Chapter Three

The party was drawing to a close at well past 1am; Clint had crashed out on a chair, as too had Bruce but on one of the sofas. Pepper was just dragging Tony to bed; he was very drunk and was barely able to walk, whilst Sam and Darcy were still having lots of fun as they were dancing together, both very drunk too. Jane and Thor were both still remarkably sober, which was an achievement for Thor who had had eleven glasses of champagne. They were both dancing near Darcy and Sam, and Thor was being rather clumsy and kept stepping on Jane's feet. Something Jane hoped would change before their first dance at their wedding.

Steve changed the music to a slower number, a song that wouldn't be out of place in the early twentieth century. He approved much more of it compared to watching Darcy, Tony and Sam teaching Gangnam Style to Thor, an image he wouldn't be able to erase from his mind any time soon.

Groans of complaint at the music change came from the two youngest party members, who in turn downed the remainders of their champagne and started to slow dance like Thor and Jane. Although the newly engaged lovebirds were slow dancing much more romantically and kept stealing a few kisses every now and again, whereas Darcy and Sam were laughing most of the time, too drunk to recognise the intimacy of the slow song.

Natasha was sat on one of the sofas, also quite drunk, but not near enough as Darcy and Sam, the former of which had just fallen down and her dance partner had just picked her back up off the floor. Steve approached the Black Widow and held his hand out.

"Want to dance with an old man to an old song?"

Natasha chuckled and took his outstretched hand and began to slow dance with Steve. Neither of them felt uncomfortable, if anything they were enjoying it all too much.

"You're a good dancer" Steve remarked quietly to his dance partner.

"Thanks, I am Russian after all" Natasha grinned "You're not so bad yourself. I won't tell the women of America that their darling Captain America is a good dancer, or they'll be flocking around you even more than they do already."

"Maybe that won't be such a bad thing."

Natasha looked quite surprised and Cap chuckled "Well you're the one who keeps trying to find me a date!"

"Oh so now you're not too busy to date someone?"

"I don't know what I want any more" Steve sighed and hugged Natasha to him a little tighter, as they continued to sway to the music "But for now, I'm at peace. There's no other person I'd rather be dancing with right now."

Natasha was surprised to hear this coming from Steve, and even though she wouldn't admit it out loud, she was very content in Steve's arms and was more than happy to be dancing with him.

A few seconds later, Steve whispered something to Natasha which took her aback, and brought her out of her dream like state.

"You're very beautiful."

Natasha smiled to herself and moved slightly to look into Steve's eyes "You've drunk too much champagne."

"No I haven't. Remember, super soldier, I can't get drunk."

Natasha grinned shyly "I thought we weren't doing sentimental."

"I never agreed to that" Steve smiled honestly "And I never will."

Natasha smiled and reached up and kissed Steve on the lips ever so briefly, before resting her head in the crook of his neck.

"Thank-you" she said, softly.

Steve felt slightly stunned that Natasha had kissed him, but he managed to reply to her whilst feeling a lot bolder than usual.

"I'll compliment you more if it means I get another kiss."

Natasha laughed and moved again to face Steve "Is Captain America flirting?"

"Well I'm only reacting to getting a kiss from the Black Widow, and not an undercover one at that."

He'd got her stumped, Natasha quickly thought up something seconds later "Well savour that, because it's a very rare occurrence. Only saved for very special people."

"So I'm special am I?" Steve said semi playfully, semi seriously.

Natasha whispered in his ear "You already know the answer to that" and kissed his cheek, before returning to resting her head in the crook of his neck again, knowing full well she had fallen hook line and sinker for Captain America, and there was no way of stopping it now.

Steve was now feeling utterly confused and also somewhat hopeful, but he had a niggling feeling in the back of his mind that the alcohol may well have clouded Natasha's thoughts, feelings and judgements, so Steve tried to bury these last few moments in the back of his head and would revisit them when Natasha was sober again. For the moment he was content in the knowledge that Natasha was happy, and that their relationship was on the verge of potential new changes, and so Steve kissed the top of Natasha's head and they continued to sway to the music.

