Note: I've fixed the title, which for some bizarre reason when I checked today has morphed to Climbing Vines on Melancholy *Windows* instead of Walls, as originally written. I'm not sure when that happened, but I'm a bit freaked out!


Chapter Three: Comfort

The only thing bearable about knowing there's a whole six months between when she last saw Clint and when she's allowed to look for him again is time spent with Steve. Everything else is part of an unrelenting pattern of grief deferral and coping mechanisms. Her favorite of the latter is to be the point person for the Avengers still willing to stay in touch. Every two weeks is a check-in, a chance to see some of the missing faces, maybe even tell herself that the others are scheduled for next week, instead of gone forever. It's… not as comforting as she'd hoped it would be. Rather than turning around and finding that time has passed and people have pulled away, Natasha is watching each painful, incremental step as it happens. Still, it's better than losing them all, and she's grateful.

Tony and Pepper's wedding occurs four months into that six month wait period. It's a small ceremony with a limited gathering afterwards, but very ritzy. Besides the obvious chance to see each other and witness the ceremony, everyone seems to be using the wedding as an excuse to eat expensive food and look damn good in the process of reconnecting with each other.

There's already been a shift away from using white dresses in weddings, partly because after losing three billion people, everyone's in a state of permanent mourning which makes the white feel naive, almost garish. Instead, the tradition has moved toward wearing somber colors for everyone except the wedding party. Both Natasha and Steve are in the wedding. The color scheme ends up being a little more patriotic-seeming than might have happened had it not been for the blip. Tony and Pepper are both in the same rich shade of blue (apparently the exact same color as the dress she'd worn that had finally clued Tony into seeing her as more than his assistant), the groomsmen are in gold tuxedos, and the bridesmaids are in red. Because Pepper is a planning and design genius, it all somehow ends up looking coordinated and iconic.

No one misses how symbolic it is that Tony's not the one wearing Iron Man colors, though.

As practiced, the wedding party steps out onto the floor after Pepper and Tony's first dance. The other two bridesmaids and the Maid of Honor are women that Nat's never met before. Pepper pairs them up with comfort in mind, so Natasha's the one with Bruce. Video clips online have a long memory, and it's not like the Hulk not showing up is newsworthy. She's fine with it.

"My guess is, whatever that bridesmaid is telling Steve is not 'whole room friendly,'" Bruce says quietly into her ear as they start to dance. She nudges Bruce to turn so she can get a look, and he chuckles. "Think the press would ever buy that Hulk lets himself get pushed around on the dance floor?"

"I don't know about 'lets,'" Natasha says lightly, cognizant of the weight behind the phrase 'pushed around' when it pertains to Bruce. "Let me know if he's gonna show up, and we can find out," she adds, teasingly.

Bruce offers her a crooked smile in response, and looks off to the side, but it's a pretty positive reaction, all things considered. He's never really joked about 'the Other Guy' before, not like that, not in a situation like this, and it's encouraging, really. In a way, teasing him like this is as close as she'll let herself get to making light of their own separate lives in exile. They'd orbited each other like a binary star system with a flawed center of gravity, and the rebound had sent both of them flying.

"About that," Bruce says, still smiling, but only just. He looks at her shoulder, at her ear, at the curl threatening to fall into her eyes, and Natasha feels a chill.

"What don't you want to tell me?" she asks, her voice low and urgent, with just the barest edge of teasing left.

"Why do you have to be so perceptive, hmm? This is tough enough as it is," he says plaintively.

"Define 'this,' she says, nudging him closer to the french doors that line one wall of the venue.

Bruce misses a step, winces, and she takes that as her cue to grab ahold of his arm and pull him out onto the verandah. "O-kay," he coughs, looking back at the room they left with raised eyebrows.

Natasha leans on the railing facing him, resting her forearms on the decorative wood and crossing one leg over the other, a picture of relaxed interrogation, despite her inner turmoil. At the rehearsal dinner, Tony had made an offhand comment about 'missing' Bruce when he and Pepper come back from their month-long honeymoon, and that combined with Bruce's strange behavior has set off all of her alarm bells.

She says, "Spill."

