"Natasha?"

She looked up from her book at the sound of rattling chains, one eyebrow delicately lifting when she saw the sheepish expression on his face. "Hi, Steve. Boxing today?"

"Huh? Oh!" He blushed and hefted the punching bag under his arm into the other. "Yeah. I was just putting my things away and...thinking of going for a ride, actually. Interested?"

Natasha took her time putting a marker in her book, setting it aside before turning her full attention to Steve. "I don't have a motorcycle," she told him, keeping her face neutral.

The blush deepened. "I-I know."

Natasha only shrugged and stood up. Steve wasn't all that sensitive, but he spooked easy when it came to women. Or maybe it was just her. Things hadn't exactly been spick-and-span between them for the past few weeks, not since he got carried away with himself and kissed her in the blind relief of her surviving Doom's attack. Natasha hadn't minded being kissed by Steve, to tell the honest truth, but pinned the surge of affection down to his fear for her life.

"Sure, it'll be fun. Just let me get my jacket."

If she didn't have a bike, Natasha had no such shortage when it came to leather jackets. She had one in black, one in brown, and a light cream that in a bright day could pass for white. They were all similar cuts: standard length and neatly tailored to her body. She chose the brown to match Steve, smirking to herself when she stepped out and saw the surprised delight dawn on his face. He held up the punching bag.

"I just gotta put this away before we go."

"Sure."

The training rooms were on the way to the garage. Natasha waited outside while he put his bag away, wondering why he'd taken it out of the gym in the first place, ignoring how long he was taking because he was probably checking his hair. With each passing moment this felt more like a date and she was perfectly comfortable enough with herself to classify it that way, even if Steve played it cool. When he emerged his hair was neat and gleamed with fresh oil; she hid a grin behind her teeth, or maybe it was a closer to the surface, because he surprised her and smiled sheepishly back. "Shall we?"

She nodded and followed his lead down to the garage. His motorcycle was an older model, but with modern modifications for better gas mileage that Tony added on himself. A black and a red helmet were each hanging from the handlebars.

No surprise, Steve passed her the red. "It's uh, it's usually for Pepper so she can ride with Tony," explained Steve. Natasha had never so much as heard Pepper talk about riding, but didn't put it past Stark to have a helmet custom-made for her anyway. She waited until Steve started the engine before climbing on behind him, hands unashamed at his waist, and then they were rumbling out of the garage into Manhattan.

Her hands told her that he was nervous about something, feeling the muscles tense and shift through the hide of his jacket. Traffic was hardly moving in the city proper, but he took the first exit out of downtown and soon they were roaring along. Natasha had forgotten how much she liked riding, feeling the engine hum below her while wind whipped at her hair (she didn't typically wear helmets), and she'd never ridden with anyone before. Or if she had she'd been the one driving.

Bustling avenues gave way to quiet suburbs and country roads, their bodies leaning around bends as one, and Natasha realized all at once that she was enjoying herself. There never seemed to be a good time to just go out and drive for no reason, always some mission or training demanding her attention that couldn't wait. Every time they turned she felt Steve's muscles shift beneath his shirt - when did her hands slide under the hem of his jacket? A smile curled her mouth and all at once she decided, to hell with it, and leaned into his back with arms snug around him and head on his shoulder. She could see his blushing smile, and one of his hands reached down to briefly cover hers.

That small gesture, the swift warmth of his hand on hers, battle-scarred yet without as many callouses as some she knew, sent her reeling. To cover for it, Natasha bonked her helmet into his and felt his laugh rumble through her like the engine's roar.

They came to a gentle stop in a park at the top of a hill, but Natasha didn't climb off until Steve reached back and patted her leg. She shook out her hair and felt a curl stick to her cheek under one eye. When Steve pulled a paper grocery sack from one of the saddlebags, Natasha didn't bother hiding a smile. "Are we having a picnic, Cap?" she asked teasingly.

Steve grinned and showed her what he brought: chicken salad sandwiches and cheap wine, and an aged leather-bound journal snug at the bottom. "It's not much, but I wasn't sure if we'd be back in time for lunch," he reasoned and she nodded. They sprawled in the grass beside a play-park to watch the kids skin their knees, Natasha stretched out on her stomach with a Dixie cup of wine that tasted like vaguely alcoholic Kool-Aid.