...

Two songs later and Thor and Jane had now retreated to bed, and Darcy and Sam had snuck off with a bottle of champagne, laughing and stumbling away as they did so, which was an amusing sight for the last two party guests to observe.

Natasha was now extremely sleepy and Steve wasn't far off himself, they decided to stop dancing and turned the music off, Steve questioning if they should wake Bruce and Clint.

"Well I'll give you two reasons why that isn't a good idea. Number one, Bruce is the Hulk, enough said." Natasha pointed out "And number two, Clint can shoot a moving target in his sleep if he feels threatened or is awoken suddenly, I've seen him."

"Yeah maybe not such a good idea then" Steve admitted, before he saw Natasha tripping over her own feet as she could barely walk in a straight line from being drunk. Steve couldn't help but emit a small burst of laughter as he watched her struggling.

"Hey, don't laugh at me...or I'll demote you to not my favourite friend any more."

"What?" Steve laughed.

"I'll put Stark before you!"

Steve gasped, as he played along "You wouldn't dare!"

"Oh yes I would!"

"No, not a chance! Come on, off to bed with you, you're too drunk to think correctly" He walked the few strides separating them and picked her up in his arms, bridal style.

"Steve for god's sake put me down!" Natasha burst into laughter, which in turn made Steve laugh too.

"There's not a chance in hell you remember what room you're in, let alone what level the room is on?"

"Wrong, Level 17" Natasha told him, triumphantly.

"23" Steve corrected her and Natasha gave an "Oh" in response before placing her head in the crook of Steve's neck.

"Come on then, let's go" Steve said as he headed into the lift with Natasha still in his arms.

By the time they reached Level 23 and found Natasha's room, she was fast asleep in Steve's arms, clutching on to his shirt. He prized Natasha's hands away and laid her in the bed, and took her shoes off for her, before tucking the duvet around her and kissed her head "Goodnight Nat."

...

The next morning Pepper was the first to awaken, Tony was snoring beside her and she got up showered and dressed and headed into the kitchen. She started brewing some coffee when Steve walked in, looking bright eyed and bushy tailed.

"Morning Pepper" Steve greeted, noticing that Clint and Bruce must be awake too as they weren't in the room where they had crashed last night.

"Oh, good morning Steve. How did you sleep?"

"Yeah very well. Didn't get to bed till about 2am."

"Was there anyone else still awake, or had everyone gone to bed by then?" Pepper asked.

"Natasha and I were the last to bed; we went not long after Darcy and Sam."

"I have a feeling there will be a fair few hangovers this morning, I've already seen Clint and Bruce and they're both hungover" Pepper grinned, the very thought brought a chuckle to her throat. "So, do you want some coffee?"

"No thanks, I'm just going to go for a quick run, I normally meet Sam when I'm running but I don't think he'll be in a state for that."

"I very much doubt that too, Steve" Pepper smiled "If you need a running buddy I'll go and wake Tony for you?"

Steve laughed "No thanks, I'll be alright on my own. I won't be long; I'll be back in time for breakfast."

"Alright, see you in a bit."

Steve ran around the cold, but sunny, Central Park for a while; collecting his thoughts about the party last night and on Natasha in particular, their little moment still playing in his mind, even though he tried not to think about it. Steve headed back within the hour, he would have run further but he was a little more tired than normal after the late night.

By the time Steve returned to the building it was gone 9am and when he walked into the kitchen area, Thor and Jane were awake as were Natasha, Clint and Bruce.

"Ah there he is!" Clint smiled "Morning bud."

"Morning, how are you guys?"

There were moans and a couple of 'okay' replies thrown in. Steve grinned and smiled even further when he saw that Pepper was starting to serve breakfast, so he sat at the table with the others.

About ten minutes later Sam wandered in to the kitchen, looking dishevelled.

"The Falcon awakens!" Clint teased.

"Coffee. Where's coffee?" Sam groaned, as he sat beside Jane at the table.

