Chapter 55

Steve left after breakfast to go to their place in Brooklyn. When Natasha asked him if she should come with him, he blushed slightly and told her it was not necessary. Did he already want to look for an engagement ring?

She went with Bucky through some HYDRA files to find dirt on Malick and she hoped that Bucky would maybe remember working with Malick as the Winter Soldier. Sam later joined them and Bucky stayed true to his words to not tell anyone about their engagement but he grinned at Sam from time to time which made him uneasy. She tried to focus on the reports that Coulson had sent about the HYDRA cells they busted but she kept thinking about the wedding. Should she go and buy wedding magazines? Was that something brides did? Should she make a Pinterest account to pin the wedding together? Who knew how long it would take until they destroyed HYDRA once and for all? She wanted to be Steve's wife as soon as possible.

"Natasha?" Sam interrupted her train of thougths. "You still here?"

She nodded and kept looking through the reports. Sam tried to tease Bucky about Sharon but he was having none of that. She was tempted to ask him about Sharon herself but she figured that he probably didn't know himself what was happening between them. If Bucky wanted to talk about Sharon he would come to her.

An hour later Coulson called her and asked her if she and Steve could come to the Playground tomorrow to talk about Malick and HYDRA. She hoped that SHIELD found something. Coulson gave her the coordinates and she promised that they would be there tomorrow around noon.

They didn't find much in the files and Sam and Bucky excused themselves to go the gym floor. She wanted to join them at first but figured that she could use the time to check the internet for wedding ideas. And she had to contact Lagerfeld to remind him that he owed her a favour, she shouldn't probably wait to long to do that. She had no idea how long it took to make a wedding dress.

She was so deep into her research that she didn't notice that Steve was suddenly back and in the living room. "Hey, Nat."

She looked up from her laptop and smiled at him. "Hey, babe. Got what you wanted?"

He nodded smiling and sat down next to her on the couch, he took the laptop out of her hands and placed it on the coffee table. He pulled something out of his pocket and held it out to her. It was a necklace, no wait it were his dog tags. "It probably takes some time until I find the perfect ring for you and I wanted you to have something from me now."

He wanted her to wear his dog tags? She knew how much they meant to him and that he kept them in his nightstand because he was afraid that he could lose them if he wore them. "Steve..." She whispered and was so touched. "I can't accept this. I know how important they are to you."

Steve shook his head lightly. "You should have something from me. I want you to have it. If you don't like them than we can melt them to turn them into a necklace or something."

What? "No!" She said quickly and snatched them out of his hand. "Don't do that! I feel very honoured that you gave them to me." She smiled and put the dog tags around her neck.

"And I feel very honoured that you want to wear them." He gave her a beautiful smile that make her butterflies dance and cupped her face to kiss her. "I love you." He whispered against her lips and kissed her deeply. Natasha sighed into the kiss and leaned down on the couch pulling Steve over her. He trailed kisses over her jaw and neck and played with the dog tags. She slid her hands under his shirt and caressed his back.

"Where's Buck?" He whispered against her neck.

"Training with Sam, he will be gone for some time." She moaned out when Steve sucked on her pulse point. She pushed him up to get out of her sweater. The dog tags fell between her breasts and Steve clearly enjoyed the sight because he licked his lips and then leaned down to kiss the top of her tits and was about to push the cups of her bra down when someone shrieked.

"OH GOD! I'm so sorry!" Sharon yelled with her back to them. Steve got as red as a tomato and grabbed a pillow to cover his erection when he sat up. Natasha couldn't help but laugh when she pulled her sweater back on.

"We're decent, Sharon. You can turn around." Natasha told her with amusement in her voice.

Sharon turned around and was almost as red as Steve. "I'm really sorry for...um, walking in on you. I was looking for Bucky. Ross wants to talk about him about the Winter Soldiers."

"He's on the gym floor." Steve muttered out and Sharon quickly left.

Natasha was still smirking when she pulled the pillow on Steve's lap away to check if he was still in the mood, he definitely still was. Her hands went to his belt but he stopped her. "We'll continue this in the bedroom." He grunted and picked her up.

Coulson was already waiting for them when the quinjet landed on the hangar of the Playground. Tony wanted to come with them and she begrudgingly let him. He probably just wanted to poke his nose into SHIELD's framework and annoy Coulson. Sam joined them as well since Coulson said that they could need some help to raid another HYDRA base. Sam excused himself to look for Bobbi. Natasha did tell him that she had an on-and off thing with her ex-husband but he still seemed to want to figure out if he got a chance with her.

Coulson led them into the Playground and showed them their rooms to sleep in if the whole thing would take longer. Coulson seemed a bit shocked when she told him nonchalantly that she would be sharing a room with Steve. He obviously didn't know that she was in a relationship with Captain America and Steve looked so happy when she said that they only needed three rooms. She knew she did something right.

"So what's worse?" Tony asked Coulson with a smirk on his face. "Your idol banging your protegée or your protegée banging your idol?"

Steve blushed, Coulson coughed and she only rolled her eyes. "Shut the fuck up, Stark!"

"What? I'm just making conversation, Natasha!"