"You wanna do this here? Now?" he asks, but he sounds defeated.

Natasha uncrosses her leg and repositions it wide, through the slit in her dress, provocative and challenging. Anyone looking through the glass would definitely recognize her, and they'd know she was talking to a groomsman.

"All right, all right," Bruce says, running a hand through his hair. It doesn't get as mussed as it ordinarily does (did Tony make him put product in?). "I think I know what I have to do." He stops, looks up at the spring sky hazing toward dusk above them, and sighs. "I'm sick of being two people, Natasha. I think I can fix it. It might kill me, I- I don't know. I can't live like this. It's going to require a lot of trial and error, a lot of pain, and when I go off and do it I'll either come back, or I won't."

Natasha's whole body has risen up in goosebumps. She knows what question he expects her to ask, but fuck if it's not the same question she asked another man she loved, and his answer had been painful enough. Something tells her that Bruce's will be worse. She puts it off.

"What do you mean by 'fix it?'"

"Integrate myself with him. Share one body, one mind," Bruce says, letting his hands fall to his sides. "I didn't- I'm sorry for being suspicious enough that you guessed I had something to hide," he tells her with the ghost of a smile. Natasha's stuck on the fact that Bruce is one of the smartest people she knows, and Hulk barely seems smart enough to go to kindergarten.

"How long?" It's not a whisper. There's no audible pain in it. She is in control.

His sheepish answer straightens her back, walks her over to Bruce, and throws her arms around him in a heartfelt hug that he actually returns. Natasha's eyes are dry when she pulls back, but that costs her entire allotment of composure for the rest of the week. He tells her he'd like to stay outside for a little while, and she nods, squeezing his hand and going back inside.

A minute or so later, she's got a shadow.

"Can I help you?" she asks Steve.

"He tell you, then?"

Natasha stops still. "If that was a plan, we're going to have words," she says, turning her head sideways to address him without really looking in his direction. The barely polite smile on her face is for appearances only.

"Does it do any good to know that I asked him not to tell you tonight?"

She looks down, shakes her head, speaking the words through her fake smile. "Not much."

"Dance with me? Standing here like this, I've got a powerful urge to knock you across the room. Not sure that would go over very well," Steve laughs, moving to stand beside her and nodding down at her dress.

"If you had warned me I would have put on Avengers underoos for the grand finale. Could have made it a whole thing," she says, turning toward him and favoring him with a saucy grin.

Steve's own amused look falls away, though, and his brows furrow. "Natasha," he says softly, and it's so close and yet so far away from everything she wants from him that she shakes her head, spending the very last drops of her self-control to dissuade his concern.

"On second thought, maybe I need some air," she tells him, dipping her head in what she hopes he reads as a farewell. She has practice being swift on heels, even the custom-dyed ones that were part of the bridesmaids' gifts from Pepper. As she strides out, Natasha's instinct tells her that Steve is still standing where she'd left him, but she knows him pretty well. He's going to follow her.

The Long Island venue is kind of isolated, but in typical Stark fashion, Tony has turned out his fleet of expensive, fancy cars for the guests' use (with a provided driver, of course). None of the drivers would likely agree to drive away from Captain America, though, so that's out. Natasha walks out of the gathering space and takes a few seconds to assess her options. They have the estate and the grounds to themselves, but her red dress will stand out in the garden. She slips off her shoes to muffle her steps on the wooden staircase and rushes up, choosing one of the closed doors at random and slipping inside, hoping that she won't disturb a tryst or someone's quiet contemplation.

It's empty. It's clearly a room meant to be used to photograph the bride as she prepares, and because they've been promised privacy to its most reasonable limit, no one has come to clear anything away since the ceremony. There are items belonging to Pepper Potts scattered everywhere, little objects and mementos she had wanted with her as she dressed to marry the man she loved. Natasha wonders what that's even like, how a person could carry around a physical example of their emotional vulnerabilities and feel comfortable enough to leave them in an unlocked room.

The problem is that when all you allow yourself to keep are memories, the later ones- the painful ones -where the person inevitably leaves? They taint the earlier memories by necessity.

