Chapter 16

They were on their way to Norway. They took a regular flight to Oslo and Natasha was sleeping with her head on his shoulder. Since their first date in New York, they had four more dates in DC.

They went bowling, took a tour with his bike driving along the Potomac River and Natasha drove his bike on their way back to DC, had dinner at that rooftop restaurant he found online and cooked at her place and watched movies. The movies were soon forgotton and they made out on her couch like teenagers. He liked to take things further but Natasha made no indication that she wanted the same and so he settled with furiously making out which was really nice ,more than nice to be honest, don't get him wrong.

The pilot annouched that they would arrive soon and Natasha began to stir and woke up. "Did I fall asleep?"

He gave her knee a gently squeeze. "It's fine. You looked really cute drooling on my shoulder."

She looked at his jacket that had no drool on it. He liked to tease her from time to time too. "I did not, you liar!" She smacked his arm.

They left the airport to get to their rental car, they still had to drive over two hours to the safehouse. Fury sent them to Norway to investigate a white supremacy Norse God cult that appeared to plan terror attacks. Unfortunately Thor was in Asgard and couldn't come with them. He liked to see Thor hit some Nazis with his hammer, he didn't think Thor would be happy with people spreading hate in the name of his family.

According to Natasha being Russian made her the better driver for snowy streets and she raced them in what had to be a new record to the safehouse. Lewis Hamilton could be glad that Nat wasn't interested in becoming a Formula 1 driver.

Natasha had a blonde wig in her suitcase and would go to a meeting of the "Norse purity" to collect intel. Apparently she spoke fluent Norwegian and he wondered how many languages she could speak. It was already evening when they arrived and Steve heated two cans of soup for him and Natasha. After dinner, Natasha checked her gear and Steve went over the files again. The safehouse had two bedrooms and they agreed that during missions they would keep it professional, not that they ever slept in a bed before. Natasha gave him a short goodnight kiss and then went into her room.

When he was alone in his bed, he could swear that the cold crept under his blankets. He knew that it wasn't possible since the windows were closed and he had thermo blankets but still he felt so cold. He dreamt about crashing a quinjet into the ice and Natasha's cries over the comm to stay with her.

Someone shook his shoulder and he woke up. Natasha's worried face looked down on him. "Steve, are you okay?"

He sat up and realized that he was shaking. "Nightmare." He rasped out. God, he though that he worked through his plane crash but apparently he didn't. Was he afraid that it would happen again and he would lose Natasha?

"Scoot over." Natasha crawled under the blankets when he made room for her. She laid down on her back and patted on her chest and when he didn't move she gave him a pointed look. "Are you gonna make a girl beg?"

He complied and rested his head on her chest. She immediatey pulled him into her arms and brushed her hand through his hair. How did she know that this was exactly what he needed? He wrapped his arm around her waist and closed his eyes.

"Do you want to talk about your dream?" She whispered softly and he shook his head."Okay, then go back to sleep. I'm not going anywhere."

"Thank you, Nat."

"There's no need to thank me." She kissed the top of his head and the beating of her heart lulled him to sleep.

The next morning he woke up around 5 am and Natasha was behind him and spooned him. Her arm was wrapped around his torso and her face buried between his shoulder blades. He could feel her breath through his shirt. He tried to leave the bed without waking her up but he had no success. She tightend her hold of him and kissed his neck.

"Had a good sleep?" She mumbled against his skin.

"Yeah" He really slept well after Natashs slipped into bed with him and hold him. He didn't think the Norwegian cold would have such an impact on him.

"Me too." She kissed his neck again and rolled onto her back. He turned around so he could face her and she smiled sleepily at him. "No more nightmares?"

He shook his head. "No, thank you for staying with me."

"Of course." She moved on her side and cupped his face with her hand to kiss him. "Do you now want to talk about what you dreamt?"

He sighed and brushed her hair out of her face. "I crashed a plane into the ice in my dream."

She started to stroke his cheek with the pad of her thumb. "Do you dream about that plane crash a lot?"

"It wasn't the Valkyrie I crashed into the ice in my dream. It was a quinjet and you told me over the comm to not leave you." He confessed and felt embarrassed somehow.

"That won't happen. You'll never lose 70 years of your life again, okay?" She rested her forehead against his. "Not on my watch."

"Okay." He closed his eyes and enjoyed her presence and the comfort and warmth she gave him. They seemed to have fallen asleep again because the next time they checked the clock it was 7:43 am. He usually didn't sleep that long. Natasha stretched and exposed her defined stomach to his eyes. He looked away, he was already embarrassed enough because of his morning wood but Natasha pretended not to notice it even though he knew she must have felt it when they were wrapped around each other. She kissed his cheek and got out of bed to check the kitchen for breakfast.

After breakfast Natasha went into town to attend the meeting of the "Norse purity" that would be in the hardware store of one of the members. He was close by in hiding if she needed him. He couldn't hear everything that was said during the meeting but he could hear in Natasha's voice that she wasn't very impressed. A normal person wouldn't have heard it in her voice but after a year of working together he could tell by the way she spoke if she deemed a situation dangerous.

