FIC: With Air in My Lungs (MCU/DCU, Natasha Romanoff/Diana Prince, NC-17)

[carlyinrome]

TITLE: With Air in My Lungs
RATING: NC-17
FANDOM: MCU/DCU
PAIRING: Natasha Romanoff/Diana Prince
SUMMARY: Natasha agrees to do a favor for Tony, not realizing that he might be doing her the favor.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: Post-Wonder Woman and post-Civil War. Written for flipflop_diva for Rare Pair Fest 2017.

“I need you to do something for me,” Tony said, and it was a testament to the fallout of recent events that Natasha just nodded and did it.

Natasha walked through Rockefeller Plaza, the crowd around her blurring past. It was nothing to be invisible in a crowd like this. Amateurs would hurry, bow their heads, hug the buildings, avoid people whenever they could. Natasha walked with her back straight and her head high. She walked in the middle of the crowd, in step. She felt anonymity slip over her like a veil. Her face felt like a mask.

So often these days.

She waited among the glass cases in Christie’s antiquities department, walking through the walls of cases, avoiding her reflection in the glass, in the bronze shine of a Zhou Dynasty dagger-axe. After a while, she heard the click of heels on the marble floor. Natasha waited, didn't turn until she saw the woman's face reflected in the glass. Dark eyes, dark hair pulled back and not hiding the fine bone work of her face, the long column of her throat. Plush mouth, the very hint of a smile turning up the corner.

“Miss Romanoff,” she said as Natasha turned, her words lilting with a lovely, ancient accent, and she smiled. It began as a professional sort of smile, but then Natasha met her gaze, and her smile widened, a glint sparkling in her eyes.

“I'm Diana Prince. This way, please.”

Natasha followed Diana through the glass cases, through a low lit hallway. Diana unlocked the second door on the left; Natasha followed her in as the overhead lights pulsed to life. She looked around. All along the back wall were covered crates; the middle of the room was set up with long bench tables with light boards. To either side of the room, there were computer stations and crane-necked lamps and machines she couldn’t identify.

She followed Diana to the back wall. Diana selected a crowbar, scanned the manifests labeling the crates until she found the one she was after. The crate was four feet tall and just as wide, but the depth was no more than a foot.

“I can help you with that,” Natasha said as Diana fit the crowbar’s claw into the space between the top of the crate and the walls.

Diana smiled.

“I’m stronger than I look,” she said, and in one smooth movement, she flexed the crowbar and pulled off the side panel.

The contents of the crate was cocooned in cotton batting and wrapped in muslin. Natasha helped Diana pull it from the crate and set it down on the floor a few feet away. Diana pulled away the layers of padding, her touch purposeful but careful.

Beneath the cotton and the muslin was a great wheel. The base was carved from stone the color of the inside of a conch shell, but built around it was a cage of dark metal. It had gears and hinges; it was meant to move, though right now it was still.

Natasha knelt beside the wheel, which was perhaps six inches in height. Diana knelt beside her, her tight skirt riding up her thighs as she sat back on her heels. Natasha tried not to notice, forced her eyes to the intricate carving on the stone face of the wheel, trying to make out the designs beneath the metal skeleton.

“What is it?” she asked.

Diana tilted her head slightly, a coil of dark hair falling loose from her chignon, brushing over her cheek. She bit her lip slightly in concentration. Natasha ran her tongue across her own lips, mouth suddenly dry.

“A salvage crew pulled it out of the seabed while diving in the Aegean Sea,” Diana said. “Do you know it?”

“The Aegean Sea?” Natasha asked, and Diana nodded.

“I spend most of my time on land,” she said. “What about you?”

Diana smiled. “I know it. It is actually my area of study; that is why Mr. Stark requested I come to New York. I have been working out of Paris.”

For a moment she met eyes with Natasha, holding her gaze with an ease usually unseen outside assassins and other matched opponents, but there was no malice in Diana’s gaze, no challenge, merely the acknowledgement passing between lions and tigers, my kind’s your kind.

Natasha’s mouth was dry. She cleared her throat. “So you don’t know what it is?”

Diana shook her head. “No, I do not.”

“Does Tony?”

“Mr. Stark was very insistent on purchasing the item before it could be widely advertised, but if he knows what it is, he hasn’t told me.”

Natasha examined the metal skeleton, ran her fingers over the rails before she could stop herself. Diana was watching her. She withdrew her hand.

“This is old, right?” Natasha asked. “Am I allowed to touch it?”

Diana smiled. “You are welcome to touch anything you like,” she said.

Natasha smiled. For a moment, she pretended her attention was absorbed in Tony’s ancient mystery wheel, feeling the desire mount inside her, the flush to her skin, her racing heart, listening to Diana breathing just inches away. Then she turned to find Diana watching her with her steady gaze, the curl of loose hair brushing her cheek, her slight smile. There was color in her cheeks, too, and she bit her lip again.

