Steve strolls into the gym where the cadets close combat training session is underway. He's fired off a few hundred rounds from his new .45 and his hands have a familiar ache from the repeated kick. The gun is a marvel, smooth and fun to shoot.
Natasha is in full Black Widow persona, aloof and icy calm. She's stripped down to form fitting shorts and a sports bra top, with pads on her knees and elbows, sports tape wraps around her wrists, her palms and her bare feet. She's colour coordinated it all, of course, so it's all black with blood red piping on the edges. Her hair is back in a complex plait. She positively drips a powerful sexual tension, every line of her body and sweet swell of her curves enchanting. Steve pauses, he's getting distracted. That's why she does it, of course. Sexuality is a weapon in her hands, she's messing with basic limbic function. Still, she's pleasing to the eye.
She's standing in the middle of the mats, addressing a class of cadets in Avengers vests and sweatpants. He looks them over; calling them cadets is a misnomer as they're all experienced members of the military or intelligence communities, looking to join the Avengers as field agents and support staff, the non-powered people that make the whole system run smoothly. They're the intelligence gathering agents, the soldiers that guard the Avengers from the mundane threats so they can deal with the extraordinary.
As such, many have heard of the Black Widow – some are scared, some impressed, others guarded or sceptical. Some clearly just see an attractive woman telling them what to do, they'll need educating or cutting from the class early on.
"The aim of this exercise is to evade multiple opponents. You don't need to win each fight, just get past your opponents to get to the flag there. You need to do this without sustaining an incapacitating injury."
She turns to three apprehensive looking volunteers, who are wearing vests and pads and carrying training weapons – two have shock batons and the other a pistol in a holster.
She picks up a prop newspaper. "Today I'll show you how to use the involuntary flinch response"
She nods at the three "Come at me, as if you were trying to take down someone who was a known threat. Go."
The three rush her, two swinging their batons while the other tries to draw the pistol.
In a blur of motion she tosses the newspaper up and out in a flurry of pages as she ducks low, tripping one and dodging the other, tapping their vests as she passes, pushing the gun away as it comes up from the draw, tapping the cadets vest as she rolls them over her hip in a throw that leaves them flat on their back.
She steps to the flag, touches it and looks back at the three cadets, all flat on their backs with flashing 'dead' markers on their training vests
"So, any suggestions about what they did wrong?"
The cadets look uneasy but no one has an answer.
From the back of the room Steve says "taking on the Black Widow in close combat?"
Everyone turns and looks at him
Natasha raises an eyebrow and beckons him onto the practise mat "Care to elaborate?"
"Well, the two with batons could have protected the one with the gun while they drew, that way they could maybe have got a shot off. Even if they don't hit the noise alerts the rest of the team that they made contact."
"Not bad. The key with teamwork is practise, practise, practise. Talking of which" She grins at him " Fancy a quick warm up?"
He nods "sure, usual rules?"
She nods.
As he unstraps him armour and takes his time taking off his boots he can hear the distant beep of phones, the running of feet elsewhere in the building. The viewing gallery is already getting more and more crowded. The gathering crowd all are whispering the same thing "Cap and the widow are sparring!"
Barefoot and in just his vest and combat pants he flexes for a moment, warming up his muscles then steps to the mark on the mats. He knows they both don't really need a warm up, long practise and keeping in peak condition means they're always ready.
They make eye contact, a moment of unspoken understanding – make it fast and dramatic, impress the crowds, don't hold anything back.
Without a signal they start, lunging at each other with brutal speed.
Neither holds back now they have a proper measure of what the other can do, throwing punches, kicks and blocks with full force and lightning speed.
She hops back from a swinging punch and tries a flying knee kick to the chest
He turns to take it on his shoulder, keeps turning into a spin kick she effortlessly ducks under, sweeping at his leg. He jumps her sweep, lunging forward.
She backflips over a bench just in time to dodge his punch down. He sees she is clear and powers through, deliberately smashing the wooden bench to matchwood. Gasps from the crowd and he smiles to himself
Its part sparing part Widow style trickery, showing off for the crowd to let them know a little of what they can do, but it feels good to let loose.
Widow lands on her feet, tumbling back to get distance, palming two blades out of a flat space in her palm wrap. It's as if the knives appear by magic in her hands.
