Archive of Our Own ^beta

{Trust}

"Natasha," Steve called out in a shuddering pitch of breath; seething against clenched teeth. Everything was blurring into a red pulsing haze. A metal hand coiled over his throat and hoisted his massive body off the elevated platform, making him dangle over the rushing stream of water gushing out of the hallow rusted pipe that morphed into the rectangular shaped reservoir blockaded by cinder blocks and a twisted iron gate. Laden bodies of AIM agents that Natasha had shot with stun teasers were sloshing against the low undertow of water. Their black tactical gear was barely visible against the shadows.

The entire chamber carried a vague and dank stench of rotten decay and rust as it gathered into his nostrils at the same time Steve struggled to regain his breath; lifting his gloved hand, the super-soldier made an effort of quick reflex and seized the robot's arm, pulling the limb outward just enough to fill his lungs with a gulp of stale air.

"Stay where you are, Nat..." Steve commanded as his voice stretched into a deep gnarl mixed with heavy gasps of breath. He was fighting against a rush of pain that spread from his neck to his temple. His vision was swimming into dimming haze of pulsating black. A drone whirled to shoot at her, but Steve hooked his elbow around the neck joints and popped off the head, and then he rammed his shoulder into the metal shell, sending the robot splashing into the floods of water. Taking a cleansing breath, Steve fell into a trance from the vibrant glow of neon blue of Natasha's Widow Bites leading him back to the obstructed area underneath a flight of curved stairs.

Licking the paste off his lips, Steve tasted the warm sticky blood trickling from his nose and slowly making a descent down his bruised chin as he crushed the metal plate with a firm clench of his fist. After releasing the drone from his clutch, Steve glanced back at Natasha holding her pistol leveled to the stairway above her injured form; his blue eyes turned into smoldering embers underneath the shadow of his helmet. Blinking the dark splotches out of his vision, Steve roved his intent gaze back at the drone and then forced his leg up, aligning it with the metallic plates of the robot's chassis. With a raw growl emitting from his dry throat, he rammed his knee full force into the center and sparks flew in the wake of hard muscle crushing against metal.

When the faulty drone receded a step back; Steve felt his ears burn as a deafening screech of metal devoured the sound of the rushing drainage chamber. He quickly turned around, thrusting his arm upwards, gripping an iron bar above him and twisted his torso as he jumped a few inches off the grate, then flipped himself into a 360 degree as his boot knocked the head clean off with a spinning heel kick. Eventually the eruptions of pain stopped and threw the remaining piece of the mechanical body over the edge. Natasha curled her lips into an impressed smirk, trying to mutter something out but the constant sting dragged her voice back down. She lowered the gun onto her thigh, and grazed her cheek against the wall. The blood loss was causing her to slip in and out of unconsciousness. She cursed knowingly that her body would undergo another transfusion.

Natasha felt disconnected with the world. She pressed her back against the cement after several moments of the disturbing pain flooding her veins. It didn't affect her. During her sessions of the dehumanization programs of Department X, the fourteen year old ballerina became immune to the prickling numbness as the cocktail of enhanced chemicals strengthened her tolerance levels until she felt completely hollow and cold. They transformed her into an obedient weapon-a machine that was altered to process orders and not emotions. And she knew the meaning of pain... Sometimes she would share it with men who deserved to die for their vile crimes against young women forced into subjugation—human trafficking and trained brainwashed operatives.

It was her world. Survival and life.

"The whole level is going to give out. Don't move..." Steve yelled breathlessly, his voice sounding harsh and a little shaky; a gruffer pitch and an urging need that hadn't been there before. The usual seriousness and commanding tone was replaced with a crackling breath of desperation. Rubbing his throat for a moment, he regarded her with intent blue eyes before crouching down and strapping his shield to his wrist.

For a moment, Natasha closed her eyes, breathing heavy. When she peeled her lids open she watched his face obscure into a deeply expression; his lips pressing into a taunt line of controlled rage as another drone stood in front of him.

"Put some pressure on that wound," he advised, blocking another slash with his shield. Despite of all the chaos around them, Steve was concerned for her life. "...it will stop the bleeding." he added, while tilting his head backwards as a violent swipe of metal cutting into air about an inch from his jaw, but Steve bent his arm and drove the shield through the legs and the robot crashed and deactivated in a matter of seconds.

"Steve..." she whispered, unable to function against the thralls of gouging and rending pain. She knew that death wouldn't claim her yet, she would find a way to run from the voids. A shudder of coldness rattled through her bones as she commanded herself to straighten on her feet; movement happened. She was limping closer to the extension of the platform. She stared down at the red collecting on her black nenoprane uniform and the world swirled and she halted her steps looking at Captain America—Steve—kneeling in front of scraps of the drones. "...Rogers?"

Wiping a smear of blood off his chin, Steve looked over his shoulder and stared at Natasha, trying to steady her balance against a railing. Her scarlet locks were tussled and her face pale from the amount of blood she had lost during the harrowing attack.

Unbeknownst to her pain, his intent azure eyes locked onto the exposed gash on her right side and he felt the tiniest surge of friction in his chest. He quickly advanced to the other side of the platform. His boots crushed over the dislocated limbs and pieces of torn power cores while fervently moving closer to her.

Natasha was jerking a lot, as though she were going into shock. Gritting his teeth, Steve pushed himself through the dangling pipes obstructing him from the Russian spy—his partner.

"Hold on, Natasha..." the Captain said, his voice echoing through the chamber and bounced into the deep pools of intense overflows of lapping water. He was frozen, the thought of losing her became a recoiling, sickening distress in his stomach. He faltered a step, almost allowing his damn heart to betray him as he spared a glance over the edge and looked at the water below. It was crushing him...the hesitation to dare himself to move and invade her space. Darkness hovered over Natasha's injured body, and she was staggering and shaking hand, trying to seize the support bar.

Uncertain if the damage was severe and if they would make it out alive. It was a risk. Putting his doubts aside, Steve focused on her wound. Her life was all that mattered to him. Feeling his muscles jar awake, he finally broke out of the gray abyss, and tore through the canopy of rusted and dented pipes. His gloved hand reached for her arm in that second when she fainted and nearly toppled to the edge.

Grimacing, Steve tossed his shield into another drone and then used his other hand to grip the railing; his pectorals scraped over the jagged steel of the support beam holding their bodies leveled over the water. After releasing a few heavy pants of breath, he collected his focus, kept his hand fastened over her Widow Bite gauntlet, having been unceremoniously damaged under his strength. The electronic device would be an easy fix for Stark. It was a just a weapon. "Natasha!" he veered his gaze down at her, feeling her hand slipping out of his grasp.

Blood trailed over his knuckles. His eyes watered and his jaw tensed against the surge of his enhance strength rippling in his veins. He wasn't letting her go.

Intense flashes of Bucky's marred hand dissolving in the flecks of snow reemerged from the recesses of his mind. A cold remainder of his guilt. Heart was thumping faster, and he groaned as a sharp throb ignited in his chest. Steve blinked those haunting images of his childhood friend falling into the endless white out of his mind. Barnes was gone. Dead. A memory. He couldn't save Bucky...He would save her.

"Natasha, wake up..." he urged in a harsh whisper. He shook his head vehemently. "I need both of your hands, beautiful—I can't lose you..." His voice blotted out into a desperate plea as the railing threatened to snap...The beam tipped and he was plowing through lingering pieces of steel and sliding down towards the edge of peril with her—inches from becoming swallowed by the dark fathoms of water. He swallowed, using his wits to formulate a strategy of getting them off the platform. He only had one chance to save her.

As seconds fled around them, Steve took a deep breath and summoned everything that had been welled in the layers of his heart and sealed his arms around her wrist. Heat merged with her fading temperature. It was both a physical and emotional merge of trust. "I'm not letting you go...Natasha Romanoff," he bellowed deeply with no intent of letting her slip away from his reach.

Listening to the water flowing below, Steve squeezed his eyes shut emotions were teetering and tears rolled down the chiseled lines of his jaw. The coldness of her skin triggered the immense need to save her which prompted him to increase all efforts in unleashing his sheer strength. Not just the super-soldier serum, but also the fiery determination of that kid from Brooklyn.

"Come on, Natasha..." he drew out a frantic breath, looking at her red hair clinging over her laden ivory features. He wasn't abandoning her... They would finish this mission together. Partners and maybe something more... In the moment of feeling his biceps overwhelming with infused heat, Steve lifted her body delicately up with a dance-like grace, he reacted to a faint audible groan escaping from her lips. It was a clear sign of assurance that she was rousing back to consciousness. His ragged breath lessened. "I've got you." He promised, his voice pitched with relief.

Carefully, he eased Natasha away from the edge and held her in a secured embrace. Her slender frame overlapped the broad expanse of his Kevlar embossed torso. Encircling his arm over her back, Steve somersaulted inches back from the platform. In that distressing moment, their bodies locked, his wet lips accidentally brushed over the crown of her head. Feeling the softness of his warm kiss created a sense of awareness and Natasha flitted her eyes open. She squinted against the shadows and looked into the blue fathoms of his glistening eyes as light glanced off his slackened skin and his fingers kneaded gentle strokes through her messy red locks that draped over her face. "Are you alright?" she heard him ask, his voice sounded distant and yet like a soothing grace that caressed over her scarred heart.

It was a spark of emotional strength.

In those small moments she wondered if trust was impermanent or something that could grow into a deeper commitment between partners. "Fine," she answered, her voice falling away. Stiffening her jaw, she encompassed her hand over her opened wound. Her fierce exterior was protesting against her fragile emotions. The Black Widow never surrendered to pain. "It's nothing that I can't handle, Rogers." she said, indignantly.

Steve sighed, undoing the chin strap of his helmet. His blonde hair was sodden with exhaustion and sweat. For a long moment he did his utmost not to look at her, his shifting eyes were focused on the remnants of the battle.

"Listen," he finally returned with a strain in his voice. She averted her eyes away from him, pretending to be absent for another lecture of Captain America's leadership skills. "You're my partner, Natasha. It's my job to watch your back. That's what being a partner means...We look out of each other."

She shot him a hardened glare. Undaunted, he continued, "I'm not trying to replace Agent Barton because I know you have a long shared history together, but I will risk my life to save yours, if it's what I need to do."

'I'm not worth it, Rogers," she gritted with bitterness, trying so hard not to look into his blue eyes. There was remorse building in her core. Emotions were scattered and the pain was reaching her heart. "I'm the type of person you stop. I'm not the good girl you save and carry away into the sunset. If you believe in that, Steve, then you're in the wrong business. In my world, good men become monsters."

Steve lowered his dismal eyes, and his brow furrowed with deep lines of understanding. Tears almost pricked in his eyes. Her words jabbed his heart like a knife, slicing and tearing through strings and piercing deeper. He had seen the ugliness of humanity-the brutal and cruel methods of the Red Skull and his malicious shadow Zola who had force captured soldiers to taste death by experiments and starvation. The shadowed images of war not documented by films or books. He remembered each face and dog tags that gleamed against the powerful streaks of blue energy.

He had walked into the shadows of death countless times; holding onto whatever hope remained to give him a sense of peace as he engaged into battle and witnessed young men become smoldering piles of ash and forgotten names on graves stones.