"Kids are great," Steve conversationally said after the epic ten-minute saga of Joey stealing Marissa's crayons, and Marissa plotting revenge with her friends Kristy and Mike by pouring gravel down his pants.

Momentarily distracted, watching a gaggle of toddlers fresh from ballet class pour from the back of a minivan, Natasha only hummed back.

"I guess you and Nikolai didn't have the time to think about that kinda stuff, did you?"

"Oh, we found time."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Natasha nodded, swirling dregs of wine in the bottom of her cup. The space under her heart felt empty with the conversation change. "Whenever there was a lull we were talking about it, where we would raise our babies - he wanted to move in with his parents, of course, but I wanted to get away and go to...well, to New York, actually."

Steve's eyebrows shot up as he leaned back on his hands to look at her. "New York, huh?" he asked.

She allowed another smile that curled like a wilted flower on her face, watching the little ballerinas play in the dirt and pick clumps of grass between their chubby fingers. "Yeah, see, I met this guy from Brooklyn in a Polish bar at the edge of the world," she replied, quietly adoring every second of watching the beaming smile brighten up Steve's features. "Even though I spent my whole life being told that America was the enemy, this guy...he made it seem like it might not be half-bad."

"Even after he pissed you off so bad, trying to save the enemy soldiers' dog tags?" he remarked, and the day's light seemed to come directly from him rather than shine down from the sky.

Her first reaction was to huff a laugh and shake her head, but as that night came yawning back to her through the years her expression softened, and Steve's did too watching. "I was so angry back then," she said, carefully measuring each word on her tongue, testing their weight, wondering how Steve managed to get so much out of her so easy. With Clint it was a constant war of knowing what was safe and what was comfortable to reveal. "I was trying to find my father - stepfather, actually. He went MIA and I escaped the night they told me. I didn't find him, but we were together again when it mattered. There was a bomb, he was dying and I found him, and the Red Room found us. They made an offer I couldn't refuse, not if I wanted him to live. It's how I got the serum. Him too. Still...gone, now."

Steve's hand was a warm weight on the back of her knee. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," he offered.

"I know." A smile touched her lips. Usually when people said, You don't have to talk about it, it meant, I don't want to hear about it. But Steve wasn't any person. He was Steve.

They finished their meal in the park's relative quiet - relative because of all the screaming and hollering coming from the play-park - and when Natasha thought it was time to go Steve pulled the journal from the paper bag. "Hey, uh. I wanted to show you something," he said, gesturing with the book. "I went to visit...to visit Peggy a few days ago, and she gave me this. Still can't believe she kept it all these years, honestly, but... May I?"

Curiosity instantly dug a hole right through her, but a part of her almost didn't want to nod. Two of Steve's worlds - the worlds before and after the ice - were colliding in this modern little park and his old sad book. She wasn't entirely certain what world of his she belonged to anymore, if she earned the right to know his secrets from that time of his life when everything made sense. Still, Natasha nodded, turning onto her side to get a better look at him with her head propped on one hand. Sunlight reflecting off the leaves above them made the shadows they cast turn green and dappled on his fresh-oiled hair.

Clearing his throat, Steve leafed through to the page he had in mind. "October 28th, 1943, somewhere on the Polish-East Prussian border..."

"Steve," she blurted out, eyes widening when she recognized the date, grinning to hide how her cheeks burned with surprise. "Did you write about me in your diary?"

"It's a journal."

"You wrote about me in your very manly journal."

"Maybe! But you won't know if you don't shut your yap, will you?" laughed Steve, readjusting a strand of hair that was blown astray. Stifling her grin, Natasha went silent and he continued.

"October 28th, 1943, somewhere on the Polish-East Prussian border: Happened on an inn while marching, decided to give the boys a treat. It's been days of wilderness and they earned it, but I met the most unusual girl there."

He paused to shoot her a mischievous smile over the top of the book. It felt the the skin over her face was stretched too thin she was smiling so widely.

