#bloodredmoon87

[chalantness]

Chantyyyyyyyy!!! Oh my god, I finally saw Black Panther and I am living for Shuri! She is adorable! And after that ending credit scene, I can't help but think she and Wanda would just be the best of the friends helping fix up a certain someone. ;)

I think I was so convinced that Wanda and the rest of them were in Wakanda that I was genuinely confused at the end that they never made an appearance!

But obviously the movie was amazing. Obviously.

[narutofornepal]

Naruto for Nepal would like to recognise bloodredmoon87 for their generous donation to UNICEF Nepal! Thank you so much for your support, and we cannot express enough how much this will help the recovery efforts for children in Nepal.

We’re incredibly excited to see this request come to fruition. Stay tuned to narutofornepal and be among the first to see the new piece from one of our contributors!

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DONATE TODAY!

[aerophin]

If you haven't already been asked, ShikaIno! :D And also NaruHina if you're bored.

Hello, sweetie!

Shikaino:

when or if I started shipping it: pretty much when I first started exploring the fandom. They were one of my ship I decided on. I really liked their ino-shika-chou tradition, and when I saw their birthdays were a day a part and they had matching earrings, it was a done deal.

my thoughts: my babiesssssss

What makes me happy about them: that they’re on the same team and have such close bonds :) also I love ino-shika-chou so much you don’t even know

What makes me sad about them: that they’re not canon that i will never be able to satisfy my longing for good fanfic/fanart

Things done in fanfic that annoys me: when Shikamaru is dismissive of Ino or her feelings. basically writing Shikamaru as a reluctant lover. why???

Things I look for in fanfic: good characterization with a lot of emphasis on their ino-shika-chou bonds.

My kinks: ehhhh? 

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: no one

My happily ever after for them: married with kids, still strong friendship with Chouji, leading their clans and raising next ino-shika-chou generation

[chalantness]

Let It Snow - day thirteen

(for my “season of shipping” giveaway)

Rating: NC-17 Word Count: ~1,600 Characters: Steve/Natasha Prompt: Christmas Eve party + flirting + future fic + sex with clothes still on or partly on + Nat stealing Steve’s ugly Christmas sweaters

For: @burnthefirstorder and @bloodredmoon87

A/N: I wasn’t sure how far into the future you were expecting, so I just went with the classic post-Civil War, Vague Optimistic Future because that’s my happy place.

Read on: [ ao3 ]

It has bells. It has bells.

She’s married to a child. It’d be endearing if it wasn’t so ridiculous.

(Well, no. It’s still kind of endearing.)

Tony is having everyone over for Christmas Eve dinner, and they’ll open presents at midnight and then crash in his dozens of guest rooms, and then they’ll probably have a big breakfast spread in the morning, because it’s Tony and he likes to go a little overboard. Like with his Ugly Christmas Sweater theme for their Christmas Eve dinner.

She pokes fun at Steve for having so many of these things that he can only wear one month a year, but, fuck. She may wear them as much as he does, because they’re soft and comfortable and warm, and they always smell entirely like him. Plus, she usually wears his sweater and nothing else underneath, and she thinks that’s the only thing that can make them feel a little less ridiculous. She knows Steve doesn’t have any complaints about that part, either, even if he likes to pretend to be annoyed whenever she steals one from his closet. She’s only ever worn them around their apartment, because it’s a sweater with pom-poms, or jingle bells, or colored twinkling lights. She’s not about to wear it out in public.

Unless, evidently, Tony Stark decides otherwise.

“You look adorable,” Wanda had giggled when Natasha shrugged out of her coat, revealing the Rudolph sweater she’d taken from Steve. It has bells at his ankles and in his antlers and on his harness, and since it’s Steve’s, it’s also ridiculously big on her. “I especially like the socks.”

Natasha had laughed, glancing down at the cable knit, over-the-knee socks she’d worn instead of leggings. The sweater is huge on her, coming down to the middle of her thighs, so she took a page out of Wanda’s book and wear the thing like some kind of sweater-dress. Hence, the socks. She’s also not wearing anything on underneath, and Steve knows it.

It’s why he hasn’t stopped touching her all fucking night.

It started with a brush of his fingers. Over her bared shoulder when he passes behind her, along the curve of her calf when he’s sitting on the floor near her feet, against the backs of her thighs as he walks behind her toward the dinner table. He got a little bolder when they were seated next to each other, very nearly making her flinch when his hand wraps around her knee under the table, giving it a squeeze. He’d idly massaged along her thigh, tracing nonsensical patterns into her skin, inching higher and higher up her thigh, until his fingertips had grazed the hem of her sweater, and then he’d slid his hand back down to her knee. He did this over and over and over again, through appetizers and the main course and dessert.

She offers to rinse the dishes off and load them in the washer as an excuse to stand up, because unless Steve is going to push the dinnerware aside and spread her out on the table for everyone else to see, he needs to stop touching her.

She takes her time practically scrubbing each dish off, until not a spec of food is left, and then she rearranges them in the dishwasher three different times to distract herself. It doesn’t really work (not at all, in fact) because her body is still tingling, still relishing in the ghosts of his touch on her thigh, still pulsing from the fact that he’d touched her like that at the dinner table with their friends just a few feet away. She’s always prided herself on her poker face, but still. She wonders if they noticed how flushed her skin became, wonders if they could see how hard her nipples had gotten under her sweater. She wonders if they’d even care. This wouldn’t be the first time she and Steve would’ve had sex with all of them in the other room.

She’s just closed the dishwasher when Steve strolls in, an easy, almost casual smile on his face, one hand tucked into his pocket.

“How’s it going in here?” he asks, and it sounds entirely innocent. There’s even a slight wrinkle to his forehead, as if he’s genuinely curious as to what’s taking her so long.

Fucking asshole.

She narrows her eyes at him, and he actually grins when she grabs him by his penguin sweater and drags him toward the linens closet down the hallway. Pepper is going to kill them when she finds out about this. But Natasha doesn’t care, not even a little.

She shoves him inside, clicking the lock into place behind her. It’s totally dark other than the slivers of light coming in from the kitchen, and there’s not much room at all, so she’s already sort of pressed against him in all the right places, and something akin to a growl rips from her throat as she cups her hand over the back of his neck and yanks him down for a kiss. He makes this noise from the back of his throat that sounds a little like a groan, his hands coming to her hips and giving them a squeeze as he licks his tongue into her mouth.

He slides his hand up her thigh and under her dress, fingers swiping over her sex with the deftness of knowing that he’d find her bare and wet and wanting.

She digs her nails into the muscles of his biceps, shelves digging into her back as she leans her weight against them, her legs already shaking. He’s barely even touched her and she feels like she’s about to burst. He teases at her entrance, then moves his fingers up, circles her little bundle of nerves once, twice, three times.

Her bells are chiming as she squirms under his touch, and the asshole laughs at it. “You’re a little too loud,” he tells her, sounding entirely amused by this as he dips two fingers into her and curls, finding her sweet spot with a few easy strokes, because that’s how well he knows her. She parts her lips, grinds her hips down on his hand. “They can probably hear us.”

“So do something about it,” she retorts, because she knows what he’s doing: asking permission. Because, even though he knows her body just as well as she does, and knows her every thought without her uttering a word, he’s Steve, and he’ll always ask. Usually it’s endearing, but right now, they don’t have time. Not with everyone just down the hallway.

He pulls his fingers from her too quickly, too abruptly, drawing a pathetic, strangled sort of sound from her throat, but he brushes a kiss to her lips as if in apology. Then he curls his fingers around the hem of her sweater and yanks it up and over her head in a harsh, clanging rush of sound, tossing it onto the floor. “Fuck, I wish I could see you properly,” he groans as his hands slide down her sides, over her hips, to the tops of her over-the-knee socks. “I wish I could see you in nothing but these damn things, dripping wet between your legs.”

She lets out this desperate little sound as she kisses him again, her hands coming between them and fumbling with the buckle of his belt.

He’s hard when she gets the front of his pants undone and slips a hand inside, fingers curling around his length and stroking up, once, twice, three times. He groans, lets his forehead fall forward on her shoulder as he gently rolls his hips into her palm.

“Is that what you thought about? Why you’re already so hard?” She runs her thumb over the tip of him, nipping at his ear. “Were you thinking of me?”

It’s a question she knows she’d never, ever had to ask, but he answers honestly all the same. “Yes,” he groans, his grip deliciously tight. She wants him to elaborate – needs him to – and of course he does without her having to utter a word. “I wanted to spread you out on that table. Wanted to push your sweater up and suck on you until you screamed.” She gnaws on her lower lip, giving him a squeeze, and his hand grasps at her wrist to get her to stop. They’re both already teetering so close to that edge. “I don’t think I can last,” he whispers.

She shakes her head. Neither can I, she means, and he groans as if in response, pulling her hand off of him and hooking an arm around her waist. He hoists her up and leans them against the linen shelves as he presses at her entrance—

And then a voice – muffled through the door, but very clearly Tony – carries down the hallway. “…but seriously, every time? This is our house!”

Pepper laughs, her voice sounding closer. “I’m not exactly thrilled about it, either, but what can you do?”

“What can you do?” Tony repeats. “Just because they’re newlyweds doesn’t mean they can get away with having sex in every room in our house! I still miss that glass coffee table.”

“You wouldn’t even have used it after that, so what does it matter?”

“It matters, Pep,” Tony grumbles, and Natasha’s heart skips. They’re standing just outside the door.

Her eyes snap up to Steve’s, finding his gaze through the dark, and honestly, she’s not at all surprised to find him smiling, his eyes sparkling in that amused cockiness that she hates (loves) so much. He teases the tip of him over her little bundle of nerves, and she bites down on her lower lip, hard, muffling a whimper as he leans forward and nips at her jaw.

“If we’re loud enough, do you think they’ll go away?” he whispers into her ear, and, before she can even think of a response, he rolls his hips forward and pushes into her, her lips part open as he bottoms out.

She’s pretty sure she moaned, but she doesn’t care. Not even a little.

[chalantness]

Let It Snow - day one

(for my “season of shipping” giveaway)

Rating: NC-17 Word Count: ~1,400 Characters: Steve/Natasha Prompt: royal au + trapped in a snowstorm + sharing body heat

For: @bloodredmoon87

A/N: Oh, how I’ve missed this ‘verse!

Read on: [ ao3 ]

“I promise I’m fine, Mother. It’s just a little snow.”

On the other end of the video call, her mother worries her lower lip between her teeth. It was the one habit she couldn’t always control, and one that usually came out when she was particularly distressed. Natasha’s chest tightens ever so slightly. She hates it when her parents are upset, of course, but she especially hates it when they’re upset because of her. Not that her mother would’ve expected Natasha to predict that the snowstorm would pick up just hours before they had planned to leave, but still. With her father and brother both out of the country, she knows nothing will be able to distract her mother from imagining all of the dangerous situations that could come from Natasha being snowed into her mountain cabin.

She imagines freezing to death would be toward the top of her list of scenarios, especially when Natasha gives a full-bodied shudder, nearly dropping her mug of hot cocoa.

“Oh, darling,” her mother says, forehead wrinkling in concern. “You must be freezing. Please tell me you have plenty of blankets.”

“We have them by the dozens,” Steve chimes in, draping a fleece blanket over the woven throw Natasha already had draped over her shoulders. Her mother’s face relaxes ever so slightly at the sight of him, as if just remembering that her daughter wasn’t left to fend for herself. “She’s also got two layers of socks on, and I have the fire going.”

“Good, that’s good.” Her mother exhales a breath. “I’m glad you’re there to take care of her. I know Howard would’ve lost it if his little girl had been trapped on a mountain all alone.”

“I’m not an infant, you know,” Natasha points out, only partially indignant, but mostly teasing. Steve gives her a dimpled grin and her mother laughs. “I would’ve managed.”

“Yes, you would have,” her mother agrees, sounding every bit sincere. “But you would’ve been incredibly lonely, too. At least you have Steve to keep you warm.”

Natasha wills herself not to flush as she hums in agreement and attempts to take a nonchalant sip of her tea. No more than a few hours ago, Steve had said almost those exact words to her in a low, breathy, broken voice, lips pressed right next to her ear as he fucked her from behind. She couldn’t quite remember how they’d gone from cuddling to hastily trying to yank each other’s clothes off under the tangle of blankets, but she’s certain it had started with the way Steve kept slipping his hand under her sweater while they’d been kissing. That had quickly turned to more urgent touches and deeper kisses, then her sweater had come off altogether, and he’d turned her over and onto her knees and slid into her from behind.

Not that she’s about to tell her mother any of this.

Steve stretches up to his full height, leaving his face out of view from her mother as he winks at Natasha and says, “Speaking of which, let me get back to that fire.”

Natasha knows that she must make some noise in acknowledgment, and she knows that her mother is starting to talk again; something about how her father’s business in France was going. But Natasha can’t bring herself to focus on anything other than Steve as he drags the blankets and pillows onto the plush carpet and begins setting them up by the hearth.

“—is something the matter, dear?” her mother asks, snapping Natasha’s attention onto her. She looks amused, and Natasha knows she’s been caught.

Whether her mother is aware of how intimate her daughter and her bodyguard are with each other is still something Natasha is trying to figure out. For the most part, her mother seems perfectly oblivious. But more recently, there have been moments, just like this one, that make Natasha question if it’s all an act.

“Sorry,” Natasha says, giving a smile she hopes comes off as sheepish rather than guilty. “The fire just looks so warm and distracting, is all.”

“Well, don’t let me hold you back.” Expression softening, she adds, “Call me in the morning, alright?”

“I will,” Natasha promises with a bit of a laugh, something her mother doesn’t even seem a little bit offended by. They both know that she’ll let her worries fester for another hour or two before relenting and calling Natasha herself before the night is over.

After Natasha has hung up and set her tablet aside, she glances over to find Steve’s back to her as he tends to the fire, making her gnaw on her lower lip as a burst of warmth slides through her veins. They’d turned down most of the lights before her mother had called, and with the storm making it almost pitch black outside, the only light was coming from the fireplace, silhouetting Steve and his broad shoulders and his sweater pulled tight around his muscles. She’s itching to touch them, to feel them flex under her fingertips, and just the thought of seeing the contours of his chest illuminated by the hearth is almost enough to make her swoon where she stands. It should be crime for him to be so damn tempting.

She crosses the room and wraps her arms around him from the side, tucking herself into his chest as he loops an arm around her waist.