In the history books he read at the library, the text only explained the bigger events of the war, never the small sacrifices that brothers-in-arms made when they stepped into hell on earth. He had been a part of that world, guiding soldiers to freedom and protecting women and children from HYDRA's shadow. He had seen the monsters disguised in the flesh of men, however he also saw the honorable spirit in the smallest child who fought to stay alive when there was nothing left of his family or home. Bowing his head down, Steve felt the heat flaring in his chest. "Good men only become monsters if they lose themselves. I have fought beside monsters and heroes. Good always outweighs the bad."

"How do you never get lost?" she asked, fighting against the sting penetrating her side. Steve's lips slanted into an empty frown. "You've lost so much... Your best friend, the woman you loved…your whole world."

"I did get lost, Natasha," Steve whispered, his azure eyes shining with clear honestly. He worked his fingers over her wound, applying a caress of soothing heat against the exposed skin; trying to give her ease as he fell utterly into despondence. "There's a part of the man from the ice who found his way back. I'm still undecided on which road needs to be taken. I made a choice and joined the Avengers, and I do feel some purpose did return to me, but I'm not the same man who dreamed about having a family with the right partner. I'm a ninety-four war veteran trapped in a new time."

Natasha smirked a little, despite herself. "I can see you're searching for something else?" she asked with an invasive tone, leaning closer to him. The fullness of her paled lips curled into a vengeful and devious smirk. She wanted answers. Steve didn't pull away. He was still and looking deeply into her eyes-noticing the different mixtures of colors of blue and green and he was falling into an ocean of emptiness. Her hand roamed up his forehead, light and tempting with seductive movements of her fingers until she reached the rounded shape of his bicep. "You look like you're ready to break and confess, Rogers."

"Now is not the time," Steve breathed, low and deep—forcing his unsettled gaze away from her. Natasha was an efficient virtuoso at masking pain, but his stare pierced through her masks. She couldn't hide forever. It was almost as if she wanted to run away from the chance to drift out of the past; she had been unmade and tortured to be reborn as the world's deadliest assassin. Черная вдова—The Black Widow. She was a guarded person, for him to infiltrate her heart was a dare and a risk that could lead to his ruin. He had to exhaust all forms of wariness and take a leap of faith of connecting himself with her dark and unpredictable world...Her own personal Pandora's Box.

Taking a shaky breath, he lightly touched her tensed shoulder, warm and gentle as he tried meet her on equal side of a shattered mirror between them. He murmured, "Let's focus on getting you patched up, Agent Romanoff."

Natasha locked her gaze momentarily onto his shield. Indestructible metal. The red rings were faded with scratches of past battles, but it still gleamed in the darkness.

"Steve, do you...Do you ever feel pain?" she inquired, brokenly, gripping his arm with an imploring squeeze. He stilled and clenched his jaw obstinately. She knew that that question had gone too far deep, breaching his personal faults. Watching a shroud of turmoil spread across his chiseled features, she was peering beyond the semblance of regret and failure.

In those quiet moments when they met each other's stare, he didn't wear the mantle of Captain America. He was genuine and vulnerable. She'd never broke her stare away, her fingers moved over his solid chest and she felt his drumming heart thump against her palm.

Steve was letting her feel everything.

He pulled his lips into a despairing grimace, his face stung. He used all the measures of resilience to restrict himself from admitting the truth writhing in his chest. It was rational for him to respond to her question. Truth is what he had valued the most. He couldn't deny her. His eyes burned with guilt. "I do feel the burdens of pain and I try not to share them with others."

"That makes two of us, Rogers," Natasha solely admitted, patting her hand over his embossed star. "I don't feel the kind of pain that most people experience, but I do see it once the smoke clears and I never stop seeing those faces until I reach my endgame," she murmured with a smoky nonchalant tone, twisting her coy lips into a disarming expression. "I guess we both have something in common huh?" she played out with brush of snark.

Steve mirrored her with a faint renewed smile. "Yes, we do...more than you know, Natasha."

Sensing her resistance, Steve closed his eyes. He leaned into her, angling his head closer to her jaw, brandishing his lips against her skin with firm pressure of wet heat; caressing over the bruises with a kiss. He gave her an equal sense of credence. After all his experiences, trials and enduring high levels of great pain, it was hard for him to trust someone other than himself. And he wasn't running from the past, but the glimpses of an uncertain, lost and unknowing future without the Howling Commandos, Bucky and Peggy. They would soon all become ghosts that lurked in his regretful torturous memories. The guilt plunged deeper into his gut.

Natasha pulled away, defensively. "We should get back," she spoke in a reverent tone, converging all weakness into a thread that attached to the web of her guarded emotions. She dared herself to stare into his unblinking, pained gaze. She couldn't let him in. "Clint is waiting outside to assess my wounds. Standard protocol."

He nodded silently and grabbed his helmet. His eyes held a reserved look in them, dismissing her. "Agent Barton is a good man."

"I know," she uttered in a low, passive tone while managing to regain the complex semblance of the Black Widow. She lifted herself off the grate, holding onto the rail as she wrapped her arm around her waist. She brushed her loose strands of hair off her damp forehead and glared down at him with a dark glint in her calculating and keen green eyes; not giving him a small chance to speak or even touch her as his face froze into a solid expression. She didn't want him to protect her, even though she felt a little throb of foreign elation growing for another moment.

Then, Natasha looked down at her damaged gauntlet, trying to sabotage her second chance, a dream that all women would kill for, and she was pushing it aside -hoping to avoid another noxious confrontation with herself. "You disabled the wiring," she rasped, creasing her eyebrows. "...I guess it's time for a new upgrade."

"I saved your life, Natasha." Steve shot back, slowly easing himself into a pliant stance, the strap of his helmet was gripped in his clutch, and he suddenly became overwhelmed with anger and frustration. "For the most part you don't owe me anything." He discharged, but his voice trailed away into dismal cadence, as though he'd lost all reservations welling in him.

Sighing, the super-soldier moved closer to where she stood and placed his hand firmly on her shoulder, his eyes collected the shadows and his fingers flexed over the leather with friction. "A debt is a payment made when mistakes hold you down…" he breathed, holding her gaze. "Your life is holds great value, but I think because I consider you as my friend...I have broken that contract that you've made between us."

Natasha took a moment and contemplated on that. True and unnerving. Her eyes narrowed with realization. "My life was taken from me," she returned, words bitter. "If it was me that was left with the choice to save you...I won't trust myself to do it." He didn't reply. She shook her head, watching his blue eyes fix on the darkness looming behind her.

"I wasn't built to save people," she added in resentment, her voice bleached of life. Her face became vacant. Numbness crawled over her exposed wound. "I follow orders and do what needs to be done for the mission. I get the job done even if means having blood on my hands."

"If that's how you live, then why did you become an Avenger?" he asked, with an empathetic voice. She shot him a hard glare which felt like it made his skull split open. "You say that saving lives isn't a part of who you are, but I've seen you risk everything back in Manhattan. If you truly believe that you're not a good person then why wear a symbol on your shoulders that holds and pledges to protect the world from the monsters you try to run from, Natasha?"

"You can't judge me, Rogers, you don't know what it's like to feel nothing. To become unmade and never look into your reflection because you're afraid of what might be staring back at you," she admitted, crossing her arms and trying to remain poised and collective. Tough as nails. Steve was a symbol of everything she had been programmed to fight against...a stalwart guardian and sentinel of justice and liberty.

Captain America was a righteous and decisive leader who'd inspired young men to never give up the fight; to never surrender. His compassion towards humanity was his only real weakness and one HYDRA had taken advantage of in those dark times. It was also his greatest strength. She would never be like him. "I am not a foot soldier...I don't make tough choices and lay down my life for someone else. Stop forcing yourself to believe that I'm like Fury's go-to gal."

He didn't respond at first. Then he leaned in forward, his nose inadvertently parallel with hers. Their foreheads practically touched. Drenched hair was breadth the distance of their faces. Barely a breath away to form a diamond. Despite the surge of impulse, he didn't move away. Neither did she. He'd lost all focus on the world around him, breath hitched as air locked into his chest. "Don't let your mistakes define who you are, Natasha," he said simply, his eyes scanning over her tainted uniform.

Her eyes flashed dangerously, like red lightning slicing through dark cloud cover of an unpredictable storm. "You make it sound easy." she gritted, with a sort of tortured breath. "Nothing will define me, Rogers."

His hand grasped her wrist, pulling her unexpectedly close to him. She didn't run. This was undeniable trust between them. His heart sped against wild currents of blood rushing through his veins and flush of heat seared his muscles, daring and enthralling. Natasha. Her name echoed in his soul as he was waking up after months of discovering a new life and reconnecting with the world-he never felt so much alive and driven by tangible fire that scorched his bones. He wanted to tell her. You're the only who I can trust.

With that, his long and rough fingers lightly caressed underneath the smoothness her jaw and neck. She was waiting to feel his lips melt against her mouth, the unfurling desire was liquid fire in her veins. His broad jaw grazed over her cheek and the heat of his breath fastened over blemished skin. They were close. Inches from joining into a heady, wet and deep kiss.

Blood mixed with fire. He was falling hesitant again. The soldier inside him pulsed a warning to his brain, she was a distraction. He belonged to Peggy.His best girl.

Reasoning with his heart, Steve coaxed his tentative lips against her stiff cheek sliding his arm between the railing and her back, he whispered softly, "I believe in you, Nat, and one day you will find your true self again in another reflection."

She felt his lips detach from her skin and she stared into his clear azure irises, there were deep and tangled hints of her mirrored in his trusting gaze. She didn't look away.

.

{What I Can't Lose...}

The piercing realization of being compromised seized Natasha's guarded heart. She couldn't turn away and search for an escape in the shadows—not this time. She felt ripples of detectable emotions surging in her heated veins; a constant eruption of uncertainty. She couldn't understand why she froze in that moment when he needed her most to push him out of the line of fire. Instead, she trusted their righteous team leader, Captain America—Fury's super weapon. He was the front line of defense against HYDRA, doing the grunt work in recon missions while Fury's agents hacked into ghost files through data-mining. Steve was as a distraction—a deceived pawn—to clear a path for SHIELD without getting their hands dirty.

A part of her respected the Captain's hellbent resilience as an admirable quality in the field. He was obedient to the four virtues and ethical morals; Steve was pure and untainted by the horrors that crossed the weaves of her programmed mind. Some would say he was an angel who had been dragged into an icy hell of betrayal, depravity and lust for power. In other words, his valiant heart didn't belong in her world entrenched by darkness and blood. He wasn't immune to merciless punishment, or the feeling of guilty scars buried deep into his skin. He was a super-soldier, an efficient tactician and a highly skilled fighter who has mastered his craft and moral discipline. But like all good men, America's patron defender had a weakness: idealism and compassion in a world that had lost touch with the values he exhibited.

He wasn't prepared to play the game. Instead of letting the hostages fend for themselves, he barreled into the warehouse and became a shield for people who didn't deserve to live while Clint took the hit.

She didn't expect pain to claim her partner. Not Clint—her best friend—her family.