"Here" she passed him some, as well as some paracetamol "That'll take the edge off."

"Cheers" Sam downed the medication and turned to Steve who was sat on his other side "How bad was I?"

"Bad" Steve, Natasha, Thor, Jane and Pepper announced.

"Oh god!" Sam groaned "I don't want to know."

"Do the words: tequila, Glee, dancing and underwear ring any bells?" Natasha laughed.

The look of horror on Sam's face made the entire room burst into laughter, which in turn made the next hungover party guest to enter the room, groan in annoyance.

"The loudness! Why are you all so happy this early on a Sunday?"

"Good morning Darcy" Thor smiled, cheerily.

"Is it?" Darcy moaned and sat across from Steve "Do us a favour Spangles, pass the meds?"

Steve chuckled "You shouldn't get in such a state, Darcy. No good for your liver."

"Too early for lectures, Spangles" she downed her medication with some water that Steve also poured out for her.

"Coffee?" Darcy asked "Please tell me there's coffee, or I'm going to murder someone."

Natasha chuckled "Here, have this one it's freshly made."

"Cheers Widow" she then did a double take as she looked back at Natasha "I remember...last night...you and Capsicle, rather cute I must say."

"What's this about?" Jane asked.

"Nothing really, just Cap and Widow kissed" Darcy said, before she bit into some toast.

There were gasps and they all shot a look at Natasha and Steve, who were sat almost across from each other.

"Did you?!" Sam questioned, almost hopeful in his tone.

"Did we?" Natasha asked, looking directly at Steve, perplexed.

"You don't remember?" Steve didn't sound all that surprised, he knew how drunk she had been, so was unlikely to have remembered it.

"No" Natasha actually looked guilty "We kissed?"

"Yeah" Steve was feeling a bit uncomfortable talking to Natasha about this with everyone gawking at them. "But it's okay, it didn't mean anything I know that. All just a little drunk that's all. Don't worry about it, Nat."

Natasha just nodded her head as she stirred her cereal bowl.

Silence fell upon the room for a moment, before it was interrupted by Tony, who was the last person to finally wake up. "Morning everyone."

There was a union of "Morning" from the group, Stark sat down at the table next to Thor and looked perplexed at everyone being so quiet.

He grabbed some blueberry pancakes "What's happening guys?"

"Nothing much, we're all just still recovering from last night" Bruce told Stark, who was sat on his other side.

"Was such a good party, thanks for organising it Pepper" Tony smiled across to the woman in question who beamed back at him.

The remainder of breakfast, or brunch as was the case for a few of them, went rather swimmingly with everyone talking amongst themselves and the slightly awkward conversation about the kiss had been forgotten about, apart from Steve and Natasha that is.

Following breakfast, Steve was being a gentleman and helping Jane and Pepper clean up the living area, whilst Tony and Bruce went to the lab. Natasha and Clint went to the training room, as did Thor. Darcy tagged along just to watch them work out and Sam popped his head in to see what was happening.

Natasha was now angrily beating up the punch bag and almost hit Clint as he came to stop her.

"Whoa, Tasha stop a second. What's with you?"

"I'm fine."

Darcy interrupted from across the room "If that's fine, I hate to think what angry Black Widow looks like."

"Not helping Darcy" Clint told her before turning to his team mate again. "It's Steve isn't it?"

"I don't get that drunk that I don't remember kissing someone."

"Well it wasn't a big deal" Darcy interrupted.

Natasha frowned at her "What do you mean?"

"It was just a peck on the lips, nothing more. Here look I'll demonstrate" she grabbed Sam by his shirt and gave him the briefest peck on the lips and turned back to the Widow "See, just like that. You don't remember it because it was barely anything to remember."

Sam smiled as he turned to Darcy "Feel free to use me as a kissing demonstration any time."

Darcy just rolled her eyes, whilst Natasha felt a lot better. She just hoped the plane ride home with Steve would be okay.

