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If there is one thing Natasha’s long life has taught her, it is to enjoy the good things in life whenever she has the chance. So, when she finally returns home from dragging Clint’s ass out of the fire yet again, she has exactly three items on her to-do list. Item one: feed the cats. Item two: a shower to scrub off all the grime from the mission. Item three: luxuriate in the bathtub while she waits for James to get home, too. Maybe light one of those scented candles Sharon gave her. It shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours. Three tops. One if she’s lucky.
And after that? Well, a girl can dream, can’t she?
Item one is accomplished to the tune of Alpine screaming her furry head off while Liho tries to hypnotize Natasha. Presumably to double the portion of food in her bowl.
Item two takes less time than one since she doesn’t have to dodge hungry cats.
Item three ends up having to be accomplished without the scented candles since both Liho and Alpine decide to camp out in the bathroom with her. That’s what she gets for being away for so long, apparently.
And it’s nice to have their company after being away from them, even if neither of the cats dares to come near the dreaded water. Plus, they provide an early warning by raising their heads at some unheard signal a full two minutes before Natasha hears a key sliding into a lock on the front door. With a mrrp, Alpine jumps off the toilet lid and runs to greet James, Liho following behind, as silent as the night she resembles.
“Hey, girls.” Comes James’ familiar voice in greeting the cats, followed by a pause, then he says, “Nat?” Is it her imagination or is there a waver in his voice?
“I’m in here,” she calls in return.
No answer other than a scuffling sound she guesses is him getting rid of his boots and jacket while trying not to trip over the enthusiastic cats. Maybe he’ll have more luck than her.
Natasha’s back is to the door, but she feels him entering the bathroom all the same. Like a missing piece of her slotting back into place. She reaches behind her, sighs when his hand grasps hers, and pulls him closer. “Clint says hi.”
Still no answer. Odd that. James always has some wry comment whenever she brings Clint up. The two of them are so set on pretending that they hate each other. It’s funny, really. They’ve worked together often enough, and they always end up snarking at each other at get-togethers when they can talk with literally anyone else. She leans back in the tub, the back of her head resting on the edge, to get a better read on him.
There are bags under his eyes and his near-permanent stubble has grown into a full beard. A small smile tugs at his mouth as he kneels next to the bathtub, leaning over her to place an upside-down kiss on her lips. Looking down at her as if he’s trying to memorize her features. Failing to meet her eyes for even the briefest of seconds.
Natasha strokes her fingers through his hair, still cool from being outside. “Hey, is everything okay?”
He makes a noncommittal sound and kisses the tip of her nose, then her forehead. His right hand rests lightly on her shoulder, but she can feel the tension in it. Calloused fingers pressing into her ever so slightly.
“James.” She turns in the bathtub to face him. Her dry hair sticks to her wet back, but she doesn’t care. Takes hold of his hand when it drops from her shoulder. His skin feels dry against hers and it can’t completely be explained by hers being wet from the bath. The calluses on his fingers are more prominent than usual and his knuckles are red and cracked. He’s been going out without his gloves on, despite the chilly weather. Not as impervious to the cold as he likes to believe he is. She will have to dig out the fattest cream she had once she’s changed that somber mood of his.
“Had that dream again,” James admits as if it’s a fatal flaw of his, drops his head, causing his hair to flow forward and obscure his face.
How long ago, how many nights have you gone without sleep, Natasha doesn’t ask. Just as she doesn’t ask what dream he’s talking about. She knows which one he means, even if he’s never told her much about it. It’s the one where she’s lost her memories of him. Again. Where he’s lost her and their entire history together to the nothingness of memory manipulation. Where, she suspects but hasn’t been able to confirm, the nightmare version of her is less than kind to him.
The fluffy towel she’s laid out to dry herself off in is within reach of the bathtub and she wraps it around her to not get water all over her when she steps out of the tub and into James’ arms. He responds immediately, folding his arms around her. But he’s not holding her, not really. There’s none of his strength behind it, just the gentlest of touches. Barely there at all. As if he’s afraid she might break, that this thing between them might break if he holds on too tightly. Burst like a soap bubble. Disappear.
Snaking her arms up between them is easy then; he offers no resistance when Natasha frames his face with her hands, cupping his cheeks, her fingers pressing into his skin to center him. Affirming her presence when he’s so afraid to test it.
“I’m here, James, and I’m not going away.” It’s a promise and one she’ll do anything to keep. Will kill to keep.
“I know—I know, it’s just—” He bites his lower lip, and it’s not the first time today. Red lines mark where he’s bitten too hard, and the skin hasn’t had time to fully heal yet.