“I can’t wait to cuddle with you,” he says as he draws her toward the carpet. She arches an eyebrow as he lays her down on a mountain of pillows and braces himself above her, tugging a cream-colored fleece over the both of them.

“Is that really what you’ve been waiting for?” she asks, one eyebrow arched.

“Of course.” He gives her a crooked, boyish grin as he hooks his thumbs under the waistband of her yoga pants, slowly, almost torturously sliding them down her thighs. She knows that she’s already wet – she can feel it – and she knows that Steve can feel it, too. His eyes are twinkling as he takes his time tugging her yoga pants off, tossing them aside before dragging his knuckles over the damp front of her panties. She gnaws on her lower lip, opens her legs up for him, just a little bit more. “But is that the only thing I’ve been waiting for?” he continues, dragging his knuckles back and forth, back and forth, until her eyelashes are fluttering closed and she’s softly rocking her hips upward, wanting more, needing more.

“Steve,” she breathes, tugging at her own sweater. It’s suddenly too hot, and she needs it off.

He chuckles, watching her squirm for a moment before pulling his hand away from her sex and grasping at the hem of her sweater, sliding it up her body. Rather than tugging it completely off, however, he gets it wrapped around her wrists, keeping them knotted together above her head. Her stomach flutters, her heart almost stopping altogether.

“I’ve also been waiting for this,” he says, then tugs the cup of her bra out of the way so he can wrap his lips around one of her nipples. He grazes it just barely with his teeth before giving a particularly hard suck, making her hips roll up.

Then he pulls his mouth off, and the most pathetic sound falls from her lips. If she’s this worked up after barely a couple of minutes, she can only imagine what the night has in store for her. Steve is infinitely more patient than her, and despite her protests, she quite likes it when he takes his time.

“Tell me, Nat,” he starts, making her eyelashes flutter open to catch his gaze as he’s sliding his hands down her sides. “Do you know one way to survive the cold?”

She feels her lips quirk. “Body heat?” she asks, her tone one of perfect ignorance.

She can see Steve barely repressing a chuckle. “Correct,” he tells her. “Something, I might add, that is far more effective without so many clothes in the way.” He tugs her panties down her slowly, so she can feel the lace as it drags down her hips, her thighs, her calves. She doesn’t know how he can make something so simple feel so incredibly dirty, but she can’t say that she minds it much. He pushes her thighs apart, continuing with: “And considering how cold it is, I’ll make sure you’re very thoroughly warmed up tonight, Princess.”

Then he slides two fingers into her wet heat, and she knows the shudder that ripples over her has nothing at all to do with the storm.

[chalantness]

If your still doing that meme, Romanogers #25 3+ 1 or whatever I love all your stories so I know whatever you come up with will be great!

Follow-up to the friends-with-benefits ‘verse I just wrote about because I’m obsessed.

1. Closing my eyes, I see you. + 25. Let me take care of you. + 3. I remember being inside of you.(#3 also requested by @imstandinghere​​​​)+ 41. Keep going now. Please don’t stop. (requested by @sleepygrimm​; I realized that I left it out of the first set, so sorry about that!) + 2. Make my Monday better. Fuck me. (requested by @bloodredmoon87​)

She’s not quite sure what she expected. Maybe that he’d freak out a little, or at the least want some space, which she would’ve understood. Sleeping with him while on a mission was incredibly impulsive of her, and stupid considering she’s his supervising officer, and quite possibly the only friend he bothers to spend time with. Her evenings consist of the two of them on his couch, watching Netflix and eating takeout; her days, with him at the gym, or letting him tag along when they both have errands to run. Nick wanted her to help Steve acclimate to his new life, but she’s fairly certain he didn’t mean by monopolizing his time.

And she’s absolutely certain he didn’t mean by sleeping with him.

She lets herself into his apartment, the smell of garlic and marinara sauce wafting in the air. She knows it’s ridiculous that something as simple as walking in on Steve making dinner is comforting to her, but she’s trying not to dwell on it.

Her mission in Rio had gone smoother than they’d predicted, but that was still three days of working in 80-degree humidity in nothing but a two-piece bikini. On top of her flight home being delayed by three hours, Phil had found her after debriefing and spent another twenty minutes discussing the new training schedule for recruits because he’d wanted her input. She knows she’s not in the best mood right now, and she knows Steve can see it on her face. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t tease her for picking his lock as he always does.

“Rough day?” he asks, eyebrows furrowed in genuine concern as she shrugs out of her jacket, drapes it over the back of a chair.

“I’ve had better,” she says, a wry grin tugging at her lips. Steve chuckles softly and switches off the burner, reaching for her and drawing her to his chest. She’s never been a hugger, ever, and honestly? She hadn’t expected Steve to be one. But she doesn’t question it too much.

He brushes his lips to her hair. “Can I do anything to help?”

She tucks her hands under the hem of his shirt, slides her fingers up his chest. “You can make my Monday better and fuck me.”

He chuckles softly and the sound of it makes her skin tingle, eases the dull ache in her muscles. She tips her head up and covers his mouth with hers in a kiss, slow and deep, tongue sliding out to lick at the seam of his lips. He makes this noise from the back of his throat; not one of surprise, but almost one of relief.

The thought of that – of him sitting in his apartment, wanting her home just as much as she wanted, craving her just as much as she had during her whole damn mission in Rio – almost makes her shiver. Her heart is thrumming in her chest, her pulse racing, her entire body practically vibrating in anticipation and impatience. He must feel her touches growing more desperate, her kiss growing more uninhibited, because he murmurs her name and grasps her hip with one hand, giving it a squeeze, either in reassurance or in restraint. She’s not quite sure. His other hand slides down her side, slips around her front and down the flat of her stomach, cupping her through her yoga pants, and she gasps.

Fuck, she’s already wet. And judging by the way his entire body tenses, Steve can tell.

“Nat, you–” He cuts himself off with a hard swallow, pulling back to hold her gaze. She tries to see hesitance in his gaze, any little sign that means he’s uncomfortable with this, with her, and the fact that she’s missed his touch so much that she’s already melting in the palm of his hand. But there isn’t any at all. No flicker of uncertainty or reluctance. Nothing.

Just the same intensity she knows he must be able to see in her eyes.

“I’ve been waiting for this.” She licks her lips. “I’ve been imagining this for days.”

He lets out a, “fuck,” under his breath and spins them around, hooks an arm around her and hoists her onto the counter, perching her on the edge. His eyes are dark and stormy, swirling with hunger, and maybe even something far more intense. “Every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was you,” he tells her, his hands grasping the waistband of her yoga pants, and she lifts her hips up to help him slide them down her legs, along with her panties. She half-expects him to drop to his knees like he’s done every other time he’s lifted her onto this very spot on the counter, but he doesn’t. He skims his fingertips slowly up her thighs as his other hand slides up her back and presses her close, their chests flushed together. She grasps his face, tries to kiss him, but he leans away.

“Steve.” She almost, almost huffs.

“I knew the nature of your mission, and I hated thinking that someone else might be touching you.” His breath is warm against the shell of her ear as he whispers this to her, and her lips part, her breath hitching. He chuckles and dips his head lower, kisses the underside of her jaw. “You’ve done stuff like that hundreds of times. It’s your job, and it’s not my place to be jealous. But I couldn’t help myself.” He nips at her skin, pulling a mewl from the back of her throat as his fingers finally, finally, reach where she wants him most. He strokes her lightly, with two fingers and a barely-there pressure that makes her hand shoot down to curl over the edge of the counter, gripping tightly. “Does that make you uncomfortable? Knowing I was jealous?”

She shakes her head immediately, a little taken aback by how true that is. She has never once belonged to anyone but her employer, and when men would become possessive, it was irritating, but something she barely batted an eye at.

It’s different with Steve, though.

(She’s quickly realizing that almost everything is different with Steve.)

She shakes her head, tries to roll her hips, urge him for more, for faster, for something. “Tell me,” she breathes out. “Tell me what you were thinking.”

He licks the mark of his teeth on her neck, catches her lips with his and muffles the sound she makes when he sinks his fingers into her. She’s already so wet that he slides three fingers in easily, curling, making her gasp and let her head fall back, hitting into one of the cupboards, but she hardly feels it. Every one of her senses is distracted by the press of his fingertips inside her, teasing, pulling her apart little by little.

“I was remembering.” He pulls his lips from hers, grazing her cheek with a kiss so tender and gentle that it’s a little disorienting. “Remembering being inside of you.” He curls his fingers, angles his wrist and sinks in deeper, somehow. She moans. “Remembering how it feels when you fall apart around me.” He kisses her other cheek. “Does it feel as perfect for you as it does for me?”

She jerks her head in a nod, back arching, and then her body tenses when he grips her shoulder, squeezing the bruise that’s still tender from the beginning of her mission. He pauses, but that’s worse, and she whimpers and grasps his wrist, breathing out, “I’m fine, I’m fine, just keep going.”

“Nat–”

“Keep going now. Please don’t stop.”

Fuck, she’s never, ever begged for anyone before, but it spills from her lips before she can quite catch it, and she realizes that she doesn’t want to take it back. She needs him to make her feel good, and it needs to be him.

“Okay, baby,” he murmurs, kissing her once, twice, three times. “Okay, okay.”

And then he’s curling his fingers again, his strokes harder, deeper, the heel of his hand grazing her clit and making her shake.

She wonders, somewhere in the back of her mind, beyond the white-hot haze of pleasure, why it feels so much more intense than she remembers.

“I’ve got you.” He kisses her, soft and sweet, and she lets out a cry, her muscles coiling, tightening, as he drives her right toward that edge. “Just let go, Nat. Let go. Let me take care of you.” He kisses the middle of her forehead, and it’s ridiculous that it’s this simple gesture that tips her over the edge. “Let go, Nat.”

She thinks she says his name as she comes, thinks she must say it over and over again, in time with the rapid beating of her heart, but she can’t really make sense of anything. Her orgasm bursts over her, making her skin tingle, making her body hum, and it feels like every ache in her muscles is swept away in the pleasure that washes over her.

Her body is still trembling when Steve pulls his fingers out, wipes them over his jeans before hooking her legs around his waist and lifting her up. She blinks her eyes open to meet his, and he gives her that dimpled, boyish smile of his as he walks her over to the couch and sets her down. He tries to pull back, but she cups the back of his neck with both of her hands, dragging his lips to hers in a kiss.

“Time for dinner,” he says against her lips, reaching down to pat her hip.

She unhooks her legs but doesn’t let go of him, looking down at the obvious bulge in his sweatpants. He chuckles and shakes his head, gently prying her hands off of his neck so that he can stand up properly.

“Later,” he promises, eyes twinkling as he reaches for the folded over the back of the couch and drapes it over her. “I need to get some food in you first.”

“Steve.” She doesn’t really mean to laugh, but she can’t help it. Eating is not exactly a priority of hers right now.

“When’s the last time you ate?” he asks almost in a challenge, one eyebrow raised as he makes his way back to the kitchen. She rolls her eyes but doesn’t answer. She thinks it was this morning waiting for her flight, but she actually isn’t sure. That’s probably his point. He grins at her from the kitchen. “So, is it a one or two garlic bread kind of night?”

Her stomach growls. “Two,” she calls out, reaching for the remote on the coffee table to switch on the TV. Netflix is already queued up to the next episode of Game of Thrones, and, she realizes with a smile, he’s left it exactly the same. Three days without her, and he’d taken to something else (sketching, most likely, since his sketchbook is sitting on the end table) rather than finishing any of the shows she knows he’s been itching to watch. It’s stupid that she finds it so touching, and even more stupid that she knows she would’ve done the same for him.

He comes back holding two plates of spaghetti with meatballs, each with two slices of garlic bread and almost more shredded mozzarella than marinara sauce, just the way she likes it. He hands her a plate and settles next to her on the couch, kicks his feet up on the coffee table. She’s completely naked under this blanket, and they’re sitting on the couch and eating dinner, and honestly? It wouldn’t be the first time this happened.

(She wonders, not for the first time, how she used to spend her time before Steve came into her life.)

(She hopes she doesn’t have to remember.)

[chalantness]

Also Romanogers + 11. I know you can go deeper. :) :) :)

11. I know you can go deeper. + 33. Eyes up now, Sweetheart. Good girl. (requested by @sleepygrimm and an anon) for the six sexy words meme + the tags on this post by @evanzski.

She doesn’t know how they always end up like this.

Well, no. She knows exactly how worked up Steve gets after a particularly successful mission. She’d tease him about being a cliche, but when he turns that look on her – jaw set, eyebrows furrowed ever so slightly, eyes dark and hazy and steely with determination – her breath always gets caught in her throat, heat bursting over skin in a quick flurry. It’s ridiculous how quickly she gets turned on by this man, especially when he stalks over to her slowly like he’d done when he came home today: daunting and predatory, emanating hunger, promising to devour her.

Fuck, she loves that look.

He’d shoved the laundry off of where she had been folding and sorting them on the coffee table, hoisted her on top of it without so much as a, “hey,” and then covered her mouth with his before she could make a sound. There’s a smudge of dirt still smeared under the line of his jaw, a scrape over his temple that he hadn’t bothered to clean out, and he’d all but ripped her out of her yoga pants in pure impatience before pressing her back flat against the coffee table and licking right over her center.

She falls apart like this, back arched, her head tipped over the edge of the table as she lets out a moan, then whimpers when her thighs reflexively try to close around his head as he drives her to a second orgasm on the heels of the first. She feels weightless and senseless as he wedges himself out from between her legs, listening to the rustle of clothes as he shrugs out of his jacket, the click of his belt buckle being undone before he shoves his jeans down his legs.

“Eyes up now, sweetheart,” he says, voice low and gravelly and commanding. She lets out this little breath, tries to shake her head. She feels boneless.

He grasps her chin with his fingers, tips her head forward. She blinks, vision slowly blurring back into focus to find him staring down at her, lips tugged into a smirk and glistening with her arousal. Her stomach flips, her heart fluttering.

“Good girl.”

“Fuck you,” she says with a breathy laugh. “Come here.”

He chuckles, braces himself over her and ducks his head down to nip at her pulse. “I’ll be honest,” he says into her skin, grunting when she wraps her hand around his length and lines him up at her entrance, “the fact that this coffee table looked sturdy enough to handle us was the only reason I voted on it.”