Conflicted by the torrents of remorse, Natasha was haunted by the real promise she had made to Laura Barton that she would never allow anything happen to Clint under her watch. She stared at the window; zoning in on intense flickers of lightning as each strike of energy pierced through the encroaching mass of ominous clouds; they held reflections of twilight colors of muted pink and russet from the fading sunset. Another unpredictable, raving storm was approaching.

She could sense the winds of change; hot and cold intermixed into the calm air. It was a silent caution not to chase after the storm. The tantalizing moments of waiting to be summoned to Clint's side were crushed against her; making her feel unsteady on her combat boots—searching for answers. She needed to know that Clint was safe and that he would be able to return back to his farm. She owed the archer a debt—a life for a life. Sinking back into the darkness and recalling her icy resolve, Natasha leaned her lithe and tensed body against the close door. She tilted her head back and allowed her mussed scarlet locks to drape her pale features in disarray as she recollected herself.

Finally, the lethal assassin summoned her reserves of strength, poised on her feet, and she strode silently passed the whitewash walls; eluding the patient waiting lounge like a displaced specter. The whole area reeked of lemon fresh disinfectant and wavered a pungent stench of life and death at her nostrils. The corridor was blanketed with doubt, failure and pain; in all the spaces between her and the hallway—leading to the door of Clint's recovery room.

Natasha paused in mid-stride, her stomach clenched and her teal eyes darkened. She drew up a frustrated breath and casually entered the room with the utmost of assurance that Clint was a survivor—hardcore and stubborn. Natasha gripped onto her unyielding defiance, inching closer to the elevated bed. He was reclined comfortably and he seemed to have a tangled mess of wires and plastic tubes sprouting from his limbs, attached to EKG machines and IV drip bags inches from his bedside. His finger was pegged to track eruptions in his pulse and he had been stripped down until his chiseled chest was bare. Natasha's eyes fell onto her partner. She could feel shock and anger surging in her veins.

"Hey, you look rough Clint," she scoffed, bringing herself closer to his side; fire melding with ice as she stroked her fingers along the medical tape fastened against the IV tube in his vein. "...the nurses did a poor job with your bandages..."

She mentally assess his visible wounds. His chiseled torso was littered with purple tinged bruises, a strip of white gauze was wrapped over his right arm, and under his nose was remnants of dried blood. The report that she had managed to swipe revealed that he had a minor fracture in his shoulder, lost an exceeding amount of blood and he was suffering three cracked ribs. Nonetheless, the stealthy Avenger was breathing contently even though he looked battered and utterly disheveled. It was widely debatable if he would endure another attack of pain.

"Well, at least you're stable enough to return back to your safe house in a few days..." She slanted her lips into a coy smirk, leveling her eyes filled with wetness onto his ashen face. She brought her hand to his bare shoulder and squeezed the firm muscle reassuringly, despite that her heart felt gutted out. They both had to heal. She'd promise his wife that he would come back home—safe and strong enough to lift his little girl in his arms. "You did good out there...I should've have been more—"

"Tasha," Clint returned evenly, his voice strained from exhaustion. He fluttered his eyelids open as the sunlight laved across his lax features and pierced into his gray irises. He inclined his head off the pillow; unsealed his chapped lips and tried his utmost to force up words as the heaviness of the morphine clogged in his throat. Once his vision adjusted to the dim light, he settled his bleary stare at her. "I didn't know that you cared..." he lightly teased, beaming at Natasha like he was on a whiskey high. 'At least he isn't in pain,' she thought with measure of relief.

Still, Natasha refused to openly respond to his snarky wakefulness. She was too absorbed in her guilt.

"Hey, don't blame yourself for anything...I only have my arrows...It was inevitable for this to happen. I'm luckily it's just a fracture and not like the injury Trickshot gave me as a kid," he managed to pull his lips into a smile, emitting a raspy chuckle before looking into her dismal eyes. He could vaguely sense that Natasha was about to disarm herself—allowing the cunning, ruthless and utterly unbreakable nature of the Black Widow—the powerful fighting machine of the KGB—to shatter because he was stuck in a hospital bed. Softly, he secured his fingers over her leather sleeve and watched her swallow back tears. "Don't do this to yourself, Nat...My life isn't your responsibility."

Natasha backed away from the bed, her posture tensed as he folded her arms over her chest, intently looking down at the gauze swathed over his wound. Her expression vacant, "I owe you, remember?" she reminded him, coldness searing in her lungs. Clint looked at her with tender leaky eye, that still twinkled over the gloss of pain when he centered his gaze on her. "Don't look at me like that, Clint," she dismissed, bitterness resided in her heart as she tried to ease down the feverish venom gushing in her veins. She quickly tore her eyes away and stared at the lightning dancing across the sky.

She seemed distant and utterly disturbed by the predictable situation. Regardless, the pledge they made back when she had no soul haunted her, just like the raging urge to kill. He saved her from the dark end of her fate, gave her a chance to redeem her sins, to have a purpose and feel human again. "Your life is my debt, we're not on equal terms until I save you, and I will next time."

Clint listened to the bitter snarl emitting from her sour lips. His eyelids dropped and he stared at her as the haze of exhaustion pulled him back. He was disconnecting from the world, trying to open his eyes and steadily focus on her but he didn't have the energy to stay awake. Soft breaths ghosted from his twitching lips, and the pain dissolved as his pulse evened with his normal heart rate. But he detected the storm clashing inside her, the cold fury of the Black Widow aching to become released and unleash her lethal bite on the man who didn't have her partner's back. "Nat, don't blame Steve. He did what was right for the mission," he breathed, struggling to get into a comfortable position. Gritting his teeth, he managed to stare into her intense and obscured eyes. "I would have done the same."

"Steve is not ready to face the dark places of this world like we do. He has a shield and we have guns." Natasha stiffened her jaw into a tight clench of disapproval. "He follows his heart too often instead of his head, and that is a weakness our enemies will use to bring him down." She reached out a hand to grab a cup of apple juice at the table and broke the seal off; handing the drink to him. "We don't save our enemies..." She feigned harshly, grabbing another juice and watched him take a few sips while cold resentment was evident in her gaze. "We usually let them burn."

"Cap's a good man, Nat," Clint returned with an evened breath, his lips curved into a wry grin. "I'm glad we have super-soldier on our team. Whether you like it or not, Steve's our big gun and he does things that we can't. So before you accuse him of being a liability, take a good look at him and then you'll see the truth."

"Careful, Barton," Natasha shot back in a husky warning with her infuriated glare set onto him. Instinctively, her poised fingers traced over the hostler belt strapped along the jutting curve of her hip. She felt the tightness of a rueful smirk tug against her lips.

A fleeting taunt of playfulness subsided; Natasha gathered up her confidence and swayed a fraction of an inch closer to the bed where she wanted to take the opportune moment to spill out her confessions. To hold his hand eventually and tell him that she was glad he was recovering from the attack and they were going to have another mission together. She couldn't expose those emotions even though the prompting inched under her skin. What came out was the indignant tone of the guarded Soviet operative. "Remember that I'm armed and very dangerous."

"Nat, give Steve a chance before you do something irrational and he becomes my new bunk mate." He chuckled, hollowly, taking another sip of juice. She gave him a penetrating look, her fingers coldly tapped against the cold steel of the pistol. Unfazed by the reproach of her daunting semblance; Clint settled the cup on the table and sunk his back into the pillow. His spiked brown hair flattened as he began to drift. She was mere inches away from him, fuming and struggling to keep her stern composure. "I'm due for a long vacation from field work," he mumbled, heaving out a breath and forcing his eyes open just enough for her to see rims of icy grey. "Tell Fury I'm going off the radar for a few weeks and spending time at the farm. Laura has a list of things that I need to finish...I promised Copper that I would teach him how to drive the old rust bucket of a tractor."

Natasha shook her head as she let him take her hand voluntarily. The corner of her mouth turned up into an impish smirk as she rubbed her hand over his rough knuckles. "I think Fury already knows, since he had Stark pay for your medical expenses. You're clear to leave when the doctors says so..."

He sighed, meeting her darkened stare. "What about you, Tasha? Will you be able to handle everything without my eyes watching your back?"

"Oh, I think I can handle it, Clint," she whispered, confidence blossomed over her pale features. The harrowing sense of compromise resurfaced and she drained the cup of juice, throwing it into the trash can. She bent slightly down and pressed her lips onto his forehead, letting them linger there, feeling his clammy skin heat up in the wake of contact with her soft kiss. His eyes closed and a smug grin fastened on his lips. He was secured from danger and she felt assured that he would be standing at her side within a week—they were partners until the end of line. "Rest up at home base, keep Laura and the kids safe and I will see you soon, Agent Barton."

As Clint dozed off into his morphine daze, Natasha involuntarily twisted around on her heeled boots and moved to the doorway in fervent steps until she was obstructed by a towering shadow.

Steve stood stoically in the doorway, restricted and observant. He wore a plain blue jacket and frayed jeans that were fading with color. His displaced chiseled features were shrouded by the brim of his vintage Brooklyn Dodger's baseball cap. His crystallized azure eyes were heavy from lack of sleep. He was troubled, silent and hesitant.

Natasha momentary absorbed his entire appearance: he looked almost hardened by his faults; his ruffled blond hair poked along the ridges of the cap. The broad clench of his squared jaw was blemished with smudges of ash and there were flecks of glass lingering on the sagged width of his shoulders. Despite wanting to dig a knife right into his shoulder to make him feel the pain that Clint was enduring because of his heroic choices, Natasha held onto her restraint. It's was sickening.

"What are you doing here, Rogers?" she asked with acid bite in her harsh tone. "Haven't you done enough damage in one day."

"Natasha, I didn't mean for this to happen," Steve returned in a faint whisper, his eyes were unabashedly narrowed. He kept his distance and leaned his shoulder into the door frame. He pressed his lips into a flat line, avoiding her scolding glare. "I was my job to rescue hostages no matter which side they were on."

"Just admit it that you messed up on this mission, Rogers" she intoned, holding her stare firm. "It's because of your compassion towards the scum of humanity my partner is stuck with a fractured shoulder. It was a simple recon mission, not a rescue; Clint and I always get the job done without leaving a blood trail. You changed that directive and put your team at risk because you felt the need to save three thugs who didn't give a damn about our lives." She bit down on her lip, hard enough to collect the raw taste of blood. There was dissension rattling through her bones and she stormed out into the hallway.

"Natasha—"

Hearing the listless measure of despondence rising in his voice, she abruptly whipped her head around and shot him with an icy glare that speared into his heart. She was barely containing her rage. "I can't lose him...You understand that, Steve. In there is the only piece of resistance I have to the Red Room. I'm trying my upmost to believe in our partnership and to shake everything off. Whenever I do feel something people around me always feel pain...I'm not blaming you for what happened to Clint, I realize that I was the one who made the mistake of putting his life in the hands of Captain America...The man who never leaves a soldier behind." She searched Steve's face as his jaw flexed into a sour grimace.

"You want to know the reason why I went into the warehouse..." His storm blue eyes affixed onto hers. "Inside, there were two more hostages. A mother and a three year old boy." Fire was engulfing inside his chest, he gritted, patronizingly. "Fury didn't tell you everything about the mission, Natasha, because he didn't look deeper into the shadows. In war sometimes every line gets downplayed, but I follow my gut and because I did, two lives were spared."