Natasha brushes a thumb over his abused lip, making him stop biting it. “It won’t happen again. And even if it does, so what?” His mouth opens to protest, but she doesn’t let him. “We always find our way back to each other. You know that.”
The side of James’ mouth twitches into a smile that is gone before it has time to settle. “It felt so real.”
“The worst ones always do.”
His eyes finally meet hers. Darker than usual under hooded lids, but this time he doesn’t argue. They are alike in many ways, and in this more than most. Their pasts provide ample resources for the realest of nightmares. He has comforted her after her fair share of nightmares, just like she has comforted him. Having nightmares that seem more real than reality itself isn’t new to either of them.
“I love you,” he says. As if Natasha doesn’t already know that. As if she doesn’t have those words imprinted on her heart so that even when she didn’t remember him, the love was there, keeping her from being that cold-hearted Black Widow her old masters tried so hard to forge her into.
“I love you,” she says, and that, too, is a promise. “Always and forever.”
It makes James smile, like she has hoped he will. Small and wry, but a smile still. He breathes out, more like a sigh than a breath, and lets his arms settle around her fully. The weight of his left one slightly heavier than the right. Its segments slide over her skin in a way none of his old ones ever did. No risk of having her skin pinched with this one. She snuggles closer. Letting the thump, thump, thump of his heart reverberate through her. Letting his warmth soak through her wet skin.
“I missed you,” Natasha says. Not because he needs to hear it, even if he does, but because it’s true and it felt good to miss him, to have someone to miss again. Feels even better to be back in his arms.
“Coulda let that asshole take care of his own business and stayed with me instead,” James says rather than spelling out what his adoring expression already makes so wonderfully clear.
“Now, why would I do that? Bobbi has enough to deal with without having to rescue Clint from a bunch of assassins. You know I’m better suited for that kind of clean-up.”
James snickers, and the sound of it is music to Natasha’s ears. It draws her attention to the beard he’s grown while she’s been away. It’s soft when she brushes her fingertips over it. It suits him in a way she hasn’t expected. Less homeless hobo, more distinguished gentleman despite the dark circles under his eyes.
“Sam calls it my depression beard. Says it’s ‘cos you made a grass widow outta me.”
“Well, he’s wrong. It suits you. Plus, it’ll come in handy if you ever need to infiltrate the hipster crowd,” she teases. She weaves her fingers through his hair and pulls it into a loose bun to prove her point.
“Alright, it’s coming off right now.” His halfhearted feint towards the sink is even less convincing than his mock-offended tone of voice. He grins down at her, the glint in his eyes warming Natasha as thoroughly as his body heat.
“Maybe it could wait a while?” Sliding her hands down his neck to his frankly drenched tee. The white fabric is practically see-through where her arms have dripped soapy water onto him, and the front of it has not fared much better from her pressing up against him. Even with the towel between them, a dark shadow marks the treasure trail starting under his navel, going down to, well…
“Yeah? You’ve got something better in mind?” James’ smile is sharp and hungry when she looks up at him again.
Natasha plucks at his sodden tee. “You should change out of this, for one. You might catch a cold from wearing wet clothes.”
“Can’t have that.” He takes a step back, out of her reach, but she forgives him when he catches the hem of his tee and pulls it over his head in a smooth ripple of muscle.
She will never tire of watching him. The wide shoulders and the narrow waist, marked by the cuts of his Adonis’ belt. The new arm catches the light differently than his old ones did and while she still hasn’t gotten completely used to it, she can appreciate the strange beauty of it and how much use James gets out of it in fights.
An unexpected benefit of their recently rekindled relationship: Natasha gets to chart the scars on his body all over. Revisiting old and familiar ones while exploring the new ones. Some she has already cataloged, but the overhead lighting in the bathroom lets her discover one more. A set really. Four thin lines stretch over his left shoulder, not quite running parallel with the seam by his metal arm. She reaches for them, gauging the width of them with the tips of her fingers resting lightly on the widest part of them. He steps closer, chasing the touch, and she lets her fingers follow the trail of the scars, over the top of his shoulder and down his back where they fade into smooth skin. She suspects she knows what might have made them, if not how.
“Alpine gave me those,” James confirms, wrapping strong fingers around her hips, pulling her closer. “An assault team tried to take me out, so it’s their fault really, but technically Alpine.”
Natasha steps closer to dust featherlight kisses over the parallel scars, and he shivers. Always so responsive when she gets near the seam of his arm. Sensitive to her touch, but never unpleasantly so. “Must have hurt,” she says between kisses.
“Shoulda seen the other guys.” Humor tints his voice, and she laughs silently against his skin.
“I take it none of them survived?”