“No piece of furniture can handle us,” she reminds, voice tapering off into a moan when he rolls his hips, sinking into her slowly, deliberately. She’s still totally sensitive, and he’s hard and long and rubbing in all the right places, and she can already feel her walls quivering around him. He snatches her lips in a kiss, groaning into her mouth when he presses all the way in.

His thrusts are slow, almost tentative at first, but she can feel how tense he is just below the surface, muscles coiled tight, practically vibrating with his urge to go faster, harder. He gets like this sometimes; like he knows he’s too worked up to control himself, one prod away from bursting, and fuck, does the love that moment when he finally snaps.

She digs her nails into the muscles of his back through the thin material of his shirt that he still has on, rolls her hips up against his and causing a groan to rip from the back of his throat. His eyes snap onto hers, forehead creased in restraint.

“That all you got, soldier?” she challenges. “I know you can go deeper.”

His eyes narrow, jaw flexing as he clenches his teeth, and he hooks an arm under the bend of her knee and pushes it up, opening her up and snapping his hips, making her body arch off as she sucks in a gasp. He rolls his hips faster and sinks in so deep that it’s almost dizzying, and she doesn’t realize that her eyes are fluttering closed and her head is tipping back until he shoves a hand into her hair and guides her head back up. She blinks her eyes open, and beneath them, she hears the faint creaking of the coffee table.

“Look at me, love,” he says, angling his hips and brushing that sweet spot that makes a fresh burst of heat fan out over her skin. He mutters a curse. “Keep those eyes on me and I’ll make you come again.” He pushes her leg higher and sinks in deeper and she cries out, her vision starting to blur. “I fucking love your eyes, sweetheart. Keep looking at me like that and we’ll break this table.”

God, she hopes so.

[chalantness]

And just because I can: Bucky/Kara + 23. Don’t worry, Sweetheart. Just be patient. BWAHAHA! (Also Steve+Kara would be the most adorable siblings ever okay and I totally want Bucky and Kara to bond over trying to get Steve a date *coughwithNatcough*)

Why are you always on board with my nonsense? What did I do to deserve you??

23. Don’t worry, Sweetheart. Just be patient. (six sexy words meme)

Kara is eleven when he first meets her, and he’s sixteen and in high school, and the first thing he thinks is that Steve’s new step-sister is kind of cute.

Sarah getting married is – weird. It’s always just been her and Steve in the house next door, and as many times as his parents (especially his mom) have urged Sarah to date, they probably didn’t expect for her to go from single to married in the span of two months. She’s clearly smitten, and Steve tells them that Jeremiah is nice. He lost his wife in a car accident a few years ago, has two girls of his own, and always sends his mom home with flowers after their dates. When Bucky asks what Steve thinks about his mom getting married practically overnight, Steve just shrugs his shoulders and says that Jeremiah asked for his blessing before taking his mom to Vegas for the weekend.

Sarah is practically glowing, and she’s totally giggly and happy and in love when she invites his family and Jeremiah and his daughters for lunch, and it’s really, really nice to see. Steve seems to get along with him, too, and also with his daughters. Alex is their age and definitely a piece of work, and when Bucky tells her this, she laughs and says that that’s one of her favorite compliments.

Kara is younger, and shyer, with her blonde curls pulled back into a ponytail and a set of red-rimmed glasses perched on the bridge of her nose.

“You know,” Steve says, giving his new little sister a dimpled smile as he nudges her with his elbow, “you look more related to me than you do to Alex.”

Kara giggles, and Bucky blinks.

And then she turns to Bucky and smiles, and he blinks again, totally caught off guard. Over her head, Steve laughs and Alex arches an eyebrow.

Well, shit.

-

Kara is thirteen, and he’s eighteen, and she looks really pretty in her white and yellow sundress with her hair all curled and the little star necklace he gave her for her birthday draped at her neck. He and Steve just graduated high school like, two seconds ago, and as her sister and her dad are congratulating Steve just a foot away, Kara turns the biggest, brightest smile he’s ever seen toward him and stretches on her toes to give him a hug. 

“You did it!” she exclaims, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

He laughs and reaches over to gently tug on one of her curls. “I did.”

Kara is finishing out her last year at the private school she’s gone to since Kindergarten, which means that he doesn’t see her as often as he sees Alex. Jeremiah gets up early so he can drive her across the city to get her to her morning (morning!) club, and she comes home late after one of her classmates drops her off from volleyball or basketball or whatever the hell practice she’s got. He can’t keep track. The girl does everything, and it’s kind of awesome to watch from the sidelines when he can catch a game, or when he’s over for dinner and hears her babbling on about her day while she’s baking.

She’s a sweet kid, and next year she’ll be a freshman, and he kind of hates the idea of her going through high school alone. Alex and Steve will be in different states, and Bucky will be three hours away, and it’s not that he thinks she can’t handle it, but shit. He just doesn’t like the thought of her getting hurt, ever.

“Bet you’re going to miss my awesome chocolate chip cookies in college,” she tells him, head tilted, eyes crinkled in that cute little smile of hers.

“What do you mean?” He grins. “You know I’ll need those to study.”

She wrinkles her nose. “I’m not driving three hours to drop off some cookies!” Eyelashes fluttering, she laughs as she adds, “I can’t even drive yet!”

He chuckles. “No, genius. I’ll come and visit you.”

“You will?”

She sounds genuinely surprised, and it tugs at something in him. “Well, yeah. Why wouldn’t I?”

“You sure you won’t be too busy?”

She looks – nervous. Which she’s never been around him. Excitable, yes. Maybe a little spastic, yes. But never nervous. It makes him frown, but then she blinks up at him, lips pressed together, and he feels his chest squeeze ever so slightly. He reaches for her, tugs at another one of her curls.

“For you, I won’t be.”

-

Kara’s sixteen, and he’s twenty-one, and it’s a little ironic that he’s sitting in his childhood bedroom and sort of fucking around on his laptop and she’s out at a party. And he knows this because she text him – well, him and Steve and Alex in the group text  – and then Steve and Alex text him separately to make sure he’s awake until she gets home, just in case. Which, duh. He’d already planned on it as soon as he figured out she would be out. He wonders what she must’ve told Sarah and Jeremiah. Probably that she’s sleeping over at a friend’s.

His phone buzzes on the desk, and he smiles when he sees Kara’s contact photo light up his screen, then frowns when he thinks of what she might need.

“How’s the party, Kara.”

“James?”

He sits up straight, blood running cold. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes?” She sounds confused. Or maybe it’s because he can’t entirely make out her voice above the music and chatter. “Oh! Oh, you think I’m calling because– no, no. I’m fine, James, I promise. I just… Can you come pick me up?”

She sounds uncomfortable, but not panicked, or even afraid.

He lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Yeah, of course.”

She texts him the address, and he drives up to the curb to find her sitting on the railing of the porch, kicking her feet back and forth. There’s another girl with her, and when Kara sees him, she hops off of the railing and hugs the girl and practically dives into his passenger seat. “Bye, Lena!” Kara calls out.

“Friend?”

“Best friend,” she corrects, reaching over to mess with his presets.

He wrinkles his nose. “How much did you drink? You smell like a six-pack.”

She rolls her eyes. “I drank half a cup. Some guy dumped beer on me. By accident,” she rushes to add when his entire body tenses, “calm down.”

“And you’re still wearing it?”

She shrugs. “Well, yeah. Lena let me borrow her cardigan, but it soaked through to my bra, so there’s no helping that. Hey, can we get burgers?”

She’s turned entirely to face him, legs tugged up to her chest, arms wrapped around her knees. She looks up at him from under those ridiculously long eyelashes, eyes bright and wide and sparkling, her cheeks tinged pink, teeth bared in a smile, and fuck. Just like that, all the tension in his body dissolves. He’s not all that hungry, but honestly? He thinks spending his night with Kara at a 24-hour diner sounds like a pretty damn good time.

“Only if you’re sharing your strawberry milkshake with extra whipped cream and extra sprinkles,” he says, and she giggles, shrugs her shoulders all cutely.

“Only with you, James.”

-

Kara’s eighteen, and he’s twenty-three, and he’s moved back to the city, in a studio apartment he shares with Alex. Steve is still in California, because he’s got a lot more opportunities as a graphic designer in San Francisco, and also because he’s got a girl who he’s not “officially” seeing, even though she’s always at his apartment whenever Bucky calls, and their pictures are all over Steve’s social media, and Steve told him that he told Natasha that he loved her almost a month ago. She hasn’t said it back yet, but they’re still stupidly in love so he thinks that still counts.

Anyway.

Alex is gone with her girlfriend for the weekend, and just when he thought his heart couldn’t crack any more, it does. Kara’s standing in the living room area in an oversized cable-knit sweater and her hair in a gorgeous mess clipped atop her head, and her eyes are wet and red and a little puffy from crying.

“She’s gone?” she asks, and then hiccups.

“Yeah. Fuck, come here,” he says, tugging her to his chest, and she winds her arms around him and squeezes pretty damn hard, but he doesn’t mind at all.

He sits her down on top of his bed, makes her tea and, eventually, gets out of her that her boyfriend cheated on her. And he’s pissed, muscles tightening, jaw clenching, and every single part of him feels like he could burst. But then she turns to him with her cheeks all flushed from crying and her breaths uneven and her eyes huge and just really sad, and he feels most of his anger dissolve almost as quickly as it had come. He pulls her close, sort of forces her to cuddle against his side with her head tucked into the curve of his shoulder.

“It’s just… it’s pointless, you know?”

He looks at her. He gets that she’s heartbroken, yes, and god, it must suck even more for it to end the way it did. But she’s not the kind of person to give up just like that. “Love isn’t pointless, Kara,” he says. “It never is.”

“No, not that. I mean…” She shakes her head, reaching up to wipe at her cheeks again. “Never mind. It’s silly.”

He tucks a finger under her chin, tips her head up. “It’s not silly.”

Her lips twitch in a smile. “You don’t even know what I’m talking about.”

“Well, yeah, but when have you ever said something silly?” He has this really strong urge to brush his thumb over her lower lip, because it just looks soft and he’s kind of wanted to do it for a while now (maybe years), so he just – does it. “You say things that are amusing, because you’re you, and I can never keep up with whatever the hell you’ve got going on in your head.” He doesn’t know why he feels like he needs to keep talking, but she’s just looking at him, eyelashes still dotted with tears, and he thinks she looks really fucking beautiful, and he’s always been a little out of sorts around her. “But you have never, ever said something silly, like it’s not worth talking about.”

His gaze drops to her lips, down to her throat when she swallows lightly, and maybe that’s why he’s not entirely paying attention to what her hands are doing until she’s grasping the material of his shirt with both hands. Her eyes are fixed on his lips as she says, “It’s silly and pointless for me to try to date, because there’s always been another boy. A boy I like so much I don’t know what to do.”

“Yeah?” His voice sounds rough even to his own ears.

Her eyes flick up to his. “Yeah.”

He feels a little like he can’t breathe, but in the best way possible. His fingers are buzzing to touch her, like every single cell in his body knows how much he’s imagined this moment, how much he’s wanted it. “Can I kiss you?” he whispers.

“Please.”

She says it in this impatient little huff, tugging at his shirt, and he’s smiling like an idiot when he presses his lips against hers.

Kara has that effect on him.

-

Kara’s eighteen, about to be nineteen, and he’s twenty-four, and they’ve only been dating for a few months now, but it feels like it’s been years. It feels like they’ve been this way their whole lives, or maybe that they’ve spent their whole lives knowing they were going to get here eventually. It’s ridiculous, and Steve gives him considerably less shit for it than he’d given his best friend for taking so damn long to propose to Natasha.

He’d half-expected Alex to flatten him to the ground, but instead, she’d given him this glare he knows was only half-playful, and that was it. No threats to keep her safe because she knows he already does. No warnings not to break her heart because she knows he’d rather cut off his own arm before being the reason that Kara cries. Jeremiah pats him on the back and says, “about time,” while Kara laughs and sort of flails her arms in mock-embarrassment, and his mom basically recounts every single reason over the last decade as to why she knew he and Kara were going to end up together.

So, yeah. It’s good.

They’re good. In fact, they’re pretty fucking perfect.

“James,” she whines, quivering underneath him, nails digging down the muscles of his back as she shifts her hips up. Her folds are warm and wet and still a little sensitive and swollen from when he’d pulled two orgasms from her with his fingers and his tongue and his teeth. He groans as as his hard length slides over her, through her, teasing at where they both want him most.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he tells her, brushing a kiss to her lips. She blinks her eyes open, and, fuck. That look alone is almost enough to set him off. He rolls his hips, slides over her little bundle, and she whimpers. “Just be patient.”

“I don’t want to!”

He doesn’t mean to laugh, but, well.

“Don’t tease me,” she breathes, pouting her lip, and he leans down to nip at it. “I’ve been waiting ever since we met. I don’t want to wait any longer.”

“Well, considering you were eleven when we met, that’s rather inappropriate.”

She’s laughing and totally blushing even as she rolls her eyes. “Shut up.”

He chuckles as she reaches between them, wraps her dainty fingers around his length and guides him to her entrance. She grins up at him, her eyes twinkling. Then he’s pushing into her and her eyelashes are fluttering closed, her mouth parting in a delicious moan, a moan he’s heard dozens and dozens and times by now. But every new time feels like the first, catching him off guard just as she had the moment they met, and he thinks it’s the best fucking feeling ever.

[chalantness]

Babe, I just thought of this but if you can manage to fit Natasha constantly stealing Steve's ugly Christmas sweaters into one of your holiday fics, I will love you forever (not that I don't already lol). XD

I am always up for Nat stealing wearing Steve’s clothes, okay?

[chalantness]

Can't believe it's almost the holidays. Time goes by so fast! For your giveaway, it's been some time since you did your royal au so I'm going to request royal au + trapped in a snowstorm + sharing body heat. XD

Right? I’m so excited but at the same time, not ready. If that even makes sense.

And yes, I was hoping someone would ask about the royal ‘verse. I’ve been itching to get back into it!

[ want to submit a holiday prompt? here’s how ]

[chalantness]

winterwitch, prompt 8?

8. being unable to open their eyes for a few moments afterward + 17. height difference kisses where one person has to bend down and the other is on their tippy toes (for @bloodredmoon87​)(kiss meme)

He loves to kiss her.