Natasha stood silently in abashed silence as she digested this unexpected news. A dismal sigh escaped her parted lips. "Well, I guess I owe you an apology, Rogers," she leveled her eyes with his honest blue embers and she closed the distance between them, leaning against the door. "I'm sure once Clint hears the whole story—he'll trust your call."

Steve twisted his lips into a smile, his eyes were burning and searching for her credence. "Do you trust me, Natasha?" he asked softly

"Steve," she breathed out, holding a sly smile. "I don't even trust myself."

"Well, I trust you enough to share a cup coffee..." He offered with a bright smile, gesturing his hand to the direction of the elevator. She accepted with a simple nod. In that moment in disarming herself, Natasha couldn't imagine herself walking away. She needed it.

Natasha smirked, and looked at him, the raging storm had cleared. She was seeing endless sky blue. "You buying, Captain America?"

"Yeah," Steve echoed back, moving tentatively to her side, his large hand almost edging to grasp hers. "I'm buying, Agent Romanoff."

When they casually walked away side by side, Natasha looked back at Clint's room, more meaningful than before. She held her promise and knew that everything would be fine—she believed it.

{Heat}

The inferno reflected in her eyes. Everything was being devoured, timbers and crumbling pieces of brick crashed against the ground creating vibrations underneath her feet. She was frozen in the moment...the tempestuous rage clashed against her heart as breath ceased in her lungs. Time was betraying every pulse that surged in her veins.

All she could hear was the soft utterance of his voice pulling her out of the red flames. She felt it, for the first time in her life, the desperate need to grasp onto something real and unbreakable—he was her anchor.

Tasting the blood trickling over her bruised lips, Natasha took the chance. Risking it all, she jumped off the ledge, freely into the air, above the hellish destruction. She refused to reach out for his gloved hand in that mere second when the force of gravity threatened to claim her.

"I can handle this on my own," Natasha called out, her voice wavered against the haze of entrenching heat and the dense black clouds of rising smoke. She gripped the ledge with her fingers, knuckles scraping against the cement revealing small flecks of blood. She was alive. For a length of time, Natasha gathered up her breath, heavy and clogged with taste of metallic and cinder. She felt the sting in her side, daring not to look. Her hand traced over the glass shard that dug through the protective layers of her tactical suit and pierced into her exposed muscle.

Gripping onto her reserves of strength, Natasha poised herself, took a deep breath and pulled the shard out fast, allowing the glass to drop into the the torrents of pain, she then hoisted her lithe frame over the barrier, reaching for leverage. She tasted the coppery tang of blood trickling down her throat, consuming her gut with a sour gush of disturbing waves. His hand grasped her shoulder and squeezed like a vice, and she whirled around, defenses rising in her veins. She regained balance and straightened onto her feet, narrowing her intent at the flames. She didn't want to look into the pure azure eyes of the super-soldier. "I told you that I was handling it..." She wanted to dash away to the stairway, possibly slam the door in his face.

"You're welcome, Agent Romanoff," Steve reprimanded, squaring his broad jaw. His gaze evident with cobalt flames that had seemingly seared into her. He didn't budge or yield under her death stare. They were standing on even ground, refusing to outmatch each other with the reproach of tension.

His skin was drenched with beads of sweat underneath his modified uniform. A "stealth strike suit—navy blue with silver reflective lines crossing his broad chest and the embossed star that held the gleam of his unyielding liberty. Steve crossed his arms over his firm chest, searching for his resolve as his brow creased into a strict countenance of authority. The hardened fierce look of Captain America. "You disobeyed a direct order and took a risk without your commanding officer's approval," he issued out a biting retort." I don't know how it works with you and Barton, but with me, I never leave a man…um…In this case a woman, behind."

"Lemme guess, you're used to saving a lot of damsels in distress?" she shot back, holding a hint of spite in her low voice. Steve felt his patience slowly unraveling into thin fibers. Deducing her resistance, Steve set his jaw and latched his glacial blue eyes on her. Natasha held her ground, folding her arms over her bust, and leveling him with an intense glare that was deadlier than the firestorm under them. "This isn't the 1940's, Steve. It's the real world. No one watches each other's backs anymore, you can't trust yourself with anyone no matter how reputable they may seem."

Steve remained stationary, despite battling his a riptide of emotions. He parted his lips and drew out a ragged frustrated breath. "I thought the whole point of partnership was trusting each other, Agent Romanoff?" he said factually, scrunching his brow into lines of vexation. His eyes were piercing and unblinking; confusion marched across his chiseled features as he took another step closer, breathing her unpredictable and defensible territory. As he looked into her livid and wrathful teal eyes, he searched for something that wasn't exposed to the firelight. "Look, if you don't want me as your partner, take it up with Fury. I'm only doing what that I think is right to save lives...I can't risk losing another…"

Natasha cocked an eyebrow. Vaguely she recognized the sorrow in his throaty voice, but she was too barred to pursue his emotional lapse and too cold to care. Still, she was a tad curious to indulge on his pain. "You're talking about your partner who fell from Zola's train?" she pried. Steve steered an abashed look at the blaze. "I read up on some information gathered from the old SSR files. The document claimed that he was missing in action...His body was never found." She paused, her lips curving into a smirk, "If you want to catch up on your reading, I can give you a box load of material."

"I don't need to read those reports," he whispered hoarsely, his tensed face crumpled into a distraught expression. It was almost as if he was silently grieving for that lost soldier. He was trapped in a paradox of consuming regrets and failures that were slipping the threads of his wary soul. He was "the man out of time" but also the soldier who had lost his home. There was nothing to go back to, everything in his world had been devoured by time, and the ice that kept him from it. His breath kept on catching as he searched for his resolve, and veered his head to the side, staring passively at the rooftops holding the flickers of red flashing lights belonging to the fire trucks assembling on the street.

The intense colors outlined his jagged-edged cheekbones until he blanched away and rejoined with the shadows. Nothing mattered anymore—just the next mission.

Steve clenched his hand into a tight fist at his side. "None of them are true," he wavered uneasily with a solemn edge in his voice. He lowered his head in reverence. "Everything is just different."

"You still haven't adapted to modern times, Cap?" Natasha asked, more sharply.

"Why does everyone keep on saying that?" he digressed, angrily, breath scorched in his lungs. He wasn't focused. "You don't know what it's like to lose everything you had and wanted because of choice. I can't just move on and pretend..." He lifted his head, staring back at her with a storm of inward fury obscuring the vibrancy of his blue irises. Natasha couldn't look away. She found a certain level of vulnerability residing beyond his stare, and she discerned the pain that wasn't exposed—the scars that were engraved—over his resilient heart and the need to repossess his fallen dreams. Steve released a deep breath. He sealed his lips into a rigid line of a grimace, and shifted an inch closer. "If I did, that would make me dishonest to my team. I always tell the truth, call it something my Ma taught me to do when reasoning with the worst—and also the best of things."

It wasn't an acceptable answer. "Why are you so concerned with trust issues?" she evenly demanded, casting a steady look at him. She diminished the stirrings of feeling a personal connection with him. Her heart was a piece of the Black Widow that couldn't be reckoned with, even if the intentions were pure while hers carried savage lethal impulses. She had to remain closed off, distance herself from him—it was the only way to protect him from the cold venom of her murderous variety of entwining identities and the bad blood they demanded. "There is no one in this world that can be trusted. Everyone has secrets that will never be exposed."

"You're saying that I can't trust anyone?" he beseeched, suddenly considering opting away to the stairway and finding his own way back to home base. Steve stiffened, his blue eyes tracked her movements as she swayed near the ledge. She turned her back on him, giving him no clearance to follow. "Tell me the truth," he spoke in a challenging tone; his wary expression becoming crestfallen with a haunted resolve in his eyes; intense flickers of blue lightning encroached over the darkness of his steadied pupils. She was becoming cast into a storm that grew over his marred heart. "I'll walk away if you can't offer it up."

Natasha spared him a glance over her shoulder, taunting him with a rueful smirk. "I think you already know the answer, Steve," she conceded, watching his assertive expression fracture. She winced, as a throbbing in her side increased and blood was starting to leak through leather. He paced closer, assessing her wound with a benevolent stare of concern. His gloved hand quickly encompassed over her hip. She reacted instantly at the electrifying touch and the heat penetrating in her bones—a sense of security—uninviting contact. She wasn't ready to be this close to the super-soldier—to his humanity. Her programmed and detached instincts told her to run.

"Natasha," he uttered, giving a disheartened sigh, evading her code name. His eyes pinned at her with a sincere and fathomless gaze, directly on the unprotected gash. Red splotched over her ivory skin. "You're hurt?"

"I'm fine, Steve..." she responded, unable to deceive him with an irritable snarl and a roll of her eyes. She was unmade to feeling all measures of pain, demoralized to convert to weakness. The remorseful driven assassin—the last Black Widow-was loyal to death, to her lifelong pledge of uncompromising vengeance. No man would ever make her submit to the denials of love—only blood was in her ledger, and there was no way to remove those stains.

Steve glared down at her, intent and sincere. "Stop lying to me, Natasha," he calmly said, discarding his hand respectfully off her jutting hip and inspecting the deep wound. His eyes never strayed. He seized her wrist, ripping the leather in his intrepid grip and hastily placed the piece of material on her side, easing the blood flow. His icy blue irises were locked onto the drops of red spattered on the cement. He parted his full lips, and tentatively caressed his fingers along outline of her curve. "It's clear that you need medical attention. That strip of leather isn't gonna hold."

"Since when did Captain America become a Red Cross nurse?" she smirked, falsely.

Unfazed by her snark, Steve drew out a long agitated breath. His lips curved into a weak frown, addressing her inquiry. "This isn't the first time I've helped treat a soldier behind enemy lines. Back then we didn't wait for backup to come. We did the best we could with what we had. We walked it off."

"You boys sounded resourceful…Effective at the least," Natasha whispered, with a fevered gleam aglow in her teal eyes, reclaiming her strength. Her cold demeanor shifted into a semblance of dejection. "I grew up in place that wasn't filled with soldiers who fought for our survival," she spoke with utter tone of distant trauma—blotted memories. "Volgograd was a place I had called home..." Steve looked at her with understanding in his gaze, no trace of judgment in his azure eyes, just sentimental purity. Sensing the utmost violation in her unraveling heart, Natasha clenched her jaw hard. She tried to seek omission in her unlocked confessions of her grim and tortured past. She had lost all those meanings—her dreams and ambitions stolen from her because she trusted a good soldier: Ivan.

Dismissing her pain, Natasha knifed her fingernails into her palm, casting a passive glare down at the floods of water gushing out of the ground. A team of firefighters were scrambling in front of the flashing trucks, grabbing hoses and targeting the embers of the violent inferno. It reminded her of the harrowing night she had last seen her mother before her world was devoured by flames and darkness. She had been stolen and degraded into an instrumental murderous tool, used to slay marked targets and leave no traces; just lifeless husks drained by her venomous bite. The Red Room turned her into a monster—stripped her down until all she felt was hollow bone.

Feeling numbness crawl over her distressing wound, she released a shaky breath and set her hand on the cold slab of cement barricading her from the detested coldness that ate away all the warmth. Becoming vaguely aware of the intimate moment slipping through the cracks of their walls, she veered her diverted eyes from the fire, keeping herself collective and unreadable. A shallow breath tore from her lips as she inwardly scolded the memories that replayed in her mind.