“Of course not.” James’ hands drifts from her hips to the top of the towel. Or more specifically, to where she has one corner of it tucked in and secured.
The room is warm, and he is warmer still, so Natasha lets him loosen the towel and shifts to let it fall to the floor around her feet. He lets out a sigh and runs his hands along her sides, making her shiver in turn.
“Liho never gave you any scars?”
“She’s a cat,” she reminds him and holds up her left hand. One nearly invisible scar runs along the base of her thumb and another more recent one stretches from the knuckle at the base of her index finger to the base of her thumb. Almost, but not quite, forming the shape of a mirrored L.
He kisses the two scars with an air of reverence that makes her smile.
Natasha has always been better at taking care of her wounds than him. Being covered in scars makes for a lousy undercover spy. And there was that mess with the clones that removed all of her older scars. But she’s got some new bruises from her recent adventure with Clint for James to inspect and he does so, his touch is impossibly soft as he tracks every one of them. The big bruise along the ribs on her right side is dark enough to make him frown for a second or two before his eyes seek her out.
“Kiss and make better?” James asks, and she can only laugh as an answer. Not minding one bit how hopelessly smitten she sounds.
So, Natasha lets him push against her, crowd her back, step by step, till they exit the bathroom and enter the bedroom. He is apparently able to navigate their shared home by memory alone since he doesn’t look up once on their way there, too busy littering kisses on the top of her shoulder and the side of her neck. He stops before the backs of her legs hit the bed, turns them around, and sits on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight. While this forces him to stop kissing her, it doesn’t make him stop touching her. He pulls her closer, traps her between his thighs as he inspects her body with hands and eyes, tracing the outline of the offending bruise with a gentle finger.
She wants to touch him, to run her hands over his chest and get those damn jeans off him, but she lets him study her and, yes, lets him kiss every bruise on her body. It’s a ritual, started all the way back in the Red Room. Whenever one of them gets back from a mission, the other one will check them for injuries. It doesn’t always turn out like it looks like it will today. Doesn’t always become this intimate. But that’s not the point of it. The point is to strengthen their bond. To provide a source of comfort for the one being checked up on as much as for the one doing the checking-up.
The fabric of James’ jeans rasps against her skin, his hands and lips are warm though they raise goosebumps wherever they touch. This is torture, in other words. His forehead bumps against the underside of her breast, sending a shiver along her spine. Natasha weaves her fingers into his hair and grasps it, using the grip to force his head back, away from the bruise so he’s looking up at her.
“Impatient,” he says. As if she can’t feel how his right hand trembles from the effort of holding back.
“Like you would have me any other way.” Natasha presses closer, spreading his thighs wider.
His grin is wolfish, all teeth and hunger. He leans forward, nuzzling the underside of her breast with his nose when he knows damn well what she wants him to do instead. A ghost of a kiss and another, inching closer to her painfully hard nipple at a glacial pace. She tightens her grip on his hair, and he laughs, warm air wafting over her and sending new shivers running along her spine. Then finally, finally, James licks over her nipple, captures it in his mouth. Slow and gentle and delicious. He stays there, licking and sucking, his arms circling her waist, keeping her steady while he takes her apart with his mouth.
She’s gasping for breath when he relents, and she captures his mouth in a breathless kiss. They kiss. Greedy kisses. Hungry kisses. Fingers digging into skin like their lives depend on it. He’s as out of breath as Natasha is in no time. They fit together like, well, hand in glove. Nabokov quotes about lost gloves be dammed. His lips are rough from the abuse he’s put them through while they were apart, but his kisses are as wonderful as ever.
She’s not entirely sure who makes the first move. If James releases his thighs hold of her legs on his own accord or from her pushing them wider. Either way, she’s crawling onto his lap, not happy till her knees are bracketing his hips, slotting the two of them together like two pieces of a puzzle. He slides a hand between her legs, swallowing the moan that tears itself out of her throat. His fingers slip between her folds with little resistance, and a broken curse falls from his lips when he eases one finger inside her. Another finger follows the first, and he crooks them inside her, making her shake on top of him.
It's unfair. Natasha reaches between them, finds the thick outline of his cock without looking. A hiss escapes James when she drags her nails over the fabric of his jeans. Try as he might to distract her with his hand between her legs, she traces the outline in search of a button to get those damn jeans off him. Instead, she finds a belt. A new one, made of thick leather with little give, at that. Damn him.
“Here.” He laughs against her mouth, lifting her with one arm around her waist like she has no weight at all, and slides further back onto the bed, before placing her back on his thighs, closer to his knees than his hips.
