it’s a leap of faith.

Makayla: what are you doing now?

Bradley feels his phone buzz against the shiny, faux wood table at the casual sports bar he and the guys had chosen to watch the Phillies game. Normally Bradley would have been just fine watching the game at home, his mom had a pretty big television and she never tried to trick herself into thinking that her son wasn’t drinking while he was away at college so she didn’t care too much when the boys pulled out a beer or two.

But Admiral Simpson absolutely hated the mess, and didn’t care much for sports either, and with his return looming over Bradley’s head, he just didn’t want to deal with it. So he, Jake, and Javy decided to find a sports bar that was close by and watch the game there. His mom tried to assure him that it wouldn’t matter, but Bradley Bradshaw isn’t 15 years old anymore and he knows enough to know that just because his mom wants something to be true doesn't mean that it is. 

But the buzz of his phone pulls him from these thoughts and Bradley looks down to see Makayla’s name lighting up his screen. He types out a quick reply to her message, moving his thumb to press the send button before he hesitates. You always like when he sends pictures. Opening the camera quickly, Bradley shoots a somewhat awkward smile, angling to get some of the bar in the background before sending it off with a text.

Watching the Phillies game

Bradley watches the three gray dots appear as Makayla takes several seconds to respond. He’s almost anxious for her response, which he doesn’t fully understand because he knows he shouldn’t be. Something about talking to her always put him a bit on edge.

Makayla is a very particular girl. She has strong opinions on things and tends to make sure everybody knows them. Bradley isn’t blind to how sometimes unnecessarily cruel she can be—this whole date requirement being a prime example of it—but Bradley thinks that girls like her are allowed to be.

He lets out a breath when she still hasn’t responded, dropping his phone screen side down and letting the conversation die as Jake and Javy come back with their drinks.

“Has the score changed?” Jake glances at one of the many televisions pointed in their direction while Bradley shakes his head. All three boys have their eyes trained on the TV and Bradley lets out a small mumble of thanks when Javy passes him his beer. The only thing that draws them away from the Phillies game is Bradley’s phone buzzing on the table again. Jake grins when he sees Bradley scramble for it. “That the girlfriend?”

Makayla: right

Bradley clears his throat, looking up from his phone. “Yeah.”

“I gotta say, dude,” Jake continued to rib him playfully. “Your sister’s best friend? I did not see that coming.”

“Honestly, I’m just happy to see him move on from Makayla,” Javy joins in the teasing, but Bradley can see how sincere his words are.

His brows furrow. “What do you mean?”

Taking in Bradley’s expression, Jake scoffs in disbelief. “Come on, man. Sometimes I’m not convinced you even like her.” 

“What?” Bradley’s fingers clench defensively against his beer.

His eyes flit between Jake and Javy and, to his surprise, both boys seem to be in agreement, having noticed something Bradley wasn’t even aware of. What do they mean he doesn’t like Makayla? Of course he likes Makayla. It’s the whole reason he’s doing any of this.

“I can’t be the only one who realizes that she’s exactly the kind of girl the Admiral would approve of.”

Jake’s words dump over Bradley like ice water, so chilling that, for a moment, he genuinely thinks someone’s poured beer on him. She’s exactly the kind of girl the Admiral would approve of. In some capacity, Bradley guesses that’s true. Makayla comes from a wealthy, established family, she was raised with the gender values Admiral Simpson wishes his mom had. Now that he thinks about it, Makayla’s probably the only person he knows who would not only survive, but enjoy a dinner with his stepdad.

Before Bradley can say anything to argue that of course he likes Makayla, a resounding crack rings out through the sports bar and the patrons jump up in excitement at the home run playing on the large TVs. Jake and Javy join them quickly, not nearly as affected as Bradley as he sits on his vinyl seat dumbly. He takes a long sip of his beer before shaking the feeling off and trying to forget everything long enough to enjoy the game.

Again, his phone buzzes on the table.

Makayla: also you should shave that mustache before you get back

Bradley purses his lips, the comment striking a cord in a way that has him locking his phone instead of responding to Makayla. Bradley doesn’t consider himself to be insecure—not in the slightest—but he’s finding it harder and harder to focus on the game, something nagging in the back of his head that he’s doing something wrong.

He uses the feeling of his cool beer bottle against his palm to ground himself, but he still finds himself shifting in his seat every few seconds, an uncomfortable itch overtaking him. From his peripheral, he catches his phone resting on the table. He can suddenly feel his keys inside his back pocket.

“I have to go.”

Javy and Jake turn away from the game in confusion—and truthfully Bradley also can’t believe those words just left his mouth. “What?”

“I just—” Bradley clears his throat, getting up almost frantically as he grabs his phone from the table. “I remembered I have to do something. Just— Tell me how it ends.”

With that, he’s leaving the table before Jake and Javy can even respond. He lets out a shaky breath, wiping his sweaty hands on his pants. He’s barely had a sip of alcohol and feels confident to drive, but he stays sitting in his Bronco for several minutes anyway. Keeping his gaze trained on the steering wheel, Bradley tries to feel like he’s not swallowing rocks. 

He looks down to find his hands shaking and he bites down on his lip, squeezing his eyes closed. “Shit.”

He knows what’s coming. He can feel it, like that feeling when you’re about to vomit. Bradley shoves his palms into his eye sockets, leaning back in his seat until his head is touching the headrest. Tears prick at his waterline, even though his eyes are closed tight, and each one feels almost painful as his throat gets smaller and smaller.

Bradley all but throws himself forward, resting his forearms on his knees as he holds his head in his hands. He keeps reminding himself that this will pass—it always does. But the waiting is the worst part and Bradley just can’t believe he’s trapped himself in the parking lot of a sports bar, hiding under the view of the windows as he waits to calm down.

His bottom lip is trapped between his teeth and he pulls at his hair as his breaths get sharper and quicker. The pain stings against his scalp, but it does little to distract him. Truthfully, Bradley should have known this was coming. It’s been looming over him since he stepped foot in San Diego and, if anything, he’s just grateful it happened when he was alone.

His fingers are still shaking, worse now, and his breathing pattern is entirely erratic. He tries to slow it down, but deep breaths feel like cement in his chest, and he just can’t. Bradley feels like a kid again, hiding in a stall in the boys bathroom until he was strong enough to come out. It’s the same quivering breath against his palms, the same stubborn tears rolling down his cheeks, he’s still that same kid. And he hates it.

Bradley hates that he’s not over this. Because he should be. A few words from his friends and a text shouldn’t be able to do this to him. But it does. And it is. And now he’s sitting in his car trying not to hyperventilate in the parking lot of a sports bar while his friends sit inside, none the wiser.