On her lips, and her cheek, and the back of her hand. He loves kissing the bridge of her nose when she scrunches it cutely, loves kissing the little wrinkle she gets in her forehead when she’s confused. Loves the way she exhales in content and leans into him when kisses the top of her head, and the way she whimpers and squirms and scratches at his chest when he kisses the curve of her neck, as if urging him to do more. Her lips are soft and fit perfectly against his, and even the little nips and tugs of her teeth are gentle, playful, almost always followed by a giggle that makes his heart skip and his blood thrum. He loves kissing her.

So, no. This isn’t their first kiss. But, he thinks it’s the kiss. The kiss where everything feels just a little bit different, just a little bit better, if possible.

(He remembers when something better was something he didn’t dare believe in, but then Wanda came along, and, well. He believes in a lot of things now.)

It’s the middle of the night when they get back from Vienna, but neither of them have calmed down from that last bit of adrenaline from their mission. Wanda held up a burning building for twenty minutes while everyone evacuated; only minor injuries accounted for and zero casualties. He knows she’s prouder of herself than she’d ever say, and he’s for damn sure prouder of her than he’s ever been. He knows she’s capable of things like this all the time, but he still gets awed being able to see it for himself, you know?

“She was so cute,” Wanda says as they’re walking out of the 24-hour diner an hour and a half later, their fingers laced between them as she gently swings their hands back and forth. She’d gotten this wide, sparkling smile on her face when a little girl had hugged Wanda with all her might and thanked her for saving everyone, and the smile hasn’t so much as faded. He’s glad, because she looks really gorgeous like this, with her cheeks pink under the moonlight and her hair sort of falling in her face.

“She was,” he agrees. “Especially because she saw how amazing you are.”

“James,” Wanda breathes out on a laugh.

He squeezes her hand, draws her to his chest. He could never forget what a dainty little thing she is, but it’s even more obvious when they’re pressed together like this.  “You are, you know,” he tells her, cupping her jaw with his free hand. “Amazing.”

She hums, grasps the material of his jacket and stretches on her toes as he bends closer. “Thank you,” she whispers right before her lips brush against his. The kiss is soft, gentle, but his heart thrums in his chest, his pulse quickening and his skin tingling, like there’s a palpable shift in the air. Her lips are on his for only a few seconds, but he feels a little bit like he can’t quite breathe, can’t open his eyes. She lets out a little, barely there whimper, and he just knows that it’s the same for her. That she feels it, too.

“James?” she breathes, and he blinks his eyes open. Hers are still closed, that bright smile still tugging at the corner of her lips. “You’re amazing, too.”

She means something more, something better, and he grins like an idiot because he knows he’ll get to hear the real words soon enough.

[chalantness]

Romanogers + #2?

2. moving around while kissing, stumbling over things, pushing each other back against the wall/onto the bed(kiss meme)

She tugs him by his tie just as they’re stepping over the threshold, steps backwards as his lips crash into hers in a kiss, hurried and heated and hungry. She doesn’t know what it is about being undercover with Steve that gets her so turned on, but it does, and it seems to do the same to him, if the way that he walks right into the side table and knocks the vase off of it is any indication. It wouldn’t be the first hotel they’ve had to compensate for damages. Maybe that’s part of the thrill, part of what fans the flames of the adrenaline that’s still thrumming through her veins. They’ve probably had sex in every city they’ve stayed in for a mission, or if not, they‘re going to. She likes a challenge.

She nips at his lower lip as her free hand cups the front of his slacks, and he groans, his foot getting caught on the corner of the couch and causing him to stumble them into the wall with a thud. She giggles, flexes her fingers, relishing in the growl that rolls out from the back of his throat as he braces his fist against the wall.

“Easy, soldier,” she coos, hands tugging at his blazer, needing it off. “Don’t want to punch a hole through the wall. Unless you want an audience, of course.”

“Nat,” he breathes, his voice low and gravelly and strained as his self-control quickly dissolves under her touch. His hands come around her, fumbling for her zipper, and she feels another flutter of warmth unfurl in her stomach before coiling tightly in desire. God, she loves him like this, so raw and clumsy and desperate. It wouldn’t be the first time she’s had a man melt in the palm of her hand, but it’s different, better, because she melts for him just as easily.

“What?” She attempts to play coy, but there’s an edge of frustration in her tone because his shirt as too many damn buttons. “Some people are into that.”

“Not me,” he growls against her lips, yanking her dress down and then pushing her back, but her ankles get caught in her dress and she stumbles backward. She ends up knocking the table over in her attempt to grasp it for balance, and the back of the chair hits into the wall when she falls onto it. She’s in a lacy strapless bra and panties and her heels and nothing else, and Steve’s eyes are stormy and dark with desire as he sets his hands on her knees and pushes her legs further apart. “Want this sight all to myself. Want you all to myself.”

She very nearly whimpers, yanking him to her by his shirt.

(They end up the floor after breaking the chair, and she knows the front desk doesn’t believe the explanation she gives them. She doesn’t care.)

[chalantness]

Bodyguard scenarios (HAHA LOOK AT ME BEING SUBTLE!), masks, names and address, secret admirers and tattoos for Romanogers, of course. ;)

(for my kink meme)

Okay, so I lagged on writing this and that’s nothing new but, YES THANK YOU FOR BRINGING US BACK TO THE ROYAL ‘VERSE!! Confession: I’ve actually been working on a fic about how Bodyguard Steve and Princess Nat meet and get together and all that jazz, but I keep rewriting everything because I can’t make up my mind! I promise I haven’t forgotten about this ‘verse, though :D

Her gown is a champagne paillette Oscar de la Renta that her parents had made for her to wear to the masquerade, and she knows that it must have an impressive price tag. It’s gorgeous, and she absolutely shouldn’t be tossing it onto the floor of her hotel suite like some dress she picked off a rack, but. She can’t really focus on anything other than Steve’s lips on her skin, kissing down the column of her throat, across her collarbone, above the dip of her breasts, his hands fumbling to tug her dress off. There’s something a little more urgent about the way he’s touching her, a little more forceful, and god, does she love it. Steve is a gentleman through and through, but he’s not afraid to be a little rough with her now that he knows she likes it, and he respects her way too much to treat her like she’d break if he made one wrong move.

And, okay. She knows part of his forcefulness has to do with the fact that he’d spent all night hovering nearby while guys kissed her hand and her cheek and blatantly flirted with her, even though she hadn’t made any advances of her own. She wouldn’t, because she’d never, ever do that to Steve. But it’s not like she can come out and tell everyone that the princess is having an affair with her bodyguard.

God. The media would never let her live that one down.

“I’ve wanted to kiss you all night,” he murmurs against her skin, nuzzling her throat as he backs her toward the bed. He’s still fully dressed in his tuxedo, and she’s in just her lacy bra and panties and her stilettos, and they both still have their masquerade masks tied on, and there’s something incredibly sexy about it. “Wanted to touch you,” he goes on, and then kisses her hard and hot and heavy before she can have a chance to respond. He’s teasing at the lacy waistband of her panties, but when she tries to nip at his lower lip, he lets out this growl from his throat and gently pushes her onto the mattress. His eyes dark and hazy as he shrugs out of his blazer.

She gives him a coy smile, keeps their gazes locked as she lifts her hips and pushes her panties down her legs, tossing them aside. When she goes to undo the straps of her heel, though, he snatches her wrists and holds them in place. Her heart thumps, then almost stops beating altogether when he says, “Keep them on,” in this low, gravelly voice that sends a jolt of heat straight between her legs.

“Okay,” she breathes out, wriggling her hands free of his grip. “But if you get a request, I get one of my own,” she tells him, even though she doesn’t need to. He would give her anything she ever asked for, do anything she ever asked him to do, and not even because she’s the princess. Because he wants to.

He nods, and she scoots herself higher up the mattress before turning over onto her hands and knees. She glances over her shoulder to find him just – staring at her, his lips parted, and she wishes she’d taken that mask off so she could see exactly how surprised he is. He has a this practiced nonchalance in his expressions, an obvious self-restraint, but his eyes tell her everything and she loves it. Loves being able to see ever flicker of emotion, loves seeing them haze over in lust and sparkle in happiness and shimmer in adoration.

“Well,” she says, voice coming out a little breathless, “if you keep staring at me like that, I’ll start to feel indecent.”

His lets out this gravelly laugh that is so incredibly sexy that she feels a warmth slide down her spine, making her skin tingle. Then a jolt of anticipation shoots right between her legs when she sees his fingers fumble with the buckle of his belt before getting it undone and yanking it off, tossing it onto the floor with a clatter. He’s only ever lets go of that stubborn grip on his composure when he’s alone with her, and she knows she loves it way too much. His careful, articulate tongue is capable of nothing but a string of curses and gruff whispers, and his gentle hands tremble and scratch at her skin and sometimes dig into her hips a little too hard, but god, all she feels is pure bliss whenever that happens.

He tosses his slacks and his briefs onto the floor before climbing onto the bed behind her, and her hips actually jump when he touches her. Normally, she’d be sure to have ripped him out of his shirt by now so she could feel his muscles flex and quiver under her touch, but the pressure between her legs is almost unbearable at this point, and she just really needs him to take care of that.

“Steve,” she breathes. He still isn’t touching her.

Why isn’t he touching her?

She doesn’t ever demand things of him, but she’s just about to until he’s pressing two calloused fingertips right over her slit and stroking once, twice, three times, making her lips part in a moan. She rolls her hips, her fingers tightening around the duvet cover as he massages over her slick folds. His other hand tucks under the clasp of her strapless bra, snapping it open and letting it fall to the bed. He cups one of her breasts, rolls her nipple between his fingers as he dips his head and kisses the impression that her bra clasp had left in her skin. Then his lips slide lower, and lower, and lower, making her back arch and hips gyrate as his fingertips find her bundle of nerves and start circling.

Oh, oh, oh –

She doesn’t realize that she’s whimpering until his breath is warm against her ear as he shushes her gently. “I got you, darling,” he murmurs. He gathers her hair with his free hand, pushes it over her shoulder and then presses a wet kiss to the bared curve of her neck. She’ll come in seconds if he keeps touching her clit like this and he knows this, so it’s cruel, really, that he eases his fingers off and strokes at her entrance just as she’d felt her whole body trembling with her rapidly-climbing high. Then he sinks two fingers into her and she bites down on her lip so hard that she swears she draws blood.

She tries to roll her hips back in time with the thrust of his fingers, but it’s hard to move with the way he’s pressed himself over her, so all she can do is scratch at the material of the duvet and gnaw on her lip to keep from snapping at him.

Her walls are fluttering, and her breath is coming out in sharp, shallow pants as she ducks her head, her hair falling all around her face.

Then his fingers slide out and over her folds again, massaging right over her clit, and he pulls away and dips his head to kiss the small of her back, right where she knows her tattoo is. “My beautiful swan,” he murmurs, and she actually whines his name. Not once could she have imagined that the tattoo she’d gotten of her royal service codename would become a sweet spot for her, but it is, and Steve sure as hell takes advantage of it every single time.

He quickens his fingers this time when her body starts to tremble, but his lips are slow and gentle as he kisses his way up her spine, and it’s these vastly different sensations working in tandem that send her tipping over that dizzying edge. Her arms give out as she unravels at the seams, and she falls forward onto her elbows and muffles her cries in the duvet. Her orgasm crashes over her, making her whole body shudder, but she still finds herself whimpering as her walls flutter around emptiness. Then she lets out this pathetic little sound when he pulls his hand away, even though her body is still trembling in the aftershocks.

She lifts her head from the bed when she feels the mattress dip, glances over to see him retrieving a condom (probably from his slacks), and when he meets her gaze, he winks. They’ve done this dozens of times by now, but she’s still incredibly turned on by the sight of him rolling the condom over his hard length. She licks her lips, feels her walls twitch as if in anticipation, even though she’s certain she hasn’t entirely recovered from her orgasm.

It’s ridiculous how much she craves him. How much she needs him.

She sucks in a breath when he grasps her hip with one hand, using the other to guide his length through her slick folds. Fuck, fuck.

“Fuck,” Steve hisses in her ear, sounding as every bit as wrecked as she feels as he lines up at her entrance and pushes into her. There’s nothing quite like that very first thrust: the way her walls quiver and clench around him, the soft curses Steve mumbles, the way he has to dig his fingers into her skin as if he’d lose every ounce of control if he didn’t. It feels so much better from this angle, too, so much deeper, and she can feel his hot, shallow breaths fanning over the back of her neck as he starts to move. It’s always slow at first, but whether that’s because he’s being careful or because he’s being a damn tease, she could never tell.

This time, however, his pace doesn’t last past the first few strokes, because then he’s groaning and grasping her hips and quickly picking up his rhythm. She can tell by the sounds he’s making that he’s already struggling to hold back, which, fuck, he doesn’t need to do. Not only has she come before him already, but she knows he’d been seconds away from taking her right then and there in the middle of the ballroom after seeing her get hit on all night long. It wouldn’t be the first time he’ll have to bite his tongue through an evening like tonight, and she’s certain it won’t be the last, so long as the public thinks she’s available. She knows sneaking off to have sex isn’t his way of being possessive or marking his territory or some other bullshit like that, either.

He always likes to tell her that she deserves better than sneaking away for a quick fuck, but shit. He’s the one that deserves better.

“Steve,” she breathes, feeling her legs shake. They probably would’ve given out on her by now if it wasn’t for Steve holding her up. He moans her name and starts peppering her shoulders with wet, open-mouthed kisses, but she shakes her head and actually lifts an arm up to tug her mask off. “Steve,” she says again, more insistent, and he lifts his head up, quickening his hips. She has to strain her neck to look over her shoulder to meet his gaze properly, but she doesn’t care, just reaches back and yanks his mask over his head, tossing it aside. His eyes big and bright and beautiful, and the most perfect shade of blue, and she whimpers. It’s the first time all evening that she’s been able to really see his eyes and she hadn’t expected it to affect her so much.

He crashes his lips over hers, kissing her hard and hot and heavy, and she hooks her hand over the back of his neck and kisses him back. Her lungs are burning and so are her muscles from the strain of how they’re pressed together, but it’s a delicious kind of burn, the kind that she knows will make her smile like an idiot when she feels it in the morning.

“Natasha,” he groans, his hands scraping over her skin. “Oh, fuck. Fuck. Nat, Nat, Nat – “

“Yes,” she murmurs cries his lips. “Let go, Steve. Please, baby, let go.”