Natasha can't breathe. The bridesmaid dress isn't tight, but the bra she's wearing is restrictive, the kind that rearranges a woman's torso by means of sheer fabric strength. She unzips the dress in a rush and scrabbles her red fingernails at the clasps of the bra until she gets them undone. The relief from being able to take in a full, deep breath is palpable. Nat sags against the bedpost. She's just about to take the thing off and leave a note for whomever Pepper's paid to clear the room that she'll drop by and get it back at some point when there's a light rap at the door.

"Not a good time!" she calls out instinctively. Natasha's got one arm free of the straps when the door opens anyway.

It's Steve.

She just continues to remove the painful contraption. It's not like she's going to put it back on, and Steve will probably turn around and walk right back out.

Except, he doesn't, he just turns around and shuts the door in his own face. "You okay?" he asks, as if he hasn't just walked after she'd told him not to.

The problem is that his tone is gentle, and he's faced away, so she lets herself enjoy seeing the familiar shape that lives in her heart standing in front of her. Natasha's self-control is operating on fumes, and when they flame out, so will she.

"I'm fine. Bra was too tight, that's all. I figured, hey, I'm not working, I don't have to suffer through it."

"Are you decent, without it?"

"Was I ever decent with?" she shoots back, hearing the dangerous levels of amused affection in her own voice.

"Hold your hand out in front of you, would you?" he asks her in an exasperated voice, so she does.

Steve starts walking backwards, and Nat lets out a nervous laugh, confused but grateful. His behavior is soothing, because his actions are almost always about doing the right thing and being there for his teammates. He'd probably support her until he burned to baffled char under the heat of her unrequited, unspoken love for him, if that's what seemed necessary.

He stops when he feels her hand, and then he reaches back, grabs it, and pulls, hard. Natasha collides with his back, and he gets ahold of her other hand too, resting her palms on his chest and lacing his fingers between hers. He's warm and loving, and her heart is full, terrifyingly so.

"You are so weird," she manages, and it doesn't sound wrecked (because she pushes the grit in her voice almost to absurdity, and it works), but it's a near thing. She's Sokovia, lifting into the stratosphere, and Steve's the unknowing fuel. The gravity of this situation is inescapable.

"You needed a hug. I needed a hug," Steve whispers.

"Is it Bruce?" she asks, her cheek against his back, eyes squeezed shut.

"It's Bruce. Clint. Tony, even. He and Pepper are planning to move. Thor's heading back to New Asgard first thing in the morning." He lets out a breath, and it's shaky. Nat kisses his back, and he squeezes her fingers between his briefly.

"Well, I'm not going anywhere," she offers.

"Aren't you?" he asks. Natasha doesn't see him move his head to look back at her, but she can feel the shifting muscles, hear the difference in the way his voice sounds when he turns. "You're pulling away too."

She's not. She's drifting closer, too close. There's no way she can tell him that.

The accusation pulls one of her defense mechanisms out into the open at probably the exact worst time. "Yeah, I can really feel the distance between us right now, Steve," she says, rolling her hips against his ass. Steve's entire body goes tense.

"Don't." The barked word echoes through the room like an audible slap. She tries to pull away from him, but Steve doesn't let go. "You don't have to use your sexuality to push back," he says in his moral authority, Team Leader tone she finds so incongruously attractive sometimes. "I'm not sure that would work the way you think it would anyway," he adds with a self-deprecating laugh.

"Yeah, well, that's the natural result of sparring in evening wear," she accedes.

"My point is, just because everyone else is drifting doesn't mean you have to." Steve sighs. "I didn't come here to yell at you, I came to see if you were okay. You seemed pretty upset, and I know you and Bruce were close for a while." He brushes his thumb along the back of her hand, and that coming so soon after she'd rubbed herself against him sends shivers through her veins. There has to be a way to both assuage his concern and get him out of the room.

Blatant sexual contact had clearly made Steve uncomfortable. She could build on that, but it'd be safer if she tried emotions first. "If you think you're losing me, Steve, maybe you should let it happen. You've seen what happens to the men I let get close." Nat feels the way he tenses up again. "Hell, Bruce ran away from me all the way to another planet, and he's still being hit with the consequences."