Bradley really hates coming home.

“Are you okay?”

Bradley needs you to stop asking him that every time you see him. Because you shouldn’t be able to tell that he’s not okay. The two of you only somewhat know each other and if you can tell that something’s going on, then he’s not hiding it as well as he thought.

“Fine,” he says simple, actively trying to ignore the worry in your eyes as you look at him.

He thought he waited long enough before coming inside to make it look like he hadn’t just been crying, but under your attentive gaze he keeps purposefully avoiding your eye so you don’t notice.

“Did something happen?” You try again gently. “I thought you were supposed to be watching the game with Javy and Jake.”

“I missed you.” The words come out before Bradley can process them, his own voice almost unrecognizable to him as he spits the words out instinctively.

Your lips part slowly and then he watches them curl up in a small smile. “It hasn’t even been an hour, Bradley.” You tease him, but it’s soft, as you take a step closer to him.

Bradley relaxes just slightly, allowing you into his space as some of his anxiety washes off of him. He nods. “Exactly. Too long.”

You smile again, letting your arms wrap around his shoulders while Bradley’s finds purchase on your hips. And then, just because he felt like it, he dips down to catch your lips, kissing you slowly. He tries to focus on the feeling of you, the softness of your lips, the way your nails scratch at the base of his curls every so often. Sighing against your lips, Bradley pulls you closer, his shoulders finally sagging.

“Okay, ew.” Giselle’s voice cuts the room and you pull away from Bradley quickly. Bradley honestly couldn’t give less of a shit about what his sister saw the two of you doing together, but you’re clearly embarrassed, looking down bashfully to hide your fluster.

Bradley shoots his sister a deadpanned glare. “Can we help you?”

“Oh, I was just looking for my best friend,” Giselle plops a grape in her mouth from where they’re sitting on the kitchen counter. “Making sure she hadn’t died or anything.”

Bradley grunts, the hand he still has on you squeezing your hip. “Well, she hasn’t.”

“Yeah, but she’s kissing you. That’s a fate worse than death.”

“Giselle,” you cut in before Bradley can respond. You and Giselle share a look, seemingly communicating to each other without words. Whatever your trying to tell her gets across because his sister sighs, holding her hands up in surrender.

“Fine,” Giselle nods and Bradley watches as she grabs another grape. Then she shoots you another look—equally unreadable to him—and you nod. “I’ll leave you to your sucking face then.”

Bradley waits for her to leave the kitchen before he looks down at you. “Sucking face?”

You smile slightly. “It’s a long story.” Turning back into his hold, you place your hands on his chest, smoothing down the fabric of his t-shirt. For a second, Bradley thinks you’re going to kiss him again, but instead you ask, “Is the Phillies game still on?”

“Should be,” Bradley glances at the stove clock. It’s only been an hour and a half, there was still a significant chunk of the game left.

Though, at this point, Bradley had no intention of watching it, he doesn’t say anything as you lead him around the house, grabbing your laptop from Giselle’s room and then heading into his. He’s still quiet as you manage to find—what may be an illegal—site to watch the game on, setting it up on the foot of his bed.

“Come on,” you pat the spot next to you and briefly Bradley thinks that you don’t look at all out of place in his bedroom.

He moves wordlessly to sit beside you, your thighs brushing only just as you both get comfortable on his bed. He doesn’t really know what you’re doing or why you’re doing it, and you seem to show no signs of wanting to tell him, so all he can do is sit somewhat awkwardly next to you as he watches the small screen of your computer. 

You lean a bit closer to him. “You’re gonna have to explain to me what’s going on though.” There’s a small smile on your face and Bradley’s grateful that you finally seem to be picking up on the fact that he just wants to pretend that everything's okay.

“Sure, sunshine.”

Bradley finds himself getting more invested in the game as the minutes tick by, his episode in the parking lot slowly forgotten as he explains terms and players to you in quiet mumbles. By his third commercial break, Bradley’s starting to feel more like himself, his grip on his emotions tightening and his mood rising.

He glances at you next to him. You hardly notice, now drawn into the Phillies game with a concentration Bradley can’t help but find adorable. He looks at the way your biceps are pressed against each other and lifts his arm just slightly. It’s when he tries to raise his arm again that you turn to look at him.

“No way.” A large grin overtakes your face as you look between him and his arm.

Bradley furrows his brows. “What?”

“Oh my god,” you laugh. “You’re about to do the thing. You’re so about to do the thing.”

Bradley can only look confused. “What thing?” When you only laugh harder, he makes a face. “What thing, sunshine?”

“The thing,” you hardly elaborate. “You were about to do the yawn thing where you put your arm around me.”

“What?” Bradley pulls back slightly in defense. “No, I—” When you just shoot him a look, Bradley purses his lips. You laugh again.

“I cannot believe the Bradley Bradshaw pulls moves that cliche.”

“Shut up,” Bradley shoulders you good-naturedly. “Don’t girls like that shit?”

You snort. “Just admit you’re losing your touch, Bradshaw.”

“I’m losing my—” Bradley laughs incredulously. “Alright, fine,” he gets up, holding out his hand to help you off his bed.

Confusion flashes across your features as he helps you up, leading you out of his room, the Phillies game now forgotten. “What are you doing?”

“Showing you that Bradley Bradshaw can be very,” Bradley turns around to shoot you a teasing smile. “Very smooth.”

Bradley can firmly live in the truth that he is smooth, the expression on your face proof enough when he pulls up to an empty part of the beach. In the late afternoon, the ocean sparkles, crashing and ebbing against the shore and the breeze is just cool enough to make the beating sun bearable.

You hop out of the car quickly and Bradley takes his time grabbing both your bags as you lay out towels on the abandoned sand. For whatever reason—even after all these years, Bradley still doesn’t know—every time he’s visited this part of the beach, there hasn’t been another soul on it. In the back of his mind, there’s a thought that this might be because it’s private property, but Bradley hasn’t been caught yet, so he figures it’s fine.

He sets your bags down next to you, sitting on the towel next to yours as he looks out on the ocean. Taking a deep breath, Bradley lets the ocean air fill his lungs, finally letting the events of the day wash off him. Makayla’s text comes back to him though, nagging at his brain, and he lets out a small sigh.

He knew it was stupid to be that thrown about a comment about his mustache. Even thinking the words felt stupid. But to him, it didn’t feel stupid. There was very little that Bradley has left of his dad. He doesn’t have the house, or the garage, or that vintage popcorn machine. He doesn’t even have all the memories, a lot of them he was too young to remember.