...Natalia...

"Everything was destroyed when the flames rose my dreams of living a good life; turning them into ashes along with all of my attachments," she trailed off in her words. Steve silently digested her warring fight in allowing pieces of her humanity to merge back into her. Urges overwhelmed her; a large part of her wanted to claim the lips of Captain America, mark him with a kiss of possession.

It would just be a kiss; nothing more than the simple instinctual contact of raw heat; breathless and dominating pressure that would end with a sense of empathy—detachment. But like all other times, she restrained those urges and sensations. She was condemned to feel them with her heart's unrest ever since she experienced her first love—the foot soldier who taught her to be ruthless; her dark angel in the Red Room that was taken from her—James.

She had been devoted to him—putting herself in his crossfire and allowing his cunning and ravenous lips to give her a taste of pleasure. It was only freedom in the shadows that was granted to her after she was left to feel nothing but cruel emptiness. "...but you move on—bury everything and search for another reason to live. It's all I've been known to do."

When she winced, feeling another eruption of pain, Steve caved his solid arms around her from behind, securing her against his firm torso. His soft wet lips tentatively brushed the indent of her jaw, tracing the skin with coils of heat for a second, but making her pulse accelerate a few irregular beats. "I'm taking you back to the Quinjet," he affirmed. She felt the vibrations of his voice prickle against her skin and her whole body was seared by the rippling warmth of his sculpted mass. He pressed his communicator in his ear, "Agent Hill, this is Captain Rogers. I need..."

"Steve, I don't need your help," Natasha protested evenly, her voice fierce and her skin paling from the amount of blood loss. Dizziness invaded her body as she swiveled on her heel; but she lost balance and he was quick reflex allowed him to support her with his arm.

All she could feel in those moments of drifting was the cold surface of his helmet resting against her clammy brow. Upon contact, Natasha tilted her head up, meeting the point of his nose as it dragged over her blemished cheek. His coaxing lips were shadowing over her mouth. She felt the heat radiate—it was a mere fragment of tension and unspoken desire.

He angled his head slightly down, giving her a chaste kiss—a feverish and undeniable taste of intermingling trust. He stroked his fingers through the ringlets of scarlet, breathing her in before she was swept up fully into his arms. That was when she realized he was carrying her to safety.

Her eyes never left his lips.

{Tension}

Natasha felt the warm trail of blood running down her cheek. It was a moment of impulse. Her fingers dug into firm muscle, clawing into the pulsing veins. Her stomach crunched as she gained enough momentum of strength and agility. She flipped onto the massive armed operative then rammed his skull into the cement floor. She quickly bounced onto the heels of her tactical boots, her unruly copper locks slashed her ashen skin and the sour taste of blood seeped over her full lips. She had managed to seize control of the extraction point.

It was the pure rush of adrenaline spreading through the guarded layers of her pounding heart that reminded her that she was alive.

Whipping a Widow Bite gauntlet over her bruised jaw, Natasha involuntarily shifted her keen teal eyes around the iron paneled room before removing her loaded pistol from a holster strapped to her thigh. There was a foreboding sense prickling in her veins. Undaunted, she advanced closer to the stairway, cautiously stepping over the laden bodies scattered on the floor. It was a simple and effective mission. No delays. She had everything under control.

Staring intently down at the lax features of her victims, Natasha felt her lips slant into a dark smirk when the pain in her right shoulder departed. A shard of glass had pierced through the layers of her stealth uniform, burying itself deep into her flesh. It took awhile for her mind to register that she was indeed bleeding, but she never claimed those sensations as weaknesses. Enduring the trials of the Red Room made her unrelenting body become immune to feeling the blood drain from wounds of succession. She brought her wrist close to her lips and spoke lowly into the COMM, "Lower level secure, Cap," she listened to the static buzzing in the device. She released a calm and even breath, keeping her composure firm despite the knots of dread twisting in her chest. "Steve, do you read me?"

"I'm kinda in the middle of something, Agent Romanoff," Steve responded evenly, keeping his voice low with a grated edge. He vaulted over the railing with perfect ease, and slowly approached his marked target. Within seconds, he stealthy engaged his direct assault; wrapping his forearm arm over the man's neck and squeezing at the wind pipe until the assailant toppled to the floor, unconscious. He then charged towards the stairs, his shoulder rammed into the wall, creating a dent in the wake of his broad shoulder colliding with plaster.

Keeping himself unseen, Steve slid on his boots, ducking into the shadows the moment guards holding came into view, carrying automatics and scouting the compromised area of the warehouse. The Captain waited momentarily, assessing the weak spots of their bodies. He unlatched his silver and blue ringed shield off his shoulder's straps and calculated the range within his view, before tossing the shield into the air. He watched as the men lost their balance as the alloy disk ricocheted off of their vests with each bonk of collision.

It was a distraction, keeping them unfocused as Steve edged closer in stealth mode. He grabbed the shield with a third-degree spin and bashed a skull with it upon disarming an operative. He sprinted towards ledge in rapid speed. He was unstoppable and full momentum. He took a sharp left, grabbing another guard with his hand and yanking his bulky frame into a pile of rubber tires. The shield was held up to Steve's chest, protecting his heart as bullets started to rain from the shadows. His azure eyes pinned onto a gunman loitering near another loading platform. "Don't these guys ever quit?" he breathed out, heavy and frustrated as he watched his moving target.

"Don't tell me you're calling it quits, old man," Natasha casually jabbed back, climbing up the stairs, focused and poised. Her teal eyes scanned the darker parts of the level. "Maybe after, you'll finally take that cute receptionist at Stark Industries out on a date. What was her name again?"

"Worry about clearing the exit points and then find me a date," Steve returned, forming his lips into a tense grimace. He latched his gloved hands along the metal bar and hoisted his massive body up with effortless proficiency and ease. As he distanced himself from the industrial lighting fixtures, he regained breath back in his lungs. He began planning his next formidable attack, while at the same time struggling to maintain his focus on the mission. "Fury said it wasn't going to be easy..." he grunted nonchalantly into his wrist comm. "...then again it's kinda hard to walk away from a fight without—"

"Sorry to step on your moment, Steve," Natasha interrupted with a crackle of spite in her voice, moving through the corridor. She detected movement above her. A rueful smirk played across her lips as she wiped blood off her chin. She pressed a button in her Widow Bite gauntlet, recharging up lethal sting of energy. She hungered, seized and unleashed her fury while hastening to the stairs. She didn't care if Steve didn't approve of her methods. This was the Black Widow's hunting ground.

The super-soldier didn't understand her. She had her own way of doing things on these missions which often times compelled her to refuse following his orders. She had demeaned herself a lifetime of being obedient to the KBG, allowing her matured body to become a purposeful and embodied weapon of desire that she used to acquire and steal valuable information. Information that had a heavy price written in spilled blood.

There was a murderous power beneath her cunning, transparent guise; something that she contained by grasping onto figures of humanity. She trusted Clint with her life, but Steve there was an unknown bond that kindled deeper without the variants of sizable compromise and doubt. And yet, Natasha wanted to prove to herself that the past couldn't define the real woman—the ballerina who ran away from home. Natalia Alivanovna Romanova still existed—she just needed to cut the knotting threads of shadow to find her reflection again. Shaking off those remnants of emotions, Natasha collected her equanimity and locked her dangerous eyes on the target. "Well, Cap, looks like I've got some dancing to do..."

Responding to the snark wavering in her voice, Steve sighed out a disapproving breath, "Play nice, Natasha," he spoke clearly, holding an authoritative edge in his affirming baritone. His nose crinkled towards the unpleasant stench of decaying flesh that swept through the upper level. It was clear to his enhanced senses that the body of the harbor master was being stored within one of the offices caught in his scrutiny. "It smells pretty foul in here," his lips curled in distaste with his eyes aimed downwards. He silently took a moment of reverence for the life that had been taken. "Check all levels for hostages...Clear them out...We've entered a wasps' nest of HYDRA. I'm guessing you already knew about it?"

"Well, it did cross my mind that HYDRA had been data mining offshore SHIELD intel," Natasha returned, grabbing a crow bar off a crate. She used blunt force with a deadly sway of her poised hand, and struck an marked HYDRA operative's shoulder with violent whack. She listened to the bones snap in the wake of the iron impacting his flesh. The operative croaked out in pain, coughing up blood. Natasha then pushed into the crate then aimed a high kicked into his face, watching him topple to the floor with a smirk of satisfaction. "Nothing is ever conclusive in this type of business, Rogers. You just got to roll with it."

Steve drew out a frustrated breath, setting his broad jaw into a sharp clench."People are getting hurt because Fury isn't playing fair. He's gambling with lives because he sees hostages as a distraction for his missions. Soldiers risk their lives to save people from danger; they don't turn their backs and walk away from somebody calling for help. It doesn't look like SHIELD cares about protecting lives, they only value information." He admonished, sounding sickened by the ideals encrusted in the eagle symbol planted on the ground floor of Fury's home base. "I joined SHIELD to protect lives, not to use them as a means to an end..."

"One life can risk the whole mission, Steve," Natasha simply radioed back in a pant of breath, feeling the urge to roll her eyes. She instead focused on the objective point of the exit lift blocked by another operative. She took a moment to decide her next counter attack—fast and efficient. She got into a crouching position, then leaned her back against a ladder. She curved her lacquered red lips into a lustrous smirk. When he turned around, she played the flirtatious seductress. "Hey big boy," she purred sultry, with a daring glint was in her eye, before she kicked his side, making him crash down. She then looped her wire attached to her small belt compartment around his neck, and yanked him back and forward into a railing.

As he yelped in pain, Natasha jumped up and rammed her boots into his torso before flipping into the air. She descended past the stair levels with her guns poised and her fingers locked on the triggers. Once she landed on the bottom platform, she spoke back into the wrist communicator, "Sometimes the game we play isn't fair, but in the end the world is secured and everyone gets to sleep easy. That's what Fury does in order to make our world a safer place with the exception of a few ordinary lives—it's collateral damage."

To rid the coppery tang in her mouth, Natasha pulled out a stick of minty flavored gum and slid it over her tongue; relishing the cool and refreshing taste that consumed the dryness in her throat. As she ambled down the last set of steps, trying to avoid Captain Rogers: the Alpha leader of the STRIKE team. Steve was overpowering her disciplined thoughts; making her feel unbalanced as her gloved fingers clutched over the sleek metal of the Soviet firearms. She confidently stalked through the dim lightened corridor, searching for her exit when she heard a faint childish voice resounding in the basement.

Gritting his teeth, Steve seized up, resettling his feverish blue eyes back onto the metal rails; his stomach lurched as his addled mind was suddenly plagued with vivid and shattering images of Bucky hanging on the edge of Zola's train. Bucky's icy blue eyes were watering against the violent lashing of snow squalls whacking into him as he struggled to clasp the loosening branding rod. Steve's gloved hand tried to reach for Bucky's marred bloodied left hand; everything frozen and his heart was ripped apart the moment he saw Bucky's brotherly and confident smile morph into an expression of utter pain—fear.