In a way, it feels good to say those words out loud.

Steve's reaction is not what she expected. He tightens his hold on her as he dips to his knees, lifting their joined hands high. Steve spins around, shifting his grip so quickly that she's unable to pull free. In a matter of seconds, he's completely changed positions from detached to demanding, and changed his attitude from compassionate to commanding.

"Coincidence," he tells her firmly, slightly shaking her wrists for emphasis. "Everyone is lost, Natasha. Everyone's trying to cope. It's not personal."

She yanks away. "What, are you practicing for your support groups?" Nat snaps, backing up until she can feel the edge of the bed behind her. She reaches out, bracing herself on the bedpost. "You're grasping at straws. I went from the reason why Hulk would calm down to the reason he couldn't. For years. That's not about Thanos, Steve. And Clint told me it was personal. He made his plans for how to cope and deliberately didn't include me. So, back off. Men who get close to me tend to self-destruct."

Steve's shoulders droop along with the expression on his face.

"Do you know how often I've heard some version of that? For any number of bullshit reasons? From how many people?" he asks, a regretful smile toying with the corner of his mouth.

Her heart aches enough to try to bend just a little. "Language…"

"Sure," Steve agrees. The pain in his amiable nod strikes her like an arrow with Hulk-level strength right where Tony's ARC reactor used to sit, sinking in like Thor's lightning. "That's one of them, right there. If I can fight Nazis, I think I can handle some profanity. But some of the folks I've worked with? They disengage as soon as it's social time, as if protecting my reputation is some kind of sacred, uncrossable line. I even went to Fury about it once, asked if he'd told people to back off."

"He wouldn't," Natasha says quickly. She'd never known he felt like this.

"Yeah," Steve said, sliding his hands into his pockets. The fists he makes cause the fabric to bulge out. "That's almost worse. Multiple people choosing to value my historical significance over a possible friendship. Please, don't tell me to stay away from you because that's what's best for me. I've had my fill of people making those decisions on my behalf."

There's a bleakness in his eyes that she's never seen before. It hurts her heart. "That's not-" Nat stops herself, takes in a breath, and continues. "Okay, I won't."

"Good." He angles his head and regards her with more perception than he usually aims in her direction. "Nothing's changed, though, has it?"

"Steve-"

He comes over, and for the first time, Natasha starts to worry about what she might have to say to get him out of the room before she fucks up their friendship out of sheer emotional exhaustion.

"What? What is it? Why can't you tell me?" he asks, urgently. "I couldn't stop Ultron in time. I couldn't protect Bucky and keep the team together." His voice drops like he's struggling to breathe, just like she was before he burst in. "I couldn't give you and Sam and the others your lives back- I couldn't stop Thanos! Now my team's splitting up again like sand between my fingers, and I- what is it, Natasha? Let me fix it. Please." There's a ripping sound, and they both look down to see that he's torn through one of the pockets.

"Shit, Steve," she says, and she's talking about the anguish she heard in this unexpected confession of his, but he's muttering an apology about the pants, and they back up so she can sit on the end of the bed and examine the damage.

Nat knows one thing with crystal clarity: if their situations were reversed, Steve would tell her the truth. He would risk that exposure, even if it meant everything between them would be different from that point on, because harming himself to heal someone in pain is just second nature to Steve Rogers. She's spent the last months trying to teach him how to expand his perception of what's permissible in combat. Is it time for him to expand her perception of what kind of vulnerability is permissible in friendship? Where can she draw the line?

The way she wants to frame it is exactly wrong. Yes, he doesn't want her to protect him, but she doesn't want to burden him with the knowledge of her feelings, either.

She's just so, so tired.

Natasha gives up on the ripped fabric and pours all but ten percent of her soul out onto the hardwood floor between them. "There's really nothing to fix, Steve," she says, sighing. The benefit to this sniper shot is that the target she's aiming for is pretty wide (her love for Clint is platonic, and that leaves room for assumptions) but this is her last bullet. "I care about the whole team, sure, but there was a time when I was pretty close to being in love with Bruce. And Clint- he's more important to me than just about anyone else on the planet. Two men that I loved walking away from me, choosing to do that? That's my limit. I don't know if I want to forge another one of those bonds, and I could sense that happening."