She gave him a light scrowl, Steve would be probably to be embarrassed and self-conscious to make love to her tonight if they had to stay the night. Damn it, she slept so much better after he wore her out!

Phil seemed to collect himself rather quickly after that revelation. "Anyways, I have a little surprise for you in our interrogation room." He said with a smirk.

Tony and Steve looked as clueless as as she felt. Who did SHIELD bring in?

"Follow me." Coulson said and they followed him down the hallway to what looked like his office. Phil walked to his desk and typed on his tablet and the screen behind him showed a windowless room and a table. And at that table was Sunil Bakshi sitting.

"Holy shit!" Tony exclaimed and Natasha had to agree. How did they get him?

"How long is he in custody?" Steve asked. "Did he already talk?"

Coulson shook his head. "We tracked him down two days ago. He wants to talk to an Avenger. He's willing to cooperate if we offer him protection. It almost looks like HYDRA dropped him. If I had to guess his only purpose was to free Barnes and find the other Winter Soldiers... "

"And now he fears that HYDRA's gonna kill him." Natasha finished for him. Well that was certainly something they could work with. If he had been truly and utterly loyal to HYDRA he would have killed himself before SHIELD got to him. But he was still alive and hoping for protection and she was sure that he was willing to give up a few things for that.

"I'll talk to him." She offered and Coulson nodded.

"I was hoping you would."

Tony wanted to explore the Playground and Steve offered to join him to keep him from causing too much trouble.

Coulson smiled at her when Steve and Tony were out of his office. "I'm happy for you, Natasha."

"Thanks?"

He laughed. "You deserve to have someone in your life. You've come such a long way since you broke my nose."

She grimaced at that. Back in her early days when she've had her episodes she had killed SHIELD agents and broke Phil's nose. She was the reason his nose looked different. "Yeah about that... I'm sorry!"

Coulson waved her off. "It's fine. You didn't do it on purpose and I think it gave me a more distinguished look."

"Did May tell you that?" She smirked.

"I have no idea what you mean."

"Sure you don't. You wanna go over Bakshi's file before I talk to him?"

Coulson nodded and motioned for her to sit down.

Bakshi agreed to give up names in exchange for a new identity and enough fonds to live a good life. Coulson seemed to agree to the deal but Natasha wouldn't be surprised if he gave a kill order after they let Bakshi go. Only a dead Nazi was a good Nazi.

As it turned out Bakshi wasn't dumb and he collected dirt on other high-ranking HYDRA members. He didn't give up Malick, either because he was too scared or because he simply didn't know that Malick was his boss. Natasha was sure that only a handful of people knew who the leader of HYDRA was. The less people knew, the lower the risk was that someone would talk.

Coulson said he had to make some calls to get him the new identity and the money but he would have them by tomorrow. Bakshi promised in return to give them everything he had on HYDRA as soon as he got his new ID and bank account. So they would definitely have to stay the night. They went back to the quinjet to get their duffelbags and dropped them off at their rooms.

Tony left to go to the labs to persuade FitzSimmons into working for him but Natasha had the suspicion that they would stay at SHIELD. People who worked with Coulson stayed loyal to him. If she had known after the fall of SHIELD that he was rebuildling it and if she hadn't been with Steve, she would have rejoined the agency because of Coulson.

Bobbi whispered to her when she ran into her that she and Hunter were currently not together and that she wanted to take Sam out for a few drinks. Well, maybe at least Sam would get laid tonight because Steve still seemed flustered about Tony's comment to Coulson and probably didn't want to make his way into her pants later. He had been embarrassed enough when Sharon caught them making out yesterday. Not that Natasha thought that Coulson would walk into their room. He was probably too scared about what could happen on the other side of the door.

So that only left her and Steve to accept Coulson's invitation for dinner at a restaurant a few miles away from the Playground. She wasn't suprised that he and the others lived at the base but she was happy that she and Steve had their own place in Brooklyn and she couldn't wait to go back to it. The Tower was amazing and had everything you could possibly want but it wasn't home. She wondered if Bucky would still live with them after his name got hopefully cleared or if he would stay at the Tower or look for his own place. She should talk with Steve about that. She liked living with Bucky but she wanted to live with her husband alone after they got married.

Dinner with Coulson was nice. It reminded her of the time when he was her handler and he took her every year on her birthday to a fancy restaurant to celebrate. She knew that Coulson had played an important role in the decision if she could stay at SHIELD and she would forever be thankful for that.

Steve asked Coulson questions about SHIELD and how the agency wanted to prevent that it got infiltraded by HYDRA again. Coulson answered all of his questions eagerly and she wondered quite amused who loved Steve more. Her or Coulson? She didn't think the answer was that obvious with the way Coulson's eyes were glued to Steve and he lit up everytime Steve complimented his leading skills. She remembered Tony's comment from earlier and Coulson was probably more shocked that she was debauching his idol than Steve banging her. Coulson still had that starstruck look he had when he introduced Steve to her on the Helicarrier four years ago. Who would have thought they would fall in love with each other? She definitely didn't and she would have never dreamed that Captain America would propose to her one day.