Steve had never had forgotten that diminishing look plastered on his best friend's face as he faded into the harsh walls of snow, until the cries became distant echoes against his splintered heart. Bucky's cries haunted him during the hours of night when he tried to shut out of the world and focus on reclaiming peace—while suffering in the utmost solace. The recurring nightmares never creased to blot out—he could never delete that gut-wrenching moment out of his mind. It was a constant reminder of his greatest failure. Maybe, he needed to borrow Tony's vinyl record collection to ease the pain into a comfortable numbness of electric guitar and slow dumb beats.

Releasing out a shaky breath, Steve regained clarity in his blurring vision. He willed his stiffened arm to thrust upward as he grasped the rail and writhed his bulky frame over the ledge. His boots smacked onto the cement. "Well, this soldier isn't going home until those few ordinary lives breathe easy tonight," he genuinely declared with a heartfelt pledge residing in his voice. He pulled a wired device from his wrist guard, holding it close to his scowling lips. "Tell Fury, that Captain America's handling a different mission—I'm going off book."

"Steve, you can't—"

Steve whipped the small device to the ground, crushing it defiantly with the sole of his boot. "Sorry, Natasha," he hollowed his sharp cheekbones as he whispered brokenly, listening to the transmission of her protesting voice fade into the crackles of static. "I can't follow Fury's orders. I'm a captain of my own war—" His voice fell away to the familiar disputation of blaring tempo of "Shoot to Thrill" echoing through the walls of the entire building. The remaining HYDRA operatives scrambled with their automatics. Steve pressed his back against a wall, waiting for the glass of the skylight above to rain over him.

Within seconds, the hot rod golden metallic armor of Iron Man shot through the glass as Tony made his dramatic entrance, ramming one fist into the cement as he landed in front of the unimpressed captain.

"Hey Ice Cap," the egotistical billionaire teased, easing himself into a defensive stance, his repulsors ready to unleash a few blasts at the group of operatives lined in front of the crates. "I must say that I'm hurt; you guys decide to crash a little HYDRA party and didn't even get an invite," he effortlessly fired at two agents. His blasts struck their armored vests and they went down, breathless and stunned. He turned, the face plate lifted, revealing the suave face hidden underneath it. He settled his dark hazel eyes on the super-soldier. "...You're lucky I had nowhere to go tonight, old man."

Looking affronted, Steve folded his arms over his pectorals. "I thought you weren't a team player, Mister Stark?" he chastised and leveled his firm and intrepid blue eyes, glaring with sharp edges on the billionaire genius. He assumed Tony did have good intentions even though he caught the wafting scent of booze. Sighing, he pointed his gloved finger at the alloy chassis of the Mark XLII. "Can J.A.R.V.I.S detect heat signatures, possibly a few hostages?"

"J.A.R.I.V.S," Tony ordered his (Just A Rather Very Intelligent System) sophisticated AI programmed butler. He aligned his metal gauntlet hand to the concrete flooring below them. He performed an internal scan over the area. "Give me the rundown on results of the scan. Chop, chop we haven't got all night," he demanded with a flippant tone.

"May I remind you, that last time we performed a rescue mission, you had to pay for the damage costs because you're never one hundred percent focused when working under pressure, sir."

Tony rolled his eyes under the shadow of his face plate, and let an irritable breath escape from his lips. He wasn't in the mood for hauling bodies out of the HYDRA infested warehouse. He was still fighting muscle strain from their previous battle somewhere off the coast of Spain. Everything was still foggy. "Just run the scan, J.A.R.I.V.S. And then we'll talk about your calculation after everyone is home safe..."

"I am picking up two heat signatures in the basement. Both female, one is definitely a child, sir," J.A.R.I.V.S clarified.

Steve dipped his head down, looking at the grated elevator lift. He flexed his jaw, "You stay here and wait for Natasha, I'll go down to the basement," he commanded firmly, defiance evident in his bellowing tone. He charged down the stairway, ramming whoever stood in his way into the wall. His stomach roiled, and blood accelerated in his veins as he continued his hurried descent, heading towards the elevator. Tony remained on the upper platform; leaning causally against the office door. He affixed his dark eyes on the unconscious bodies of HYDRA's guard dogs.

Once he reached the grated lift, Steve summoned up his eidetic memory, gathering reserves of information and donoting vivid images of the area that mentally guided him through the process of engaging his assault in the basement. He pressed the red button, and briskly stepped inside as the cables rolled back on the rusted pulley. When the grated walls of the elevator rattled to halt, he cautiously thundered down the hallway, the air was thick and damp.

Tasting the sourness of blood dripping over his full lips; Steve barred his teeth into a clench, seething monstrously and glaring at the dangling chains bolted into the seams of cement. A crack of a gunshot echoed in the sables of darkness and he was gaining momentum—spearheading and breaching the defensive lines and vaulting over oil drums positioned in front of rusted loading crates with his enhanced speed and agility. He wasn't stopping for anything.

His uniform was drenched with a feverish sweat and his muscles were burning. His leather boots created shock waves of relentless power as he spearheaded with his shield held by the extension of his right arm. He charged in, dodging the hailing bullets that dinged off of the indestructible virbrainum alloy. His face was aglow with feverish sweat, his azure eyes held an unyielding fire in that moment he locked his intimidating gaze on an armed guard standing near the doorway. It was surrounded by incapacitated men that seemed like a small army—spawns of the ominous murk engulfing the area.

Desaturated imposing shapes of lifeless corpses plagued his intense vision as the anchor chains swayed against the haze of white light.

Sucking in a deep breath, a growl tore from his lips as Steve spared a harried glance at a cage to his right—intently staring at a decaying heap of flesh. Daunted by the grisly sight, he wasn't able to process the extent of slaughter that had happened within the walls. He could only show a gleam of reverence in his eyes as he halted in front of the assailant blocking his path. "Now, I'm only going to ask once," he said, with firm intent surfacing in his strained voice, his jaw set rigid and shield lowered to his side. "Where is the kid?" he demanded, and there was grave utterance crawling up his throat. He lunged forward, grabbing the collared vest, and hoisting the unresponsive man close to his chest, his breath hot, "Lie to me, and I will throw him into that wall over there..."

Suddenly a bullet sliced through the man's skull. Steve dropped him like a sack of potatoes the second his senses caught the familiar vague scent of strawberry. He spun around and stared intently at Natasha...the merciless Black Widow holding a laden child in the cradle of her toned arms. The captain was visibly stunned and impressed by her heroics. His full lips upturned into a broadened tender smile. It was a rare sight for him, seeing the red haired reformed KBG assassin doing following a worthy cause without following an order. He stared down at the dark haired boy resting his head against her shoulder. "I owe you an apology, Natasha," he sighed with regret, losing all integrity as his voice faded away. He modestly leaned his Adonis build against the wall, "I acted out of line and didn't trust my partner."

"Don't get all sentimental on me, Rogers," Natasha drawled plainly, refusing to process his honest submission. A smirk tugged at the corner of her lips. She stared into his azure eyes that were boring into hers. "Sometimes I do play nice if there's a chance to go off protocol," she admitted, narrowing her teal orbs at the child secured against her chest. "I couldn't extract myself from the mission knowing that a life needed saving."

Satisfied with her truthful, unbidden answer, Steve proceeded forward, unexpectedly invading her space. His coils of breath deepened into heavy rasps; his heart felt wrenched in between his ribs. For a long set of unpredictable moments, he stared at her. Her copper locks became glowing embers in the darkness and he noticed a spark of humanity reflecting back at him; very brief, but real. She wasn't Peggy Carter, but there was a dangerous fire in her that only he could tame during the rare moment of succession.

He offered her a chance. "Just when I think I know you, Natasha, you never cease to amaze me," he eventfully replied with an appraising tone."Since we're on equal terms with trust issues, I think we can finally move ahead of our game. Besides, I'm not doing anything this Saturday night..." he swallowed thickly, all confidence fleeting, The little guy from Brooklyn was returning; his lips curled into a sheepish grin that made the chiseled lines of his face soften into a boyish expression."Do you wanna go dancing? I know a great place, not far from my neighborhood."

Natasha immediately twisted her lips into a half a smirk, "I'll go with you…" his blue eyes lit up at those words, "but on one condition."

"What?" he asked shakily, furrowing his eyebrows into a disquiet expression. Rigid tension locked in his chest; he was frozen in her perilous, alluring eyes. The admission was clear.

"You let me find you a dancing partner," she whispered darkly, holding his stern gaze. "No exceptions, Cap."

Steve chuckled mildly under his breath. Carefully he brought his hand to her cheek, his gloved fingers caressing the underside of her jaw. He unfastened the chin strap of his helmet, clutching it with his free hand. He bent head, and claimed her forehead with a hot swell of his tentative lips rolling against her skin, holding a kiss there," Deal," he murmured into her hair, closing his eyes and felt her breath ghosting over his squared jaw. She didn't fight back.

Chapter 14

{Trapped in the Moment}

Somehow, Natasha had allowed herself to become compromised. Secrets had been decrypted, and the words of Clint Barton lingered in the recesses of her mind. It was a laborious road to take, but the undulating question was embroiled on the surface of her disobedient heart: was it worth making the right choice in surrendering herself to a childish fairy tale?

During the trialing years before her graduation ceremony; Natasha had read passages from the books that she salvaged at the boarding school; old fantasies that ended with a cursed maiden embracing true love. Impossible as it was for her to fathom, she was ever so curious to unveil if there was such a possible ending to her grim story. Maybe it was her chance to face the past without feeling the impulse to run away?

Scolding with undeviating frustrations, her steeled grayish eyes wandered over the remaining discarded pieces of Captain America's navy blue, stealth combat uniform. The embossed centered star gathered faint reflections of the caressing moonlight filtering through the glass panes of the surrounding windows.

'Don't give in, Romanoff,' she chided, searching for an escape from the discontent broiling in her veins. 'You don't deserve a chance to love him, not when you're a blood-thirsty killer of men. D'yavol's child—a miscreation that will burn with the ashes, holding requiems of the orphan children slain by her dark sins.'

Desperation pinned against her bones, and then Natasha risked an intense stare; being pulled into the fierce, steadfast azure eyes of the timeless, dignified soldier, who she had claimed to be her equal partner. That was before everything fell array into scattered pieces because of her disregard to his commanding-principled-authority.

'Remember your place in this world, Natalia...You are the last Black Widow.'

They were dangerously close. Parallel. Darkness and light. For the first time in days, they met the other's piercing and matching stare; looking for a reason to believe in the value of their partnership, while expunging their present, undivided and impending complications.

"Why do you insist on allowing yourself to trust me, Rogers?" she asked blatantly, almost reverent. She tried to find another motive for disregarding the pulsating desires of her marred heart. She didn't expect to feel violated to the core. It was abnormal—sickening. No one could breach her marmoreal exterior. She never accepted warmth; the blaze of man's heart kindling against her ensconced organ.

Clint had spared her life, not for cherishing throes of dominating aspects of love games, but to grant her a chance for repentance—to reinvent herself into a new, prestigious woman of independence and occasional mercy while in a SHIELD uniform.

It had become her committed mission to uphold a promise, to ultimately restore the damage, singed threads of her past vices. "You know that I'm not good person, Steve." she spoke with an unsavory timbre in her voice."That I have debts to pay..." she swallowed thickly, refusing to break through her intense, degraded conditioning.