An hour later she met him in a cafe and he made sure before he walked in that the beanie on his head covered all his hair so he wouldn't be recognized. It took him a minute to spot Natasha because he was looking for red hair and not blonde.

"How was work, honey?" She greeted him with a heavy Norgewian accent in case someone was listening.

"Good." He replied in his usual accent because he tried a few and it only made Nat laugh. "How was your day?"

"Boring. Not a lot happened. Not enough fire." She used a code to tell him that she didn't find any weapons at the hardware store which SHIELD thought was the command center.

"Maybe tonight will be more exciting?" This was his way of asking her if she wanted to check out the store when it was dark and she nodded. "Okay, let's order something."

After lunch they walked around town acting like a normal couple while checking out the places where the members lived. Back at their safehouse Natasha told him that most members were racist fanatics but seemed more like the type who talked a lot of shit but didn't let action follow their words. But it was still better to see if they had any weapons or bombs to cause terror attacks. Natasha left bugs at the hardware store but nothing suspicious was recorded. They could hear that the owner closed his shop and went home. They changed into their uniforms and protected by the darkness they broke into the store. Natasha checked the office while he went through a storage room. He didn't find anything that didn't belonged into a hardware store and continued his search in the basement. He heard Natasha's footstep following him down the stairs. He turned around and accidently blended her with his flashlight. "Sorry"

She held blueprints in her hands. "These are about the government buildings in Oslo. If they're planning something, it's happening there."

He nodded and opened the door to the basement. More storage rooms but then they found another office. Natasha walked over to the desk and looked over some papers. "They're trying to build a bomb, Steve." She pointed at the boxes of nails on the chair in front of the desk. "They're making nail bombs."

"With a hardware store they're directly at the source." He moved closer to look at the papers. "No one gets suspicious if a hardware store orders a ton of nails."

Natasha nodded and pulled a mini camera out of her unity belt of her catsuit and started to take pictures. "I'm sending these to SHIELD and the Norwegian feds when we're at the safehouse."

They found the other utensils that were needed for the bombs and it didn't look like they got very far yet. Natasha hid a bug in the basement office and they left without anyone seeing them.

Back at the safehouse she immediately connected the camera to her laptop and send the data to SHIELD. Steve took a shower while she worked at the computer and when he came back she informed him that their work was done here and they would take a flight back to DC tomorrow around noon.

"That was fast." He said while rubbing his hair with his towel.

"Yeah, good for us that these idiots are not criminal masterminds. As soon as they're finished with the bombs, they are gonna get arrested and with the bugs at the store there will be enough confessions without them even noticing." She looked pleased and shut her laptop. "Hill got us first class tickets as a reward."

"That's nice. I'll make dinner while you take a shower?" She nodded and left for the bathroom and he heated up some frozen pizza.

The pizza was okay but the company was amazing. Natasha somehow found a bottle of red wine and they enjoyed it while sitting on the couch.

"You want to sleep alone tonight?" She asked him after she took a sip from her glass.

"I don't want to bother you." He didn't want to be alone because he was sure that he would have a nightmare otherwise but he didn't want to burden Natasha and he didn't want her to share a bed with him out of pity.

"You're not bothering me." She put her glass on the table and scooted closer to him. "You know, I was worried that this climate would trigger some unpleasant memories. You haven't really been in any artic places since we found you."

"Yeah well, I think I prefer missions in a warmer climate. After they got me out of the ice, I could still feel the cold for weeks. I thought it would never go away but it did eventually. But last night it came back."

She took his hand into her smaller ones. "I'm sorry you had to go through this. But you're not alone any more. If you want me in your bed just say so."

He blushed at her words that could mean more than one thing and she scoffed. "That's not what I meant, Rogers. Get your mind out of the gutter."

"So you don't want to sleep with me?" He blurted out. "Is it because I'm a virgin?" He had been thinking about that since their heavy make out session on her couch. She stopped when he unconsciously stared to grind his hips against her and she got off the couch and called it a night.

"What?" She looked puzzled. "Of course I want to have sex with you, Steve!" She sighed and ran her hand through her hair. "It has nothing to do with you being a virgin. I don't care about that. I just don't want us to rush things. All of my previous -well I wouldn't call it relationships- flings were just physical and I don't want that to be the foundation of this." She pointed between them. "This is so much more than just sex. But there are a few things that we can do before we have actual sex." She bit her lip and he gulped.

"Like what?"

"Oh, you'll find out soon enough but not here in a safehouse. Back in the DC. I promise." She pulled him up from the couch. "And now let's get some sleep. We have to leave early to catch our flight."

They got ready for bed and both walked into Steve's room after that. This night they fell asleep with Natasha's head on his chest and his arms wrapped around her. God, he was so lucky that he found Natasha in this world. He didn't tell her earlier but he stopped feeling the cold after he started working with her. He would tell her someday that she was the reason he was still standing and didn't lose his mind after waking up. He owed her so much.

He made sure that she was already asleep because he didn't think she was ready to hear these words yet. "I love you, Natasha."

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