Chapter 8

She would meet Steve at a motel near the Mexican border to track down a former SHIELD agent who smuggled alien tech from the Chitauri invasion over the border to South America. He made a fortune with it by selling it to drug lords who use it to terrorize innocent people. Agent Bowler was a piece of shit and she couldn't wait to beat the shit out of him.

She checked into the motel under an alias and was informed that Mister Elliot hadn't check in yet. She was more than thankful than Steve wasn't here yet. She spent the entire flight from DC to Arizona thinking about what to tell him. She knew he wanted to talk about what happened in LA, maybe he even wanted to ask her out. She still didn't know what to tell him. She needed to come up with something that wouldn't hurt him but also made him think she wasn't interested. Maybe she should just tell him that, she wasn't interested in him like that which was a lie but in the end it was better for him. People already started to talk about them, Captain America couldn't date the Black Widow.

She got into her motel room, took a shower and changed into a blue summer dress. It had a flower pattern and swung around her knees when she moved around. She would never wear something like that but it would help her blend it. She braided her hair into a crown around her head and looked into the mirror of the tiny bathroom. She almost laughed, she now looked exactly like the kinda girl that was right for Steve. She slipped into her chucks and went to the bed to check Bowler's file again. He frequently visited the nursing home a few miles from here to see his grandmother. They would have to wait for him to show up and he hopefully would lead them to his arsenal. A SHIELD team from Tuscon would then confiscate the alien weapons and bring them to the Triskelion.

A knock on her door made her look up from the files. It couldn't be room service or the cleaning stuff, so it had to be Steve. She flattened her dress and checked her make up. Was this what normal women do? Make sure they looked good before they saw the man they were into? She opened the door and she was right. Steve was standing before her with a baseball cap and aviator sunglasses on. He wore one of his usual tight shirts and it gave her a good look at his muscular arms and perfect chest.

"Hey, Nat." He smiled brightly at her and leaned down to kiss her cheek. She tried her best not to touch where he kissed her. "They told me you already checked in."

She moved aside to let him in. "You already read the file on Bowler?" Maybe if she could get him focused on the mission, he wouldn't want to talk about their private lifes.

"Yeah, on my flight to here." He sat down on the bed and looked at her. "You look really pretty."

She knew he meant it without any ulterior motive. He just wanted her to know that she was pretty. He liked to compliment her and she liked to hear it.

"Thanks. Not really my style though." She sat down on the chair in the corner of the room and crossed her legs. She noticed how Steve followed her movement and stared at her legs. She coughed and he looked away, a slight blush on his cheeks.

"From what I gathered Bowler visits his grandmother every wednesday. Today is tuesday. Do you wanna get ice cream? There's a place down the road, I saw it on my way here." He gave her his boyish smile that she liked so much.

"I need to go over the file again. Maybe I'll find the warehouse like that." She told him and she could see disappointment flicker briefly over his face. Then he grabbed a file and opened it.

"Then we'll go over it together. Four eyes see more than two." He smiled and moved to make room for her on the bed. Damnit, she wanted him to go. This was a bad idea. It already took all of her willpower not to climb him like a tree.

"I'd rather go over it alone. I have my own system." She said and hoped he would leave her with her dirty thoughts alone. It had been months since she got laid and he looked so tempting with his tight shirt, tousled hair from wearing the baseball cap and light sweat on his forehead from the heat.

"Okay, I'll get it when I'm not needed." He didn't sound offended. He put the file down and got up from the bed.

He walked to the door. "I'll meet you at 7 at that diner around the corner? My treat."

"Doesn't SHIELD pay for every expenses during a mission?" She quipped with a raised eybrow.

Steve laughed. "Well, I guess than it's Fury's treat. Will you meet me there?" He looked at her like it would be more than a simple dinner between colleagues.

No

"Yes."

What?

Steve smiled at her brightly and left. Oh fuck, did she just agree to go on a date with Steve? No, he wouldn't go on a date with her during a mission. That was unprofessional.

She pushed all thoughts about Steve out of her mind and went through the files about Bowler again. But since he used to work for SHIELD, he knew how to not leave a trail. She and Steve had to go to the nursing home tomorrow to track him.

She glanced at the clock, she needed to leave if she didn't want to be late for dinner. She almost didn't go but that would have been rude. And besides, maybe it wasn't a date because if it were a date, wouldn't have Steve picked her up and walked with her to the diner? He certainly was the guy who would do that. So she was probably freaking out about nothing. She hid the files under the mattres and grabbed her purse and left.

