Healing in the Moonlight

All characters belong to Marvel Comics

I own nothing.

The moonlight sliced through the glass panes of the spare bedroom windows, dim squares against the wall, it bathed over her ivory skin, and revealed hidden scars under faint lines of sweat. She almost lost herself in the shadows; all her thoughts became a cluster of dread pounding against her skull. She knew that unveiling her pain was a weakness. She was master at hiding her true emotions, putting on a mask, allowing people to see only what she wanted them to stare at. Now, the bruises littered her skin, the storm of fear, and the temptation jaded her. Desires sliced through the fabrics of her murky soul, cutting through the deep barriers. She refused to disarm herself for him.

She was close to him, sitting on the edge on the bed. Her grayish-green eyes focused on the ripples of the graven muscle of his thick chest. She kept her distance, barely moving and entrapped in her thoughts-her own pain. The night was silent around them, sounds of distant traffic wafted in the air. He was a captive in her gaze, chained to her desires as she wordlessly dared him to move closer to her. "How do you feel?" she asked her voice locked and harsh with exhaustion. "Do you even feel pain?"

His voice was low, "All the time." he answered with nonchalance gleaming in his crystal blue eyes. He lifted himself off the mattress, elbows dug into the satin sheets, and she became fixed on the definition of his board biceps. She imaged the warm blood flowing in his veins and pumping under those strong arms. She didn't want to reveal her fascination. Instead, Natasha threaded her fingers through her dampened scarlet curls, and tore her eyes away from him. Steve crawled over to her, his blue eyes locked over the black tank top barely covering her slightly freckled skin. "Nat, I'm guessing that you can't sleep?"

"It's kind of hard when everyone is out to kill you, Rogers." She gave him a ghost of smile, and she listened to him take a deep breath of disdain. "I'm not used being on the run with someone. Usually I do this alone. It's nice to have someone to watch your back." she admitted. probing her finger absently over the sheets. «Someone that you can trust with your life..." she swallowed, heart thudded against her rib cage, reminding her that she was alive because he lifted her up from the smoldering rubble, place her body against his shield, and carried her to safety. Other men would have left her to choke on blood, and watch her burn. Steve wasn't like demons she hid from, no, he was her guardian angel. She refused to say those words to him, because of her well-guarded nature. Narrowing her eyes to the trail of moonlight on the carpet, she rolled her lower lip against her teeth before speaking, "I'm not used to be saved, Rogers...I feel a little selfish. Not every girl gets rescued by Captain America."

Steve smirked a little, "Well, rescuing beautiful dames in distress is what kids from Brooklyn do..." he sealed his lips into a firm line, and became serious again."I don't need a thank you, Nat. You're my partner. I'd take a bullet for you any day, and that's the honest truth." He looked deeply into her alarmed green eyes with his steady, glistening blue eyes. There was a hint of stubble that brushed over his chin, and chiseled jaw line; she couldn't help but smirk at the rare sight of his maturity visible in the caress of moonlight. He kept on staring at her, the edge of his smooth lips slacked into a content smile, trying to fought his own concerns and show her that he cared, even though he had demons of his own to battle. "You okay?' he asked, emphatically.

She glared at him, indignant. "I'm fine. Just a few scrapes and bruising.' she shrugged. "Nothing to get all worried about, Rogers."

He raised one eyebrow, and regarded her with a hardened stare, searing deep into her skull "You're not a very a good lair, Natasha."

"And you're not a medic, Cap." she shot back.

'Hey," he returned, the word was long, and drawn breathless, reverent. He stiffened his lips, searching in the depth of emerald swirls with hints of blue of her eyes. "Can we just stop talking like we don't care about each other, and start telling the truth?"

'"Truth?' she questioned, her voice trailing away. "After the Hell we've been through...you want me to tell you how I feel?"

Steve closed his eyelids, sighting out a faint breath. "Just tell me if you're in pain? Do you need assistance with your wounds?'

Natasha shot her heated gaze at the door, looking at the brass knob, and confirming it was locked. She'd locked either unconsciously driven of a burden of desire, or impulse. She was alone with him, in Sam's secured house. She wore hardly anything on her body-she was almost naked. "I don't need your help." she spoke with defiance burning in her eyes. "I handle everything on my own." She shot up quickly on the balls of her feet, moved with reverent strides to the door, hand reached for the knob, and she began to twist her away to escape. She was unprepared for this. Her heart was beating faster, ramming into her rib cage, as his tall shadow drifted across the floor. Releasing a silent breath, she dared herself to turn around, as if her soul was beckoning him to invade her space, and mend her wounds with the heat of his muscular body. This was torture to her.