"I might know better than to promise a woman I'll definitely stick around," Steve says, sitting down beside her. "But surely what we've already been through together shows you I would die trying?"

"You say the nicest things," she teases, resting her head on his shoulder. It feels good, good enough that before she really understands what she's doing, Nat starts speaking her daydreams out loud. "I wish that could be enough. I wish there was some kind of… magic phrase that just made it harder for people to leave you, you know? There has to be someone in Kamar Taj that's thought of this."

Steve starts laughing.

"Wow, you pour your heart out to someone," she quips to hide how much that laughter stings, struggling to her feet with her dignity as disheveled as her half-unzipped dress. Seconds later, Steve has followed her again, standing so close she can feel his breath on the back of her neck.

"Natasha, look around, look where we are," he whispers, gesturing to the wedding-centric decor. "The magic is that sometimes the person you love that much loves you back."

"I was raised not to care about that. One of the many ways I've violated my training, I guess." She hears the huskiness in her voice and wonders if he knows that at least some of it is for him.

"Tell me what you need, and if I can make it happen, I will," Steve says. Natasha's about to ask him to promise he'll keep coming to the Facility, keep visiting, maybe even keep sparring with her (with an updated dress code, if he'd like), but then he rests his warm, kind hands on her bare arms and pulls her back against his chest. It's symbolic of the way she feels about him- always nearby but never face to face, always supportive but never crossing that final line.

"I just want to feel loved, even if it's not real," she whispers, even as her rational, protective mind is screaming at her to be silent. "I can't ever have this-" she gestures at the room, keeping her eyes open so she can't picture Bruce using the same words. "-but I wish I could get it out of my system, you know? Play house, just once."

She doesn't even know what she's really asking for, but that's fine, because Captain America plays for keeps, and she's not a Keeper. He retreats from her, taking away the warm comfort of his nearness, confirming that assessment. Natasha looks down, lets her blonde curls fall into her face, all the better to compose herself for the walk to her private room in the other wing of the venue. Maybe if she says something flippant to change the subject, Steve will let her borrow his suit jacket so she doesn't have to look like such a mess.

"I-I could do that. Like to. I'd like to do that," he says, correcting himself mid-sentence like he isn't offering something so outrageous she couldn't possibly believe him. There's insecurity there, and it's that which tells her that he might be serious. She turns around to see that he's standing beside the bed, one hand in the remaining pocket, his expression earnest, even hopeful.

"What are you saying?" she asks, buoyed by that shred of hopefulness.

"Well, we've covered richer and poorer, and after that flu we nursed each other through-"

"I think Sam did most of the nursing," she interrupts, moving to lean against the bedpost, facing him. "Which does today fall under, 'better?' Or are we still in 'worse?'" she asks, filling her tone with some of the desire that's started to heat her up from the inside. There's plausible deniability here if she needs it, but it's rapidly fading.

His voice is low and more self-assured now that he can see that she's picked up what he's been laying down. "That depends on whether you want to be held."

Nat's heart is racing ahead of her on a motorcycle, dodging doubt and weaving around uncertainty. "I do- if you'll have me. But I've gotta warn you, Rogers," she says, pushing off from the bedpost and starting toward him with as much sensuality as she can muster with the ridiculous girlish excitement she's feeling. Steve meets her eyes and the interest there slays her as she comes to a stop only an inch away. "I'm not promising to obey."

She loves him. She's always tried to honor him. This is dangerous territory, all the truth-telling she's doing.

The slight head shake she made on the word 'obey' had caused a blonde curl to fall down in front of her eye, and Steve reaches up between them to brush it back, cupping her face in his large hand. As he speaks, he leans toward her, a gorgeous, honest smile on his face. "I can live with that. There are a few things I can't promise either, but I seem to recall something about worship-"

At that, Steve captures her lower lip in his, sucking slightly before deepening the kiss when she lifts up to press closer. His hand on her face trembles a little, and Natasha reaches for both of his hands, tangling her fingers with the one at his side and holding onto his wrist like it's her lifeline. In a way, it is; this is a detail none of her dreams included, a signal that this intoxicating, drowning experience is real.

