#shieldarchaeologist

Natasha had chosen the exact wrong moment to take a drink. "Ah the infamous Mr. Romanoff." Natasha choked on her wine and looked up at Tony whose smirk said that he knew exactly what he was doing. "I mean, I'm assuming she made you take her name. She can be a bit of a ballbuster that way, isn't that right Natasha?"

Dominik seemed completely unfazed by Tony's remark. "It's Sheppard actually."

"Ah, my mistake, Mr. and Mrs. Sheppard then? Tell me, how was the honeymoon?"

Natasha leaned forward to place her wineglass on the coffeetable before she got to tempted to throw it at Tony. "We were never actually married asshole. It was just a cover. Which you know."

"Could've fooled me."

And then Natasha's eyes shot over to Clint, who gave her a barely apologetic shrug. "I mean, how many times have you actually slept in your own bed since Iceland?"

Natasha pretended to think about the answer and Dominik spoke up. "Well I did go back to Scotland for about a week to pack up the rest of my things..."

"Yeah..." Clint trailed off whatever he was going to say under the weight of Natasha's glare. She was wondering how he'd talked her into spending the entire weekend with everyone out at the farm. Suddenly it seemed like a very poor plan.

"Unless she was pouring herself into a cab every night at like 4 in the morning Tash didn't go home then either." And now her glare was encompassing the entire end of the sofa where Clint and TC sat. She was officially disowning the both of them for this.

"He lives across the hall from you." It sounded like a poor excuse even to her. "Why would I go all the way across town when I could just go across the hall?"

She wasn't sure what else she might have said but that was the moment that Dominik's arm snaked around her waist and pulled her back against him. He dropped a kiss to the top of her head and leaned in to whisper in her ear. "It's alright love, I missed you too." The corner of her mouth twitched up into a smile and her hand moved to cover where his arm still rested around her waist.

Tony watched all of this with some sort of glee on his face. "Just let me know where to send the wedding gift." Natasha kicked him in the leg as he passed, but other than that no longer seemed likely to throw anything at anyone and slowly the various conversations resumed as Tony insinuated himself into several of them at once. Natasha was content to just sit and listen for a while as Dominik and Bruce went back to discussing some sort of sciencey thing but she wasn't paying enough attention to it to understand whatever it was.

After a little while she excused herself under the guise of needing more to drink, slipping out through the kitchen to the wraparound porch to think in silence until Dominik or Clint came looking for her.

It didn't take him long to realize that she was missing, but he gave her a couple of extra minutes before he went looking for her. It was almost cold enough outside to threaten snow, which was why he was surprised to find her standing at the railing gazing out into the night.

He stepped up behind her with a smile pulling her back into his arms. He kissed her shoulder. "What're you doing out here all on your own love? It's freezing out here."

"They have a point you know." Natasha leaned back against him, sliding her hands over his own.

He was well aware that she hadn't answered his question but her statement prompted a new one. "Who has a point?"

She hummed slightly, making no move to turn to him as she spoke. "Clint and Tony and TC. About us."

Dominik froze for a minute a feeling of dread starting in the pit of his stomach. Natasha waffled between needing things defined by hard limits and needing things to just be whatever they were without labels. He'd learned even before they'd gotten together that you didn't talk about whatever this was unless she wanted to talk about it. Otherwise she was liable to cut and run or shut down completely. If Stark had set her off with his talk about them being married... if this was about to be the end of things he might very well murder the man. "What about us Natalia?"