She grinds back against him, clenches around his length, and he thrusts into her once, twice, three more times before he lets out a sharp, gravelly cry, yanking his lips back and pressing his face into her shoulder as his orgasm crashes over him. She’s right there, too, and he manages to keep thrusting through the thick of his high to push her over that blissful edge with him. She presses her face into the duvet again and cries, her body shaking, fingers clawing at the material.

She can’t tell how long they stay like this (seconds, maybe even minutes) before he starts pulling out of her, and she’s so sensitive that she swears it’s almost enough to spark another high. He gently presses down on her hips so that she moves to lie down, and he half-lays on top of her, rolling her onto her side so that her back is pressing against his chest as he wraps an arm around her. She can feel the smooth material of his tie against her skin, the buttons of his dress shirt pressing into her spine, and if she had the energy to, she’d laugh at the fact that he’s still wearing his dress shirt.

He drops his lips to the curve of her neck, pressing a gentle, tender kiss to her thrumming pulse.

“I wanted to dance with you in that ballroom,” he admits, voice barely above a whisper. She finds herself grinning. She’s not at all surprised to hear this.

She tucks herself even closer. “Me, too,” she says, looking over her shoulder to meet his gaze.

He traces his fingers over the apple of her cheek as he pushes a few stray strands away. “You looked so stunning, Nat. How could I not want a dance?”

“We’ll get our chance someday,” she tells him. Realistically, she can’t make that kind of promise to him. Not with all of the strings and all of the complications it comes with. But she can see it in his eyes that he believes it, believes her, and that’s all that matters in this moment.

[chalantness]

fic: I’ll Save This Dance for You

Rating: NC-17 Word Count: ~7700 Characters: Steve/Natasha, background Sam/Sharon Prompt: "Just so you know, I would not say no to college AU art major Steve meets dance major Natasha and begs her to model for him. I'm just throwing that out there. With smut?" Summary: AU. She knows she shouldn't volunteer to spend the day with him when she's still trying to keep her attraction to him in check. But she wouldn't be a good friend if she didn't at least offer it, right?

For: bloodredmoon87

A/N: Rewrote this and tweaked the prompt a little to fit the civilian 'verse, because I came across it again from a while back and thought it would be a perfect "prequel" of sorts! So I hope you don't mind the changes.

Excerpt:

"It's alright. It's not a big deal." Steve shrugs. "I'm sure I can get one of the employees at the bakery or the coffeehouse to let me paint them."

Natasha licks her lips a little, plays with the straw in her smoothie. She knows she shouldn't volunteer to spend the day with him when she's still trying to keep her attraction to him in check, especially when they'll be alone. But she wouldn't be a good friend if she didn't at least offer it, right?

"You could paint me."

Steve blinks, raises his eyebrows a little. Natasha doesn't have to look over her shoulder to know that Sam and Sharon are grinning like idiots, so she ignores them.

He rubs his lips together, and there's a moment where Natasha thinks he's going to politely decline. He doesn't like people going through any trouble for him, even though she knows he'd go out of his way to do someone else a favor. She rolls her eyes. "I don't have to work at the bar tomorrow, and rehearsal is in the morning. Just meet me at the studio after."

He contemplates this for a moment longer, but then his mouth is curving into a smile, small but bright, and her stomach does this stupid little flip. "I'll treat you to lunch."

"Obviously," she says, and she swears she hears Sam snicker.

Read on: [ ffnet ] [ ao3 ]

Natasha doesn't really think twice about walking around her apartment in just a bra and panties. She has two roommates, yes, but one of them has been her best friend since grade school and has seen her naked more than enough of times by now, and the other is her best friend's boyfriend. It's pretty obvious that Sam is really, really into Sharon, and while he isn't above handing out compliments (he tells Natasha at least once a day that she's beautiful, and he means it, too) she knows it's not because he's a flirt or anything. He's just that charming, but he's in love with Sharon and would never even think about looking at anyone else. Natasha can tell these things. She wouldn't have agreed to him moving in otherwise.

So, no, walking out of the bathroom in just a towel after her shower when she knows Sam will probably be home isn't something she's worried about. She knows Sam isn't bothered by it, either, so it's fine.

She wasn't counting on Sam someone over, though.

"Shit. Sorry, sorry," someone blurts out, and Natasha spins around to find a pair of ridiculously bright blue eyes staring back at her. Steve, Sam's best friend. He's been over to their apartment before, of course, but usually Sam gives her a head's up when that happens.

"Hi." She sounds a little breathless, but, well. She wasn't counting on running into him when her towel is only loosely wrapped around her and already starting to slip. She crosses her arms in a gesture she hopes is a lot more discreet than it feels, holding her towel in place. If he notices the motion, he doesn't let it show, keeping his gaze steady on her face.

"What's wrong, man?" Sam asks, poking his head out of the kitchen, then raising his eyebrows when he sees Natasha. "Oh, hey. I didn't know you were home."

"Clearly." She shoots him a look. "I'm guessing you don't remember replying to my text about class being cancelled?"

"Vaguely," he answers with a wave of his hand. She almost rolls her eyes. Honestly, the guy can't ever remember anything he reads. "Sorry you almost walked in on her, Steve. I know how old-fashioned you are."

"Pretty sure I'm the one you should be apologizing to, ass," she points out. She's not actually upset, though, and he laughs because he knows it. It's not like she's not some kind of exhibitionist, but she's never been all that self-conscious about her body, either. Sam has walked in on her naked more than once even before moving in, which could've been a hell of a lot more awkward if Sam wasn't so nonchalant. Honestly, almost everything rolls right off the guy's shoulders, and she knows that's what attracted Sharon to him in the first place.

He snorts. "Oh, please. You'll love me again after I've fed you."

"Sam," Steve says in that amused yet exasperated tone he gets sometimes with Sam, but he's already poked his head back into the kitchen.

Natasha laughs. It's cute, this friendship of theirs. Sharon told her that they met because the housing department screwed up their dorm assignments, and Steve ended up rooming with Sam instead of his childhood best friend, Bucky, whom he requested. The three of them ended up on the same floor, though, and instead of requesting a switch, they just went along with it. Now they're all close, even if Sam and Bucky still act like they can't stand each other. That's what Sharon tells her, anyway. Natasha has only met Bucky once or twice, and it's funny because he looks like he'd be the shit disturber, but apparently that's Steve. Natasha can see it, though. The first time he'd quipped with her, she almost spit out her drink.

He's also a bit of a flirt. She wonders how much of that is him being unaware of his charm, and how much of it is her doing. Sharon's told her that she can come off suggestive.

"Sharon's on her way," Steve tells her, probably realizing he should explain what he's doing here, since obviously Sam hasn't said a word. "She breezed through her midterm and is feeling good about it, so she wanted to have lunch to celebrate. Sam's making steaks. We were going to save some for you for after your class," he adds with a dimpled grin.

Fuck. This thing where she gets the urge to kiss him really, really needs to stop. Especially when he's right there, close enough for her to touch…

"That probably means I should put on some clothes."

His lips quirk. "Yeah, because you look terrible right now," he tells her. He's teasing, she can tell, but his tone is low and almost serious. His gaze is still locked on hers, too, but there's a sparkle in his eyes that makes her stomach do this stupid little flip. She feels more exposed than if he'd just openly checked her out, and she doesn't entirely hate the feeling.

She turns around and heads for her room, glancing over her shoulder as she slips inside. He's still watching her – not like he's trying to catch a glimpse of something, but like he can't quite bring himself to stop – and her lips tug into a smile before she can get the door closed. Honestly, hanging out with Steve would be a hell of a lot easier if she wasn't so attracted to him. And, well, it actually is easy for her to hang out with him. Very easy, because he's funny and witty and reads her in a way she's never had with anyone that isn't Sharon. He's got all this confidence in himself, too, which is something that always comes off as sexy. But he's also humble and doesn't pat himself on the back for anything, even though he definitely can. Sam told her that he's breezing through his courses (well, as much as anyone can breeze through medical school) and already has a few offers for where he'll do his residency.

She's a dancer. Which she absolutely loves, and she doesn't regret it, but still. She won't be changing lives like Steve.

Besides, she doesn't do relationships. That's the real reason she's not trying to take things anywhere with Steve. He deserves someone who won't get bored when things get serious. She doesn't want to ruin their friendship over a fling, and she definitely doesn't want to risk it being this whole ordeal between her and Sam and Sharon if things don't work out.

So, yeah. She's hoping that this attraction to him will simmer down soon. It doesn't help that Sam always seems to have him over, though.

... ...

"Okay, I'm totally pissed at you."

Natasha just laughs at this, though, because Sharon is practically beaming right now, and her cheeks are totally pink from the margarita she's been sipping on since before they even started eating. (The girl can definitely hold her own when it comes to drinking, but one drop of alcohol and she gets flushed. It's kind of hilarious.) "What did I do?"

"It's more like what you didn't do. Or who, to be exact." Her smile turns smug. "I'm talking about Steve, in case it wasn't obvious."

"It was," Natasha says flatly, glancing over the girl's shoulder at where Sam and Steve are still cleaning up in the kitchen. They're too distracted at whatever they're laughing about to pay her and Sharon any attention, nor does she think they'd be able eavesdrop on them from the patio, but still. Sharon isn't exactly being discreet. "We've talked about this," Natasha reminds. Because of course Sharon picked up on Natasha's feeling, and the girl is all for it, though she bites her tongue because she knows how wary Natasha is about relationships.

But that doesn't stop her from nudging Natasha in that direction every now and then.

"I know," Sharon says, crossing one leg over the other as she leans back on the lounge chair. "But you can't expect me to watch you two flirt all of lunch and not say something."

"It wasn't all of lunch." Sharon arches an eyebrow. Natasha rolls her eyes. "He likes to flirt and so do I. It doesn't have to mean anything."

"If I believed that then I wouldn't be nagging you," Sharon says. Which, yes. Natasha knows this. The girl loves her too much to push for something if she genuinely thought Natasha was uncomfortable with it. "You know, everyone thought you were so badass when we were growing up. If only they could see how scared you are right now."

Natasha blinks. "Excuse me?"

"I'm just saying." Sharon grins. "I know relationships freak you out, but I've never seen you like this with anyone before. You shouldn't shy away from something that could be great."

Natasha shakes her head. "That's the first time anyone's ever accused me of being shy," she points out, and Sharon shrugs her shoulders cutely, flashing her teeth in a smile.

"Hope you ladies aren't laughing at us," Sam jokes as he and Steve step out onto the patio. It's getting warmer with summer around the corner, so it's gorgeous outside, but none of them actually felt like going out to enjoy the weather. It's hard to find time to just laze around now, you know? But it's fine. They'll have just as much fun lounging around together.

"I'm always laughing at you," Sharon quips, and Sam chuckles, squeezing himself onto her lounge chair before pulling her onto his lap.

Steve is holding a smoothie in each hand and Natasha isn't all that surprised when he passes one to her. She didn't ask for one, but she passed up on the margarita Sharon offered to make her because she was already feeling warm. That's another thing about Steve. He's kind of strangely attuned to her, and yeah, Natasha has that with Sharon, but that's different. They've known each other since they were kids. Steve has always just gotten her, from the first time they've ever hung out, and it's nice to have someone who knows what she wants.

"Thanks," she tells him, and he just shakes his head and sits in the chair next to her. "I'm surprised you didn't bring your paints up from your car. I know you love sunny days."

He grins. "Yeah, but Buck has the car today. Sam got me on his way to the store." He glances up at the sky, squinting against the sunlight. "I hope it's still bright like this tomorrow. I have to get a painting done for class and it'd be nice to have all this natural light to paint."

"What's the assignment this week?" she asks. Steve signed up for this art class at the senior center (and yeah, she and Sam teased the shit out of him about that) because he said he'd never make time for his art if he didn't schedule it in somehow, and this month has been about painting. It's kind of ridiculous for him to be in a class at all considering how skilled he already is. Hell, the community center asked him to head the mural that they painted in the fall and it's gorgeous. But she knows part of it is because he likes meeting new people.

"Life in motion," he answers with a bit of a laugh. "Basically I'm supposed to paint someone while they're working."

"I offered, but I don't think a sports bar is a great painting environment," Sharon chimes in. Sam sort of just shrugs. The guy is a physical therapist, and while she's sure some of his clients wouldn't mind being painted, she understands why Steve wouldn't think to ask. It's not as if he'd think to paint at the hospital he volunteers at, either.

"It's alright. It's not a big deal." Steve shrugs. "I'm sure I can get one of the employees at the bakery or the coffeehouse to let me paint them."

Natasha licks her lips a little, plays with the straw in her smoothie. She knows she shouldn't volunteer to spend the day with him when she's still trying to keep her attraction to him in check, especially when they'll be alone. But she wouldn't be a good friend if she didn't at least offer it, right?

"You could paint me."

Steve blinks, raises his eyebrows a little. Natasha doesn't have to look over her shoulder to know that Sam and Sharon are grinning like idiots, so she ignores them.

He rubs his lips together, and there's a moment where Natasha thinks he's going to politely decline. He doesn't like people going through any trouble for him, even though she knows he'd go out of his way to do someone else a favor. She rolls her eyes. "I don't have to work at the bar tomorrow, and rehearsal is in the morning. Just meet me at the studio after."

He contemplates this for a moment longer, but then his mouth is curving into a smile, small but bright, and her stomach does this stupid little flip. "I'll treat you to lunch."

"Obviously," she says, and she swears she hears Sam snicker.

... ...

She knew she had it bad for him. She didn't know that she had it this bad. Bad enough that catching a glimpse of him standing in the doorway is all it takes to make a warmth ripple over her already flushed skin. Then he gives her that dimpled, boyish grin of his, and it's easy to forget that she's sweaty and out of breath and aching down to her bones.

Fuck. She's so screwed.

"Hi," he says, glancing around the empty room. They'd just wrapped up rehearsals, and he'd probably passed a few of the other dancers on his way in. She watches as his eyes glance over the room slowly, deliberately, no doubt trying to commit every corner of the studio to memory. Then his gaze shifts back to hers and he grins. "You sure you're not too tired?" he asks as he shrugs his bag off of his shoulder and sets it down. "I mean, you won't have to dance the whole time, but you just finished rehearsing for two hours. I don't mind waiting."

She shakes her head. "I'll be fine if I do a slower routine. If I take a break now, I'll just get tired faster."

Steve nods at this, pulls out a bottled water from his backpack and hands it to her. "Just do your thing for a bit," he says as sits down. She twists the cap off of her water and takes a few gulps. "Pretend I'm not even here."