She throws both arms forward, aiming the blades at Caps chest. He turns his body and leans to dodge one, slaps the other from the air with the back of his hand. It crackles with electricity, shocking his hand but that just makes it clench into a fist. He'd learnt that backhand parry from her.
She takes his momentary pause as an opening and charges and he charges to meet her, exchanging a flurry of blows almost too fast for the cadets to follow.
Mid exchange they switch roles, she takes more punches, tanking them effortlessly while he moves faster, dodging more, going for grapples. He almost gets an arm-lock but she plants both feet firmly and for a split second lifts him off the ground as she reverses the hold. The crowd gasps. Its theatre but it makes breaking military training easier if they can see what she's capable of rather than try and just pull rank.
He flips as she slams him down, landing on his feet. She almost runs up him, wrapping her legs round his head and flexing her body to throw him but he flips forward, into her move. She had to let go and flip back, landing with her dramatic hair flick as he slams down in a crouch landing.
They lunge back together, a flurry of kicks and punches then they break apart, sweating but hardly breathing hard. He gestures her to stop and they break stance, bow and relax.
He's careful to make sure everyone sees the mutual respect they share.
As Widow retrieves her blades she addresses the crowd. "Ok everyone, pair up and run through the basic counters again."
Steve looks the crowd over, reading facial expressions and body language. They were all careful and guarded, what he'd expect from military or intelligence personal trying to be professional. They have a new respect and fear for him and Widow.
He noted the traces of envy and anger in a few, they could be problems. Also pride in some, flickers of lust in others, again emotions that could be a problem unless managed carefully.
Widow hands him a towel and he towels his neck. "Thanks". She nods and keeps addressing her class.
"Remember, the obvious counter is not always the best counter, as it's expected and can be planned for. We'll start this move with the defender reading a newspaper or magazine. Now most of these are standard but there are a few with concealed practise weapons; a sap, a Taser, a knife, a rope and a bomb. Everyone pick one and think through your moves with what you get."
Steve puts the towel over his shoulder and heads out of the gym.
Widows face is professional and impassive. She doesn't watch him leave; she has a class to teach.
But just being near him when he's fighting hard has her blood up.
Once training is over she heads back to her room, she'll get a quick shower, change and then hunt him down.
The desire is like a living thing curling in her, a live wire prickling on her skin.
She turns the shower up cold and hard, frosty needles that do nothing to dampen her ardour. She runs through the base schedule mentally, the cadets are going to be getting their evening meal, the other Avengers are scheduled as independent training time. Maybe she can find Steve and catch some personal time…
She finds her hand already straying to stroke her breast as she thinks about it, even as she stretches out the welts and bruises from the practise fight.
She wraps a towel around herself and starts drying her hair as she heads out of the bathroom.
She feels he's there almost before she hears the slight intake of breathe Steve makes as he sees her, the towel around her barely long enough to cover her from breasts to the curve of her ass meeting her thigh, her skin damp and glowing from the showers sting.
He tries to think of something cool to say, just as she prepares some witty remark about strange men in her bedroom but instinctual lust takes over. She tears her towel away and pounces on him, kissing him desperately and tearing at his vest.
He easily catches her naked body and rolls, pinning her to the bed with his body.
Breathlessly she asks "We green?"
"We're green." He smiles. It seems so strange yet so very Nat that a status check is foreplay. She knows he'd not be here if it wasn't safe and secret but she needs to hear it from him to finally relax and let go.
"I'm resting in room and the control room have us both as Contact in Emergency only. No one saw me coming over here."
He leans in and nibbles at her neck " Falcon and Warmachine are out on the tank range testing heavy weapons and Wanda and Vision are off in town practicing passing as civilians."
She pushed them apart, momentarily distracted.
"I'm worried she is getting too involved with him."
"it's kind of cute"
"She lost her family traumatically and now she's clinging to a naive indestructible android. Someone who would never hurt her, harm her or leave her. It's not cute, it's desperate."
"You think that's bad?"
Nat claws her hands into his chest, feeling his muscles.
"Life is meant to be blood red, raw flesh, organic, visceral. She needs to accept that and enjoy the moments she gets, nothing lasts forever and the more she wants it to the more it'll hurt when it has gone."
