Summary: Natasha and Steve have been dating for eight months and despite what Tony says, they haven't even seen each other naked.  Sure, they've slept in the same bed since the second month of their relationship (nightmares sucked, okay?), but nothing more than heated kissing has actually happened.  That's not to say they haven't wanted to screw each other sick late into the night.  As a matter of fact, Natasha's found herself telling Steve 'no' more times than she'd ever thought she would.  Steve's beginning to worry it's because of the two tally marks he knows Natasha's seen on the back of his shoulder, but when he finally confronts her about it, it's actually the opposite.

Natasha had always considered herself a little lucky in at least one aspect of her life: where her tallies showed.

In the Red Room, some girls had theirs printed on their forearms and others had them on their backs. Both were difficult places to cover when wearing an evening gown. Natasha's appeared on her stomach and were easy to cover no matter what she was wearing. Instead of going the more modern route with a bikini, she found sexy one-pieces that covered the marks. Evening gowns could have deep backs and almost no sleeves and one would think she had none. That was always the goal: to make people think she had none or simply fewer than expected and she chose to cover them.

In a world where people liked to show off their tallies and brag about the many people they'd had sex with, Natasha tried to keep her tallies as hidden as possible.

Every now and then, she'd see someone with dozens of tallies running up their arm and she'd feel a little better about herself. Of course, that was a rare occasion and shortly after, she'd remember that those tallies were likely there by choice and they didn't have her same story.

She hated visiting Vegas and New York's red light districts even for missions. She'd see girls all over with sleeves pulled down to their wrists and she'd be tempted to pull them aside to show them her own tallies; to try and show them they weren't alone and that even so-called superheroes could have the same story as them. Someone always called her away or the girls would flee before she could, though.

The tallies weren't often talked about in the Tower. After Tony and Pepper had gotten together, Tony was careful to cover his tallies on his shoulder whenever he was in public. Even in the Tower, he wouldn't walk around shirtless.

Clint didn't care about his tallies. Natasha knew he and Laura had talked at some point after they'd gotten married and the eight lines on his thigh didn't bother her at all. When Natasha had asked Laura about it later, she'd just laughed and said that someone else may have been his first, but she was his last and at the very least, the tallies were easy enough to see she'd know if Clint ever cheated.

Hulk didn't show any tallies (which shouldn't have surprised Natasha as much as it did), but Bruce kept himself covered enough no one knew where or how many he had (Tony tried to make a betting pool, but no one joined in).

After a team bonding day in Miami, it was revealed that Steve had two on his left shoulder blade, but he'd refused to talk about it. It had confused the entire team except for Clint when Natasha appeared to have none. Tony accused her of using make-up to cover the marks, but Natasha had been in the water too long for it to have lasted. Clint was the one to convince him to let it go; he was only embarrassing himself. Unfortunately, that didn't make Natasha feel better.

"I say at least twice a week," Tony announced loudly, drawing Natasha's attention back to the group.

She blinked, trying to remember what they had been talking about before she'd zoned out. The realisation that she was tracing little lines down her stomach hit her full force and she stopped abruptly.

"That's stupid, Tony," Rhodey said, confusing Natasha even more. It didn't help when Steve distracted her from whatever Rhodey said next to ask if she was alright.

"Yeah, I just zoned out for a second," she replied, removing her hand from her stomach to wrap around Steve. They had almost melted into one person after claiming the recliner for their own. Natasha was curled on his lap and perfectly comfortable. There was no place she loved being more than lying with Steve somewhere warm and comfortable.

"You froze up suddenly," Steve told her. Well, she had tried not to. "Tony's drunk, we can easily change the subject on him."

"To be honest, I don't even remember what we were talking about," Natasha admitted.

Steve smiled and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead as she turned back to Tony and Rhodey.

"If you think they have sex less than twice a week, you don't know them," Tony said. He gestured to Steve and Natasha as if to prove his point and Natasha's eyes narrowed. Now she remembered what they'd been talking about. "Steve only had two tallies a year ago, but I bet he has three now."

"Stark," Steve warned, giving him a look.

Just like Steve had said, Tony was drunk and therefore didn't take the warning seriously.

"Pep and I have sex at least twice a week," he said, eliciting groans from all around the living room. "There's no way Cap and Tasha are any different. You two have sex like everyday, right? You can say yes, it's totally normal."

"You won't be having any if you keep talking about it," Natasha threatened.

Tony rolled his eyes but changed the subject when Natasha shifted in Steve's lap. She hadn't had any intention of leaving, but Tony clearly thought she did and changed the subject.

