{5}
"Natasha," Steve whispered, softly to her. He didn't shrink and babble like the nervous, skinny Brooklyn kid who was always left in the dark in the middle of the dance floor without a beautiful dame guiding his feet close to her heels, even though he was courteous and polite gentlemen. He agreed to have sociable meetings with Sharon Carter and Maria Hill with no intention of romantically pursing them.
He attended casual affairs that required no immense efforts towards making a romantic impression-kiss on the cheek and hand. Nothing else. After being invited to Stark's penthouse fundraiser for sick kids, he got closer to Sharon, and it became obvious that their relationship was more than platonic. But she didn't breathe life into him, not like Natasha did when he couldn't deny his heart.
He breathed in deeply and carefully weighted his assessed choice of words to her silence response. He decided to be completely truthful to definition of his love towards her with hearing Stark's voice guiding him through the moment, a real moment -twenty seconds of courage of revealing his devotion to Natasha.
Steve swallowed, blinking at her, staring profoundly into her teary eyes. He'd told her everything; his turmoil, and the burden of his responsibilities as Captain America. He had a connection with her would seemed to be unbreakable at some point when he tasted defeat. Each day he picked up the shield and marched back into the battlefield with her shadowing his steps, he felt whole-not broken. Steve also knew that he had to protect her along with the rest of the world, he was thankful she entered his new life and gave him back an existence without the helmet and uniform, even though the pain would still linger, but he had a choice to refuse the endless, dull throb in his heart and emerge out of the past and start a new future.
"Hey, its okay, you don't have to say anything," He said, his lips held a firm smile despite how concerned her felt. He pulled his hands up, and settled his palms over her bare skin.
Natasha sat there for a moment, stunned and unblinking. The constant throb in her heart dissolved into the churning blood lanced in her veins. Her body was frozen, slowly accepting the warmth radiating from his muscles. She swallowed and blinked. Tension thrummed in the marrow of her bones, twitched every livewire in her body. Every time her grayish-green sought his, Natasha would shrink against the bed frame, and then she looked down at the floor, not wanting to the genuine light in his vibrant blue eyes, and really not wanting to face him. She'd wanted a chance, a real chance to be real to him, no strings attaching her to the web of lies she constructed with blood and tears, to maybe not have to put on the act for him now. No, mere thread of deception had long since split into half. This was destructive.
He was there with her, his understanding eyes gleamed in the darkness shrouding over his face, outlining the honesty of his noble heart. He was trying to revive her back from the grave she had been buried into since she was a nine year old girl. Not until this moment, did she feel alive. The pain of not telling him writhed into the pit of her stomach, tingeing every sensation of feeling, every pulse, and searing waves of that raged into her core. Truth was a sharp thing to feel and it cut into her deep, slicing and piercing.
Doubt had found its way to creep back into her, and Steve, her beautiful, compassionate and endearing partner was the only one who was strong enough and brave enough to say the words. She should have found a different way to remove the laced bullet out of her shoulder. Steve wasn't supposed to be with her. No, Sharon Carter-Agent 13 was the woman for him. She was nice and full of passion about her work, but she was also Margret-Peggy Carter's niece and that made him feel uncomfortable. She observed their dates outside coffee shops while sitting inside her driver's seat of her black Jaguar, and read their lips, it wasn't right, but she wanted to hear the confessions pour out of his mouth when Sharon asked him a heart clenching question.
'Do you still love my aunt?'
Natasha watched his reaction; knowing that his heart was climbing up his throat, stopping the flow of words from reaching his lips. His face discolored as blood drained from his cheeks in that moment when he entered the divide of past and present. She knew he preferred to face HYDRA in jaws of hell rather than answering Sharon's question.
In that moment, she wanted to race up to him, intrude their conversation and punch him in the arm. He needed to stop living in the past. He deserved to have a future. Instead she watched them aimlessly finish their coffees, and then they parted way, never looking back at each other. The brave and heroic Captain America...was too afraid and unwilling to let go of his past...He was grieving from the loss of his best friend and the refused to surrender his heart to a woman who carried the same sparkle of Peggy Carter in her chocolate eyes. He could't let go.
'Steve'
Natasha's gaze fell to the steering wheel. She knew he loved her, but she was a Russian assassin who had too much red on her ledger she was drowning into a pool of it, and she couldn't face him with a factual answer. She knew it was another dishonest method to give him false hope. He deserved better than that.
'Chase her, Rogers.' she whispered, closing her eyes. 'Don't let her go..."
It was much always easier for her to stay away, to run and erase her tracks. She knew his life was in danger; he would get severely hurt and lowly die in her arms because of her hatred towards her past. She'd tried to escape from the old phantoms of pain, clean slated her existence a dozen times over, and raked away the bound of marriage, throwing the wedding ring into a puddle of blood, allowing her demons to claim it. She hated every aspect of her stolen life.