"She said she was a soldier. Fought like a soldier, but none I've ever met. More finesse, less thought, like she'd been doing it all her life. I was amazed. Natalia couldn't have been older than 14 - Natasha, how old were you then?" he stopped again to ask.

Considering it for a moment, embarrassed that she might have to tell him she didn't know her birthday, Natasha replied, "Fourteen, nearly fifteen."

He took it as it was without question, and continued reading. "Boy in the bar seemed keen on her. They left together after a scrap with the Russian army. Still not sure why Natalia threw their tags, but I couldn't argue. Very spirited. She's too young for all this. We all are. I wish...I wish there was something I could do to help her."

"Bullshit."

Color exploded across Steve's features, but Natasha reached for the book. "You didn't really write that," her mouth said without her permission, but when she skimmed the journal entry it was all right there. With a picture, a messy sketch in uncertain lines of herself as a young teenager, clutching a rifle, looking over her shoulder, hunted but still fighting. She looked beautiful, even in such faint shades.

A part of her loved that graceless child of lifetimes ago. A frightened girl forced from the awkwardness of teenage years and shoved into adulthood before she knew all of childhood's secrets. For a moment she ceased defiantly screaming into the chasm carved between her ribs, put down her weary sword, cradling Steve Rogers' heart in her hands instead. It was almost achingly intimate, seeing the way he saw her that night.

I wish there was something I could do to help her.

"How many are left of the Howling Commandos?" she asked as they climbed back onto the bike.

Steve softly sighed, and his whole face suddenly seemed to match his true age. "Just me. I'm all that's left," he replied, and kicked the bike to life before she could say that she was familiar with the feeling.

The ride home was quiet, but that was alright. Natasha didn't need noise to soothe her, didn't need to chat to know her partner was still there. It was when the elevator stopped on her floor and Steve still hadn't said anything that she finally broke the silence, leaning in the door so they wouldn't automatically close, planting a crooked smile on her face like a lilac bush. "So, Steve..." she began, her very tone making him blush.

"Yes?"

She turned her head just enough to side-eye him and ask, "Are we courting or what?"

"What? Well, I mean, I - that is, I wouldn't be...unless you wanted-! But if you don't that's...um," he stammered, tugging on his collar, and Natasha laughed.

"And here I was getting my hopes up for a kiss," she teased him, wondering if she was toeing some invisible line, if jumping this barrier was going to be better or worse for them in the long run, if she even meant a single word coming out of her own mouth.

Only one way to find out.

When Steve continued to try working out whether she was serious, slender fingers curled around his collar, over his own bigger ones, and tugged him to the elevator doors. The big lug was nearly a foot taller than her so she was almost en pointe when she pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth - pressing her luck, perhaps, but Natasha Romanoff was not a woman to pass up a good risk if it excited her enough. She kissed him because she wanted to, and she kissed him because he made her feel like she wasn't lonely anymore, and she kissed him because when a man had lips like those it would be a sin to never kiss them with lips like hers. Steve's other hand settled a heavy weight on her waist, an anchor, a shadow from her history howling into the void, and turned his head just enough to purposefully brush his carefully pursed lips against hers.

"I, uh..." he grinned when they pulled apart only a moment later, and she knew that if gentlemen still carried hats he'd be wringing one between his hands. "I'll be more clear next time, if it's a date. When it's a date. Promise. See, uh - see you at dinner?"

Natasha nodded, hiding the way her heart felt fit to jump right out of her chest with a serene smile. "See you there." Their little joke-that-wasn't. She wished it were funnier. The elevator doors started to close but she stopped them, suddenly remembering something. "You wrote that diary entry on the 28th of October," she stated. "The day after we met."

He nodded, curling an embarrassed smile.

"Today's October the 27th."

"So it is."

Heat rushed up her face and her lips stretched so wide she thought they might split. "It's our anniversary," she said, only half-joking, and dove back into the elevator car to slip her arms around his waist and kiss him again. She had been wrong before, looking at the sketch of Natalia in Steve's journal; she wasn't looking over her shoulder like a hunted animal. She was just waiting for some big dumbo from Brooklyn to catch her up.