When he lifts his head, Steve looks down at her, pupils blown black with desire. "So that's a yes?"

"Yes, it's a yes, though with moves like that I'm kind of confused why you're here with a coworker instead of making some waitress with a heart of gold the happiest woman in the country," Natasha teases, letting go of him so she can start pushing his gold suit coat off of his shoulders.

He takes it off, starting on his shirt buttons. In a wry, raw voice, he simply says, "I'm not in love with a waitress." Steve turns his back to set the shirt he's just stripped off on the chair beside the bed, and Nat stares at his back, speechless, while he removes his white tank top. It never occurred to her that he might have a similar secret to hers. With all her skill at reading people, with all she watches him, she'd never guessed.

"What a coincidence. Neither am I."

He drops the belt, and Natasha lunges down to her knees to pick it up. Once she's there, dress gapping in the front enough for him to nearly see everything and in the exact right position to see how much Steve's pants are tented, she doesn't want to move.

"Natasha," he breathes, staring down at her. She knows the look. He wants. He thinks it's wrong to want. "Get up?"

"You miscalculated," she tells him. "It used to be my entire job to be good at coming up with believable roleplay. If we'd just gotten married, this is exactly where I'd be."

"As long as you don't kill me somewhere in the middle," Steve teases back. He reaches out and slides his fingers through her hair, and from this vantage point, she has a perfect view of the way his eyes flutter shut as he pictures the two of them, moments from now. She recognizes that look, too.

"No promises," she says, low and sultry. Nat reaches up and finishes unfastening his pants, and Steve lets go of her to pull them off and set them on the chair. She nudges the wide strap of her dress just barely off of her shoulder while he's not looking, leaning one elbow on the bed and burying a hand in her own hair in as inviting a pose as she can manage. When he turns around, Steve's jaw drops.

Then he's bending down and lifting her up. "I can't. It's been a long, warm day. I need a shower, I'm not disrespecting you like that-"

She interrupts him with a hand curved around to grab his ass. "If you were my husband, Steve, I'd make it my mission to assure you that there's nothing disrespectful about-"

Steve interrupts her with a searing kiss that screams impatience of the best kind. He lifts her up, their lips still joined, laying her on the bed sideways, tearing himself away only long enough to drag off his last piece of clothing. After all the soul-baring she's done in the past twenty minutes, it seems completely impossible to Natasha that she could be nearly fully clothed while Steve's completely bare.

He climbs onto the bed with her with a determined expression that stutters her heart, resting his fingertips on her ankle and sweeping them in a heated caress all the way to her lace panties.

"How much do you like these?" Steve asks her. The pressure of his thumb against her core through them has robbed her of all words, so Nat simply shakes her head. In a move that curls her toes, he leans down and kisses her tenderly at the same time he bends his fingers around the front of her panties and yanks them off. They don't rip, but it's a near thing. "If I were your husband, there'd be time enough for your plans, but I promise you all I'd be thinking about is how much I wanted to do this. All day."

Steve tosses the fabric of her skirt aside and slides the flat of one hand under her thigh, curving his thumb around to once again press against her bare core at the very same time as he lowers his head to taste her.

He's skilled at this, not that she wouldn't have been in ecstasy even if he wasn't, given how much intensity is tied to it being Steve. His singular drive and focus are completely at play here, literally. Natasha tries to hold off that final, glorious moment so she can hold onto the emotions of it, of the way he's completely devoted to giving her exactly what he knows she wants, but Steve lifts his head to look at her face and it's the eye contact that sends her. The fist she crams into her mouth to prevent the noises she can't help making does its job, but only just. He watches her face the whole time she's shaking and whimpering, doesn't even blush.

Finally, Nat relaxes. "I am really tempted to murder every single woman that helped you learn how to do that, and I'm not really the jealous type," she says, throwing an arm over her face.

He chuckles. "I'll take that as a compliment, but it's not much of a list."