They were on the floor still, and Natasha half-crawled, half-scooted to close the distance between them. She put her hands on Diana, one hand on her waist and the other at the back of her neck, holding her steady while they kissed. Diana was not wearing lipstick and just tasted like herself, like sea salt and clear water beneath blue skies, like fresh figs and raw honey dripping from the comb. She did not yield. Women often became soft when first kissed; their bodies would relax into the embrace, their heads tilting back and their mouths opening as a flower blooming to be plucked. Diana did not. She kissed back hard, her tongue pushing into Natasha’s mouth, her hands on Natasha’s body. Natasha raked her fingers through Diana’s hair, knocking loose the pins holding it up, and Diana’s dark curls came spilling down, a veil surrounding them. Diana’s hands were on Natasha’s breasts, her short blunt nails scratching over the tender flesh—not enough, not enough; the padding of Natasha’s bra blunted the sensation. Natasha tore off her jacket; for a moment, her hands tangled behind her, bound in her sleeves, and she felt caught and helpless, submissive to anything Diana wanted from her, and she realized immediately and with pleasurable dread that she liked it, wanted it.

Diana realized it, too. Natasha freed herself from her jacket, and then Diana took her by the wrists and pinned her to the floor. Diana pulled herself over her, her skirt riding even further up her legs, Diana riding her. Diana’s grip on her wrists was strong, and when they weren’t kissing, Diana bit her neck and panted against her ear. She moved her body against Natasha’s, and Natasha’s yearning grew and grew until it was a black hole begging for every part of her. She was helpless, and she hated and loved it.

Diana came, her eyes and mouth widening, crying out. She stopped riding Natasha, let go of her wrists, just sat back and closed her eyes, let her head fall back as she marinated in the pleasure pulsing through her bloodstream. She was golden and glowing, her dark curls wild around her, her face the very picture of bliss.

Diana opened her eyes, and she laughed and she grinned. Then she raised an eyebrow, looking over Natasha beneath her, desperate with desire.

“If you want me to touch you,” Diana said, “you will put your arms above your head, wrists crossed, and you will not move until I tell you that you may.”

Natasha raised her arms over her head. She crossed her wrists. She watched Diana’s triumphant smile and the spark in her eyes, and she waited.

Diana moved down Natasha’s body. She kissed and bit along Natasha’s collarbone, and she tickled her hands between Natasha’s shirt and her skin. Natasha shivered, and she arched her back, but she didn’t uncross her wrists or reach out. Diana pressed a kiss atop Natasha’s breastbone as her hands clawed beneath Natasha’s bra. She felt the wire against her ribs warp, heard fabric tear, felt Diana’s rough, competent hands on her. Diana squeezed Natasha’s breasts in her palms, pinched and scratched her nipples with her fingers. The sensation went straight to the desperate tug between her legs, and Natasha moaned. Diana’s teeth scratched raw red welts over Natasha’s ribs, and her hands unzipped her pants and tore the lace of her panties getting to her. Diana’s strong fingers slid into Natasha’s hungry sex like pulling on a glove—graceful and easy and like they fucking belonged there. Natasha thrust against her touch, Diana’s fingers moving inside her and her thumb expertly stroking the raw bud of her clitoris. Natasha arched her back. She moaned, she begged. She clenched her fists so tight her fingernails drew blood from her palms; that was what it took to keep her arms up, wrists crossed as she’d been instructed. She felt tortured and worshipped and owned and adored, and as she came rutting against Diana’s hand, for the first time in a long, long time, she felt alive and unfettered.

Diana lay down beside her, gently stroking Natasha’s hair, the soft skin of her cheek. She spoke to her quietly, the way you would whisper down a horse, in a language Natasha didn’t speak, in a language that was spoken before Babel. She pulled down Natasha’s hands, unshackled her from her promise. Held her.

Natasha closed her eyes. She felt Diana’s breath against her, and she synched it up with her own. She breathed.

***

Tony didn’t have any music on in his workshop, so Natasha was sure he could hear her come in, but he barely looked up from over his welding. The gold sparks, the low blue light of the torch, lit his face.

“Find anything interesting at the auction house?” he asked

Natasha smiled. “You could say that.”

Tony nodded. The torch burned.

“I thought you might,” he said.

Natasha watched Tony with his little machines. She wondered how long he'd been tucked away in his lab all alone, how long since he had last slept. Diana's taste was still on her tongue, her scent perfuming Natasha's skin.

“What is it?” Natasha asked. “The wheel.”

Tony shook his head. “I have no idea.”

Natasha nodded. She pulled herself up onto the next lab table, watched Tony work. He didn't say anything, but she saw his shoulders relax however slightly. The gas pouring out of the torch growled, the flame hit the metal with a hiss, and Natasha and Tony sat together otherwise in silence while Tony rebuilt things.