'Nat, you know you're not alone in this fight." Steve whispered, his words brushing over her heart. "We're partners. We look out for each other...that also means making sure that our wounds are taken care of, before we take another step onto the battlefield." He inched closer, and placed his hand gently on the bare skin of her back. "Talk to me, Natasha." he soothed, fingers stroking over the ridges of her tensed spine. "Tell me what you're feeling?' he whispered, lulling her to turn around to meet his blue eyes.

Tentatively, she lifted her hand up, and placed it over his knife-edged cheek. This was strange to her. She never unmasked herself to anyone before. Taking a deep breath, she mashed her teeth into her bottom lip, and then spoke. "I thought I could find redemption through SHIELD." she confessed, keeping her eyes leveled to the floor. "I thought my work meant something -now if feels like a piece was ripped out me. I feel cheated by the people I thought I could trust. Fury is a good man, but he also has many demons locked in a closet. Sometime the bad comes out of us, when our mistakes that we kept hidden become compromised by deception of trust in people."

Steve nodded silently, "The only person I ever trusted was Bucky. He was more than a friend to me, he was like a brother. When the Howling Commandos chased HYDRA across Europe, Bucky was never far, always watching in the shadows, and saving my life." He clenched his jaw, a grimace twisted over his face, and guilt sliced through his heart. "I failed to save his..."

'When I first started out, I spent a few weeks' data mining in Spain. I thought it was going to easy, gather the information and clear out. I made the wrong judgment call, got in deep and paid for it when a young ten year old girl, an innocent who entered the crossfire. She took every bullet from my gun, and I spent an hour trying to revive her. She was too far gone." Steve noticed tears glazing over her eyes. Natasha vainly wrenched herself away with his tender gaze. "After I placed my jacket over her body, I walked away, and I never looked back."

"I tried, Natasha." Steve reveled, his voice sounded broken by despair. 'I have nightmares. I see Bucky falling into the white abyss, and when I find him. He is frozen in ice. " He fastened his hands into fists, knuckles cracked when remorse simmered in his veins. «I can't break it...I can't free him."

"A part of you, wishes that you could go back, and save him?" she said, dissecting his emotions. "He must have been a good man..."

Steve shrugged the width of his shoulders, "Most of the time." he gave her a tight smile. "He was a good soldier, and a loyal friend. Buck, never wanted me to enlist. Sometimes I find myself asking why did I make the choice of becoming the test subject of Project Rebirth. I used to think that I could save everybody that I was the hero with no weakness, but after Bucky died I lost myself in the shadow of Captain America. I went to sleep, and the world moved on, old friends, and good men died after having a life after the war...and I stayed trapped in the past and my life froze." He whispered with more hurt laced in his aching voice. "Now, I see the world as a dark and scary place. Friends, and people you thought you could trust, turn out as your enemies when the truth slips out of the lie."

Natasha nodded somberly, "Loki was right about everything. » she gritted. »The manipulative trickster saw the deception when we didn't, Rogers. We've been working in the service of liars and killers. The guardian angels have always been the fallen ones working for the devil."

"You're right about that, Nat." Steve gave her a withering look, and she withdrew a step back. "What about Clint? Do you trust him?" He asked, looking down at her arrow pendent necklace. "Is Agent Barton in the same business as you are?"

"Barton is a good man. Yeah, he's rough on the edges, but he never betrays you on a mission." She flashed her eyes dangerously on him, and rubbed her fingers over her necklace. "Our relationship isn't for breaking emotion barriers. It's more for survival. It's always been that way." She responded with a fiery edge in her voice. "He is the only thing I have close to a brother."

"Brother?' Steve repeated, and his eyebrows shot up. "The necklace is..."

"A gift." She corrected his words. "Clint gave it to me as a birthday gift. It means nothing...if that's what you're thinking."

Steve sensed the waves of frustration clashing inside of her, "Sorry, I asked." he drew out a pained exhale.