"If you loved her and she hurt you, I'll dismember her," Natasha mutters. His silence makes her lift her arm and look over at him where he's resting on the bed beside her, a contemplative look on his face as he traces her half-hidden curves with his eyes. "Oh, Steve," she says, feeling regretful.

"No, no," he assures her. "Not the same person. No, the woman I'm in love with… we've nev- Well." He interrupts himself, face flushing a little. "It's not that kind of a relationship." As if grateful to change the subject, he leans over and opens the drawer to the nightstand beside the bed, pulling something out to show her.

It's a condom.

"I have one in my wallet-"

"Please tell me it hasn't been there since the 40's," she interrupts.

"-but I'll let you decide which you'd rather," he finishes.

"That one," Natasha tells him, pulling her dress off over her head. "Can I help you forget that other woman?" she asks, dragging her left leg along his hip to urge him closer. In response, Steve surges over her, dropping a kiss on one breast before reaching down to adjust her hips to align better with his.

"Not possible, Natasha," he murmurs against her lips, right before thrusting all the way inside her. The words are strangely romantic in tone, given what he's really saying, and how.

"Sounds like a challenge," she tells him, arching her hips to meet his second movement. Nat enjoys the sensation of being surrounded by him- he's got ahold of her hip, his other hand tangled in her hair with his thumb holding her chin steady for a kiss that goes on and on.

Steve lifts his head, and they look at each other, really look. This is them, intimate and real, despite the veneer of play-acting. It's so close to everything she's always wanted from him that her eyes haze over with a layer of tears. Because they're so attuned right now, Steve notices, halts his movements.

"Are you-"

"I want this. I want you. You," she says, and when his eyes widen a fraction, Natasha levers that surprise into swapping their positions. It takes all of her strength, but she ends up on top of him, making her point by throwing herself forward and landing with hands on each of his wrists beside his head. He's so much stronger than her that any acquiescence is completely voluntary, but there's importance in the symbolism, too.

"I'm with you," Steve says, nodding at the way she's restraining him. "Can I- I want to touch you," he says. Nat nods, slides her hands back along his powerful arms to rest on his chest, instead. "I'm with you," he adds, mirroring her assurance of a few seconds ago. Steve reinforces it by cupping her breasts, running one hand up into her hair and pulling her down for a kiss as if his lungs were desperate for her breath rather than his. "We'll get through it," he says.

Whether he's talking about the seismic shift of this moment of weakness or the experience of the team's continent cracking apart before their eyes, Natasha doesn't know, but she trusts him with her whole heart.

That trust doesn't waver as Steve's orgasm breaks like a wave over the two of them and she gets to watch. It doesn't waver as they put themselves back together, leaving the knowledge they've just gained about each other on the beach as the tide recedes with each article of clothing they put back on. It particularly doesn't waver as she lifts up to kiss his cheek and thanks him, and he responds with a sincere, 'No- thank you,' as if they hadn't both just risked alienating their one remaining teammate for a fleeting moment of pleasure. Somehow she just knows that they'll be all right.

Natasha's trust in Steve Rogers doesn't waver until she lays her hand on the knob of the (oh, holy hell, unlocked) door and Steve says, "Wait."

"Don't get weird on me, Steve," she tells him, letting it sound harsh.

"I don't want to, that's why I stopped you. Are we pretending this didn't happen, once we cross through that doorway, or…"

"There's an 'or?'" Nat asks. The doorknob is the only thing keeping her upright.

"There is, if you want there to be." She glances over at him, and he's looking down at his feet. He looks up as he adds, with a sheepish half smile, "Extraordinary times lead to extraordinary measures."

She reminds herself: he is in love with someone else. He thinks she is in love with someone else. Someone not him.

"Are you saying you're going to bribe me with orgasms so I don't drift away with the others? You didn't offer this deal to anyone else, did you?" Natasha is both incredulous and delighted, and it shows in her voice.

"I did not," Steve says gruffly, crossing his arms over his chest. "But yes, yes, I think that's what I'm offering you." He sounds like he's persuading himself, and Nat can tell that it was a split-second decision because he's starting to blush.

"In that case, I accept," she says. "See you in a few days, then."