A/N: I'm going to try to start picking up speed here, so this might be skipping a lot of weeks at a time.

Thank you all for reading and reviewing though! :)


He remembered them one day by accident.

Trying to find where he put his cologne, he dug through all his drawers at his home. As he flung open his side table drawer, he froze. Slowly and carefully, he picked up the papers, surveying them. Flipping through them, he guessed there were at least twenty.

Somehow they were all different. She wore a different expression, did different things. He had captured her in familiar positions, captured her doing things he had never seen her do before. Looking back at his own drawings didn't seem right; it was more like he was looking into something he shouldn't have been doing before and feeling guilty.

But something was gnawing on the back of his mind; just a simple thought. It stayed on his mind for a few minutes.

Then he was out the door.


He was hesitant, that was for sure. There had only been one occasion where he had been to Natasha's apartment, and that was about a week ago when she had asked him to help move some stuff around since she was redecorating.

When she had asked, he was a bit too quick to say yes, but she seemed not to notice. She had a very nice living space; her apartment seemed very chic. It really matched her suaveness. He was probably there longer than he should have been, considering when he got there it was eleven and when he left it was five and the work should have only taken them about two hours.

The rest of the time seemed to be taken up by conversations about silly things such as pet peeves and how annoying Tony Stark was and the lights of New York and how egotistical Tony Stark was and SHIELD and that Tony Stark.

He had enjoyed himself a lot, actually. It was nice after their date three weeks previous. It was almost like a second date in itself.

Steve was standing in front of her apartment door, hand curled up in the fist, hanging a few inches away from her door. He didn't want to interfere with anything, and he wondered whether or not his question was too silly; finally, he knocked, and she answered almost immediately.

"Oh, hi Steve. What are you doing here?" She opened the door more and leaned against it, her arms crossed and eyes inquisitive.

"Um…." He scratched the back of his head. "Would you mind if I drew you?"

She tilted her head. "Drew me?"

"Yeah. I, uh, like to draw but I don't know what to draw and, um, I thought maybe thought drawing somebody I knew was good practice…."

She stared at him for a few seconds until a small smile spread on her lips. "Come on in," she told him.


It was silent in the apartment as Natasha looked over his picture. He couldn't read her expression; she just ran her fingers over it. "Steve…." Her voice was quiet.

"I'm a little rusty—"

"It's… beautiful." She looked up at him. "Too beautiful."

"Not exactly."

"What do you mean? This is amazing."

Steve paused for a moment. "I couldn't capture everything."

"And what do you mean by that?"

He hesitated. "This might sound a bit… strange, I guess, but I've been trying to capture you. You're so intriguing. I've been drawing and drawing and drawing but never able to get you right. There are so many parts too you—your personality, your voice, your thoughts, your movements—that I will never be able to pin down because it's just a drawing. But even then I can't get it down in real life. You're an enigma."

Natasha didn't say anything at first. Then he felt her lips on his cheek. "Thanks, Steve." She smiled at him.

Steve's heart beat quicker as he noticed how close they were and how intimate the moment seemed. Panicking, he blurted, "I've never heard your laugh."

She froze, making him regret what he said. Was that too much?

"I guess there's just not much to laugh about." She gave a sad smile.

"We'll have to fix that then."

Nodding, she answered, "Indeed."

They sat silently, overlooking his picture. She was sitting sideways, her legs crossed and hair cascading in beautiful curls around her face. Her body was posed in a way that was hard to describe; like a vague, yet compelling position. Her lips were parted slightly, her eyebrows raised, her eyes sparkling with some thought that was hidden to the rest that were observing.

The picture blew Natasha away, when in all honesty, the fact that that was only a portion of what Steve could capture blew him away. She just couldn't understand how exactly he felt about her; how he wished he could decipher the essence of Natasha Romanoff.

But he was just an artist.

"Did you say you have more pictures of me?"

Steve was jerked back into reality. He looked over at her and started blushing profusely. "You seemed like the best subject."

"I'm not creeped out or anything, don't worry."

"I just need to stop worrying, don't I?"

"It's always helped me." She smiled.

Silence overtook them again as some glance passed between them. It was an indescribable look, but whatever it was it made a tingle go up Steve's spine. She was looking so nice then, her beauty simply overtaking him, and he just wanted too hold her close and—

"I think I'll be going now," Steve said, standing up and heading to the door.

She followed him. "Hey, Steve, before you leave, I just wanted to ask if you would like to go somewhere with me Saturday?"

He grinned. "I would love too."