With more room between them, she can finally loosen the belt and get to the buttons and zipper underneath. The underwear is pushed aside, and she wraps her hand around his cock, hot and heavy against her, the skin soft and silky where the pre-come hasn’t made it sticky. They sit like that for a while, bodies rocking to the same rhythm, their breath mingling. Desire coils in the pit of Natasha’s stomach, making her skin feel too tight and her entire body jittery. She’s going to come like this if James keeps it up for much longer. Not willing to allow it if he’s not coming along with her, she gets off him on unsteady legs, pulling at his jeans and underwear.
He obliges her without a second’s hesitation, unfolding the second she’s off his lap and giving up on torturing her to push down his remaining clothes. He falls back onto the bed with nothing of his usual grace when he kicks it away—An offended meow from somewhere underneath the covers makes both of them freeze in their tracks. It can only be Liho, Alpine doesn’t have it in her to sound that put out. James lifts the covers off a suspicious lump near the foot of the bed.
Liho blinks at them when he locates her, then gets up and jumps off the bed.
Natasha bites her lip, trying not to laugh at the easily offended feline. James takes more direct action, flinging the covers off the bed to make sure they don’t accidentally roll over on a cat while they are otherwise distracted. Then he reaches for her, pulling her with him as he settles on the bed again with her back on his lap.
“There. Now where were we?” His right hand slides between her legs, but she bats it away.
Instead of continuing where they left off, she wraps her hand around his cock, and guides it to her, pausing with the head at her entrance, rubbing it against her as much for pleasure as to torture herself and him with her. He licks his lips, his hips moving in tiny jerks, and she takes mercy on him, lowering herself onto him. The stretch is almost too much. Almost. Inch by inch, Natasha lowers herself onto him until he’s all the way inside her and she’s resting on top of his thighs.
He lets out a helpless sound, then, “You feel—” Doesn’t continue, buries his face in the crook of her neck instead. His uneven breath makes her already overly sensitive skin break out in goosebumps; they cascade over her back like a waterfall.
“James,” Natasha says, and it sounds like a declaration of love. Feels like one, too.
He looks up at her, lips red from kissing and eyes bottomless pits for her to fall into. She kisses him. She kisses him because he’s perfect and because he’s hers. All that focus, all that strength. Hers, now and forever. His arms envelop her, keeping her close without restricting her movements.
“Natalia,” he gasps, and this, too, is a declaration of love. Their names, always so important, so precious to them. More than any pet name ever could be.
He rocks his hips up into her, small involuntary movements, barely more than a twitch, but enough to remind Natasha of how much better this will be if she just moves a little. Her arms on his shoulders give her leverage and she rocks her hips, the friction delicious. Small, controlled movements to let her body become used to having him fill her almost to bursting. James’ hands clench and unclench at her hips. Leaving a myriad of new little bruises, he will have to kiss and make better.
When she finally lifts off him, the drag of him inside her makes her bite her lip. Her body is as unwilling to let him go as she is. Yet when she sinks back onto him, he slides back in, easy as anything. “Perfect,” she murmurs.
“No, you’re—” His voice breaks when she clenches around him. “My perfect Natalia.” He grins wickedly when she rocks her hips with more force to shut him up. “My perfect, wonderful—”
Kissing him shuts him up. Lets Natasha focus on showing him just how wrong that recurring nightmare is. She knows the pace he prefers, and she matches it. Not so fast he’ll come prematurely, but fast enough to drive the tight knot of building desire even tighter. She keeps at it till his hands become restless on her, sliding endlessly up her sides and down her thighs as she works on bringing them both closer to orgasm.
Then, and only then, does she pull back from the kiss. Her fingers shake a little when she pushes the hair plastered to his sweaty forehead back, wanting to see all of him. Needing to see all of him. “You, James, are perfect for me.” Her voice is far from as calm as she wants it to be, an impossibility with the pace of her hips and the slide of him inside her. “Always have been, always will be.” His mouth opens at her words, but she shushes him with a finger, brushes it over his lips. She needs for him to understand this simple truth: “Nothing and no one can ever change that.”
His breath hitches, then he lets it all out in a rush of air. “No one,” James echoed harshly. His grip on her hips is bordering on painful, but it is a good pain. It is the pain of him never letting go. “I love you, Natalia, I love you.”
There.
He stands so abruptly Natasha nearly loses her balance, but he keeps her steady with his arms encircling her, his cock still fully seated inside her. Laughter spills out of her, and she buries her face against his neck, littering it with kisses that would normally leave him shivering if he wasn’t so singularly focused. Crawling onto the bed, James puts her down on it, her head on her pillow—ever the gentleman—and hooks her right leg, draping it over his shoulder. His hair hangs like a curtain around his head, and she pushes some of it back to see his beautiful face above her.