Natasha sighed in relief when she walked into the diner. It didn't look like a place you took someone on a date to. It was an All-American diner straight out of those movies Natasha watched when she defected and tried to leave everything Russian behind her. The waitresses wore aprons and probably called their customers sweetie and honey.

A middle-aged woman with a bright smile came to her. "Hi sweetie, table for one?"

"No, I'm meeting someone, actually." She looked around the diner. Not a lot of people were here and in one booth she spotted Steve. He waved at her when he saw her.

"Oh, you're here with the handsome young man?" She winked at her conspiratorially. "He told me he was waiting for someone. Lucky you, he seems like a great guy." The waitress didn't seem like she realized that Captain America was sitting in her diner.

"It's not like that." Natasha felt the need to defend herself. "We're just friends."

"Oh honey, with a man like that you're never friends. Believe me. You should climb that man like a tree." She laughed. "If I were 20 years younger..."

Natasha forced a smile out and walked over to Steve but the waitress was following her. She probably didn't have much of a life and needed to know how it would continue between them.

"Hi Lizzie." Steve got up and greeted her with her alias.

"Jake." She nodded at him and hid her surprise when he kissed her cheek again. Steve pointed at the seat opposite his and she sat down.

The waitress was smiling brightly at them and handed them menus. "Can I get you something to drink?"

Steve looked at Natasha. "Lizzie?"

"Um, I'll have an iced tea, please."

"For me too"

The waitress nodded and didn't leave without giving Natasha a little thumbs up. She was just glad that Steve didn't seem to have noticed that. Natasha stretched her legs and accidentally kicked his shin.

"Sorry"

He just smiled at her. "Do you know what you want?"

She looked down at the menu. "I'll have a cheeseburger and fries."

As on cue the waitress appeared with their iced teas and Steve ordered the same thing as Natasha.

"I'm glad you finally met Sam." Steve smiled at her. "Maybe the three of us can do something together sometime."

"Are you inviting me to a threesome, Rogers?" She couldn't help teasing him and Steve almost choked on his iced tea.

"Jesus, Nat. No!" He was furiously blushing and it was really cute.

"Wouldn't be my first one." She shrugged and he managed to get even redder.

"I don't share." He muttered under his breath and she wasn't sure if she heard him right. The waitress chose that moment to bring them their food and looked from Steve to Natasha and winked at her. Natasha tried her best to suppress an eye-roll.

Steve told her that Sam worked at the VA and that he sometimes went to the group sessions. She was glad that he found a friend and dealt with his PTSD. He knew that Steve stopped seeing the SHIELD therapist the moment it wasn't mandatory for him anymore. Not that she could blame him, the minute she got cleared for missions she stopped seeing her as well.

He didn't mention LA during their dinner and she followed his example. Maybe she had read way too much into that situation. It would make much more sense that he wasn't into her. What did Agent Salky say? He could literally have anyone. Why would he want her? A broken woman with an urge to kill? Didn't she read on her flight to here in one of those gossip magazins that Taylor Swift said that she would like to go on a date with Captain America? Wouldn't that be a match made in heaven? America's golden boy dating America's sweetheart.

"Nat? You still there?" Steve laughed when she looked at him.

"Yeah. Of course. I need to powder my nose. Excuse me for a moment." She got up and of course Steve raised from his seat. Damn him and his manners and damn her for liking it so much.

She let the cool water run over her wrists. The heat wasn't really her thing. She was Russian for Christ's sake. Her blood was made out of ice. She left the restroom and on her way back to the booth she spotted flyers of a miniature golf course. She snapped one and put it on the table when she sat down again.

"You wanna go there?"

Steve grabbed the flyer and glanced over it. "Sure, sounds great." He gave her that boyish grin again and the butterflies in her stomach tried to get her attention.

"Awesome. Let's pay and then go there." She waved for the waitress and asked for the check. When she tried to grab it, Steve snapped it out of her hands and paid for it. The waitress seemed to be very pleased with his reaction and wished them a great evening.

It turned out that the miniature golf course belonged to the motel and was only a five minute walk away. They paid and got their miniature golf clubs handed.

"You know I've never played mini golf before." Steve told her while they walked to the first station.

"Well prepare yourself to get your ass kicked. Clint still refuses to play it with me again. His defeat was too shameful." She almost told him that Laura and Cooper were there as well but no one could know about his family.