But when Bradley first started growing facial hair, it felt like he had something else of his dad’s. It was an embarrassing mustache at first sure, Giselle and his friends teased him to no end, but it grew and he’ll never forget the day his mom looked at him and sucked in a breath. Because Bradley looked just like his dad.

And yes, obviously Bradley took pride in his mustache when most of his frat brothers could only grow patchy beards at best. But he liked looking in the mirror and seeing his dad—or the reminder of his dad. He liked knowing that no matter what, no matter the choices his mom made, or people like Admiral Simpson, he will always be Nick Bradshaw’s son. 

Bradley didn’t expect Makayla to understand that. How could she when he’s never said anything? But there’s something that stings about it, like she doesn’t get it. Bradley sucks in a sudden breath, a thought hitting him. Maybe no one gets it.

You shift next to him and Bradley’s so in his own head that, in a moment of insecurity, he turns to you. “Do you think I should shave my mustache?”

You look at him quietly for several seconds, the question hanging in the air as you cock your head slightly like you’re deep in thought. Bradley tries not to seem nervous as you examine him.

“Well, you should do whatever makes you happy, but I like your mustache.” You say finally, climbing into his lap and smoothing your thumbs along the hairs. “Feel like you wouldn’t really be you without it.”

“You think?” Bradley’s hands fall to your hips as you straddle his thighs.

“Yeah, it’s very Bradley Bradshaw.” You trace your thumbs along his mustache again and Bradley’s eyes flutter closed at the feeling. “And I happen to like Bradley Bradshaw.” You press a quick peck to his lips. “Very much.”

Bradley grins, relief flooding his veins, and he moves one of his hands to grab your chin so that he can kiss you again. “Well, I like you too, sunshine. Very much.” He rolls you down on one of your towels, being mindful of the sand, before deepening the kiss. 

This is not the first time Bradley Bradshaw has made out on a beach, but even Bradley can admit that this time is different. It’s not that rushed, sort of “teenagers hooking up before they get caught” kiss that causes Bradley to fumble with bra clasps and get sand everywhere. His hands aren’t rushing over your body, grabbing and squeezing like he doesn’t have enough time. With you, Bradley can’t help but go slow. Slow enough that he can feel the warmth radiating off your body. Slow enough that he can hear every sound he pulls from your lips. Slow enough that the thought of going any faster doesn’t even cross his mind.

Bradley pulls away from you suddenly, watching as your dazed eyes blink away to confusion. Still hovering over you, he looks down. “What was that? Oh—” Bradley meets your eye again with a cheeky grin. “My mustache says it likes you too.”

You blink at him as you process his words and then throw your head back with a cackle. “Oh my god. That was worse than the yawn thing!”

“Oh, you want worse than the yawn thing?” Bradley traps you under him, a smirk forming on his lips. “I can make it dance for you, is that what you want?”

“Do not— Bradley!”

Somewhere in his bag, under a spare t-shirt and extra towel, Bradley’s phone lights up with a text notification that remains unnoticed as he goes back to kissing you through peals of laughter.

They form a small crowd at the freezer. Steve pulls out the box and they're patient as they choose their favourite flavours. Raspberry for Beth, cherry for the other two. He peels back the thin plastic wrappings and encircles the wooden sticks with tissue paper to try and prevent sticky hands. 

His three girls linger. 

"What?" he asks, wondering why they haven't run off to finish watching their movie. 

"Mom said we have to give you a kiss," Ave says. 

"Did she?" 

"Thank you kiss," Beth adds. 

He squats down, beaming. "Your mom is totally right. You do have to give me kisses. At least one on each cheek." 

He receives two prim kisses from Avery, two shy, soft ones from Beth and a very reluctant one from Dove, who's much more interested in her cold snack than any affection. He wipes the sticky kiss prints off of his cheeks and stands as they all totter out, a single form line that makes him want to take a picture. 

Speaking of their mother, where are you? 

He turns the pots on the stovetop to simmer and peeks his head into the living room, looking for you. You're not on the couch like he'd thought you'd be, Ave in your usual seat and Dove trying her best to climb up beside her. Steve watches her rub pink all over the couch and thanks god for fake leather.

"Where's mom?" he asks.

Only Beth looks up. "What?" she asks.

"Where's mommy, do you know?" 

"She was upstairs," Ave says, lips stained cherry red. 

"Can you keep an eye on Dove, please?" 

Ave nods and wraps an arm around her little sister's shoulder protectively. He feels a swelling of pride. 

Steve jogs up the stairs. You're in Beth's bedroom making her bed, looking very tired. Shoes off but coat still on, you've barely been home from work an hour. You're exhausted.

Steve believes that Friday night should be a time to relax. Let Saturday morning suffer all the neglected chores.  Pushing yourself to clean won’t do you any favours. 

"Hey, angel. Don't start in here, I'll do it after dinner." 

You shrug and give him a small smile. "That's okay. I like doing it." 

He waits for you to finish making the bed and then sidles into your space, arms around you in a hug before you know what he's doing. You smell like spearmint. 

"You don't look the best," he says worriedly, arm behind your neck to hold you in place as he presses a firm kiss to your temple. "You need to take it easy." 

You hug him back, your arms a familiar warmth against his back. "I'm okay, Stevie." 

"I know, just…" He gives you another kiss before tucking you into his front. He doesn't say it. He hopes it's implied: how something happening to you would crush him into tiny pieces. 

"I like taking care of them," you say. If he didn't know you better he'd think you were being defensive. 

He pats your back with a big palm. "I know that. You're the best mom ever, babe." 

You can't help smiling at his words, though you continue, "I don't want you to have to do everything." 

"I don't do everything, Y/N, you're just tired tonight. It's okay to take a break. We'll do everything that needs to get done tomorrow. Or Sunday," he attempts a joke. 

"You worked all day, too," you murmur. 

Looking after your three kids is work. Hard work. He really does need your help when you get home. There's baths and homework and dinner. Even when the older pair are in school, there’s laundry, shopping, cleaning, and Dove is a full time job. An adorable, brilliant full time job, but demanding all the same. He wouldn't change it for the world. 

With that in mind, Steve will always try to take the extra weight when you're not feeling up to it. In the same way you'll do it for him, in how you call in sick to work when there's too much laundry and the house is a tornado, or how you'll let him sleep in at the end of a long week and only wake him up when the breakfast is served and the kids are all dressed. 

It's a partnership. It's being selfless, and asking for help when you need it. 

He's told you that before and he knows you know it. He doesn't worry about telling you again, rubbing your back until you've gone lax in his arms. 