Her posture was solid, unwavering under his towering shadow. Natasha crossed her toned arms over her breasts, and strays of scarlet, disheveled ringlets loosened from the tied bundle gathered up in her low pony tail. The black tri-weaved material of her tactical suit had frayed with tears on the shoulders, and the zipper was half way done up; purposely revealing a bare hint of alabaster cleavage.

Her disarmed visage offered a necessary distraction to keep the super-soldier unfocused during their duel of wits. She remained dismissive and calculating to the wafting scent of blood loitering in the air. "I have ledgers to wipe clean with the names of lives my past has ruined."

Leaning against the door, in a rigid posture, Steve grounded his statuesque, athletic body; holding her devious gaze while his expression remained stoic and reserved in the casts of shadow. The afterglow of muted light gleamed through unkempt ashen-blond tresses hooded over his luminous, stormy azure eyes as he intently focused on the unexpected stillness crawling over her obscured, complex features.

He was stripped from his uniform; only the dark blue tactical pants hugged at his 'V' shaped waistline. Ridges of hard, compacted muscle gleamed with feverish sweat; giving her a desiring effect to engage when the tensed moment became unwarranted.

Inexplicably, Steve felt on edge and angered; mostly because the gashes of her betrayal were still embedded in his left shoulder.

Lines had been crossed with them. His moral limits were becoming corrupted by her residual intrusion. He refused to allow her to succeed, to walk away without giving up her confession that stirred inside her. It had seemed unbearable to him at first, to believe in something that felt invalid. Being trapped in the fathoms of ice, his chances to discover love had been frozen against his heart. He didn't know what defined the conditions of love; he never experienced the commitment, assurance and need.

"You can't put your faith into me, Rogers," she spoke in raw unnerved volume, evident to her intentional warning. Steve watched the fullness of her lips press into a taunt grimace of betrayal. She was creating distance between them. Holding her guard up, and refused to compromise with the resonance welled in his azure eyes.

She had to admit the stone cold hard truth, no matter how much she tried to conceive a distorted lie. "I'm not someone who has your back." She leveled, the husky edge of her voice wavered with incompleteness. Compressed breath ghosted over his tensed skin. "In my unfriendly world, I walk in darkness, and everything I carry is results in the error of my ways."

When she didn't hear a response, she persisted with a sharpness in her invasive tone. Her hand possessively gripped the budge of Steve's leaden arm, harboring him back as he seemed far away. He tensed, fighting to awake from the dim haze clouding over his dismal eyes, like a dark ominous storm that rotated over clear, tranquil waves of azure.

She caught a glimpse of lightning, intense and fierce streaking through the depth of his pupils; it wasn't until she realized that she had gone too far, reaching further into the rages of the storm. "Cap," she whispered gently as the intoxicating scent of vodka and strawberry coiled in his throat—the Widow's dangerous aura.

After listening to the oppressive silence; Steve blinked in response of her voice resounding in his sounds. Receding an involuntarily step back, he held her stare even; languishing in the solemn ambiance of the hazy flecks of moonlight casting over the chiseled edges of his angular face. Steve bated out a heavy sigh, and felt his heart wrench against the bare planes of his chest.

He didn't expect the Soviet spy to understand, or to even care, but trying to reignite hope back into himself was a battle of testing his moral limits.

"Stop pretending that your care about me, Agent Romanoff," he issued out in frustration, a hint of disgust laced in his baritone. Natasha tore her gaze, detecting his bottled agony growing more potent. A taut grimace crept over his lips, and his fervid blue orbs leveled sternly at her falsified, devious expression. His dismissal was reverent. She understood his pain, the memories of regret that plagued his conscious when he walked alone in the shadows of gravestones and read the names of his friends.

"I know how to look after myself," he stubbornly objected. Feeling no sympathy evident in her grayish eyes, the soldier pressed the heel of his palm against the door frame; refusing to surrender to reason, and then gritted his teeth, enduring another surge of torment.

When he was recruited into the SSR, Steve learned that a mission must be completed with effective speed, accuracy, and efficiency. The kill-zone involved extreme conditions, lives were always at risk, and there were so many variables. When facing the obstructions of enemy ground, he'd mastered the dexterity to acknowledge when impending danger crossed his path, and then wasted no effort in making the right choice when lives hung in the balance. He was a soldier to the core, focused on the mission at hand—looking for vulnerabilities that can be exploited to solve the problem without putting lives in danger.

"I don't need you to watch my back," he clearly explained, holding off the gruff edge scraping up his throat. "Your type of business doesn't concern lives, just succession in collecting intelligence for men who likes to gamble with their own demons."

A glacial pace of torrents flooded in Steve's veins, his knuckles cracked and his eyes burned with ire; he narrowed a vexing gaze on the piled array of unraveled bandages stained with his blood gathered on the floor next to his shield.

Evidence of her careless actions in securing hostages. It cut him deep, knowing that she wasted the minimal time in pulling the hostages out, because she wanted to chase after a rogue KBG agent. He had to lay down the ground rules of their partnership; force her to meet his terms. "You're not a soldier, you don't know the first rule of survival!"

Fire tore into her lungs, it was her beyond her control. She glared back at him, angered, and unwilling to yield under his shadow."You don't know what I've done to get a chance to feel again, Rogers," she spat, wearing the mask of indifference.

Unfathomable emotions stirred inside Natasha; harboring thoughts lulled her back to the defining, unnerved moment of facing the soul carbon truth etched against layers of unsettled regrets. For days, she'd been distancing herself from the unbidden truth.

Shadows cloaked over her; hiding the surfaces of pain when she walked down the halls, drifting into the void. She craved for release against the unyielding illusions of red that merged into nightmares.

It was a torturous road she took. Fighting. She wasn't prepared to face a dream. A second chance. Men believed that she walked among the angels, but she was a devil created to seduce, devour and slay; condemned to feel nothing. Coldness. Death... Venom. She couldn't pull herself away from that, no good man could be her salvation. What she'd accomplished, succeeded, and ruined were acts of ingrained betrayal: the Black Widow was a dark weaver of spindling lies, poisonous bites and seclusion. She could never be a friend… a wife... or a mother. Acceptance was necessary to survive another hellish road of the past.

The unstoppable Black Widow was trained to show no submission of defeat, to remain resilient, oppose grief and obstruct guilt—burying every tear into unbreakable marble.

At the moment, Natasha was disarmed—compromised—by wrenching, unexpected attachments. Trust had become a splinter in her altered heart; an exposed and deep wound was ripping a layer apart, blood was making a slow descent into her murky soul.

Partnerships were created by foundations starting from the beginning; every structure had to be equally leveled to obtain balance—strength. Everything was crumpling down again because of her devious acts of misguidance and her lack of solidarity. She disobeyed a direct order, took a senseless risk and displayed no empathy to the number lives counting on an Avenger to save them.

Life wasn't her mission—profession. The unwarranted spider of the Red Room wasn't a hero, no choices of sacrifice pulsed in her veins. Monsters don't save people. She was meant to be feared, not to give into warmth of assurance, just a cold touch of merciless dread.

A hero was grounded by decision, benevolence and the utmost of responsibility. Captain Steven Rogers was more than a wartime poster boy for the justifiable concepts of truth and liberty; he was a guardian angel against the rise of demons; his rare alloy shield was his silver wings and his piercing azure embers held unyielding, determined fire.

Steve was real, strong and compassionate; reaffirmed to his duties as a committed soldier who preserved the hope that still lingered in humanity. He didn't wear masks...his heart was exposed. He could bleed if a bullet cut him deep.

Natasha defiled the hope of grasping onto threads of earned freedom; eluding her tainted presence away from his shielding grace and made the man that knew her better than herself to taste lead.

Now, she was fighting the mere stirrings, embracing the irrefutable truth of her reckoning in the furls of emotional chaos and deception. She had to believe that some form of good existed beyond her masks.

It had taken Natasha a long time to grasp onto the right ideals, to become human again. She'd ventured through the shadows, discovering more haunting truths hidden about her unforgiving, stolen past—hunting down noxious phantoms; effacing the remnants of blood trails that led deeper into the harsh fathoms of red, dark and endless.

Putting her trust in a refined soldier of righteous distinction allowed her to feel the cathartic release that she'd craved.

The appetite for redemption made her feed off his pure heart, filling her lethal instincts with a sense of purpose that had once existed. Burying the visages of her demons wasn't enough to satisfy the need of restoring what had been stolen from her.

There was no succession or certainty in what resided in her core, of what scraped against her deformed heart, and beckoned her to give into the lurid, overwhelming hunger of destroying another life. Holding back the vicious impulses only prevented intoxicating desires from bleeding out, while it felt like she was bargaining with death in a repeated lapse of abashed pain.

Desperation was prickling in her veins, the torturous imagery of needles draining and faceless children retook possession of the tampered recesses of her falsified metal fortitude. Demoralized apparitions of Aleksander Lukin and Vasily Karpov—the obsessed and sarcastic devils of KBG army division of lunacy, obedience and pain: Department X.

Their corrupted taste for power had abused, butchered and erased preserved memories of her deceased parents; replacing childhood innocence with impurity.

The coldness of the gun's nozzle grazed over the hinge of her bruised jaw, as the sobs lessened at the moment leather fingers coiled around her graceful neck. Scarlet curls swathed over her blemished, feverish cheeks, her wilted head veered back at the sight of a syringe moving closer to her bounded forearm; veins pulsed and levels of heart rate increased.

When she felt the merciless squeeze of her handler; Natalia flinched with a responsive jolt of pain, eliciting a voiceless mewl from her split lips; like a tortured kitten.

"You were selected to become my favored weapon, little girl," Karpov ejected, gritting his tensed jaw in a displeased manner, while affixing his deaden eyes on her disheveled body. "We have no time for disorder in our ranks. You must not falter when you taste death. As you know, many of the strays show weakness and hold onto memory of their parents who abandoned them, but those who fail their tests are thrown in graves just like the remains of their families."

Listening to the array of spiteful words; Natalia's slacken face paled, and she watched, transfixed, at the syringe being filled with another concoction of serum. But there was a strange coloring merging with the based chemical; almost like the clogging blood of a spider.

A Black Widow.

Her body felt leaden; and numbness prickled deep into the marrow of her bones when the puncture of the needle awoke her senses. It was a surge of continuous pain, increasing as she clung into reserves of defiance. She wanted to prove to her debased master, that she was strong enough to endure, to become unbreakable and never allow humanity to intervene with the missions.

When she finally could muster enough words; she gripped onto her measures of strength, and allowed her body to feel the deserved punishment. "Please," she gasped in a struggling breath, and trembled stiffly in the chair. "I won't fail." Tears welled up in her widened eyes. "I won't break..."

"Enough," Karpov hissed dangerously, his glare boring into her skull. "All I hear is lies from your lips, Natalia. Worthless, impure lies that mean nothing in granting you freedom. You are strong in will, but you lack certain qualities that I need to ensure that every order I give to my soldiers is written in blood, not the pathetic tears of a street orphan."