Steve just laughed and got the ball with three tries into the hole. Pretty good for a beginner. The sun was gone when they were halfway through the course and Natasha was leading but Steve wasn't that far behind her. It was dark now and the whole place was lit with twinkling lights and the full moon was shining. She looked around and could only see pairs of two, no bigger groups.

Oh god, she was such an idiot. The others were on dates! Playing minigolf in the moonlight, wasn't that some sort of classic date? Oh god, did Steve think that this was a date? Did she subconsciously take him on a date? Steve walked past by her and brushed his fingers over her arm when he went to get the ball out of the hole. Despite the heat she got goosebumps all over. Fuck, Romanoff you are in so much trouble.

They ended the course half an hour later and Natasha won by ten points. Steve turned out to be a better loser than Clint and bought her a soft ice. They sat down on a bench outside the golf course even though she knew that this was probably a bad idea.

"This was nice." Steve sighed and finished his cone. He looked at her with fondness in his eyes. She couldn't remember the last time someone looked at her like that.

"Yeah, it was." She rasped out. She knew she was playing with fire but she couldn't bring herself to get up and call it a night. She finished her ice cream as well and Steve took her now free right hand. He played with her fingers and she let him.

"Natasha." He smiled at her and brushed a strain of hair that fell out of her braid out of her face. She should stop him, she knew what he was about to do. But she wanted it. His hand moved to cup her cheek and he leaned in. He brushed his lips against hers almost like he was asking for permission. Her whole body felt like it was on fire by the feeling of his lips against her. She grabbed the hair on the back of his neck and kissed him. She could feel Steve smile into the kiss and the hand that wasn't caressing her face moved to her waist to pull her closer. The kiss was soft and gently at first but got more passionate and deeper the longer it went. A car drove past them and she realized that they were out here in the open for everyone to see.

She pecked his lips and grabbed his hand and pulled him of the bench, She dragged him by his hand back to the motel and to his room since it was closer than hers. He was so excited that he had a few problems to open the door and Natasha felt proud by that. Captain America was having problems to get into his room because he was excited that he was about to get into her pants. He laughed when he got the door open and took her hand and led her into the room. She grabbed the collar of his shirt and pushed him against the nearest wall. She had to stand on her tiptoes when she was kissing him. She sucked on his lower lip and when he moaned she took that chance to slip her tongue into his mouth. His hands roamed her back and she couldn't wait for them both to be naked. His arousal was pressing against her and her hands went to his belt and she started to unbuckle it.

"I hope I don't disappoint you." He mumbled into their kiss and she stopped to look at him. The blue of his eyes was almost gone. She bit her lip in excitement.

"Why would I be disappointed?" She got his belt undone and was about to pop his button open. She wanted and needed him now. She didn't think she'd ever been this turned on before.

"I've never done this before." He murmured so quietly, she almost didn't hear it. Never done what before? Having an one-night stand with a co-worker? But then she looked at him again and the embarrassed look on his face told her everything. He never had sex before. He was a virgin. Of course, he was one. Didn't he once imply he was never in a relationship before? And he wasn't the guy for casual sex. God, what the fuck was she doing?

She backed away from him and leaned against the opposite wall. "This is all wrong. We can't do this." His first time shouldn't be with someone like her. She almost felt dirty compared to his innocence. What was she thinking.

"Why?" He almost yelled. "Because I've never had sex before? You can tell me what you want. Show me what you like!" He was heavy breathing and his lips were swollen from her kisses.

Didn't he get that he deserved more than her? Deserved more than an one-night stand in a shabby motel? Because that was all she could give him -an one-night stand.

"I can't do this, Steve. I can't do this to you." She grabbed the door handle. "I'm sorry. You'll thank me one day."

He grabbed her elbow but she shook him off. "Natasha, please talk to me. What did I do wrong? I thought you wanted this too."

She ignored him and went to the staircase to get to her room. This was for the best, he would be eventually happy that he didn't sleep with her. It was only a matter of time until he realized that he didn't really want her. She was his only female friend. Of course he thought he was attracted to her. She went straight for the shower when she got to her room. The cold water helped her to calm down. She knew she did the right thing by not sleeping with him. She wasn't wired to be in a relationship, she couldn't give him what he needed. God, tomorrow would be one awkward day. They could be stuck for hours in a car waiting for Bowler. She hoped Steve wouldn't be too angry with her. Maybe he would have realized by tomorrow that it was for the best that they didn't have sex tonight.

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