"Dinner's ready," he says quietly. He pulls away from you, although it's the last thing he wants to do, and cups your face in his hand. "Think we should eat on the couch tonight? Might be nice. You can sit with Beth." And I'll have Dove, he doesn't say. Dove's the handful at meal times. 

"Thanks," you say, looking up at him with way too much gratitude. He stomps it away ruthlessly – as in, with a chaste kiss and a squeeze of your cheek. 

"We're a team," he says with a grin. "In case you forgot." 

You lean into his touch. "I didn't forget." There's something very heavy in the way you say it. He chalks it up to how tired you are and shepherds you downstairs. 

In the living room the kids are in disarray. All covered in sticky juice, Beth stands by the tv with her tissue in hand but her popsicle missing. 

You find it soon enough in Ave's fist. The oldest holds both, seeming neither sad nor happy about it, Dove at her side gnawing on a naked stick. You slip it out of her hand and she looks like she might cry, but she’s quickly sated by the sight of you and your lips pressed to her crown.

Dinner and cleaning. Steve gives you the easier task. "You wanna go do dinner?" 

You nod. You leave with Ave and Beth’s half-melted popsicles and return with a dampened hand towel for him. He accepts and smiles at you fondly, following your tense shoulders as you disappear down the hall.

Steve sits on the couch and wipes down Dove first. She hates it, to his chagrin, squirming and whining the whole while. Avery doesn't care, letting him clean her hands and cheeks with her eyes glued to the TV. She's old enough now to go wash her hands when asked but Steve loves to dote, telling her thank you with a bubbly affection that has her beaming.

He looks for his middle kid and finds her exactly where she'd been before, hovering in front of the TV. 

"Beth, baby, c'mere," he prompts, holding out his hands. She climbs into his lap without a peep. 

He cleans her small hands first. They're a lot like yours, especially the shape of her nails, and he takes very good care of them. "You have your mom's hands," he tells her. 

Beth perks up. "I do?" 

He holds up his hand. "See, they don't look anything like mine." 

"Oh," she says, sounding put out. Where Dove favours her mom and Ave has learned to lie and say she loves her parents equally, Beth is a daddy's girl through and through. 

"They're beautiful," he says quickly. "Just as pretty as mommy's." 

She goes a little shy at the compliment, her face angling down. He tilts it up gently to wipe her warm cheeks clean. 

She pouts as he rubs the towel over her lips, "Dad," she complains. 

"What? Your lips are blue." 

He pats her dry with an untouched corner and smiles, finding one of her hands to squeeze. "All done." 

He isn't surprised when she stays in his lap. He worms an arm around her back and she collapses in the way little kids do, all at once like a balloon that's been popped. He lets his nose sink into her hair and breathes in her smell. 

"Will you do me a favour?" he asks her quietly. 

She looks up. "What?" 

"Will you sit with mom for dinner? She needs a good hug like this one." He lays the compliment down thickly. 

Beth nods with a funny look on her face. He wonders what she's thinking but is quickly distracted — jealousy is a powerful emotion and soon there's tiny hands on his legs, Dove's crying still so much like a baby's that it makes his chest ache. 

It's very bittersweet to have them growing up. He hates to admit that he misses having a little baby around and worries about telling you. He doesn't want you to think you have to want more, or feel guilty in any way if you don't. 

In any case, Steve wants a huge family and he always has but he'd say easily that the one he has now is perfect the way it is. 

He frowns as Dove bubbles into hysterics. "Bethie," he says apologetically. 

Beth slides off of his lap and wanders into the kitchen as Steve takes Dove into his arms with a sigh. "You're not very nice to your sister, you know that?" He can't stay mad when she does the same thing as Beth had, dissolving in his lap. 

Avery approaches wantonly. 

"Ave? Do you want a hug?" he asks. 

"I'm hungry," Ave says, draping herself over his legs, all drama. 

"Mom's doing it. You can go help, if you want to." 

Ave climbs onto the sofa beside him. There’s a sheepishness to it that worries him, expecting an admission. A smashed glass or forgotten homework. 

"What?" he asks her knowingly. 

"Can I ask you something?" she whispers. 

Steve frowns but quickly hides it away. "Sure, Ave. You can ask me anything." 

She nods and her hand grasps his shoulder as she leans into his ear, her attempt at whispering clumsy and endearing. "Is mom okay?" 

Steve narrowly avoids Dove's forehead slamming into his chin as he startles. "Why wouldn't mom be okay?" 

"She was sick." 

Steve blinks at her. "What?" 

"She was throwing up. I asked if she was okay and she said to come ask you for the popsicles." 

He doesn't know why you were throwing up. He'll ask, but first. "Ave," he murmurs, holding an arm out. She's as tall as him when she stands on the couch, and her head falls against his, her small cheek to his chin. Dove is quietly annoyed at his stolen attention. "Your mom is fine. I’ll take care of her." 

"She's sad all the time this week." 

He frowns. "Baby, she's not sad. She's tired. She's really tired, but I promise she's not sad. Don't worry about mom, okay?" 

Avery slides down the couch cushion behind her and away from him. "Okay." 

He kisses the top of her head. "Thank you, princess," he says quickly. 

He picks up Dove and carries her with him into the kitchen. You're almost done, and he's glad to have caught you. 

Beth lingers by your legs. You're having a half conversation with her about school, wooden spoon in hand. 

"Beth, let me talk to mom?" he asks, giving her an apologetic smile. She grumbles all the way out of the room. 

You look up at him with wide eyes. Dove, having seen you, wants to be in your arms rather than his. You take her and dot a few soft kisses over the side of her face as she settles in your hold. 

"You were sick?" he asks, straight to the point, maybe a tiny bit angry that you hadn’t told him but more worried than anything. 

"Just… a bit." 

"You weren't gonna tell me?”

"I was. Later. After dinner." 

He bumps your hip to take the pan of golden-brown veggies and starts to dish them out. "How long have we been together?" 

You smile at him. It's always been hard to pinpoint when you stopped being Y/N and Steve and started being Y/N and Steve. Slowly, so slowly, you'd come together, and now all of a sudden you're a family down the line with no signs of coming apart. 

"I need you to tell me when you're sick, no matter how busy you think I am." He scoops out what's left of the veggies onto your plate and then looks at you, worried you won't be able to eat. "Is it food poisoning? Nerves? I'll call the doctor after dinner, we'll-" 

"It's not food poisoning." 

