Hey everyone sorry i havent updated in so long i have been trying to decide where to go with the story and i figured it cant be happily ever after just yet but don't worry cos i am no Moffat :P i hope you enjoy the chapter and please review so i have an idea for where to take the story from here.

CHAPTER 10

The smile fell from my face immediately on seeing them and Steve's brow furrowed in confusion and then he followed my line of sight and out of the corner of my eye it was like he changed into a completely different person, although then again so did I. What I didn't know was that if the different side of me was when I was in the field or with Steve. I was incredibly angry with myself, I had fallen too deep into the cover; I had forgotten who we were dealing with and I had allowed myself to stray into a security with Steve, and now I was dealing with the consequences, we were in the open with hardly any weapons apart from a knife I had strapped to my ankle and then I realised I had gotten so comfortable I had allowed myself to bring a knife to a gun fight. By this time the men had approached us and I could tell Steve had already figured out a way to escape and I had already calculated twelve different ways to kill them simply using their shoulder straps, but then Steve caught my eye and he flicked his eyes over to where there was a car with another man inside further away. Damn. That confirmed they were here to deliver a message, I had my suspicions and I really wanted to act on them, I hadn't realised that I hadn't been in a good fight with more than one man in a while and my skin was itching with adrenaline but I had to remain completely resigned.

"Good Morning, can we help you with something?" asked Steve putting on his American-dream smile as he stood up,

"Mr Gruber wishes that you both would accompany him to an event tonight, a car will pick you up at seven pm, if you do not attend Mr Gruber will see that as a forfeit of your enquires to his business, and he says to say where something nice." Was all the henchman said in a German accent before turning and walking off.

I slowly relaxed my muscles that had tensed and were buzzing in anticipation and then I realised that Steve had stood in front of me his arm slightly extended so I pinched him and he turned,

"Ouch," he said a smile replacing his serious expression, "What was that for?" he asked rubbing his arm,

"Steve Rodgers you were protecting me," I said accusingly, trying desperately to keep a straight face at his reaction to the pinch,

"I was not," he said in a childish tone, once he realised that he had protected the Black Widow,

"You did, I saw you. Captain America protecting Black Widow from a henchman," I said teasingly,

"I wouldn't do such a thing to you, I know that you had probably formulated twenty different ways to kill him before he finished relaying the invitation, he said with a mostly fake worried look. I simply smiled, biting my lip and slipped my arms around his neck,

"28 ways, just with his tie, before he reached the table," I said watching him pale and actually gulp before my defences broke and I smiled and kissed him.

"Now," I said breaking the kiss slightly breathless and trying not to show it, god that man had such an effect on me, "What are we going to where?" I asked coming down from my tip toes.

Two hours later and we were trying on clothes in dressing rooms across from each other in a store. I had already chosen the dress that I was going to wear and hadn't shown it to Steve, I was now helping him pick a suit. He finally emerged from the changing room fiddling with his bowtie,

"I can't seem to get this right for some reason, you sure they haven't changed the design for these things or something?" he asked looking at me with a lost expression. I pushed myself away from the wall I was leaning against and started to tie it for him,

"The design haven't really changed some of them just need to be tied with a bit more… fluidity" I finished and straightened the bowtie I had tied in mere seconds.

"Fair enough," said Steve looking at me in a way that made my skin crawl and then he stopped as immediately as he had started remembering we were in public even though there was no one around.

"So," he said turning to the mirror in front of us, "What do you think of this one?" he said standing tall and with perfect military posture. I didn't answer him at first just watching him and how although at times he tried to hide it from me he really was struggling to be with me at all and that hurt and the fact that it got to me angered me to no end.

"That's perfect," I said with absolutely no emotion. I didn't smile or grimace or do anything but I slipped back into my training and answered him. Steve smiled to himself and looked down at me and I plastered a smile on my face. I went inside the change room that I had been in and grabbed my dress before we left.

When we returned to the room we hung up out garment bags and I turned to Steve,

"I need to teach you how to dance don't I," I said more as a statement than a question. Steve turned to me and raised his hand to rub the back of his neck,

"Uh yeah," he said with a shy smile on his lips,

"Right then," I said still not smiling as I walked to the lounge area and pushed the couch back and he rushed forward to help,

"Let me get that," he said trying to be gentlemanly, but before he could touch it I said,

"I've got it," and put my foot on the cushions and extended my leg forcefully and the couch thudded against the wall, "Now," I said turning to face him and walked up to him and stood a little closer than was necessary to see his reaction which as I suspected was to step back and it just added fuel to the fire. I kept my temper in check though and put my hand in his,

"Now you put your hand on my waist," I said putting his hand a bit lower than necessary on my waist and he coped but he wasn't meant to be coping, I'd thought that after how he had been acting these past few days that he had started to come out of his shell a bit but it seemed like he had just slipped back into it since…since the gunmen had threatened them, which didn't make any sense, he knew she could have taken out all of them without breaking a sweat so why had he suddenly gotten so conservative? "And then I put my hand on your shoulder," I said and then I informed him on the steps, I let him focus for a moment and once he started to get the hang of it I decided that I had had enough,

"Steve why have you gotten so conservative all of a sudden?" I asked, not wanting to hold anything back, and then his head snapped up,

"What do you mean?" he asked confused as we continued to dance slowly,

"It's like since this morning you have become afraid to..overstep your bounds or something. It was like you didn't want me to touch you at the store today and you stepped away from me before," I said,

"Look Nat," he said deciding it was safer to come clean considering last time he had withheld information from me I had him pinned down and Tony was on the floor in fits of laughter, "It's not that I don't believe that you can't look after yourself but the fact that you have to understand is that you shouldn't I mean you shouldn't be in this position and it scares me that you are, you scare me," he finished and I tried to swallow what he had just said.

"So you are telling me that you don't want to touch me because I am a woman?" I asked confused,

"No," he said struggling to find words, "You shouldn't be in this position and neither should I, we shouldn't be here or be together but we are and I think that this morning kinda made me realise that you enjoy being here, you like having a…challenge, an opponent," he finished and then it hit me. He is afraid of me. Not for me, but of what I am capable of and that I enjoy what I do probably a little too much. The one thing that makes me who I am and he can't live with it.

"Right," was all I said in return and then I broke the slow dance and grabbed my keys and closed the door behind me gently as I left the hotel to go for a walk.

There you go that was Chapter 10, i really hoped you enjoyed reading it as much as i enjoy writing this fic. Anyway I thought that i had to venture into the fact that although Steve has no issue with strong women, Natasha really does like what she does and i figured that considering his background it worries him that she is so consumed by what she does and maybe he can help with it. Please, please review and chapter 11 will be up sooner than this chapter with the meeting with Mr Gruber!