Berlin.
It's a hot summer evening.
They've just finished up their mission, wiping out a Hydra cell hiding out in the disused tunnels of the underground rail. Dark storm clouds are hanging heavy in the overcast sky, threatening a summer storm.
"It is miserably hot," complains Natasha. She runs her hands through her hair, trying and failing to keep it from sticking to her scalp. "I don't want to go back to the safe house yet. It doesn't have air conditioning."
They're currently near the Tiergarten, a large public park, so Steve suggests they go there until it cools down after the sun sets.
"Maybe there's a fountain we can just lie in until it gets dark," he says.
His eyes are twinkling, but Natasha isn't entirely certain if he's joking. She's so hot she's entirely ready to take him up on it, whether he's serious or not.
Steve's super-soldier body is dealing better with the heat, but he feels sorry for his plagued partner. She looks so uncomfortable; he thinks if he so much as touched her with his slightly warmer hands, he would get his arm broken for his trouble.
On their way to the park, Natasha is constantly grumbling that it isn't fair that super-soldiers deal so well with the heat, that she is Russian and therefore acclimatized to the cold, and she has just started listing all the ways she could kill a man when they step into the cool shade of the huge old oak trees.
Natasha immediately relaxes and stops her homicidal mumbling.
"I'm sorry about this, Steve," she begins. "It was easier when I could concentrate on the mission. I just don't like the heat. Never have. I just need something else to focus on.
"How about ice cream?" Steve replies. He knows this is a rhetorical question. For someone so controlled, the spy has a sweet tooth the size of Alaska.
She nods enthusiastically, following him in the direction his enhanced hearing tells him the distinctive jingle is coming from.
They use some of their last remaining Euros to get huge ice cream cones, vanilla-lemon for Natasha and chocolate-strawberry for Steve.
They continue walking through the deepening twilight, slowly licking their ice creams, occasionally making remarks about the rabbits they see now that darkness is falling, about the birds calling from the tops of the trees, about the red squirrels scurrying across their path.
They finally do stop at a fountain, merrily gurgling in the gathering evening gloom.
Natasha sits down on its cool stone rim, finishing off the last of her ice cream. Steve stands opposite her, leaning down slightly to be closer to her eye level. Sitting on the waist-high parapet, she is considerably shorter than him. But then she always is.
If she were to be honest with herself, she would admit that she quite likes their height difference. It feels good; having someone three times her body mass put his life into her own, delicate, so much smaller hands. Not that she couldn't kill him with those small hands, but still. It's nice to be trusted completely by someone so competent, so good.
She has just finished her cone when he mumbles, "You have something...," pointing to her lips.
"Huh?" she hasn't really been paying attention, caught up in her musings about her partner. So it takes her completely by surprise when he kisses her. She freezes.
It's slightly awkward, their noses bumping, and their teeth clicking together. So he tilts her head back with his warm hand.
Frozen in surprise, her balance upset, she falls over backwards into the fountain.
Worried when she doesn't immediately resurface, Steve reaches into the cool water to take her hand and pull her out. And finds that she's already on her feet again, splashing him as she jumps up. He staggers back, sputtering, his hair hanging into his eyes now that she's drenched it.
"Hey Steve," she calls to him, "Come in! It's really nice and cool."
"You're just saying that so you're not the only one who has to walk back through the city wet." he replies.
She shakes herself like a dog, trying to get rid of the water dripping from her hair and clothes. Steve has to admit that the ...bouncing... that this causes does things to him.
He cautiously steps closer, and finds himself flipped into the fountain's basin with professional ease. He comes up sputtering, and once him ears are free from water he can hear her laughing from the other side of the fountain's central column.
"Wasn't I right?" she asks playfully, "This is refreshing!"
It's true, he thinks, he already feels less cranky than he has for days. But then, he also feels better because he's finally worked up the courage to kiss her. And she hadn't removed any of his appendages for taking that liberty with her! But then again, she hadn't exactly reacted either...
He shakes his hair out of his eyes and the cobwebs out of his head and charges at her, the water splashing about loudly.
Still laughing, she dodges out of his way lightly. Here in the water, her smaller frame is an advantage, allowing her to move faster, with much more elegance and less expenditure of energy. At the moment, Steve feels like a lumbering oaf compared with her dancer's grace.
They're both laughing now, dodging this way and that, becoming breathless, chasing each other around the fountain. They both feel childish, splashing around in public like this, but neither really cares, because they can feel the pressure of the past days and the oppressive heat lifting.
They finally come to a stop facing each other, Natasha holding on to Steve's shoulders to keep herself upright. There is a flash of lightning and a thunderclap, and suddenly the dark clouds overhead open up and the rain finally falls.
Steve stares at Natasha, taking in her red hair, almost black because it is so wet, her long lashes clumped together by the water, and her red, red lips.
Those red lips are coming closer. Natasha is standing up on her tiptoes, twisting her hands into Steve's hair and pulling him closer.
Their lips meet, softly, and this second attempt is not awkward. His mouth is soft against hers, and after a second of surprise and elation, he kisses her back ecstatically. She jumps up and locks her legs around his waist, his strong hands supporting her, so he doesn't have to bend down so much. She opens her mouth, exploring his with her tongue, pressing herself as close to him as possible. Their skin and clothes are wet, sliding against each other easily. She can feel him smiling into her mouth.
Steve and Natasha stand in the fountain, closely entwined, as the warm rain falls on them and on the city of Berlin.