He stares at you. Really stares at you. Thinks about how tired you've been. "Baby, are you-" 

He cuts off when you lean against the kitchen counter behind you and promptly burst into tears. Quiet and fierce, fat teardrops crest your cheeks and don't stop. Dove looks rightfully panicked. Steve would find her concerned little face turning to him adorable any other time. 

His heart breaks for you. "Hey," he says, frowning. "Hey hey hey, you're okay. It's okay. Come here, baby." 

You let him hug you. One hand to your back, the other on Dove's, trying to manage her and comfort you at the same time. 

"I'm sorry," you say, "I'm really sorry, I was gonna tell you tonight, when they were sleeping, and I wanted to tell you a week ago, Stevie." 

You sound as young as you did when Steve first met you. "Baby," he murmurs, trying to be the calm to your panic. His thoughts come a thousand a second. 

"I was going to tell you, I promise." 

"Is that what you're worried about? I'm not mad." He speaks carefully, though the reality is sinking in, and his heart is racing. 

You're pregnant. 

He remembers the first time you'd told him, just like this, all tears and panic. Worried about how you'd do it, how you'd manage. And Steve had said exactly what he plans to say now – anything you want to do is what he wants to do. That he loves you. That you're perfect, and that your choice won't change that. He'd comforted you for days the first time. Weeks. Even after you'd made the decision to stay pregnant and to have Avery, you'd needed a lot of support and he'd given it to you in droves. He's more prepared to do it again. 

You look up at him and you're smiling despite the tears. 

He realises he might have miscalculated; you're overwhelmed by emotion, but that emotion isn't wholly unhappy. 

You hold his gaze. "Steve," you say, tears pushed down your cheeks from the force of your smile. 

His heart skips in his chest. It soars. 

He crushes his lips to your forehead and laughs. "Oh my god," he says, kissing you haphazardly. "My girl. Holy shit." 

"I got you a- a card," you say, still crying. 

"Yeah?" he asks, feeling close to tears himself. 

"S'in the car." 

"I'm gonna get you more than a card. I'm gonna get you a parade." 

"You're happy?" you ask him. 

And there's so much to talk about: if you're ready for another baby, where the baby will fit, the mortgage and the car and the kids. Steve knows how it goes now, the hours upon hours of worrying and sorting and reassuring you and himself that it's something you can do if you want to. 

More than if you're ready – if you can handle another baby. If you're well enough to be pregnant again. He looks at your poor tired face and feels that crushing awe he always feels when you are, can’t believe that right now you have a whole huge process taking place that could potentially become another Avery, or Beth, or Dove. 

You sound like you want to do it. And if you want to, he's ecstatic. 

"Are you kidding me? Baby." He plasters you in kisses. Every inch of your face. You giggle wetly and you're holding Dove so tight that she starts to laugh too, the three of you breathing in funny wet huffs as he paints over your skin with his mounting affection. He loves you so much he might die right there. 

Beth appears in the doorway, quickly followed by Avery. The oldest is peeved. 

"Dad! You told me she wasn't sad!" she says, distressed. 

You laugh some more and are quick to comfort her. "I'm not sad, Avey-baby, these are happy tears." 

"Why?" 

You look at Steve with a precious, beaming smile. "You wanna tell them?" 

He gives you another smacking kiss on your cheek. "You're my everything," he says to you, eyes locked.

You sniffle and wipe your eyes with a huge smile. He turns to the girls and grins maniacally. 

"Mommy's got lice! They're sucking her blood and making her tired!" 

"Steve!" you try to scold, your surprised laughter breaking up any real malice. 

"And they're catching!" 

"Ew!" Beth shouts. 

Steve grabs Beth up and says, to her horror, "She already gave them to me, Bethie, and we have enough to go around."

He watches Ave cross the kitchen and hug your hip, still worried. You bend down to rub your nose against hers.

"Daddy, put me down! Now!" Beth screams, writhing away from him. She can’t escape his tight grip, practiced now in handling unhappy babies. 

"Don't be like that, Bethie. Sharing is caring." 

𓆩❤︎𓆪

thanks so much for reading! | my masterlist

Said groom begs out of appointments with such frequency that sometimes you forget to even tell him about one. Did you mention the dance class? Or are you prescient, able to intuit his answer without needing to bring it up? Why would your own fiancé ever willingly join you for something that wasn’t his idea?

Why did Brock ask you to marry him? That question keeps you up at night, as he snores from the other side of your too-large bed. 

You’ve been with Brock since college. You don’t remember what it feels like to get butterflies, just from the way he looks at you. His attention is certainly not as piercing as Steve’s softest gaze, because that man has never had an unsteady blink when you rely on his eye contact for reassurance. He probably wouldn’t blink, ever again, if that was what you needed. Brock doesn’t seem to mind how often you’re around the blond; time and again, he’s said how faithful you are, how loyal. He didn’t agree to Steve being in your wedding party, however, and it’s probably for the best because if Steve stood behind you while you told Brock you’d love him forever, it would feel like a betrayal of a relationship which never was. 

Loyalty to Brock feels an awful lot like mutiny when you’re swaying in circles with the man who keeps his promises. Steve’s hand is warm at the small of your back. When you take an unsure step, he squeezes your joined hands. ‘You can stand on my feet,’ he whispers when the instructor steps out of the room to take a call. If Brock were here, he’d be dragging you along with no discernable rhythm or form.

It’s not that you don’t get along with Brock; you root for the same sports teams, you like the same music, you both like to cook and he’s taken you on some of the best trips you could ever imagine. Sex is infrequent but fine. He’s just not… that nice to you. He says he loves you like he’s forecasting the weather. He wouldn’t let you put the soles of your new dance shoes on his dress shoes so you’d stop tripping. So.

You let yourself slip into the daydream. 

Stepping up onto Steve’s shoes, pressing your chest to his. Leaning your cheek against his chin. Closing your eyes. He’s humming, just a soft little tune. You’ve laid against his chest sobbing, before; touch is not an unfamiliar shared experience. Just not around Brock. Not because Brock would care. You’re not even sure your fiancé would notice. But–

“You don’t like him.” 

It comes out of your lips too fast, on a quick exhale like your mouth knows something your brain hasn’t realized. Steve doesn’t say anything. He rubs a circle over your spine. You try to pull back, to look up at him, but he holds fast. The instructor returns to the room and you hastily step down, catching your heel. Thanks to his steady grip on your hand, you manage to avoid falling, but the woman running the class gives you a disgruntled snort. 

Class is dismissed without Steve looking you in the eye once. He’s still at your elbow, but he’s quiet. He doesn’t turn the radio on in the car. He stares at the road. You can't bring yourself to break the silence, but all you want Steve to do is tell you whether you’ve made the right assumption. The street lights come on and the sky darkens, and you’re glad you can’t see the blank expression on his face anymore.