The entwining weaves of torturous dreams, and graphic images of horror which condemned her. She hated herself for getting close to him and betraying his heart. That's what the Black Widow did; she ensnared men into her clutches, and struck them down with a deadly bite. Not Steve.
"Steve, I can't tell you the truth that you want to hear from me." she said, shedding a few tears. She almost wanted to kick herself for sounding pathetic, the whole situation seemed odd. She was so damned selfish, weakened by doubt and mistrust towards her own heart. Most of all, she was afraid to bring him into her dark, unforgiving, complicated world.
She loved Steve more than Clint and haunting wraith of her past- the Winter Soldier. That was a new conflict surging in her veins, harsh and unrelenting; it was something she couldn't dare herself to grasp. She hated that she couldn't spear out her regrets and prove her love to him. Her soul had been subdued.
For a long set of minutes, she didn't move, she just sat there in prison of darkness, staring at the shafts of city light illuminating from the windows. Barely looking at him, as lump begun to build in her chest, disturbed and guarded.
"I'm poison to you," she warned, her voice little and unsure. She dreaded the sense of detachment and coldness. "What if this happened to you? The bullet entered you and you trust me to protect you?"
Steve reached out, and pulled her shaking hand with his own, and squeezed it. "I trust you with my life, Natasha." He almost cried, but his stern composure prevented his fragile emotions from breaking out. Natasha continued to stare at him, her expression blank. When he moved his fingers across her knuckles, her gaze shifted into glazed readjustment.
She stared down at his large hand, still enveloped over hers. Tears burned her eyes. She tried to be strong for him. Steve and been so brave and supportive and comforting. She couldn't let him go. "Steve?"
His blue eyes lit up, and his massive right hand splayed over her back. "Before you say anything, I didn't mean to make feel discomfort. If you don't feel the same way...I understand entirely. I will respect that, Natasha." he said with a frown. He shifted. She grasped his bicep, pulling him close, his torso angled up against her curves, and she felt the heat-the powerful combustion of his super-soldier serum enter into her bones, and then she leaned down over his shoulder to kiss the side of his broad neck. "I don't think we should be doing this...You're wounded and I don't want to hurt you, Nat. Not with a mending shoulder."
"When you said that you loved me?" She rubbed her lips against his pulse point. "Did you mean it?"
His breath ghosted over her skin, voice was rumbling low pitch, but it was sure and sincere words. It was rare for her to hear. "Yes. I meant it."
Steve pulled slightly aback, "Natasha..."
"Is this the truth?" she asked, calm and collected. Men misused her by pledging her desires with no heart intermixed with emotion. They'd given her everything, their wealth, power and darkest secrets. She was a breakable doll, treated as an untouchable gift for a few times when she felt loved, only to be shattered with truth seeped from their lips and knives dig into her soul. Love had been the greatest of failures in her life times. Men were monsters-wolves in sheep's clothing, and she allowed herself to become victimized with abuse, scarred and empty.
It was hard for her to feel; every part of her body had been subjected to numbness. Her DNA was altered and decoded into inhumane threads that tangled up her very essence of human existence. The experimental serums gave her power and cunning intelligence to get what she wanted. Never what she needed.
"I want you to tell me the real truth, Steve," she leveled him with an intense stare, her voice forceful and scared. "You're my partner," She broke off the sentence, denying her own concealed desires. "We need to keep ourselves firm with each other. I can't commit to something that doesn't feel real to me. Sorry, but I have been used so much that it has become a barrier that blocks out the people I care about." she whispered harshly, disgusted with her choices of the past. "Everything I did was meant to destroy me. I hurt good people. Some at one point were good friends who turned into targets on graves while some became ghosts."
Steve pressed his lips into a tight line, and breathed out a labored whisper, "You want answers, Natasha. I give them to you." he almost growled at, frustrated with himself. "I thought I move on, pretend that everything was stable in my life-I have lost good people because of my choice of not making the dare to move. I am stuck -Grounded from living a normal life because of this guilt I carry. It is mine to bare. No one else deserves to feel this weight crushing him down to point where they feel dead inside." He lowered his eyes, staring vaguely at the floor and his set jaw clenched as he added. "I use to smile through my pain because I had something to live for, but now it just feels empty."
"When I..." Natasha started her voice throaty and weak. She had to tell him."Back when I lived in Russia, my family...I use to laugh and smile at anything because I free, Steve." A shiver run along the ridges of her spine, as disjointed flashbacks of her mother shot through her foggy mind. "I never got to say goodbye to my mother...She was killed the night I was taken by Ivan. They tried to kill her in my dreams, but never in my heart. She was my protector, and I was going to dance for her in these pink laced ballet slippers." She shut her eyes. «I guess she was never meant to dance again." She took a deep, hard breath.