She felt the corner of her mouth quirk into a smile again. He'd never developed any sort of system, but she loved the way he said her name. Her real name. The smile quickly faded though. Even though she'd been outside for almost an hour she still wasn't sure how to say it. "That we might as well be married." Her heart felt like it was about to beat right out of her chest, but she'd said it. "Because they were right. I didn't go home that whole week, and I slept in your bed, on your pillow wearing your shirt because otherwise I knew that I wasn't going to sleep at all. Because I need you so much that I don't even know really who to be when you're not with me. You somehow keep me grounded while reminding me of the best version of myself I could be. Everything about this has felt like it's going too slow and too fast all at once, and maybe that's because I don't know what I'm doing, but for you I want to know what I'm doing. I want to try. I want this to work, and I don't know that I've ever wanted that before in my entire life. Even when you're not around, I feel like you're still a necessary part of me. I find myself thinking of things in terms of you, like Dominik would like that or he would hate that, or I can't wait to tell Dominik about that. And I don't even begin to understand what you see in me because you're amazing, and perfect and okay yeah a little bit of a workaholic but so am I, and you're kinda messy and have horrible taste sometimes, but I can fix that and if you cook, I'll clean. You're the first person I want to see when I wake up and the last person I want to see before I fall asleep... and I love you." And maybe the first time she said those three little words shouldn't have been at the end of a really long ramble that she wasn't even sure had made sense, but maybe the timing didn't matter. Maybe all that mattered was that she'd finally said it.

Dominik felt a little bit like he was in shock, all of the words she was saying were rolling around in his head, but none of them were sticking because he was still trying to process them and it was an awful lot to process at once. And then she got to those three words, and he felt everything stop. His heart skipped a beat, he forgot how to breathe, and then he was almost on autopilot spinning her around in his arms and pressing her back against the railing, cupping her face and kissing her with as much passion as he could summon up in that moment. Before all of his blood started to flow south, he remembered that he'd been so caught up that he'd forgotten to say it back. He pried his lips away from hers, breathing hard, foreheads touching. "I love you too."

And even though she was breathing hard, now it was Natasha attacking him with kisses, almost on tiptoe, fingers fisted into his hair, sliding her tongue along his and nipping at his bottom lip to make him groan. She dragged him down to her for a moment before he boosted her up to sit on the railing and slotted himself between her thighs. They were the only two people in the entire universe as far as she was concerned. She'd forgotten about everyone else she knew, sitting not so far away chatting about anything and everything, while she was barely holding herself back from asking Dominik to fuck her right here on the porch, and only then because he'd complained that it was cold.

Dominik was nipping at her neck, being careful not to leave marks, no matter how much he wanted to when suddenly he thought of something else, and pulled back slightly to try and read her face. "Does this mean you want to actually marry me?"

She had to play the question two or three times in her head before she actually processed it through the haze of lust. Then she couldn't help but let out a little laugh. "Yes Dominik, I actually want to marry you."

"When?" It was a fair question considering that he'd almost been sure that she was about to break things off.

"Now? Tomorrow? Next week?" She was surprised to find that she meant it. She didn't mind the idea of getting married. She could even think about what actually being married would be like. "We could steal Stark's plane. Fly to Vegas." She'd been looking at it earlier; she was fairly confident she could pilot it if it had the fuel. "Whenever you want. Before Christmas. I don't want you to have to lie to your mother."

"Natasha if this is about that---" He wanted to tell her that it didn't matter. She didn't have to do this for him.

"I want to marry you because I love you Dominik, and I can't imagine my life without you in it." She smiled up at him, running her fingers through his hair. She let out a small chuckle. "But just don't expect me to take your name. I've built up quite a reputation with mine, and Natasha Sheppard just doesn't quite strike fear into the hearts of my enemies like Natasha Romanoff does."

Dominik smiled back and leaned in again to nip her earlobe. "I don't care what your name is love, as long as you're mine."

Natasha hummed at both the nip and his words. "Yours." Her leg hooked around his and pulled him closer, arching her hips to try and roll against his own. "Definitely yours."

He was back to sucking at her neck now, intent on marking her as soon as he could decide where. There were so many places to choose from that made her writhe underneath him. "Think your friends will forgive us if I cart you upstairs and fuck you senseless?" He wasn't sure he cared, but he thought he should at least ask. There was a ghost of a chance that Natasha would want to catch up instead of sex.

"I think if they know me at all they probably already think we're upstairs." By which she meant that she could care less what they thought, and she'd much rather have sex than socialize. "And unless Clint upgraded the soundproofing, they're definitely going to notice when you start fucking me senseless. So resign yourself now to the commentary in the morning, and take me to bed."