Two blocks from the apartment you share with Brock, he pulls over, shuts the car off, and rubs his chin. You fidget with your ring. He can’t help but clock your movement, and he grasps your wrist, interlacing your fingers like he usually does when you’re driving long-distance. Steve brings your hand closer, studying the bespoke diamond. 

“You’re not a diamond girl,” he murmurs. Finally, finally… he looks at you.

Two decades of friendship zip through your brain on a reel. Every time he’s given you that look, stripped of any teasing or inside jokes, distilled into one composite realization that Steve Rogers has always looked at you like that. Like you’re sunshine, or something rare and precious. But not a diamond, because he’s right. You hate that ring.

He leans back in his seat, letting your arm drape across the console so he can keep a tight hold on your hand, and he doesn’t look away. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” you peep, when he sighs for the thousandth time. 

“You were too excited, bug–how could I? The promising quarterback asked you out! I wasn’t sure your feet were ever gonna touch earth again.”

“Steve–I’ve been seeing him for almost a decade!” Heat rises in your cheeks. “Why didn’t you tell me the second you met him?”

He frowns. “Don’t think I haven’t been counting the days,” he says, and your heart lurches. 

“You should’ve said something.”

“Would you have listened?” Steve bites his lip for a second like he doesn’t want to let you know the whole truth. He thinks better of it, squeezing your hand. “I don’t have to live with him, buggy, so what does it matter? If you’re happy, I’m golden, you know that.”

You sink into the passenger seat. The inside of his car blurs into a landscape of watery glowing lights. 

“It’s just–” he stops. You turn your head away from him so he can’t see a droplet zing down your cheek. He plays with your engagement ring, twisting it. It doesn’t fit you but Brock never bothered to try to get it resized, so you figured you’d wait and get it sized with your wedding band. “This feels like the end,” Steve says.

“Tell me not to do it, then.”

He balks at the challenge just long enough that it hurts. “I’ll support whatever choice you make,” he says, knifing you between the ribs with his nobility. 

This isn’t your best friend, who drove three hours to help you move into the dorms freshman year and gave you all his unsolicited opinions about placement of your unironic Shrek poster. This isn’t Steve, who tells you if your spaghetti sauce needs more garlic, or your plants need less water, or your car needs an oil change. Whoever this is, he’s not the Steve you… you love. He’s hiding behind good intentions, and it is painful enough trying to riddle through your own muddled feelings about your impending wedding without him coming up short for reason, too. So, you push open the passenger door, and rip your hand out of his hold.

“Bug–” You slam the door on his pleading call, striding down the sidewalk in your flip-flops, with your dance shoes dangling off two fingers and your phone clenched in your fist so tight you’d surely shatter the screen (if it weren’t for the heavy-duty cover Steve bought for you). His door opens and shuts behind you, and he’s running after you. You’re at the corner when he catches up, snagging your elbow. “Listen to me–” he breathes. 

“What kind of girl am I?” you demand, forcing him to follow you over the crosswalk. Your tears are furious, and your feet ache. 

“Hey–”

“Steven!” You rip your arm free, dodging around an annoyed older couple who you nearly barrel into. “You exploded my life,” you say, swiping your hand under your nose. “You think I can marry a man I know you hate?”

“I don’t, honey, I don’t.” He pulls you to a bench and forces you to sit with his hands on your shoulders. He kneels in front of you.

“Oh my god! Do you know how many people spit on the sidewalk?”

He rolls his eyes and cups your cheeks. “You’re hysterical. I’m–shit, bug. I envy him.” Steve wipes away the fresh tears, and he chuckles at the stunned look on your face. “You’re my world. My buggy. How could I interfere in your happiness? Even if it hurts me not to. You’re allowed to make choices without my influence, and you should. Hmm? You went three hours away for college without asking if it was gonna rip my heart out of my chest.”

You can’t help the hiccough of a laugh. “There she is. It wasn’t very nice of you, you know.”

“You don’t own me,” you manage, despite the smile which threatens your cheeks. 

“I’m acutely aware of that, thank you.” He brushes your cheekbone. “I’m… trying. To make peace with the idea that You and Me aren’t always gonna be attached at the hip.”

“You did follow me to the city, you stalker.”

“You begged me for months!”

“You caved!”

“I did,” he says. His cheeks flush. Steve’s eyes can’t decide which of yours to study, but his stare is intense. “I don’t know what I’m doin’, here. But all I know is, if it was my name in curly script that you hand-wrote on a hundred invitations, you couldn’t keep me away from one second of planning our day.”

“I can’t even get rid of you now,” you say with a sad smile. You pull one of his hands from your face and press it between yours.

“So.” He shrugs. “Where is he? Huh? I feel like I’m the proxy for a dead man.”

You sigh. Your thoughts coming straight off Steve’s lips. “He says I’m better at ‘all this’ than he is. He ‘trusts me.’” 

“He’s–fuck.”

“You’re cursing a lot, bear.” 

His face lights up at the affectionate title. “I’m sorry I haven’t been truthful.”

“Lay it on me. Please.”

Steve promptly sits beside you, shoulder pressed to yours. You loop your arm with his and wait.

“I… yeah. I hate him,” he admits. “Brings out the ugliest parts of me. I never got jealous when you dated in school, but he made you draw a line, and I assumed (incorrectly or not) that it meant one day you’d have to stop talking to me. Which–when I called you from the bar? Remember that?”

You smile. “The day after Sam’s birthday? When you were shouting over the aggressive ABBA sing-along?”

“Yeah. I called Bucky, and I told him I needed him to take me out and get me wasted, and not ask me any questions.”

“He succeeded. You were barely intelligible–”

“Brock talked to me.”

The way your eyes widen has him nodding right away. “Yeah. He told me to play my little game, because you were never gonna leave him.”

“When the fuck did he say that?”

“After you told me he didn’t feel comfortable with me being your Man of Honor. I approached him on Sam’s birthday while you were doing the cake prep. Told him I hoped there were no hard feelings, that I was happy for you guys… he laughed in my face. He’s got a real ugly side when he drinks, bug.”

You swallow hard. “Jesus. I sent our invitations out before the party.”

“Yep. Which is why I couldn’t bring myself to tell you. The panic you would’ve had after two margaritas…”

“I would’ve gotten sick.”

He rubs your arm. “You were already so stressed out–”

“I had a panic attack at the post office. Mom had to pry the box out of my hands in front of a very concerned postal worker.”