"At least you know how to dance," he tried to smile light, nonchalance raised in his soft voice. "I can't even twirl on dance floor without falling on my face. And that's the truth."
She curved her pink lips into a faint smirk. She felt steady again. "Maybe you need the right partner. It takes to people to dance, and if you step on my heels with your big feet, I'll do it right back."
"Well in that case, I better start practicing." Steve smiled, blissfully, and he then looked at her again. His crystal blue eyes shimmered with sheer confidence, trust and love. Those were things she thought were faded out of men, but he was a man out of time, and he had something that other ones didn't or couldn't have -her heart.
She grinned, feeling the security of his arms fold over her hips. "You're going to need a lot of practice, Rogers."
He chuckled, hollowly. "I guess you're saying that I'm completely, hopeless?"
She smiled. Her grayish-emerald eyes softened, crinkling at the corners as she took in the sight of Captain America, every detail from freckle to distinct lines of his commanding, graven and young face. He was perfect. No flawless hidden, just real to her. His eyes, the wintry blue that held pain, hope and trust never seemed to change or darkened in those silent moments when they were trapped into the other's gaze. He leaned in closer, until his pointed nose was millimeters from her nose. Closer, and absolutely still, and his hand stroked the long strands of her red hair, holding her into a gentle stance as her neck rested against his forearm. She stared, unblinking, unwavering. Love. He always made her feel loved. It was what she needed, no more lies, and passports-just him. He was her golden haired angel who fought the demons with his shield of valor.
"Permission to kiss you, Agent Romanova?" he asked direct, using her real surname, his plush lips brushing over her mouth, hovering warmth and waiting.
"Permission granted, Captain Rogers," she replied, feeling the faintness of her heart.
Steve encompassed his hand over her face, and parted his lips, sealing her mouth with wet heat, gaining the soft flesh of her upper lip as he wrapped his own lips around it, sampling the sweetness of her, and swallowing down the moisture.
He pushed forward, crushing pressure, and applying savory warmth as he felt her lips dance under the folds of his mouth as he moved her blades up to the tip of her nose and kissed her long and deep. She was breathless, undone and filled with his breath trailing down throat. She forgot to breath, her heart seemed to skip a beat every second his lips moved along hers. Soft and gentle. Nothing compared to the caress and embrace she received. He didn't engrave scars on her, no; his loving kiss seemed to heal the marred holes in her heart. He took her pain. And she allowed him to.
"Steve," she whispered against his lips, licking at the sharp corners. Her breath hitched, and tears welled into her eyes. "I love you."
His teary blue eyes fell shut and he poured out all his emotions into a heated kiss, no more tension. She opened herself fully to him, frozen in his grace as his lips roamed every part of her mouth and her fingers gripped the golden locks touching the nape of his neck. He kneaded her scarlet locks, crunching the mass of hair in between his fingers, and deepened into fervent passion as their bodies folded into the darkness.
After a long moment of devouring his lips, Natasha pulled back, and pressed her palms under his shirt, feeling the rippling muscles flex in the wake of her touch. She was ready to strip him down, and make his sculpted body drench with sweat with her fierce thralls passion, but she knew he would never allow that-he had unbreakable mortals. She had to respect him. Maybe one day, if they weren't saving the world, but living different lives, just maybe he could restore her greatest burden that she carried deep within her.
Keeping her hazed green eyes, latched on his gleaming skin, she slid her fingers over the cervices of compacted muscle of his harden stomach. "Not bad for an old man," she smirked, and listened to him vibrantly laugh out her snarky voice. "You're still out of practice."
Steve smiled, and tilted his head forward, resting it against her forehead, and brushed his lips against her. Soft. Tentative. Heaven. He lifted his arms up, giving her access to settle against him, she accepted, and lowered her lithe frame atop of his torso.
His hands splayed over her back, soothing and tender, avoiding her bruises. His lips lowered to her shoulder, wet against the soft, compromised skin. He applied a kiss over the wound, feeling the muscle tense as his lips moved along the blemished skin, his tongue skimmed rough flesh. "You're beautiful," he murmured against her skin.
He was healing her. The nightmares had finally dissolved and seeped out her. She reclined her head back, closing her eyes as his nose ran up against her jaw line. He wandered over her chin and crushed another kiss on her lips. "You are," she said, the fierceness in her voice unleashed as she took his breath away and growled down his throat. "Mine."
Steve felt his swollen lips slack up, as their bodies interlocked and souls danced, and all he could manage to say in a heavy sigh, "Yeah."
It was more than enough assurance to her, and their kiss turned into something deep, strong and fierce, she was suddenly free from her past.
Captain America had rescued Natalia Romanova out of the red darkness. She smiled, and embraced him with everything she had left because his indestructible love was the price that paid for her freedom.
{The End }
I want to say thank you to everyone who read and reviewed this story. You guys are the best.