There are some moments in life that are so beautiful, so poignant, that no matter who you are or what you’ve been through you can tell as soon as they happen that you’ll remember them until the day you die, and if there’s an afterlife you’d carry them with you there too.
Today, when Natasha Romanov kissed you for the first time, you knew immediately that this moment qualified as such.
You were on a mission with Nat, a simple straightforward intelligence retrieval that served the dual purpose of testing you and Widow’s compatibility in the field and securing important, powerful contacts for the newly established, Hydra free SHIELD. Since your recruitment to the Avengers team you’d quickly formed a bond with the Black Widow, setting you on the fast track to being partners of a sort.
You liked Natasha, you and her made a good team. She was smart and reliable, but also flexible; she understood that morals and missions were like science and religion, two titanic forces with the same goal that had the ability to oppose each other fiercely, but ultimately had to work together to secure success. You respected her delicate, masterful balance of the dual sides of espionage, and it certainly didn’t hurt that she was remarkably sensual, her every move overflowing with a quiet, thrumming femininity, a lithe, lilting strength that ran through her veins and peeked out behind the swells of her hips. Being in her presence made your senses feel heightened somehow, as if she were a live wire giving off vivacious sparks of life that slid hotly against your skin and settled deep in your chest.
Especially because you were on a mission, the simple brush of her lips against yours as she unexpectedly pressed you against a wall in a darkened hallway corner to avoid detection by a stray security guard could be, should be, dismissed as a means to an end, simply getting the job done. You knew this, but it seemed your slightly shocked and very compliant senses didn’t, or, as with many other aspects of your admittedly stubborn personality, they might’ve just simply chosen not to care. You had fervently tried to brush away the wild hope that rammed insistently against your ribs as Natasha’s impossibly soft lips slipped hotly against yours, but then you’d seen her eyes as she’d pulled away; those deep, celadon orbs tinted with just a hint of sultry smoke, and the expression banked there floored you. It was delicate, and sweet and sort of broken, and damn did it hit you like a punch to the gut.
Could Natasha Romanoff actually want to kiss you? Not just a perfunctory slide of tongue and teeth - though no matter what she did, Natasha was never truly perfunctory, the Red Room had ensured that much - but a willing kiss. A hot, seeking kiss that held promises of more. Did you want that as well?
As her slim, warm arm slid around your waist, her lithe fingers splaying against your lower back, their heat positively searing against the skin that your cocktail dress, your cover for the night, exposed, you knew indelibly that the answer was yes, you very much did.
“Public displays of affection make people uncomfortable,” she’d rasped as she’d leaned in, her body breaching those stark barriers of propriety, her voice huskier than usual as her gaze dipped and lingered on your parting lips.
“I know,” was your reply before an insightful - a wanting - smirk tugged at the edges of your mouth. She met your eyes and you saw a similar expression color her features before she dipped her head down just a fraction and created the moment that you knew would be seared into your memory for years to come.
You’d been trained in the same Red Room as Natasha, though by the time you’d arrived there she was already gone. Still, she’d made quite a reputation for herself there, and you knew her by name when you’d been recruited some months previous. You’d bonded quickly over your shared experiences and your rebellious hearts, each of you greatly admiring the strength, the tenacity, and the quick wit that the other possessed. You quickly became comrades, friends, and now…lovers? You didn’t consider yourself opposed to being with a woman, your sexuality was fluid when it came to picking partners, but with you and Nat’s upbringing, specifically your training in seduction, you didn’t want to presume, especially if to her this was just part of the mission. The reason you were kissing, after all, was the nosy security guard that was wandering too close to your escape route after you’d successfully stolen the necessary intelligence info while a swanky party had roared gaudily a floor below you.
But when Natasha pulled away from that awakening kiss and her eyes had locked with yours, that vulnerable, heated gleam glinting in her eyes, you couldn’t stop the shaky breath that had rattled from your lips, as you thought that maybe, just maybe she was acting not out of necessity but out of desire.
“Natasha-” Her name fell from your lips like a plea, like a prayer. The syllables felt good rolling off of your tongue, like that first lick of a long awaited ice cream cone on a hot summer day or the sultry heat of a lovers embrace, and they hung heavily in the air as you reached up the hand that wasn’t curled around the back of her slim shoulder to catch a strand of her red hair between your fingers. Its color had always reminded you of fire, or of roses, and you weren’t quite sure which Nat embodied more. Perhaps she was just both, and somehow that seemed perfect to you. Heat and softness, strength and fragility; despite the Red Room’s best attempts to hammer them out of her, those contradicting elements remained, and you found yourself drawn to her because of it.
You’d wondered for a long time what her silky strands would feel like beneath your seeking touch, and now, as they slid through your upturned fingers, you realized they felt like heaven. You’d also be lying if you said that you hadn’t wondered what her kiss would be like. Her lips, you now knew, felt like home.
She pulled away from you then, the absence of the balmy heat of her body making you shiver, and you found disappointment spearing through you at the loss of her warm body so close to yours. But thankfully she didn’t move far, and you used that small fact to stem the sudden ache in your chest. You flicked your gaze up to meet hers, pleased to see remnants of that openness, of that tenderness lingering in her steely eyes.
She reached for your hand then, as the footsteps of the offending guard faded rhythmically from earshot, and you moved your digits to meet her seeking fingers. Her palm was delicate and warm, but strong. She smiled, a real smile that reached her eyes, the kind Natasha so rarely gave, and you found yourself helpless not to smile back.
“Let’s go home,” she said, her whiskey-smooth voice low and thrumming with something molten and so familiar; your heart twisted ominously in your chest.
“Yes,” you replied, slipping behind her, wanting to watch her as she walked, memorizing the tantalizing tilt of her waist and sway of her hips, for just a moment before you caught up to her, “Let’s.”
Your life was a spinning kaleidoscope of shimmering, delicate moments, those glimpses of passing glances, brushed skin and glinting eyes the only things fracturing the pain and guilt that usually circled your overburdened mind. But now, as you watched the smooth roil of Nat’s shoulder blades that peeked out from beneath the swishing fall of her flaming hair, the weight of her warm hand hot in yours, you thought that maybe, just maybe, this moment was your favorite.