"So what are we? Blood and flesh?"
"We live high risk lives. We could both die tomorrow, so we need to live for now even if we hope for more."
He grabs her wrists and forces her arms down onto the bed
"and do you hope for more?"
She bites at his vest, struggling feebly.
"Desperately!"
"What do you want, what do you need, right now?" he keeps her pinned with one hand, sliding the other down between them. She wraps her legs round his waist, eagerly rocking her hips as his hand slips between her legs, finding her slick and eager. She gives a breathy gasp as he strokes her with his fingers, teasing the layers apart until he slips a finger into her
"This, is this what you want?"
"More. More. Please more."
He teases her with two fingers, once each side of her swollen clit, slowly sliding them down until he can slip them into her. She groans, pushing down on them but aching for more. He bites her earlobe, whispering "More?"
The tension in her is turning into frustration, she wants to feel him in her now!
She thrashes against his hand on her wrists "Dammit, stop teasing! Fuck me already!"
He stops and looks at her sternly. "What did you say?"
She moans at his stern tone, he can feel her grip his fingers
She shrinks back into the bed, whimpering "please, sir?" . The frustration and tension melted into fearful butterflies as she feels him pull his fingers from her, hears his belt unbuckle, feels the head of his cock push against her.
He takes a firm hold of her, One hand holding her wrists, the other on her hip and thrusts into her.
She's overwhelmed by the feeling as he slides into her, his body weight pushing her down into the bed, his hands holding her , his cock stretching her open, filling her. His breathe is hot on her neck as he gasps "Mine" into her ear and she loses herself as he starts to thrust into her. No need for planning or manipulations, no need to watch everyone around her, just the scent and weight of her man on her, the feeling of him in her as she pushes up to meet him.
It's hardly been a day since their victory fuck outside Paris as the Hydra facility burnt but she's already got a desperate need for him, her orgasm gripping her and leaving her breathless, she tries to struggle again and him holding her down makes her feel helpless and possessed in a way she's come to love and fear, she's already close to coming again when she feels his steady rhythm increase, his breathe start to deepen into ragged gasps. She starts to jerk in time, willing him on, whispering "yes. Yes.! I'm yours! Yours!" as he pumped a last few hard fast thrusts into her and she felt him throb. He buries himself deep inside her and she grips onto him, her legs around him. He lets her wrists go, wrapping his arms around her and she hugs him close, kissing his chest and neck in awe and devotion.
He rolls to the side, slipping out of her but still holding her close. She kisses his chest "I needed that"
"Me too. Seeing you all dressed up in skin tight stuff and kicking ass makes me want you.
"That's what you said about my widow suit. And that disguise"
"OK, seems just looking at you makes me want to tear your clothes off and have you there and then"
She smiles, chuckling softly "Me too"
She puts a finger and thumb round the base of his cock and squeezes gently, helping it stay erect. Slowly kissing her way down her rock hard abs she pumps it slowly, so by the time she reaches it the last few drops of his cum are dripping from the tip. She licks them up with an eager tongue then slides the head into her mouth, licking him clean of their juices.
He strokes her ass as she sucks, thoughtfully. "I should spank you for the way you were fighting, I spotted you pulling your punches at least once."
"That Back knuckle? It would have fractured your eye socket
"I parried it"
"With your forehead?"
"Old boxers trick, that's the toughest part of the skull."
"It's a terrible idea you know? I literally have electric punch gloves."
"Yes, I know. I'd only use it in a friendly match; your Bite would have fried my brain. Worse still, Peggy once showed me her OSS glove gun."
"She had one of those? They were such a cool idea. Totally impractical in most cases, but occasionally awesome"
He smiles "She had a killer right hook even without it."
She looks petulantly at him and runs her tongue up the underside of his regained erection
"Anyway, you pulled that kick"
"It would have broken your leg"
She splutters indignantly "I could have taken it!"
"I'm not having My girl limping round with her leg in a cast when she's meant to be breaking in the new recruits"
She laughs "Fair enough!" and crawls back up to his arms
"We got time to go again?"
"I can do this all day, but we have work to do."