A few hours later they were on their way back to Washington, having said a quick goodbye to everyone and thanking Pepper for organising a good party. They discussed every aspect of the party, apart from the end of the night, which they both actively avoided. The plane ride back was made a lot easier as Sam was joining them so he could head back to his place.

When they both arrived back at Steve's apartment, Natasha was glad to see her Corvette was still in one piece. And Steve was pleased just to be home.

"So, want a drink? Wine maybe?" Natasha wondered, opening the fridge as she asked the question.

"Sure, sounds good" Steve took the bottle of red from her and poured some into two glasses and handed one to Natasha. "Where do you think you'll head off to next?"

"Trying to get rid of me are you, Spangles?"

Steve groaned "Oh god, I was hoping that hadn't caught on."

"I'm sorry, I'll stop" Natasha's grin left her face as she contemplated the idea "I'm not sure where I'll go. I may stick around for another day or so till I know what my plan is."

"Fine by me. Could use the company, kind of got used to it these last few days and I rather enjoy having people about."

"Be careful Steve, you may end up at the Avengers Tower before long."

"Maybe it's not so bad after all; they're all good guys even if Stark is a bit of an idiot sometimes."

"I'll second that" Natasha grinned as she drunk her wine "It's been a fun weekend though, not had one like that in a long time."

"Me neither. Especially with what we've been through recently, we needed that time to let our hair down a bit."

"Not that I let mine down, it was tied up high" Natasha joked.

Steve grinned "You looked beautiful; I loved your hair like that."

Natasha got a huge sense of de ja vu at the word beautiful, and then instantly that moment of the dance and the kiss came flooding back to her, Steve could sense something by her facial expression.

"Natasha?"

"I kissed you."

Steve nodded with a slight frown "Yes."

"I remember it now, we were dancing and I kissed you."

"Yeah, you were drunk though."

"Still did it though" Natasha said as a matter of fact "I wish I hadn't drunk as much as I did, I would remember it all clearly then."

"Well if you had listened to me after your third glass, then you may well have done. Should've listened to the old man" Steve told her with half a smile on his face.

"Older does not always mean wiser you know" Natasha teased.

Steve smirked "Well in this case it really does."

Natasha chuckled before swiftly putting her wine down, she got up and went to Steve's CD Player and pressed play, the CD happened to be a Sinatra one. Natasha turned to Steve and held her hand out "Dance with me."

Steve laughed "What?"

"Come on, it would be nice to dance with you when I'm aware of everything that's going on."

"That's no way to charm a guy into dancing with you, you know" he teased.

Natasha laughed "I don't know if you'd be able to handle my Black Widow charms, Rogers."

"That a challenge, Romanoff?" Steve eyed her, with a glint in his eye.

"If you want it to be" Natasha said playfully back, hand still outstretched towards him.

Steve admitted defeat and got up, putting one arm around her waist and held her one hand and brought it close to his chest. Whilst Natasha wrapped her arm around his back and leant into his chest. They remained that way for a couple of songs, just enjoying the music and Natasha could hear Steve's heart beating.

"I wish we could stay like this for the rest of the night" Natasha commented, quietly.

"No arguments from me" Steve added and kissed the top of her head.

At the next song change, Natasha moved to link her arms around Steve's neck, and he in turn put his arms around her. Natasha then said, softly, looking into his eyes "What are we doing?"

"Dancing" Steve said seriously, but knew what was coming.

Natasha smiled slightly "You know what I mean."

"Natasha..."

"Yeah?" she said, softly.

"I want to try something, but I don't want you to pull a Black Widow killer move out on me if you don't like it."

"I won't, I trust you" Natasha admitted, seriously.

Then Steve leant down and kissed her, ever so gently and within seconds he knew that he wasn't going to get beaten up by the Black Widow as she kissed him back, and they deepened the kiss. So much so that Steve picked her up mid kiss and they continued to kiss on the sofa.

"Nat wait" Steve reluctantly pulled away for a moment "Do you want this?"

Natasha was smiling "Yeah, as long as you do."

"How could I not?" Steve grinned and they kissed again.

...

Thanks for reading!