When it became clear to Natasha that she was no longer interested in the conversation and really just wanted to be alone right now, she sat up and glanced down at Steve who looked equally bored with the conversation.

"I'm gonna go downstairs," she told him, smoothly sliding off the recliner.

Steve frowned as she pulled away from him to stretch. When Steve stood up as well, Rhodey and Sam both looked at them, pausing their conversation to ask where they were going.

"To bed," Natasha said, motioning to the clock that said it was nearly 1:30AM.

"We have plans for a sunrise run which is in three and a half hours," Steve said, a blatant lie as Natasha was definitely sleeping until seven in the morning.

"Yikes," Sam muttered. "Have fun."

"Yeah! Have fun!" Tony yelled, giving them a suggestive look.

Natasha pointedly ignored him as she walked to the elevator with Steve following. As soon as the doors shut, Natasha leaned against the elevator walls and closed her eyes. One of these days, talk about their tallies was going to send her over the edge.

Before Steve could start to worry if she was doing okay, she opened her eyes and smiled at him, grabbing his hand as the elevator doors opened. They walked out onto his floor and immediately went into the bedroom to get ready for bed. While Steve went to the bathroom to brush his teeth, Natasha quickly changed into a sleep shirt. She was in the middle of fishing through Steve's drawer for a new shirt when Steve walked back into the bedroom.

"If you keep taking my shirts, I won't have any to wear," he told her, trying not to spew toothpaste all over as he spoke.

Natasha rolled her eyes and tugged off her shirt to pull on one of his when she thought he'd returned to the bathroom. When she turned around to throw her shirt in the laundry, Steve was still standing in the doorway of the bathroom and watching her. She looked at him strangely and he rolled his eyes, going back into the bathroom to spit out his toothpaste before coming back into the bedroom to ask, "Are your tallies on your stomach?"

Natasha paused. If she said yes, he'd ask to see them. If she said no, clearly he'd ask her to prove it and then he'd definitely see them. Figuring there was no real win to this, she nodded shortly and turned to the closet, hoping that would be enough for him.

"You don't want people to see them," Steve said more than asked.

Natasha nodded again, refusing to turn around and busying herself with picking out tomorrow's outfit.

"That's why you wear tank tops to work out in."

"Are you just trying to figure out the reasoning behind all my actions now?" Natasha asked. The question came out harsher than she meant it to, but she didn't feel like apologising.

"No," Steve hummed, looking at her curiously. "I'm just figuring certain actions out."

"Great," she muttered, moving into the bathroom while Steve moved into the bedroom to change.

After brushing her teeth, Natasha wandered back into the bedroom to see Steve sitting on the bed shirtless. He was looking at her with an expression she didn't immediately recognise, putting her on edge. She paused in the bathroom doorway, looking back at him until he said something.

It was a few seconds before he very softly said, "You're ashamed of your tallies."

"Steve," Natasha groaned, not wanting to go into this now or ever.

He was looking at her so softly and sweetly she couldn't help herself though.

"Fuck," she muttered to herself. This was actually going to happen, huh? "Yeah, I am. Can we maybe not talk about this?" she asked, leaning against the doorframe and massaging her temple as images from the Red Room flashed through her head quickly.

This is exactly what she did not want to talk about. Mentioning it once that night had been bad enough, but twice?

"I'm sorry," Steve said, reaching a hand out to her. She sighed and walked over to the bed, sitting down and leaning against him. "I was just trying to figure some things out; I didn't mean to bring up bad memories."

"You didn't," she denied too quickly.

Steve kissed the top of her head.

"You don't have to lie to me," he told her, hugging her tightly as a particularly vivid image passed through her mind. "You do this thing where your eyebrows scrunch together and you bite your lip when you get bad memories. You also rub your head."

"I liked it better when I thought I didn't have a tell," she muttered.

Steve chuckled and hugged her tighter.

"You wanna see them." It wasn't a question because she already knew the answer.

Instead of trying to brush her off, Steve gave her a shy smile and she sighed. She pulled away from him slightly and reached for the hem of her shirt. She paused before taking it off though.

"It won't change anything, Nat," Steve said, kissing her cheek. "I promise I won't get jealous," he teased, trying to cheer her up a bit.

"That's not what I'm worried about," she mumbled.

She had tons of the stupid lines; more than she could bother counting at this point. Steve only had two. What if he decided he didn't want someone who'd "been around" like she had? He could leave her without an excuse, but she would know. What if word got out that she was such a whore?