“What–you did?”

“That’s why I cried when you handed me a drink,” you snort. Your head falls onto his shoulder. “Can I ask you a question? No frills.”

“Shoot.”

“Would you feel differently if I was engaged to someone you liked?”

“Hmm.” He glances down at you, but his face is shadowed with the street lamp behind him so you can’t fully tell what he’s thinking. But he points at your ring and holds out his hand. You slip your fingers into his without question. You know every groove in those fingers, by touch. He lifts your ring towards the amber glow. 

“No. I wouldn’t. I’d still lose you in every way that matters.” Your blood thrums in your ears as he works the massive diamond from your finger with ease. “If he knew you at all,” he murmurs, “there would be a garnet on this finger. 14k gold, small band. Initials engraved in the band–E.M.R.”

“Bear,” you breathe. The corner of his mouth turns up. He wiggles the end of his pinky into your ring, and then leans forward so he can kiss the imprint of the stone on your skin.

“But then–I’d be pretty pissed if he proposed with my grandmother’s ring,” he says softly. “You ever thought about it, buggy?” When he looks at you next, he’s so close to your face that you shiver. It doesn’t take much to press your forehead to his.

“At first, no… especially with our moms always talking about it,” you say. He laughs. “But you asked Peggy to prom senior year and I thought the earth was gonna fall out from under me.”

“I know the feeling.”

“Once I went off to school, I dreamed about you showing up at my dorm in the middle of the night to tell me you needed me. Breaks were worse, especially Summer when I could set my watch by your morning text, asking me what we were gonna do that day. But you grew up quick, and way less awkwardly than I did, and there was no way you’d ever, ever like me. So, when I met Brock, and he was the first guy besides you to ever think I was worth spending time around, it sorta felt like my only chance. I think… I think I knew you didn’t like him when I brought him home that first time. I convinced myself that you wouldn’t let me move to the city with Brock if you didn’t like him. I still can’t believe you moved here, too. Or that you’re here, right now–”

He kisses your temple, and your throat closes off for a second. “I have loved you since you hopped outta that moving truck when we were ten. I wanted to ask you to Prom, by the way, but you told me you were gonna go with Carol and Maria.”

Your eyes flutter open and you glare at him, mouth agape. “We’re idiots.”

He laughs. “Yeah, bug. A pair of dumbasses.”

“God.” Your fingers trace his jaw like it’s new territory. “I–I don’t think I like Brock, either.”

“No?”

You shake your head. “He’s not–whatever. He’s not you, Steve, and that makes him deficient in every way.”

He sits back from you, carding a hand through his hair, almost like he doesn't believe you. “What are you going to do?”

“Ask me.”

“What–”

You cup his cheek. “Not to marry him.”

It takes him two seconds to get with the program. Steve holds the engagement ring which is wrong for you between two fingers. He slides off the bench and kneels on the sidewalk once again, making you cringe, but at least you can see his eyes again—nearly green from the lamplight. He rubs your knee with his free hand. 

“Don’t put this back on. It’s not right for you to be with somebody who doesn’t jump at the chance to watch you learn to waltz.” When he smiles, your whole future settles into view. “But if you want to spend every day feeling like someone breathes because you do, then… I know a guy. And I know a ring, with my name on it. And if you’re game… could be your name too.” 

The lights bathe the entire street in some kind of magical glow, and this is exactly how you dreamed of Steve Rogers when you were a smitten teen. Well… not with his knees on concrete, with another man’s promise in his hand, but with that sweet smile… offering you a world which was always yours. You just didn’t know it until he offered. 

“My mom is gonna be pissed,” you breathe. “She just picked out her dress.”

Steve’s face breaks into a triumphant grin and he swoops his arms around you, twirling you around and around until you’re dizzy with laughter. When he sets you on your feet again, he hugs you so tight that you can feel his heart thumping. 

“She will get over not hosting a hundred person party. Your mom loves me, bug,” he murmurs.

“It’s easy to love you. Wait—“

He hovers over you, so tempted to kiss you, but he holds off when you touch his lips. 

“Once I give it back. Then I’ll kiss you.”

“And?” His ears perk up, and you can’t help but laugh.

“I’m yours.”

“Better get you home, then.”

“You are home, bear. Since we were ten.”

“If you don’t stop that, I might cry.”

You wrinkle your nose at him. “Come on.” You nod towards the prior block, where he is parked. He tucks Brock’s ring into the toes of your dance shoes, and practically skips back to his car. He pulls open the door for you, and jogs around to the driver’s seat. You’re hardly buckled before he’s peeling out.

–

Brock isn’t home. 

Leaving is easy when you look around a place where you lived with a person, who never liked your taste much. Staring at art he chose, and the colors he likes, and the fireplace he refused to use so he’d never have to clean it… it’s strange that you would ever have thought this was a life you could settle into comfortably. It’s not Steve’s place, which is filled with antiques from going upstate in the Summer with you, and funny paintings found at flea markets, and the constellation motif he let you paint on the ceiling of the bathroom when you both had one too many tequila shots. Nothing about Brock’s apartment draws you in, or makes you want to stay.

You set the ring on the counter, spotless from his meticulous cleaning routine, with a short note vague enough to leave Steve out of it, and clear enough to let him know that you’re calling off the wedding.

Then, you take your wedding dress out of the spare room closet where you buried it behind golf clubs Brock never used. Turns it out was bad luck for your impending nuptials for Steve to see you in it. 

When you descend the front stairs of your building, Steve is leaning against his car, nervously tapping his foot. 

“How’d it go?”

“He wasn’t there. I have no idea where he is. Haven’t heard from him all day,” you realize. “Couldn’t think of anything else to take.”

He clocks the garment bag over your shoulder and holds out a hand for it. “Ooh, you grabbed the gown,” he says appreciatively, hanging the hook over the ceiling handle behind the driver’s seat. 

“You never said you liked it on me.” You wink when he turns on you with panic. He scoffs.

“The things it made me think of were not gentlemanly to say at the time,” he chuckles, sitting in the driver’s seat again. Once you’re seated, he leans over and kisses your cheek. “You didn’t wanna grab clothes, or anything?”

“…Steven, I have two drawers of clothing at your place, and most of the time I’m over, I steal your shirts.”

That makes him grin. “What’s mine is yours, bug.”

“Your… lips?”

“Especially those.”

You’ve dreamed of kissing him since puberty. An embarrassing amount. Your first kiss was abysmal on principle, because it wasn’t with Steve. This kiss is twenty years of loving each other at arm’s length, demolished. He’s gentle, and the angle is difficult across the center console, but boy if it doesn’t feel like he was put on this earth to kiss you.

