"And this one?"
He peers up from the valley of her breasts where his chin rests. His eyes meet hers pleading, asking to understand the scar he traces gently. His eyes are blurry from their post-coital doze; she had stirred awake when his large hands brushed against the abrasions on her skin, starting at the bullet wound on her ankle to the shrapnel scar behind her left year. She explains the origin of each one as he asks.
"Knife wound when I was 22."
He follows his pattern of placing a light kiss on the ugly wound. He almost seems to feel guilty for the pain she was in years ago while he was still an ice cube in the Atlantic Ocean. As he scans her naked form for more scars, not wanting to miss any, she catches his wrist to pull him up from mapping the rest of her body. She places a kiss on his lips before settling her head on his own bare chest, their legs automatically weaving together. She feels him sigh beneath her, his chest rising and falling dramatically. He answers her unspoken command to stop.
"I just don't like the thought of you in pain."
As much as Maria loves Steve, sometimes his need to take responsibility for everything frustrates her. She supposes that it probably comes with being a superhero, but that doesn't make it healthy.
"I'm a grown woman Steve. I am also part of a secret military service that often requires me to enter dangerous situations that you can't protect me in. I can look after myself."
She knows she is being harsh, but they can't afford for him to be working about her every time she is in a potentially harmful situation. They live in America after all, anyone on the street could have a gun in their purse - she knows she does. She feels him press a kiss to her hair before his starts to shift under her. Before they have to get up for work she mutters one last thing while under the safety of his sheets.
"I've done a good job of not getting myself killed so far."
He emits a throaty chuckle as he finally slips out of bed and saunters towards the bathroom, giving her a lovely view of his bare backside.
"So far. Are you going to join me?"
She does.
They are half an hour late to work.