"Nat, don't show me," Steve said, interrupting her thoughts.

Natasha blinked down at the bedsheets before looking up at him.

"You don't have to show me; they're your tallies and it's your story, so you don't have to tell it if you don't want to."

"I think I do, though," she told him.

It was horrible to think about what could happen if she showed him, but she also knew that wasn't Steve. He knew more about her past than anyone else; she'd told him things she hadn't bothered to tell Clint since she and Clint had never dated. Clint was a close friend, but he didn't need to know very specific triggers that Steve did now that they lived together and were dating.

"Only if you want to," Steve assured her.

Natasha nodded and the room fell into silence. After several minutes of staring at the bed, arguing with herself, Natasha reached for her shirt hem again and in one swift movement, pulled off her shirt.

The room stayed silent, which both calmed and worried Natasha. At least Steve wasn't immediately repulsed by the sight, but he also wasn't saying anything and when was that ever good?

"Do you remember all of them?" Steve asked eventually, surprising Natasha. That was definitely not what she expected him to say first thing and she had to think about it for a second.

"Only four," she admitted, looking down at her stomach. She could even remember which tally went with each memory.

Reaching up, she touched the very first line just under her sports bra. There was a horrible memory that shot so quickly to mind she jumped. Steve reached out for her then seemed to think better of it and didn't touch her. The worst part of the memory wasn't something she remembered, but she could remember the feeling of it and the emotions through all of it.

"No one deserves that," Steve muttered, slowly reaching for her hand.

She squeezed his hand and forced herself to move on to the next tally: number six. This one was a much better memory. James was a happy memory amongst all the horrible ones and he'd been the first person she'd willingly had sex with.

"This was the first time I made the choice," she told Steve, deciding not to go into detail.

The third was yet another rough memory and she directed Steve's attention to a jagged scar on her collar bone instead of the seventh tally. The night her handlers had found out about her and James hadn't gone well.

"The third memory I have and this scar go together if that's any indication of how that memory goes."

If Steve was curious, he didn't say anything. She doubted he was as he tended to feel incredibly guilty about any of her scars after hearing the stories, something she now tried not to do whenever possible. Besides, she hadn't even told Clint about how one of her handlers had cut open her chest, threatening to remove her heart himself if she couldn't get it under control like all her other emotions.

"How did you even survive that?" Steve murmured, tracing the scar gently.

Yelena had been a good friend that night, stitching her up and changing the bandages regularly while Natasha was unconscious. Without her, Natasha doubted she would have lived. Part of her wondered if that wasn't the intention behind such an injury, but she hadn't left the man alive long enough to ask after defecting to SHIELD.

"A friend," Natasha answered instead. He didn't know who Yelena was as she'd never mentioned her name. Something inside of her also wanted to keep some semblance of privacy and mystery too. "This one," she said, pointing to the third tally from the end, "Was the first one after I'd moved to SHIELD. I don't even remember who it belongs to, just that it was." There were only two more tallies after that and after seeing Steve's vaguely curious expression, she said, "There was a rumour going around SHIELD I was sleeping with everyone, so I made a point of not sleeping with anyone after my first year."

"You know the—"

"I know, Steve," she interrupted, grabbing his hand once more and lacing their fingers together. "It was just one of the few things I could control. Besides, I didn't need to add to my count," she chuckled, gesturing to the many tallies on her stomach.

Steve frowned, staring at her stomach for several seconds. Before she could ask what he was thinking about, he looked up at her and said, "Forty-nine."

"What?"

"You have forty-nine tallies," Steve clarified.

Natasha looked down at her stomach and figured that number made sense. After tally thirty-two, she'd stopped keeping track.

"You know, one more and you'll have half as many tallies as I am years old."

"And two hundred fifty percent more tallies than you," Natasha teased.

Steve rolled his eyes and pulled her as close to him as he could.

"Steve,"  she said, laughing when he tried to kiss every inch of her face. He didn't let up until he was certain no more bad thoughts were threatening to consume her.

"Please?" he asked, confusing Natasha for a second. When she realised what he meant, her gaze softened and she reached up to gently stroke his cheek.

"If you're sure you want to," she said softly.

Steve nodded and leaned forward to press his lips to hers. He dragged Natasha down to the bed and she couldn't help but smile knowing this what what Steve had wanted even after he had seen her tallies. Without having to worry about keeping them secret anymore, she could be much more relaxed around him. She was never going to tell Tony he'd been part of the reason they'd actually had sex. As far as she was concerned, they'd keep telling him they hadn't.