"I'm not posing?"

"No." He pulls his sketchbook into his lap and flips it open to a blank page, then pulls out a slim, metal case that he keeps his pencils in. She leans her arm against the barre as she watches him deliberate over which one to use. "I've never done it with much success, but the idea is that you're supposed to capture something in motion as organically as possible. So I was thinking that I could sketch you while you dance to get an idea of a pose and…" He trails off when he looks up at her, his lips tugging at the corners. "What's that smile for?"

She blinks. She hadn't realized she'd been smiling. "You get this wrinkle right here"—she leans down to smooth her thumb over the crease in his forehead, and then tries not to get distracted by the way his eyelashes flutter at her touch—"when you're concentrating." His smile widens a little more. "Clearly, you love your art."

He breathes out a bit of a laugh as he leans back against the mirrored wall. "Yeah. I didn't play as much when I was a kid because my health wasn't great. So art was my thing."

"Too much of a risk to make a career out of it?" She knows that could come off as judgmental, but she also knows that Steve wouldn't take it that way. Not from her.

"Nah." His expression softens, but his eyes are bright. "My mom's always been a nurse, and we'd get stopped around town by her patients all the time. They were always so happy to see her, and they'd tell me how much she changed their lives, even just by talking to her." He shrugs a shoulder. "I knew I wanted to help like she did, or at least get the chance to."

Natasha feels a warmth flutter in her chest. She'd always suspected that his mother was his reason for going into medical, but she kind of loves that he shared it with her, too.

Then his lips quirk at the corners, and there's a shift in his expression. "Art still comes in handy, though. I mean, in a few years from now, I'll get to say I painted a brilliant, beautiful dancer before she became famous. I'll have to get you to sign this."

She laughs as she pushes off of the barre, ignoring the stupid little flip her stomach does.

"Flattery will get you everywhere, Rogers."

He chuckles and shakes his head, and she heads over to the corner of the room set her phone up with the Bluetooth speakers. She scrolls through her dance playlist until she finds a song for the routine a few of them had performed as their final for last semester. She knows she isn't nervous. She wouldn't make it very far as a performer she couldn't dance for an audience of one. And she's comfortable with Steve, obviously. She really doesn't know why she feels vulnerable right now, but then she glances over her shoulder to find Steve looking at her, a smile on his face, and whatever brief wave of uneasiness she'd been feeling dissolves just like that. (Oh, she's definitely got it bad.) He nods at her, and she starts the song.

It's easy to lose herself when she's dancing. Yes, there's actually quite a lot of thought that goes into a routine – counts and cues and rhythms and hours of committing choreography to muscle memory – but when all is said and done, she doesn't really think at all when she's dancing. Not about the actual steps, at least. Her body does the motions on its own while the song is washing over her and sinking into her bones, reaching into these corners of her mind that she sometimes forgets are there. It's kind of a strange feeling, but she loves it.

She ends up with her back to him when the song fades out, and then she glances over her shoulder as her phone shifts to the next track.

He looks like… He looks like he's totally in awe.

His lips art parted ever so slightly, his eyes a little wide and totally bright, and there's that adorable little wrinkle in his forehead. She doesn't realize until this moment that he's never seen her dance before. It's so comfortable between them that it's easy to forget that she's only really known him for a handful of months, and she hasn't had a performance between then and now. Well, there was her final, and she did invite him to come with Sharon and Sam, but he was heading home that day and would've missed his flight. She didn't mind, of course, but now she feels a little glad that he wasn't able to watch. Because she kind of loves getting to see his reaction like this, so up close and personal, with no one else around.

"Nat," he says, and, okay, maybe she likes the fact that he sounds breathless a little too much. "That was incredible."

She presses her lips together from smiling too widely. Fuck, she feels like a freaking schoolgirl right now. It's ridiculous. "Thanks," she tells him. "Should I do it again?"

"You can, if you want. Or you can do another routine." He smiles. "Trust me, Nat, I won't have any trouble remembering how you look when you dance."

She turns her back to him before he can see her blush, though she could probably just blame it on the dancing. She rolls her shoulders back as she scrolls for another song. She can probably only keep this up for another few routines before her body finally gives out on her. Which is fine, because she'll have a few days to take it easy before her next rehearsal.

The next routine she runs through is a little slower and has a lot more emotion. She hasn't danced it in a year, so she scuffs the floor twice and sort of stumbles during a twirl, but it comes back easily enough. He's started sketching now, and yup, there's that little wrinkle in his forehead. She can see his hand moving swiftly over the page in the reflection of the mirror he's leaning against, though she can't quite make out what he's got so far. Then her phone shuffles to a track that she'd performed to last semester, so she does that routine. And her bun, which had already started to come undone from rehearsals, finally unravels in the middle of the song, and her hair is sort of falling in her face when she gets to the end.

"What?" she asks, because there's something in his eyes that she can't quite decipher.

"Nothing." She arches an eyebrow. He gives her this little grin. "Your hair looks really nice like that."

"Shut up. My hair is a wreck," she scoffs, running her fingers through the length of it. Something crossing his expression, too quick for her to catch, and then he's grinning at her again as he shrugs a shoulder. "Do you need to see more?"

His voice is soft when he answers, "Yes," without even glancing at what's on his page, and she feels her heart skip. Then he clears his throat, gives her a crooked smile. "I mean, no. You can stop if you're tired. I think I already know what I'll be painting." His smile softens. "But I just need to keep watching you dance. You're amazing, Nat."

Well, shit. Not once has anyone told her that they need to see her dance.

"Fine," she says, and she hopes her voice doesn't sound as giddy to him as it does to her. "Since flattery gets you everywhere."

She decides to do the piece they've been working on for the last month, since it's still fresh in her head from rehearsal, and she doesn't mind picking up the tempo a little bit. She'd thought she'd be too tired to do more than two or three routines, but she feels fine. It's different when you're performing rather than just rehearsing, though. She's always been told that it's strange for her to be a dancer when she's not that fond of attention, but honestly? She kind of loves it. She knows she's good, and that's not because she thinks so highly of herself. She's been dancing since she could walk, basically, and there's no way she would've kept up with the competition if she doubted herself. It's just how you have to be wired.

So, yeah. That look of awe that's been on Steve's face since she started? She just really wants to keep seeing it.

And she doesn't think twice, really, when the song comes to an end and her phone shuffles to another track. It's something she danced to at the beginning of the semester, so she just goes right into the routine. She doesn't realize until about ten counts in that the song is…

Well, it's a lot more sensual than the others. And obviously so is the dance.

She ends up facing Steve when she comes out of a turn, places a hand on her hip and slides it upward, and she watches as his eyes traces over her curves with the motion. Which is definitely the point to that move, and she didn't think twice about it the low whistles and the looks it drew when they'd performed in back in February.

She's definitely thinking about the look on Steve's face, though – the little flutter of his eyelashes, and the way his lips are just barely parted, and how dark and hazy his eyes are right now – and it makes a warmth flutter low in her stomach. Then her hand makes it into her hair and she combs her fingers through and he swallows lightly. She feels herself smile. The routine is barely three minutes long, but suddenly, that feels like way too much time, and she thinks that that's too many damn counts to go through before she can end it and—

And walk right up to Steve and kiss him, because he's looking at her like he wants to do it himself, and she thinks it's really, really stupid that she's trying to keep her distance.

She spins away, flips her hair over her shoulder and sort of rolls her hips into a bend, and her heart skips when she hears something – it sounds like his sketchbook – falling onto the floor. She goes through four more counts and then swivels back around, and suddenly he's walking up to her, standing right in front of her, and she comes to a stop as she meets his gaze. His eyes are the darkest, most vibrant shade of blue she's ever seen, and he's close enough that she can feel his breath come out in uneven puffs, like he's straining himself.

"Nat," he whispers, his voice sounding almost pained. It's something she'd normally poke fun at him about, but she can't quite catch her breath, either.

She leans in, blinks up at him, and he reaches out and slides one of his hands over her hip, his fingers flexing.

"Can I—" he starts, and she says his name in this sharp, little huff, and she swears she sees the corners of his lips twitch into a freaking smirk right before he's got both hands on her and he's kissing her. It's hot and hard and heavy, and he slides a hand up her back and presses her even closer, so that she sort of has to tip her head back to keep kissing him, and she makes this little noise when he nips at her lips. Then he pulls away so abruptly that she's actually a little disoriented, gripping onto his shirt with both hands as if to steady herself.

He presses his forehead against hers, squeezes her with the hand still on her hip. "Natasha, is this… Are we…?" He lets out a breath. "I'm not trying to doubt you, but is this—"

She laughs, because she's never heard him stumble over his words this much before, and brushes her lips over his. "Yes," she says, even though he didn't even form a proper question. It doesn't matter, though. The answer to anything he could've asked her is yes, she wants this, wants him, to be with him. She really, really does.

"Okay. Good." He traces the skin over the waistband of her yoga pants. She shivers lightly. "Let's get out of here?"

"Yes," she breathes, and he chuckles.

... ...

She honestly can't remember the short drive to her apartment. She knows they must've talked about Sam and Sharon, because he wouldn't have taken her home if they knew their friends would be walking in on them. But neither of them will be back until tonight, and it's the first time Natasha is actually glad that their schedules aren't overlapping.

And she knows it's ridiculous for her to care about it, but, fuck. She'd rehearsed for two hours and then performed five routines for him and she knows she must look a wreck.

"I'm gross," she mumbles against his lips, because he'd pulled her in and kissed her before she'd barely gotten the door locked behind them.

"You're beautiful," he replies easily, not missing a beat, and she doesn't hate at all how quick he is to compliment her. Especially because she knows he means it.

"No," she breathes out a laugh, tilting her head away so she can, you know, talk. "I'm all sweaty and I really need a shower."

He gives her that crooked grin of his, hums as he kisses her again, a little slower, a little deeper. He licks at the seam of her lips and she makes a noise from the back of her throat. "Whatever you want," he says, kissing her lips, and then the corner of her mouth, and then the apple of her cheek, until he's right next to her ear when he says, "I could join you."

She very nearly whimpers. Instead, she pushes her fingers into his hair and drags his lips back to hers, practically hisses, "You better," before kissing him again.

She's glad that he knows her apartment just as well as she does, because she's honestly not paying attention to anything other than his tongue pressing into her mouth as he guides them down the hallway and into the bathroom, locking the door (just in case). She reaches for the hem of her top and peels it off, and then almost jumps when he dips his head and presses a kiss to the flat of her stomach. He teases his tongue over every inch of skin he can reach, and she actually fumbles a little in her desperation to wiggle out of her sports bra.

He hooks his thumbs over the waistband of her yoga pants and kisses down her stomach as he peels her yoga pants down her thighs. He kisses lower, lower, and she actually has to lean back against the wall because she half expects her legs to give out on her.

"Steve," she breathes, and he skims his lips back up, pressing one last kiss between the dip of her breasts before pulling away.

His eyes trace over her, darker and stormier than ever. She knows she must look totally desperate, with her hair a mess and her skin flushed and her folds so slick that she can feel it on the inside of her thighs. But he has that look of awe on his face, like he did when they first kissed, like he did when he watched her dance, and she actually has the urge to giggle.

"Start the shower?" His voice is low and a little gravelly and so incredibly sexy. She leans up and gives him a quick kiss and he chuckles, gives her hip a squeeze.

She can hear him undressing as she twists the water on, and she glances over her shoulder and actually feels a pulse between her legs when she sees that he's stripped down to his briefs. She's seen him shirtless before when they've gone to the beach, but fuck. She feels a warmth unravel in her stomach at the sight of him every time. The fact that his briefs are teasing a hell of a lot more to her than his swim trunks ever did is probably helping things. She gnaws on her lower lip, gaze flicking up to his face in time to catch the way his eyes are damn near captivated with every inch of her bared skin. Then his gaze shifts to hers, and he gives her that boyish smile of his as he pushes his briefs off, letting them fall to the floor.

"Fuck," she breathes, because, seriously? "Are you kidding me?"

He knows that's supposed to be some kind of compliment coming from her, so he laughs, a bit of pink touching his cheeks as he walks over to her. She's trying not to stare, but you can't really blame her.

Then he grasps her chin with his fingers, tips her face back so that he can look into her eyes. "Hi," he says, almost a whisper.

She doesn't mean to giggle. He doesn't take it the wrong way, though, so it's fine. "Hi," she echoes, taking his hands in hers as she steps backwards into the shower, tugging him with her. She doesn't even flinch when the warm water hits her from the nozzle overhead. She's too focused on Steve to notice. "My water bill is going to be ridiculous this month."

"I'll split it with you," he says, and then steps her backwards until she feels the water wet her hair, spilling down her back and over her shoulders. She parts her lips in surprise, then parts them a little more in a moan that actually echoes off the walls when he dips forward and latches his lips onto her throat. He kisses her once, twice, tucks his fingers into her hair and starts gently massaging the warm water into her scalp as he sucks over her pulse. She whimpers, fumbling to hold onto him, to draw him closer, because fuck. That feels good.

"Steve," she breathes, scratching her nails down his chest. His muscles flex under her touch, his breath stuttering against the column of her throat.

She needs more.

"I know," he mumbles into her skin, but, shit. She hadn't realized she'd said that out loud. "I don't have a condom."

"I don't care," she says a little too eagerly for her own liking, but the pressure between her legs is driving her crazy. He pulls back a little, glances at her. Okay, maybe that had been the wrong thing to say. "I trust you," she amends, taking his face in her hands and kissing him. "And there are condoms in my bedroom if you really want to leave me—"

"Stop," he says on a laugh, kissing her again, once, twice, his hands sliding over her hips and squeezing. "Just this once?" She nods. (Because she is responsible, despite the fact that she'd just forgotten about protection entirely. Steve is a distracting person, okay?)

Then his lips are on hers again before she can blink, pinning her against the wall, and her lips part in a gasp at the cold tiles against her back. He slips his tongue in, presses it against hers, and she grips onto his hair tightly with one hand, digging her nails into the muscle of his shoulder with the other. He kisses her harder and heavier and a hell of a lot rougher than she'd ever anticipated. Not that she has any complaints, or is entirely surprised by it, honestly. She's always wondered if there was this side to him. She really likes that she was right.

She actually nips his lip in surprise when she feels him slide two fingers over her slick heat, stroking, teasing, as if she wasn't already turned on beyond comprehension.

"Steve," she almost whines, because he's circling her bundle of nerves and she swears she's starting to see stars.