Natasha has missed this part of him. The possessiveness that isn’t possessive because of his generousness and the complete lack of a single jealous bone in his body. James hovers above her, taking his weight on one arm while his free hand roams her body. His hipbones dig into her as he enters her more fully than he could before. He is everywhere, her entire world. Enveloping her, filling her to the brim.
His hand travels down her body, between her legs. When his thumb finds her clit, the jolt of pleasure it sparks from her makes her entire body jerk. Dangerously close to coming from that simple contact. He rolls his thumb against her, and her eyes fall closed from their own will, apparently.
She had a plan, dammit. It takes all her strength of will to reach between them and grab his wrist. James stops instantly, his thumb lifting off her, though his hand remains where it is.
“Want you to come with me,” Natasha says to answer the unspoken in his eyes.
He smiles and removes his hand fully. That boyish smile that makes him look younger than he is. Decades younger, really. Even with the beard. The smile he only ever allows her to see. The smile that’s so brilliant it hurt her the first many times he showed it to her. Now she just basks in its warmth. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, alright.”
He finally starts moving, sets a pace that has her gasping from the first couple of strokes. Perfect as always. Her world is reduced to the two of them, to the bubble he’s created with his body, to the slide of his cock inside her. She holds on to him, fingers digging into the muscles of his back, feeling like she might fall apart if not for her hold on him. Every thrust of his hips tightens the tight coil of desire deep in the pit of her stomach.
Not that James is faring much better. His jaw is set, muscles bunching as he fights not to come. His pupils deep enough to drown in. His neck and upper chest red with exertion. Again and again, he pushes into her, harder and harder, jolting her with every thrust of his hips. Relentless and so very focused. Making Natasha’s heart ache as much as her body does.
His lips find hers and her gasps turn into a sob.
“God, I—” he gasps into her mouth. “Natalia.” A prayer, or something very like it.
Reaching between them, he slips his thumb tween her folds again. The tiny roll of it against her clit nearly too much for her to bear. The coil of pleasure so tight it almost hurts. She digs her fingers into his back, glad of her short nails since she would draw blood otherwise.
His hips stutter against her and Natasha lets herself fall over the edge with him. Wave after wave of pleasure rolls over her, overwhelming her, leaving her unable to do more than gasp into his mouth and dig her fingers into the heavy muscles on his back. Gone with it.
The world returns in increments. James’ breath on her neck. His body sticks to hers where they touch, his upper torso held an inch or two above hers on his elbow, saving her from his full weight. His hair ticking her. A cat meowing in the distance. Yelling, really. Probably dying of hunger, too, since it has been an entire hour since the last time they were fed.
Natasha laughs. After a second or two, James joins her. His quiet huffs ticking her neck.
With a grunt, he pushes up and off her, easing her leg off his shoulder, then pulls her with him as he rolls onto his back. Somehow managing to do it without slipping out of her. His skin is slick with sweat where she’s lying on top of him, or maybe that’s her skin, but she doesn’t mind. They can shower together. Later. When she has regained the ability to walk.
Natasha lifts her head so she can look at him when she says, “That was a nice welcome home.”
He smiles up at her, an exhausted smile, but no less brilliant, then he takes her hand, turns it over, and kisses the palm of it. “You’re it for me, you know,” he tells her palm. “Home, I mean. Only one I’ve ever known.” His eyes return to hers, his expression open, unguarded. A secret that isn’t a secret. A secret she’s known all along.
Her heart hammers hard enough for him to hear it, feel it. At least that’s what it sounds like in her ears. “I love you, James Buchanan Barnes,” she says because it’s the only thing she can say.
He kisses her then, soft and perfect. Relaxing his hand when she pushes her fingers between his, weaving them together. They fit together like they were made for it. Time spins out, becomes less important than his hands on her, their lips touching, and their shared breath.
She’s a little dizzy with it when she ends the kiss, but she doesn’t let him pull her back into another. There is something she needs to tell him, too. Something she would have thought he knew, but has realized that apparently, he didn’t. “If you ever, ever let go of me again just because you’re scared of what’s been done to me or what could be done to me in the future, I will hunt you down and do unspeakable things to you.” She says it like the declaration of love it is instead of a threat, because he’s an idiot for thinking she’d be better off without her, but he’s her idiot.
“Promise?” There it is again, that boyish smile. In stark contrast to the roughness of James’ voice.
“Promise,” Natasha says and kisses him. Doesn’t stop until they are both too exhausted to move. Till she knows his body, with new scars and old, better than her own.