" Tony shouted in Steve's ear, making him wince a little, "You having fun?"

Out of courtesy, Steve nodded in reply, as he went back to his sketchbook. Feeling Tony's breath down his neck, Steve tilted the page away, strategically curving his arm around the leather bound book to Tony's dismay. Choosing instead to plop down across from Steve, Tony offered the bottle to the latter, with Steve gently refusing. With a shrug, Tony muttered a faint "suit yourself" before taking a swig of the golden liquid. Even though the liquor might enhance the colors around him, Steve knew the details would all blur together into a swirling frenzy so he decided against it.

The lights dimmed, hushing the crowd. Shifting his gaze from his sketchbook, Steve sought out the reason behind the change in lighting. And there, in the center of the floor, his eyes found her.

Wrapped in a white, beaded corset and a fringed skirt dangling from her hips, she demanded attention from all eyes present, her fiery red curls glowing in the spotlight trained on her and only her. A hypnotic violin tune echoed throughout the space, and with it, her body followed. Whirling around mesmerized forms, she pulls them in with a sway of her hips; the beckoning song of a siren.

"They call her 'The Black Widow'," He heard Tony whisper, as the tempo of the music picked up, "The star of the Moulin Rouge." Steve figured. By the looks of it, she had already trapped them all in her web. With each leap, each flip, each pirouette, Steve didn't know if it was his eyes deceiving him, but she was drawing nearer and nearer, the details on her face breaking the surface into clarity. Long-drawn eyelashes. Painted, blood red lips. Prominent, striking cheekbones. Lucid, green eyes.

Eyes, pointed straight at him.

And with a final pirouette, spinning faster and faster, she ended with a striking pose, her back arched, glove-fitted arms reaching to her sides. Her clear green eyes, right in front of him now, still trained on his blue ones.

The crowd erupted in deafening applause as she straightened up into a standing position, bowing twice as she blew kisses in every direction. There was a notable shift in the dance floor as eyes looked up at her expectantly.

"Ladies Choice," she declared with a clear voice that rang throughout the room. Tony perked up at this, much to Steve's confusion.

"That means she chooses her lover first," Tony says hurriedly, his eyes glued to the Black Widow, "then followed subsequently by the other girls."

Crossing his fingers, Tony leaned forward in his seat as she turned to face the table they sat at. Steve, with a pastel in his hand, leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, waiting expectantly for her to choose Tony for the night.

Lifting her hand gently, and with the signal of one elegant finger, she pointed out the lucky man.

And there he was, sitting there, with a pastel in his hand.

Hope you enjoyed what I got so far :) Reviews are highly appreciated. Update may come in a week or so.