"What?" He's playing innocent. She's almost positive of that. "Maybe I like touching you."

"I'm pretty sure you'd like fucking me a lot better," she almost growls, but then he's pressing her legs apart, his hard length brushing against her slick folds, and her voice tapers off into a moan. Her walls flutter in anticipation, and her desire is wound so tightly that it almost feels smothering. The steam from the shower probably isn't helping things, either.

He presses right at her entrance, sweeps his knuckles gently over the curve of her cheek in a gesture that seems like the most intimate thing she's ever felt, which is ridiculous considering what they're in the middle of doing. She doesn't have time to dwell on that, though, because then he's pushing into her and she can't think of anything except for the delicious press of him inside her, stretching her, filling her, making her body quiver. She lets her head fall back against the wall, her vision already going hazy. Or maybe that's the steam. She doesn't know. She doesn't care. Not when he's fully inside her and has one hand braced against the tile, his breaths uneven, like it's almost too much for him, too.

"Perfect," he breathes, his forehead falling against hers. "You feel perfect."

"Took the words right out of my mouth." His lips pull back, teeth bared in a brilliant smile. "You have no idea how many times I've pictured this."

"Stop," he says with a laugh. "Keep talking like that and I'm not going to last long." She giggles. Good to know. "I've imagined this, too. So many times." His lips tug into a smirk. "And I'm an artist. You have no idea how vivid my imagination is."

She doesn't know whether to tease him for sounding corny or beg him to tell her every little detail, but she doesn't have to decide, because his lips are on hers again and he's pulling out, making her whimper, making her walls flutter in protest. He rolls his hips gently, slowly, no doubt to give her time, and god, as much as she loves being able to feel every delicious press and pull of him, she needs more. She hooks a leg around him and meets his thrust, rolling her hips in an attempt to get him to go faster, and he groans and does exactly that.

Her head is spinning, her lungs burning for air, but she doesn't want to stop kissing him, either.

He thrusts in deeper, somehow, and she actually yanks her lips away from his to mumble, "Fuck, yes, harder—"

He sort of grunts in response, hooks her other leg around his waist and presses her a little higher up the wall, making the angle change, brushing against a spot that has her seeing stars. She actually cries out his name, her voice echoing off of the walls, and he hits that spot again and again and again, making her dissolve into nothing but a slur of moans.

Then his lips are on her neck again, nipping and sucking, his tongue teasing against her wet skin, and he doesn't even flinch when she drags her nails down the muscles of his back. She'd be more embarrassed by how she's whimpering his name over and over if he wasn't making her feel so fucking good. Her walls are fluttering and her heart is stuttering in her chest, and then his fingers splay over her ass, lifting her up just a little bit more and pressing her just a little bit closer, so that he's hitting that sweet spot on every delicious thrust.

"Oh, o-oh." She's trembling because she's so, so close, and she kisses him like she's trying to let him know, because she sure as hell can't form the actual words.

"Wanted this for so long," he says, his breath hot against her face. His voice quivers ever so slightly, and she feels a ripple of satisfaction at the thought that he sounds just as wrecked as she feels. That this feels just as incredible for him as it does for her. "Wanted you so fucking bad."

She'd laugh at him swearing if she had enough breath to do so.

In fact, she feels as if she doesn't have any breath in lungs at all, because she's unraveling at the seams, mumbling god knows what as she's falling over that dizzying edge. He kisses her through it, along her throat and under her jaw and over her cheek, his lips brushing against every inch of skin he could reach, with a gentleness so unlike the thrust of his hips that it's almost disorienting. It's this gesture that's so sweet, so incredibly Steve, that cuts through the haze of her orgasm so that some small part of her mind to realize that Steve is still chasing that peak, and she tries to meet his thrusts as her body trembles in its high. He groans her name, slips a hand between them and rubs his thumb in quick, gentle circles over her clit, and she lets out a cry and almost shakes her head because it's almost too much, too much. Her walls flutter even more so, her body shuddering, and she can't quite breathe.

When he pulls out abruptly, she actually whimpers, whines his name in protest, but then his head is pressing against hers and he's groaning and she feels his release hit her skin, and the sound of him coming undone right next to her ear is possibly the best thing she's ever heard.

They're both sort of clinging onto each other, slumped against the wall as they come back down. She barely registers the water still showering over them.

"Fuck." She swallows a breath, eyelashes fluttering open. His face is barely an inch from hers, his bright blue eyes sparkling in a way she hasn't quite seen before. "Steve, that—"

"Yeah," he breathes out with a bit of a chuckle. "It was for me too." Then he presses their foreheads together, nudges her nose with his. "And it was damn worth the wait."

She feels herself smile. "Better than the fantasies?" He grins, kisses her cheek rather than answering, but she knows what he means. She slips her fingers into his hair and hums. "You're still telling me about those, though."

He laughs, and, alright, she was wrong. That is the best thing she's ever heard.

... ...

The hot shower water was practically lukewarm when they'd gotten around to actually taking a shower, and there was a phone on her text from Sharon when they'd gotten out, telling her that she and Sam wouldn't be home until the morning. Apparently the guy had surprised Sharon with dinner reservations in this restaurant that she loves in the next town over, so they're just spending the night in a hotel, which is kind of awesome. Natasha knows there's no hiding anything from her best friend, and she doesn't want to hide this, anyway, but still.

She gets a few more hours of peace. Sharon is hardly the kind of person to rub it in when she's right, but she'd probably make an exception in this case.

"God," she groans, stretching her arms and legs out. They ordered in Thai food for dinner and are eating in her room, because she'd plopped herself on the bed after their shower and just couldn't get back up. Whatever little energy she would've had after rehearsals and running those routines for Steve, he'd literally fucked it out of her. The only reason she's even in a bra and panties is because Steve said there's no way he'd be able to keep his hands off of her if she didn't put something on, and she definitely isn't ready for a round two just yet.

At least not until after she's gotten some food in her and caught her second wind.

(They're definitely not done for the night.)

"You okay?" he asks, and she knows he's genuinely concerned and not being smug. Well, not just being smug. There's definitely a smirk playing on the corner of lips.

She glares, but she's smiling, so it's not very effective. "I'll live," she says, setting her carton of noodles on the nightstand so she can take a gulp of her water. She catches sight of his backpack sitting unzipped on the floor, the spiral binding of his sketchbook poking out, and she leans over to pluck it up. "You know, I never saw your sketches from earlier."

"Oh," he says with a bit of a laugh. She knows he doesn't mind her looking through (she's done it before) so she pulls it into her lap and flips it open.

She blinks, her heart actually skipping a beat at what she sees: a drawing of her, mid-twirl on the point of her toes, her other leg kicked out and her hair sort of falling around her face. Her expression is half-hidden, but you can see the ghosts of a smile on her lips. The dance studio behind her has barely been penciled in, but the drawing of her? She hardly considers it a sketch. He'll probably be cleaning it up in places, but, shit. There's so much detail, such care to the strokes of his pencil, and he's even shaded in the flush in her cheeks so that it's obvious that she's exerting herself. But despite that, she looks completely serene. She looks… stunning. She's seen photos and videos of herself before, of course, but this is different.

This is how he sees her.

"What do you think?" He's scooted closer, peering at the page over her shoulder. "The painting will look better with the color, of course, but I think – hey." He furrows his eyebrows a little when she lifts her head. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. It's beautiful, Steve," she tells him. His expression eases, but only a little. "I love it. I promise."

She can see it in his eyes that he knows something else is still on her mind. But he must sense that she's not up to talking about it, at least not yet, because his lips curve into a that dimpled, boyish smile that she loves, his voice sort of soft as he says, "I'm glad." She gives him a little grin, leans in when he presses a kiss to her hair, and just like that, she feels at ease again. He's always been able to read her, always knows just what to say or do, and that makes it a hell of a lot easier to believe that she won't screw things up between them.

She can't screw things up. Because she doesn't think she's ever felt this way about anyone, and this drawing tells her that it might be the same for him.

"Hey," he says, and she tilts her head to meet his gaze, his eyes bright with adoration. There's really no other word to describe. "Thanks for dancing for me today."

She smiles. "Next time, you ought to dance with me."

"Well, if I've got a partner like you, how could I refuse?" he says, and, okay, she kind of has to kiss him for that.

[chalantness]

Romanogers: 5 times the Avengers walked in on Steve and Natasha having sexy times and the 1 time someone finally decided to do something about it. ;)

I tried to stretch it to 5 + 1 but it ended up as 3 + 1 because I felt like I was getting repetitive after a while. Also how do you end things?

“romanogers! 5 times they were interrupted + 1 time they weren't” requested by @roomtemperaturewater​​ + “Natasha has a certain pair of heels that are a like a signal to Steve and when she wears them he knows…( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)” requested by @otptilltheend​, originally posted by @heyfrenchfreudiana

one.

She finds them in the back of her closet, when she’s looking for something to go with the dress that Tony sent her for yet another Stark Industries event. Tonight is a banquet of some sort, and apparently a big enough deal to require her to be in a ballgown. But, whatever. Pepper has excellent taste, and she knows the woman loves having them here at these events for the support. The fact that there’s always free food and an open bar at these things makes it a lot easier to have to mingle all night.

Her heels are black stilettos, strapless and opened-toe. They’re a little taller than something she’d usually wear, and they make her legs look killer, but they aren’t all that special. She owns at least a dozen variations of them.

Steve seems to like them, though.

“Oh,” she gasps as his hand slips under the thigh-high slit of her dress, fingers pressing right over the damp lace of her panties, right over that spot that has her hips jumping and her mouth parting in a moan as he nips at the column of her throat. She should probably try to be quiet. There’s a few hundred people in the ballroom just paces away, and any one of them can just walk out onto the balcony and walk around the corner and find them like this, and she doesn’t care. Not when he’s circling tightly over her nerves, pressing hot, wet kisses against her neck as he tells her how much he wants her, how gorgeous she is. How he’s wanted to slide his hands under her dress all night.

“Careful, Nat. Don’t want people looking for us.”

“Shut up,” she breathes. He smirks, tucks his fingers under the waistband of her panties and strokes two fingers over her, slow, teasing, and she lets out a moan. “Steve,” she hisses, gripping his hair and dragging his lips to hers in a hard kiss. He chuckles, slides his fingers lower, and her hips jump. “Fuck, just like that–”

“…don’t know, Pep, I thought I saw them come this way.”

Steve stills, and Natasha bites on her lower lip to muffle her whimper. Steve meets her gaze, alarm flashing through the haze of desire.

“Do you want me to call her?” Tony offers, his voice sounding clearer, closer.

“No, no. It’s not that important. It’s just – I need a drink, and she’s the only one that knows exactly what to say to calm me down.”

“Ouch,” Tony laughs, and Pepper starts to speak, but he cuts her off with, “I’m kidding, love. When it comes to motivational monologues, Nat is your Steve.” Natasha lets out a sharp, soft breath. Steve’s lips twitch at the corners as he gives her a crooked grin. “If I find her before your speech, I’ll send her to you.”

Natasha bites back a groan as she hears Tony and Pepper walk away.

Shit. She needs to talk to Pepper.

She knows Steve can tell what she’s about to say, too, because he gives her a gentle kiss to her forehead and a small smile as he pulls his hand away, his fingers coming back slick. “You’re a good friend,” he tells her, and she rolls her eyes as she breathes out a laugh, pushing him away from her to straighten out her dress. “I’ll make it up to you later,” he says, squeezing her hip.

“You better.”

two.

Her head hits the cupboard when she tosses it back, but she tightens her grip on Steve’s hair, keeping him between her thighs as she says, “I’m fine, Steve, just don’t stop,” in a shaky breath. He chuckles, licks a broad stripe up her wet heat before closing his lips around her clit and sucking, almost making her hips slide off of the edge of the kitchen counter when she rolls them, needing more.

She’s not sure what’s gotten into him, but she’s not complaining.

Not when he has his lips on hers before she’s barely stepped out of the bedroom, hoisting her onto the counter and spreading her legs before she could catch her breath. They have dinner plans that Sam and Sharon are picking them up for in ten minutes, and she really, really shouldn’t have let Steve start this. Even though she hadn’t particularly fought him on it when he’d hiked the hem of her dress up her hips and stroked his calloused fingertips over the inside of her thighs, dancing his fingertips closer to her slick heat.

“Steve, what…” He gives a particularly hard suck, then lets out a long groan when she scrapes the back of her stilettos down his spine, tugging him closer. “What’s… god, what’s gotten into you?”

He laps at her again before pulling away, and her lower lip quivers in her attempt not to whine. “Just can’t handle how beautiful you are.”

She can practically hear him smirking. “Liar,” she breathes, scraping her nails over his scalp. He chuckles, pressing a kiss to the inside of his thigh, then a little higher, then a little higher, and she sucks in a breath, digging her heels–

“Steve, Nat?”

She lets out a curse, and Steve jerks back as Sam starts knocking on the door. He looks up at her, lips wet, and fuck. Why the hell did they agree to dinner?

“Nat?” It’s Sharon this time, knocking again, and Steve helps Natasha off of the counter and tugs the hem of her dress down. “Are you guys in there?”

“Yeah, just a second,” Natasha calls out, grasping Steve by his hand when he starts toward the door. She smirks, reaching up to swipe her thumb over the corner of his mouth. “Might want to clean up first,” she says, and Steve has this sparkle in his eyes as he chuckles.

three.

“Nat, the party–”

“Wasn’t on your mind when you started making those eyes at me,” she points out, arching an eyebrow as she pushes him back against the mattress of the hotel bed. People are probably going to notice that they’ve left the benefit gala after only an hour in, but she doesn’t care. Not when Steve hadn’t been able to keep his hands off of her all night, touching and squeezing and teasing her until she could barely keep upright in her heels. She didn’t know where this was coming from – because it’s hardly the first time they’ve gotten dressed up for these things, and he’d been pretty well behaved before.

But she hadn’t missed the way he stiffened ever so slightly whenever her foot would bump against him, didn’t miss the way his eyes would trace down her legs, or the way his hand lingered on the curve of her ankle – the curve of her heel – when they stumbled their way onto the bed.

“Didn’t realize you had a shoe fetish, Captain,” she teases, relishing in the way he groans as she gets his belt undone and tucks her hand inside, grasping his length. “You should’ve told me sooner. We would’ve had so much more fun.”

He lets out a throaty laugh. “Couldn’t quite understand it myself.”

