Chapter 5
Natasha adjusted her leotard, tied on a skirt and pulled her hair back into a loose bun before heading down the wide staircase. It had been a long time since she’d laced up the ballet shoes that were now stuffed into her gym bag, tapping her on the back from where the strap hung low on her shoulder with each purposeful step.
She had to walk past Tony’s workshop to get to the gym, not the full one where the Avengers spent much of their training hours, the small modest one where Tony had installed a barre all those years ago when Clint had first brought her to the mansion…
It wasn’t that it was unusual to find the lights on in his lab at this hour. It was more that there was no sounds coming from behind the glass door that first caught her attention and she doubled back, peering in cautiously more out of an old habit than an actual need to find out what her friend was up to.
He was sitting on a stool, slumped over the slab of counter space in the center of the room, unmoving, shoulders hunched and head bowed low.
Her heart skipped a beat and a cold, icy feeling spread throughout her stomach as she set her bag down on the floor before putting her security code in the console outside.
“Tony?” She asked softly as she stepped into his space.
His head snapped up, blue eyes wide with something akin to panic on his face, if she thought that he was a man capable of feeling panic at all.
“Hey. Are you okay?” Her brows furrowed in concern as she regarded her friend, who she’d clearly caught off guard.
He didn’t answer as he shifted his position and her eyes swept over the table. “What are you working on?” she tried again.
Then her eyes widened to mirror his panic and she gasped out loud, her hand flying up to cover her mouth when she saw it.
A half empty bottle of top shelf whiskey sat intrusively on the counter before him, within an arm’s length of his grasp.
“Who… who brought that here?” She asked, her shock turning to anger as she mentally wondered who on the team would even think of it.
“I did,” he said simply, his voice tinged with a darkness she hadn’t heard in a long time.
“Oh.” She took a step closer, then another and another, moving slowly and carefully. “That’s…. that’s okay, Tony. We’ll figure this out.”
He put his head in his hands, closing his eyes.
“Where’s Janet?”
“Not here.”
“Okay.” She reached her hand out, placing it cautiously on his shoulder and then letting it slide into his hair when he didn’t pull away. “Who else knows?”
He shook his head. “No one.”
“Okay,” she said again.
“I was going to get rid of it. I started pouring it down the drain.”
“You were? So you didn’t just take a drink from it then,” she said, more in a sense of relief than a question.
He turned his head to look at her. “Not now. But I did.”
She nodded. “When?”
“A month ago.”
She pressed her lips together, thinking this over. “Why are you keeping it?”
“As a reminder,” he said, his voice thick with regret.
“You’re taunting yourself,” she realized. “Give it to me.”
She reached across the table, but his hand shot out and closed over her wrist. “No.”
“Tony… it’s okay.”
“It’s not. It’s not,” he said.
“Are you going to do it again?”
He shook his head.
“Then it’s okay,” she whispered.
“No.” He looked up at her, his face filled with an expression of dejection that she knew all too well. “How can you say that?”
She shrugged, letting her hand sift through the thick dark curls at the back of his head. “You made a mistake. You’re only human, after all,” she said, leaning her head close to his and placing a soft kiss on his temple.
“Being brought back from the dead doesn’t change that,” she added. “Trust me, I know.”
He offered her a half smile at that and she let her hand trail away, holding it out in front of him. “Give me the bottle, Tony. Before I take it from you.”
“As much as I would love to see you make good on that challenge….” He moved to pick up the bottle, then thought better of it as he gestured his consent.
She pulled it from its perch on the counter and whirled around swiftly, gliding across the workspace to the sink in the corner and draining the bottle of its contents before cracking it against the wall and sweeping up the broken pieces.
“You know, there are other ways to work out your frustration and self-loathing,” she said, turning back to face him with a smile.
XXXXX
She stretched her leg over the barre, touching her nose to her knee and holding the position for a moment before turning to face him.
“How is it that you always get me to dance with you, no matter the circumstances?”
She grinned. “I don’t know. I guess I’m just… persuasive.”
“I remember. But this isn’t exactly what I had in mind, you know.”
“I know.” She set her playlist to a soothing piano medley. “Just trust me.”
She took in his form, carefully nudging his legs apart with her foot and pressing her hands along his shoulders and back to correct his posture.
“And keep in mind I can’t do it on my toes like you can.”
“Whatever you’re comfortable with,” she promised, sliding the ankle of her right foot in front of her left toe as she took her place in front of him. “Just feel my movements, and let them guide you.”
He obliged, holding onto her hips and keeping his head down to study her leg work as he caught his bearings.
“Eyes up,” she said, firmly but quietly as she stepped into his space. “Just feel my body.”
“Feel your… your body,” he repeated, his torso pressed to hers.
She guided him in a simple routine and it didn’t take long for him to match his movements to hers until they were moving as one unit.
He carefully gripped her waist, lifting her into the air and executing a near perfect turn before setting her back down again and she took off into a series of flawless steps, holding his hand to take him with her and soon they were gliding across the wood floor.
She pirhouetted back to him and he caught her, once again pressing their bodies together until she could feel his muscles flex with every shift in position and his heat radiating through the thin fabric of his undershirt and her leotard as she moved against him.
She wondered briefly if she’d ever danced this intimately with someone before, but she already knew the answer and it made her breath shallow and her stomach quiver.
She turned in his arms until her back was pressed to his front, their hands still clasped together and he raised their arms, hooking hers behind his head and she grasped the back of his neck, feeling his muscles tighten.
He took her waist with one hand, the other trailed down the arm that was still draped around him and she arched her back, deliberately giving him a clear view down the front of her leotard, which she had no doubt that he took advantage of.
His fingers continued their downward trail, tracing the curve of her side until his hand settled on her hip and he turned her around to face him.
“Eyes up, right?” he murmured, his voice a little husky.
“Right,” she whispered, swallowing thickly as she kept her gaze on his.
They continued to move against each other and her breath hitched when she felt one of his thighs slide between hers.
He leaned his head down and she could feel his breath on her face and she held him closer, close enough to feel that he wasn’t entirely unaffected by their movements.
Her eyes closed and her lips parted and then his hand was sliding along her jaw, tilting her head back as he pressed his forehead against hers and she knew there was a reason why she should move out of his grasp, but she couldn’t think about anything other than the familiarity of this routine and his intoxicating scent that was something like motor oil, expensive cologne, and sweat all invading her senses at once.
This was a familiar dance too, the back and forth and give and take until it became a question of who was seducing who. It wouldn’t have been the first time that they’d crossed blurry boundaries, and it likely wouldn’t be the last, either.
“You were right,” Tony said, the sound of his smooth voice jarring her back to reality. “This is a much better way to lose yourself.”
She nodded. “Maybe we should take a little break, though. Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “But is there something you want to tell me first?”
She shook her head.
“Why not?” He asked, his eyes still wide with a vulnerability she hadn’t noticed before.
“Because I do remember that first dance, Tony,” she whispered. “And all the other ones after.”