She sighs "I guess we do"
He takes a deep breathe then pauses, distracted. "By the way, how did you do that thing with the knives?"
She grins "Magic"
He stops and thinks for a moment, as if he took what she said seriously "is that actually a thing?"
She holds up her hand wrap, showing him the flat space in the palm "as in MAGIC Magic? It exists, apparently, but it's rare and the magical world mostly keeps to itself. This is just science, practise and sleight of hand"
She produces a playing card from thin air. "One of my aliases is a card carrying member of the Magic Circle, renown for her impossibly good close up prestidigitation skills"
"Using SHIELD tech? Isn't that cheating?"
She gives him an incredulous look and then laughs "Steve, of course it is. All small 'm' magic is cheating, that's how it works"
He looks confused for a moment the laughs as well "I guess it is"
She appears another card "The idea of a trick is to give the audience two options, to believe its magic or think you've somehow organised something insanely complex and practised it for years to make it appear smooth and flawless. Their brains jump to the easy but fantastical every time."
The first card vanishes with a wave of her hand. "To start, the magician shows you something relatively ordinary, like a dove. Then the magician takes the dove and makes it do something extraordinary, like disappear. The Audience are astonished." She makes the second card vanish.
"Then the magician tops that disappearance and makes the dove reappear. Audience explodes in riotous applause."
She moves her hands together and fans out a whole deck of cards.
"If i had a teleport device I'd be a millionaire and the best magician in Vegas" She pauses, thinking "In fact, ill suggest that to vision if he and Wanda ever need to go under cover. An escapologist who can pass through solid objects and doesn't need to breathe? He'd be perfect! Have you ever seen Houdini's Chinese water torture cell trick?"
"the upside down under water one? I've heard of it. It'd be easy for him. Though I still think it's cheating"
"Of course, No one smart plays fair"
She gets up and sits on the edge of the bed.
On her back, Steve can see the puckered circle with a smooth spot of scar tissue in the middle. He leans over and kisses it gently.
"Bucky did this?"
"Just outside Odessa" She sighs "I'd dragged that engineer a thousand miles up the coast of the Black Sea, we had an extraction team ready at the airport, new ID and a flight to get him to Germany then the Winter Soldier shot out my tires then shot my engineer through me. As always, a Heavy soviet slug. No rifling."
Steve furrows his brow at that.
"They keep saying that, 'no rifling'. But a sniper needs accuracy and rifling seriously improves accuracy. If they wanted to conceal their identity surely they'd just use a different rifle each mission?
"He uses Ap-Ds rounds. Armour Piercing Discarding Sabot. They're large calibre, high power, a heavy fin-stabilised tungsten carbide dart in a light weight plastic sabot that falls away as soon as it leaves the barrel. Expensive to make, each round is hand made to match grade precision."
She lies back down in his arms, her voice sounding distant.
"they started him with an accurised Mosin Rifle. Then upgraded to a Dragunov, though occasionally he used a PTRS41 anti-tank rifle. Recently he's moved on to your American large calibre .50 BMG sniper rifles."
"All that from the file?"
She shakes her head and snuggles closer "When they defrosted him they'd bring him to us for practise. Shake down and maintenance before his mission. He was an instructor for a few years once. They made him kill a few of the failures."
She curls closer to Steve "He was emotionless. Relentless. Near invulnerable . He scared us to death , not the good fear that horny teenage girls get around powerful men, the cold fear of being in the presence of Death itself." She's lost in a memory as she whispers "When he killed it was so quick. Clean. No wasted motion."
Steve holds her for a moment, until the memory fades and she comes back to him.
She lies on his chest and looks him in the face, worried "If you have to fight him again... his long bones are reinforced and his muscle density is increased. Punches won't phase him. He has Armour plates implanted in his chest over his ribs and his Skull is armoured as well. Pistols will only annoy him, even up close. He has enhanced organs so much poison and chemical weapons are a waste of time. Electric shocks may trip the breakers in his arm; shut it down for a few seconds." She looks grim and serious
"His face and neck are his weak spots, especially the eyes. That's why he usually wears a ballistic mask"
"I hope it won't come to that. He remembered me. He saved me from the river. I'm hoping he's remembering, breaking free of their conditioning"
"If there is anything I can do to help him, Sir, I will."