“Nothing to be ashamed of, soldier.” She gives him a gentle squeeze, smirking when he hisses out, “fuck!” and grasps onto her hips like he needs an anchor. She bites her lower lip, feeling the pressure building quickly between her legs as she takes in the sight of him sprawled out beneath her, eyes glazed over and cheeks flushed and lips parted, quirked up at the corner in that ridiculous smile of his.

She pulls her hand away, feeling her smirk widen a little more at the little sound he lets out as she reaches for the waistband of his slacks–

Until the door unlocks, and she mutters, “shit,” and pulls away.

“Nat, I know you’re here,” Clint drawls, and she hears his key-card clatter as he tosses it onto the table in the sitting room. Fuck. She’d forgotten she gave that to him when he left the kids’ bags in their room. He steps toward the room and she scrambles to get Steve’s pants zipped. “You can’t just hide in here because you hate dinner talk, so get your ass back – oh, shit!” he mutters as he swings open the door, eyes widening. “Sorry,” he says, not meaning it as his grin spreads. “Didn’t notice that Steve disappeared, too. But now it makes sense.”

“Clint,” Natasha says, glaring. His eyes twinkle. “Get out.”

“Hey, they want to do another toast,” he continues as if she hadn’t spoken. “Considering Jane invited us, we should probably be there for her.”

“We’ll be down in a minute,” Steve says, voice rough.

Clint raises his eyebrows. “Sure you don’t need more than a minute?”

“Get out,” Natasha snaps as Steve stifles a groan into her shoulder, and Clint just laughs and closes the door behind him.

plus one.

“Fuck, Nat,” he breathes, not even noticing his sketchbook falling to the floor when she shrugs out of her coat. She’d caught an earlier flight home from her business in Berlin and Wanda had been the one to pick her up from the airport so she could surprise Steve. He’d given her that bright, boyish smile of his when she walked in, and it’s ridiculous that that’s all she really needs to make her skin flush, the warmth in her stomach fluttering and coiling and tightening as it builds between her legs. Wanda had just giggled when Natasha asked if the girl could hold onto her luggage and grab it later, and Natasha just smirked and continued squirming out of her clothes in the back seat.

The girl will probably have told everyone about her little surprise for Steve by now, which Natasha doesn’t mind right now.

Maybe their friends will finally leave them the hell alone.

“Whoa,” he says as she climbs onto his lap, taking in her lacy red bra and panties and her (his) favorite heels. “What’s all this for?”

She smirks, presses a kiss to her throat. “For you, soldier. Try to keep up.” He all but growls, squeezing her hips as he pulls her flushed against him. “Now that I know how much you love me in these heels, I’ll be sure to get some good use out of them,” she says into his skin, and then nips at his pulse, making her skin tingle when he lets out a groan.

“I love you, not the heels,” he corrects, lips twitching at the corners as he tucks his fingers into her hair and pulls her lips to his to kiss her properly. She cups his jaw, parts her lips and makes a little noise from the back of her throat when he presses his tongue against hers. He smirks, sliding his hands down her calf to play with the curve of her heels. “Though you do look sexy in these.”

“I know,” she says, and he laughs as he kisses her again.

[chalantness]

If you're still taking n + 1 prompts: Romanogers, 4 times Natasha steals one of Steve's shirts and 1 time she goes without. ;D

one.

It’s late by the time they make it back to the motel room, and there’s an ache in her shoulder that she knows will make her workouts a bitch for the rest of the week, and when Steve goes to switch on the light, she flinches against its glare and sort of half-buries her face into the pillow. It draws a low chuckle from him as he switches it back off, and when she lifts her head to glance at him, she finds his bright blue eyes still watching her through the dark. He’d let her shower first, and she honestly didn’t have the energy to switch on the light, so just grabbed her shirt off of the dresser where she’d left it that morning and slipped under the covers.

His lips are twitching with amusement as he stands on the other side of his bed and rubs a towel over his damp hair. He’s standing in just his sweats, and the moonlight filtering through the blinds outlines a few of the more prominent scars across his torso. The first time she’d seen them had taken her off guard, even though it really shouldn’t have. The serum may have enhanced his body’s rate of healing, but scars are still scars. You never know when (or if) they’ll fade.

Her eyes are drawn to one scar in particular, though – his newest one, just underneath his ribs. He’d taken a blade for her in Hong Kong two weeks ago.

He’d gotten blood all over her stealth suit. Something that never would have bothered her before, but even now, just remembering how much of it had covered him, covered her hands as she put pressure on the wound, makes her stomach curl. She’d been shaking, and Steve wrapped his fingers around her wrist and gave it a gentle squeeze. Whether that had been meant to comfort her or comfort him, she wasn’t sure, but she’d been too unnerved to ask.

“Natasha,” he says, a wry smile crossing his lips when he sees what’s caught her attention. “My eyes are up here.”

He’s teasing her; she lets out a breathy laugh. “Put on a shirt.”

“I would, but you’re wearing it.”

She parts her lips to retort, but the glimmer in his eyes makes her pause as he shifts his gaze downward. She glances, too, and sees that – oh. He’s right. It’s huge on her, too; it falls off of one shoulder and dips low enough that she lace of her bra can be seen over the neckline, and, okay, she probably should have noticed how looser the fit was when she put it on, but whatever.

She peers at him, quirking an eyebrow. “Want it back?”

He turns away from her as he lets out an easy laugh, but there’s something off about his tone. Something almost nervous, and he rubs at the back of his neck as he shakes his head. “Nah, it looks better on you, anyway,” he says, and she ignores the strange flutter in her chest as she watches him slip into his bed.

“Everything looks better on me.”

His lips tug at the corner, and he blinks those ridiculously long eyelashes at her. She expects him to tease her back, but his tone is genuine as he says, “true.”

Her heart skips, and she rolls away from him and onto her side, her cheeks flushed as she feigns an exasperated sigh. “Go to sleep, Rogers.”

two.

She’d almost snorted when she stepped into the bathroom and saw her reflection. Did any of the paint actually make it onto the wall? Because most of it looks like it’s in her hair, and smeared across her shirt, and drying on her skin.

Leave it to Sam and Tony to start a paint war.

It’s not as if she expected anything less, though, when Clint and Laura asked everyone to help out with some housework. Apparently Cooper wants to redo his room now that he’ll be in middle school in the fall, and because of that, Lila wants to repaint her walls, too, because she’s “too old” for pink now. It’s both amusing and a little heartbreaking to Natasha, and she knows the only reason Clint wasn’t a total grump about his little girl growing up was because Lila decided she wanted her walls to be his favorite color: purple.

And honestly, leave it to Steve to totally have these kids wrapped around his finger. Cooper wants his room to be blue, but they’re doing the crown molding white and then repainting his desk and his bookshelves red, because of course he wants his room to have the same colors as Captain America. Clint pretends to be more pissed off by it than he actually is, but there could be worse people for Cooper to look up to than his Uncle Steve.

“Nat?” Steve asks, knocking lightly on Lila’s bathroom door, despite the fact that she’d left it cracked open. She grins. Ever the gentleman.

“Come in.”

He steps inside, grinning at the sight of her. “Looks good,” he says, gesturing to the knot of hair she’s messing with. Clint had gotten paint in her hair, and though Natasha had been able to rinse most of it out, it’s still stained blue. She’s going to need another shower or two to get the color our.

“Shut up,” she laughs. He chuckles, sets down the armful of towels and clothes that he’d brought and reaches for her hair, pulling the chunk from her hands. She lets out a sigh and lets him work the tangles out. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s done this, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. He’d teased her about tying her hair up once so it wouldn’t happen, but the one time she actually needed to do so, he gave her this sort of crooked grin and gently tugged on the end of her ponytail. “Looks different,” was all he’d said, but she remembers how her heart would skip a beat when she caught him staring. He almost seemed… disappointed that her hair wasn’t down, which was weird. The fact that she’d felt downright giddy about the revelation was even weirder, so instead of teasing him like she would’ve, she just let it slide.

“Sorry about your shirt,” he tells her, though there’s a smirk on his lips when he catches her gaze in the mirror. She rolls her eyes, unable to fight a smile of her own. Clint may have been the one to get her hair, but every other drop of paint on her right now was because of Steve; and he hardly looks sorry about it. “Laura gave me clothes you could change into.”

She hums in response as he gets her hair untangled, running his fingers through it once before pulling his hands away. He grins. “Thanks,” she tells him, then reaches for the hem of her shirt and pulls it up and over her head, tossing it at his face. He just chuckles and pulls it off, though she doesn’t miss the tinge of red on his cheeks as she grabs his clean shirt from the counter, tugging it on. Because of course he brought a change of clothes.

“That’s mine,” he says, eyes sparkling with amusement, and maybe (definitely) something else.

“Well, you ruined mine,” she points out, arching an eyebrow at him in the reflection. His shirt falls off of her shoulder a little and his eyes follow the motion, lips parting ever so slightly, before lifting to meet her gaze again.

“Fair enough,” he agrees, tone light. But she doesn’t miss the way he swallows lightly when he turns away.

three.

To Tony’s credit, he doesn’t say a word when he picks her up from the airport and she asks him to drop her off at Steve’s place instead of her own. Which she appreciates, because she’s exhausted and not in the mood to deal with his quips or questions or whatever. Nor is she in the mood to deal with what it means when Steve is the first thing that comes to her mind when she wants warmth and comfort.

If Steve is the slightest bit surprised by her showing up unannounced in the middle of the night, he doesn’t let it show. It wouldn’t be the first time.

He gives her this little smile, taking her bag from her when she steps inside. He’s been up drawing – there’s a mug on the coffee table, next to a pencil and his sketchbook – and the first thing that crosses her mind is that he might’ve been waiting up for her. He’d known roughly how long she’d be gone for this assignment, and it would’ve been easy enough for him to figure out when she would be flying back. Maybe he thought (hoped) that she would drop by, like she’s made a habit of recently. Which feels ridiculous for her to think of, so she just brushes the thought aside as she walks into his room and heads for his dresser.

She can hear him padding softly around the apartment outside as she changes into one of his Stark Industries shirts, and he walks into the room just as she’s pulling the covers aside and slipping in. She’s in his shirt and her panties and nothing else, because that’s how she sleeps at her place, and Steve picks her clothes off of the floor, drapes her bra over the arm of his desk chair and folds the rest into a perfect pile. She grins. He’s such a housewife.

“You don’t have to lay down just because I am,” she points out as he settles into his side of the bed. (Because yes, she has her side of his bed. Just one more item on the list of things that they should talk about, but don’t.) “You could’ve kept drawing if you weren’t tired.”

“Nah, I was tired.” He grins. “I just didn’t realize it until you got here.”

She laughs and rolls onto her side, pulls the covers over her shoulders as he switches off the light. “What would you do without me?”

“Don’t know,” he admits, barely above a whisper. He’s facing her, one arm tucked under his head, and it’s stupid that she feels he’s somehow too close yet not close enough. His lips curve into a smile, small and shadowed but still bright, somehow. “Don’t want to know,” he adds, reaching over to tuck her hair behind her ear, and she lets her eyes flutter closed.

four.

“Natasha,” a voice says, sounding almost giddy, and Natasha looks up as she steps into the living room to see Wanda flashing her teeth in a smile. She looks totally comfortable on Natasha’s couch, and it’s a little hard to remember what it was like to be in her apartment without Wanda floating around. She doesn’t really want to remember, either. Usually Pietro is here, too, sprawled out on the lounge, but he’s gone to the movies with the other boys.

“What?” Natasha asks, because the girl looks like she’s two seconds from bursting into giggles.

“What are you wearing?”

Natasha glances down at her pajama shorts and white shirt. Something that you shouldn’t even bat an eye at to wear to bed, except for the fact that her shirt is falling off of her shoulder, and it almost entirely covers her pajama shorts because it’s that longer on her. It’s obviously not hers, and Natasha knows the girl doesn’t have to poke around in her head to figure out whose it is.

She shrugs, snatching the remote from Wanda’s hand and busying herself with Netflix. “It’s comfortable, and Steve left it here, so it’s technically mine now.”

“Does Steve usually take his clothes off when he comes over?” Natasha can hear her voice quiver in an attempt not to laugh.

“If I can help it.”

Wanda squeals, and Natasha doesn’t even try to hide a smile.

plus one.

He’s gone when she wakes up, but she’s not the least bit surprised. She’s always known that he’s an early riser, and considering she can hear him padding around the kitchen, in the middle of making breakfast, she doesn’t have any complaints. So she rolls onto her back and stretches, the morning sunlight warm on her skin and his soft sheets tangled around her legs. She knows she’s going to be sore in a few places today, but it’s fine. She’s managed before.

She’s just brought herself to sit up against his mountain of pillows (honestly, he may be old but she doesn’t know why he needs so damn many of them) when he walks in. There’s a stack of pancakes and a bowl of fruit and plate of bacon on the tray that he’s carrying, and he’s in nothing but his briefs, and she quite appreciates the view of both of those things right now. He smiles when he meets her gaze, his blue eyes bright and happy, the happiest she thinks she’s ever seen him, and she feels her heart flutter in response. Sometimes she still can’t grasp how she’s the reason for that smile. Steve doesn’t mind, though. He tells her every day just how much she means to him, and he’s certainly not tired of showing her, either.

He sets their breakfast on the nightstand, sits next to her on the bed as he pulls her in for a kiss. “Good morning,” he murmurs against her lips.

“Morning,” she echoes, and then kisses him a little harder, a little longer. He chuckles as he leans away, just enough to meet her eyes. “Breakfast in bed?” She gently scrapes her nails over his chest, relishing in the feel of his muscles flexing under her touch. “Are you going to feed it to me, too?”

“Now, that’s just being lazy.”

She laughs, leans over to reach for his shirt where it ended up toward the end of the bed last night, but he slides his hand over her waist and gives it a gentle squeeze. She glances at him, the corners of her lips already tugging into a grin.

“Don’t bother.” He skims his fingers up, making her stomach flutter, and she can’t help the little sound she makes when he leans over her and presses a kiss to the underside of her jaw. “I’ll just end up taking it off of you, anyway.” She lets out a breathy laugh, letting him roll them over so that she’s straddling his hips. He splays his hand across her back and presses her even closer. “Besides, I’m going to go broke buying more shirts if you keep taking them from me.”

“It’s not my fault that they look better on me,” she teases, and he just laughs and pulls her in for another kiss.