Natasha pressed her lips together. "Stop infiltrating other people's business, Rogers." She grounded out a warning. "You may not like what you find." She spun around, and unlocked the door, but he placed his hand on the wood, and held it shut. "Steve, let me go." she snared under her breath, and felt her bones jostle was he twisted her around, and pulled her close, his arms locked at her sides. "I'm not running away from you, I wouldn't do that, Steve, you know I'd never bail from a mission. No matter what the cost will be."

"This isn't about the mission, Natasha,' Steve replied, firmly. He looked into her green eyes with transfixed stare, holding her under his power. "It's about you and me. If I can't trust you as a friend-then who do you want me to be for you?" he affirmed, his expression hardened once again, and Natasha knew she couldn't walk away from this. Not when they were both standing on the razor's edge, and marked as targets for operatives of SHIELD to apprehend, or even terminate. The sum of that outcome hung over their heads. They weren't prepared for this mission, and had been blinded by their judgment of people they trusted with their lives. Everything was now, balancing between order and chaos. Mostly, Natasha felt used, out played, and struck by a bullet of grief when she placed her hand on Fury's cold forehead. She'd gotten accustomed to feeling safe under the protection of SHIELD, her mortals were reborn, and life felt meaningful, instead of stolen by the Red demons. She wasn't alone; Steve was her partner-the prime victim of the unfolding terrors around them. She needed to give him a straight answer.

She paused in her thoughts, rubbing her lips together, as word probed over her tongue. "I want you to be real for me." she finally answered, tension hung thick between them. "No more lies between us. Just truth or whatever we can muster up that keeps us on a straight and narrow line, Rogers."

Natasha suddenly became in a captive in his indestructible, unyielding gaze, the moonlight reflected into his cobalt irises morphing the color of sea blue His perfect lips were a faint shade of rose; He had equine (stallion-like beauty), angelic, intense features, and mysterious allure in his eyes, and fire searing through the chiseled lines of his face. She tried to look for honestly in his eyes, instead found something that made her heart pound faster in her chest. She needed to break away from him.

"Steve, we need to find out what is going on better more people get killed in the progress-"

He leaned forward and sealed his lips for hers, ripping the away from her and plunged deep, savoring the taste of her like fine strawberry filled chocolate, his upper lip wrapped over her own lips, before rolling his tongue against hers. A moan slithered down her throat, and her hands lifted, and gripped his powerful shoulders, digging into the firm muscle. She breathed out heavy coattails of labored, muffled sounds of their lips suction growing fierce with unrestrained hunger. She wanted him to devour her, turn her skin raw, and make her bones become molten frames of iron under the layers of ivory flesh.

She kissed him with everything she had, sucking the air out of his lungs, until he was drained from temperate heat. Her eyelids folded close, as his tongue run over the roof of her mouth, mingled with it, and slid for further exploration. She gasped when he broke away from her, tilted his head, the wet heat searing out of his lips created trails over her pulsing jugular, he nipped lightly, and rolled his mouth over the blemished skin, applying soothing heat on her bruises. She felt the urge to offer herself to him; she wanted to feel his warm lips take away the sting of her scars. With on fluid motion, she coiled her sleek leg over his, tripped him, and listened to his powerful, tall frame hit floor as she fell down with him.

'Nat?' Steve winced, his lips puff, and moist. He looked at her, his deep blue eyes, darkened by desire welling inside of him.

She placed her hand fully over his mouth. Her face hovered over his, scarlet draped over his sweat-slacked chest. «I want you do something for me, Rogers."

"What?" he asked, his voice strained and heated. Natasha pulled her shirt up, revealing the scar on her pale abdomen. The pain never creased to leave her body.

"I want you to take the pain away," she replied, tears rolling down the sides of her face. She smirked a little straddled her thighs over his hips, and watched his bruised lips curve into a vacant smile. "That's an order solider."

Steve lifted himself up on his elbows, placed his large hands gently on her curves, and settled her down on the floor. He lowered his head down, staring at her muscles flex, and kissed her skin, lips trailed over the scar, pressing warmth tenderly. She relaxed, closed her eyes, and breathed deeply. He took the pain away with every kiss. She felt her wound heal under his moving lips. She felt whole again. "Is this helping?" he asked, brushing his hot mouth smoothly over her hip.

She nodded, and the moonlight crept the shadows from consuming them.