He waved the gunman off and inched closer, squatting down to her level. His hands splayed over her cold legs, moving slightly upward; until he recoiled back and stared at the leakage of tears streaking over her sickly features. "Ivan had faith in you, a small amount to keep you alive when revolutionary rebel soldiers tried to claim your life, isn't that right?"

Natalia needed to answer. Her heart twinged when it felt as if an icy stake penetrated through her ample chest. "Ivan saved me from the fire that took my mother." She dipped her head down, squeezing her eyelids shut for a moment of recollection."I don't remember much after that night," she swore.

The room blurred into spiraling flashes of red, voices droned through damp structures and the smell of decay wafted in every corner. Swallowing down her tears, tasting blood was another purpose of her survival. "I don't hold onto anything," she managed to peep out after a release of continuous sobs, gathering up the reminders of her voice. Tears blotted her unfocused vision. "That is the truth, General Karpov."

"Do you know what happens when our girls cry, little Natalia?" Karpov asked, with no emotion dinging in his voice.

He straightened to his full height and cuffed his hands behind his back as his blurred face came into her resolve. When she didn't answer, he lunged at her, pressing his thumb into the swollen vein, and bore a soulless, livid glare into her pounding skull. "Answer me, child..." He commanded with a harsh slap against her face; jerking her head to the side. Heat flared onto her stinging cheek. She was on the verge of intertwining with darkness. "Answer me, little dancer, unless you want to die like my other failures?"

Natalia spat out blood, choking as thrums of her pacing heartbeat pulsed in her ears.

She refused to deny the harrowing and inhumane truth—each classmate that failed to impress their marble faced instructors were executed during the morning sparring matches; friends devoured life and separated bones; leaving only a remnant of tears in remembrance of their shadow.

It was becoming an infectious plague that consumed innocence, the girls of her class no longer carried value nor grace, only a mark—an embolden pledge to the Red Room. "They become ghosts that haunt the halls." She looked down, watching her fallen tears mix with drops of crimson. "They become nothing more than erased memories."

"Natasha..." His urgent, lulling voice sounded distance, clashing with the storm that availed in her heart. There was no going back. Phantoms were clawing at her flesh, stripping her down into marble encased bones. She lost her balance, unstable and desperate to grip onto an anchor to pull her out of the collapsing void. "Nat, is everything okay?"

She was highly aware of the measure of comfort ghosting in his baritone. She vaguely recognized the utter concern, the forgiveness—he never held resentment towards her. With an absent impulse, she matched his steadfast gaze, staring into the fierce embers of blue that held no derision against her.

Why was she holding onto his sentiment? It was a childish attachment for the weak-hearted...She wanted to cut the strings. Captain America wasn't a part of her world. His moral foundation was something that repelled her because she allowed her brutal training to resurface when Steve needed her to watch his back. All while he lifted the charred plank off a little girl's unconscious body, instead of chasing after a rogue KBG agent—Nikia Brasilva.

The grayness of moonlight light crawled over her pale features. Natasha struggled to regain balance, her back pressed against the cement wall. Blood trickled from the open gash on her forehead. Stray drops stained the leather of her jacket. Her skin was heated with a brush of fever. Veins pulsed and her vision blurred as she held her quad against the man's throat. She squeezed the life out of him.

Electric shocks ignited from her blue glowing Widow Bites as she rammed her fists into his armored chest, and delivered a rapid jolt of her string into his ribs. She gritted her teeth. Her gums became numb as the sour taste of tainted copper dripped over the rawness of her throat.

It was a struggle between life and death; muscles grinding against the steel gate.

Bones crushed as she constricted her brute force into his neck, twisting and choking him. She wanted to see him die by her hands. She wanted blood. Raveling her leg harder, she relentlessly jerked his head forward, listening to the bones snap. Within seconds of collecting her breath, her green eyes glowered, and she watched his dark eyes roll back into the sockets. He was dead.

Spitting up a gob of blood, Natasha rigidly tried to hoist her lithe frame up against the wall. The amount of blood seeping from her wounds prevented her. Releasing a sharp gasp, she slammed her laden arms against the cement and cursed under her frustrated breath. She had been compromised. Pain surged through her entire body. Blood was racing in her veins like torrents as has each pulse became a wicked spasm against her pounding heart.

She couldn't blink the red haze out of her eyes; the world was blurred around her. No light. Just darkness. All she focused on was the maroon puddle building underneath the body of the rogue KBG agent she had identified as an attack dog of Demetrius Sabov—a Russian mercenary and butcher of a dozen America operatives. He was considered a highly unpredictable, resolvable and lethal. He murdered good men by using tactics ingrained into his sordid mind from the Red Room. He was one of the selected to carry out covert missions in the heart of Romania. Natasha believed that he truly had been alerted to suck blood out of the jugular veins of his victims. He was a monster.

Inside and out.

Underestimating her skilled tactics of situational awareness, Natasha had taken an impulsive, disregarding risk and left Steve in the line of fire. When she arrived, puddles of his enhanced blood had splayed over the cement, and his massive body was laden and immobilized. It had been a cruel game of downplayed emotions; she had stared at the harrowing, resentful visages of damage.

She'd been so careless with dominance—brazen and stubborn. Feeling like she owed Steve a debt, repentance crushed her disobedient heart. Her cold motives had ensnared the naive captain into her web, used him as distraction to save her own skin. She didn't deserve his forgiveness; her past sins had emerged and blood was shed.

"No," Natasha winced falsely, clenching her jaw while clinging to reserves of her dominance. "I hurt you, Steve," Her voice seemed raw and unnatural. Tangles of shadows were condemning her to bleed out a valid, guilty confession when her penetrating eyes glanced at the strips of gauze marked with smears of his blood.

Just another reminder of her betrayal— more red on her ledger. "You trusted me with your life and I betrayed that trust because I know that it could never be real with me."

The furrow of his brow creased into hardened, severe, disquiet lines before he drew out an honest answer. "If I didn't trust you, Natasha, then we wouldn't be standing here together," he said, firmly, his wintry gaze fixed into the floor, regret stirring in his core.

"When Fury assigned me as your partner, I never spoke out against his decision. I respected it. I'm not trying to take Barton's place, since he is your best friend, and a good man in his own right." Steve spoke up in a pensive tone; giving her an effective veritable answer that he'd hoped would breach through her sealed, adamantine walls.

After releasing a despondent breath, Steve felt sweat near his eyes, stinging when he fixedly observed the Black Widow's feral, ingenious and indecipherable countenance that melted into a fractured desolate expression. He tried to stare beyond her weaves of abated pain that she tried to hide."We make an exceptional team," he entreated, reeking of honesty. "...you and I, and mind you we do have our differences, but at the end of the day, somehow we always come out stronger than before."

Natasha scolded at him, icy and impenetrable. She pressed hard on her coy lips, forming a sour grimace. Heat spread through her bones. The grating constant impulse to runaway consumed turbulent concessions of her thoughts. She needed to create some distance between them, before irrational desires would gain the full effect on her. "We're don't share the same morals, Steve. In fact, I believe I don't carry any."

Unbelievable, Steve thought, boring his intense stare into hers. "You never make it easy, do you, Natasha?" he intoned evenly, his lips pursed into a firm line. "I'm trying to set things right between us, and you're just playing another game."

She shrugged, nonchalantly. He watched with a deepened stare, the alluring shades of her eyes absorbed the shadows of the room. "It's what I do, Rogers," she replied her voice carried a din of haunted grief.

He shook his head, tearing his gaze away from her, and pinned his eyes on the shield. Natasha watched his resigned countenance morph into a disheveled, broken expression. He looked unintentionally crushed. "I thought you were more than your file, Natasha," he grounded out, his jaw hardened."... but I guess that's just another lie." With that, he spared a quick, intending glance at her unreadable features. Dismayed, he stepped out into the hall.

Something roared inside her, and she carnally lunged at him without a second to reclaim her decision. The slick planes of his back slammed forcefully against the wall, and her curves arched against the ridges of his abdomen. Feeling her palms splay over his pectorals, Steve released a heavy, alarming gasp, and evened his fixated state to her livid eyes. Red lightning flashed, dangerously. His blood was surging with hot torrents as her breath coiled over his flushed skin. She mercilessly teased for a moment, keeping him on edge.

"Natasha," he hitched a breath, trying to pry her arms off his shoulders. Feeling an encroaching sense twist in his gut, he reacted with a hitching breath. "Cut it out..."

Her face darkened into a ravenous semblance, her lithe fingers gripped his muscles as he protested against his will. She knew the weak points of the human body, and her polished nails felt like needles, digging into the feverish skin of her prey. His strength fused with her possessive clutch, assaulting his rigid body. There was a vast etching of emotions riding over his chiseled, enthused face. He looked trapped, struggling to rip himself away from her. "Don't worry, Cap, this is simple trust exercise that I use to practice a lot with men," she coaxed in a malevolent purr, knowing that he didn't seem convinced. "Well, maybe the ones who didn't try to kill me."

"I'm not like those men, I have limits," he warned, while also shuddering through gritted teeth, seizing her wrist into the firm grip of his hand.

Natasha curled her lips into a deviant smirk, relishing the control of the moment."And I'm going to enjoy breaking all of them—"

Cringing against her brazen aim, his eyes creased, matching the darkness of her gaze. Only faint blue crescents reflected in the light. "Not tonight," he growled using the effective baritone of Captain America. He twisted her arm to his side and spun her fully around with a graceful, effortless twirl. She aligned her back uncomfortably against his dense torso; calculating her equivocal motives to devour him; but his broad arm secured over her waist, and her head inadvertently rested on his wounded shoulder; mounting heat wavered off her lips—so close to his burning throat.

Inhaling her enthralling scent, he discarded all rational thoughts of engaging the moment; sliding his fingers under the edge of her jaw. He tilted her head to meet the soft expanse of his desiring lips, and shadowed her pale skin; his forehead rested against hers. Every pulse of her breath gliding smoothly over his flexed jaw seemed unhindered—perilous; drawing him in to take the plunge and test his restrictions; to fully open himself up to her without the logical reasoning of the soldier drying out the unquenchable thirst he craved for seventy years.

"Natasha," his voice conveyed a heady, raw pitch of breath. Steve paced himself, tentatively joining her claret tinted lips in unison—a rare, serrated connection he'd never shared with any Brooklyn dame—not even Peggy. She was lethal and alluring, but he was longing to taste vehement fire on his urging lips. Taking considerable amount of delay to permit his lips; Steve became unable to resist the swell of his heart. For a brief, nonsensical moment, he felt stable enough to kiss her. Breath raveled in his chest. His coaxing mouth collided with a cautious brush against the fullness of her lips; there was relief coursing in his veins and he felt immensely released; melting against her lips as sparks ignited and wet heat merged into a solid embrace of equal, accepting warmth.

Closing his eyes, Steve was absorbing the sweetness of her taste seeping into his mouth. He pressed his swollen lips harder; digging his nose into her cheek and felt the pulse of her throbbing flesh outmatch his empowering interlock, until she detached and allowed him to stare into the light bleeding through the darkness in her eyes. He smiled, frozen in the moment with her; whispering hotly over her flushed, sated mouth, "One down...Three to go..."

Natasha looked at him, enthralled, and her eyebrow arched. "What does that mean?"

"You'll figure it out," he smirked, and his blue eyes held a teasing glint.