--

thanks for reading! :)

Like him, your relationship was also deeply complex. You fit perfectly into the Daredevil side of him; you always vehemently denied being a side-kick, but you helped in every way you knew how. Most notably in imprisoning Wilson Fisk, but you also supported every single one of his ventures. That was what Matt had needed, really. Someone who showed up. Someone who helped in a fight and cleaned him up after. He had never realised quite how lonely his life had become until you showed up with your sarcastic commentary and out-spoken nature.

It was Matt's daily life that you struggled to navigate. There was no easy way to introduce you to Karen or Foggy -- how could he? How could he ever explain that one? Because sure, you had a life and a day job but there was no good explanation for how someone like you and someone like him could ever cross paths. Moreover, how you could ever end up together.

None of the mattered when you were running across rooftops together, or ducking behind chimneys in tears of laughter as criminals ran by you. Nothing compared to the soft moments of stitching each other up, or secretly repairing Matt's suit whenever he went out to court in the day. Truth be told, you could have spent your life-time in that little bubble. Just you and him against the world; Daredevil and the person who helped him fight crime and was slightly less of a main character but definitely not his sidekick. The outside world was hard to ignore, though. Reality had to come creeping in eventually, seeping in through the cracks of your foundations like an unwelcome visitor to your safe-house.

You had a good few months - nearly a year - together before that fact become harder and harder to ignore. Even behind the soft morning together, and the stolen kisses during your night-time escapades, you could no longer ignore the obvious. Things were falling apart. Your relationship was steaming towards nothing but a dead-end and a bad-break up - but to give credit where it was due, it wasn't for lack of trying. You clutched at straws for weeks, trying to breath life into a dead horse; trying to revive what had once been. It just took a catalyst for things to things to really, properly end.

Income Frank Castle.

The man was a bastard, really. A killing machine with no remorse and zero concern for his consequences. Your first meeting with him had been on a rainy, dark night in the Hudson Yards. You'd both come for the same man - an ex-gang member - and you'd half expected Frank to kill you. And when the gang member did try to kill you, Frank hadn't left you for dead. He'd taken out your shared enemy and dragged you to the nearest hospital, leaving you outside in a bloody puddle for a medic to find you.

A lot of Frank Castle's enemies were your enemies too. Bad, bad people who you nor Matt ever found the courage to kill off; his being religious reasons, and yours being that you valued human life a little too much. Still, you found it easy to view Frank's crimes in a grey area. Maybe you even understood his reasons. You just never in a million years thought that that would be the straw that broke the camel's back. In fact, it felt like a lot more than just that. It felt like the bullet that wiped the camel dead to the floor.

So, you packed and moved out. Took your things across Hell's Kitchen to a shitty little apartment. It was nothing like Matt's place - no high ceilings or spacey living rooms. No bath tub or working elevator. Worst of all, there was no him. There was no Matt to come home to; no Matt to wake you up with coffee on your nightstand or to wrap his arms around you when things became a little too much.

Your new apartment, however, was on Frank Castle's new stomping ground.

Now that he was assumed dead, Frank had all the time in the world to carry out his revenge on some of the worst men in the city. At the same time, you carried out your own missions at night - mostly saving cats from trees and helping old ladies cross the road, but there was a little gang territory there too. Mostly in an attempt to avoid Matt, you kept yourself to yourself - but your shared interests meant that some of your work would over-lap with Frank's.

You weren't an idiot, and neither was he. He knew who Matt was. He knew who you were. He'd seen you lingering beside Matt at the trial - and he'd seen you both retire back to the same apartment at night. Frank also couldn't pretend not to notice that you'd stopped doing that now. That you and the Devil had completely parted your ways, right from working together down to where you slept at night.

Your work had never been influenced by Matt. It just so happened that you wanted to fight the same bad guys - at least that's what it had been up until you met the Punisher. After that, your perspective had changed a little.

And it was through that epiphany that you began to get a little...cockier. Started doing more dangerous things; chasing meaner criminals and using better weapons. It was fun at first, exploring the new found freedom you have. Maybe Matt had been more of a restraint than anything; with his strong beliefs and influence on, you'd always stuck to what you knew; mid-level crime fighting. Now, you were moving up in the world. One night it was gang-members, the next escaped prisoners. All bad people; all worst ones than before.

That was how you ended up almost bleeding out on a roof-top above one of Hell's Kitchens busiest bodega. During the dead of the night, you'd tripped and fallen in a fight - now you had a twisted ankle and your own knife lodged in your leg. That was not how you pictured yourself dying. Not that you'd even given it much thought, but some part of you figured Matt might have been by your side. It was just your luck that this was the one night he'd chosen to explore the other side of the Kitchen. Not the one you were dying on, sadly.

"Fuck," you muttered to yourself. You couldn't move; couldn't stand up or call for help. Not if you wanted to stay out of prison.

You jolted slightly when you heard the sound of foot-steps round the side of one of the water tanks on the roof.

"...Ma - Daredevil?" you quickly remembered not to use his name half-way through your cry. There was no answer. "I have a gun-"

"- no, you don't," a gruff voice cut you off. A moment later, Frank Castle appeared from the shadows. "If you had a gun, you wouldn't be bleeding out on the floor, would ya?"

Propping yourself up on your elbows, you let out a huff. Anyone else would have run away (or tried to, given your situation). Not you. You didn't feel the need to. Frank had saved your life before. You had the same enemies. What was the saying...the enemy of my enemy is not my friend because my ex hates his guts but I still trust him because we hate the same bastards? Yeah, something like that.

Frank knelt down beside you. "You shouldn't be going after the Kitchen Irish on your own. They're dangerous and that makes you stupid."

"Aren't you meant to be dead?" you asked. "I preferred it when you were dead."

"Okay, smart-ass, go easy," he huffed. "D'you want my help or not?"

"Fucking obviously," you muttered. "Please."

Frank shrugged off his jacket, placing it beside you for the minute. You ignored the fact he was covered head to do in what was presumably someone else's blood, choosing instead to watch as he tore off a shred of his shirt. He tied it tightly around your leg, creating some kind of make-shift tourniquet.

"So, no Red around to help you tonight, huh?" he asked.

"Not tonight," you murmured.

"Lover's quarrel-"

"- I don't wanna talk about it," you cut him off, "not when I'm about to bleed out on a roof-top."

"Each to their own," Frank grunted. "I'm gonna count to three, okay? And on three, you're gonna hop up and limp a few blocks with me, yeah? Just over that way towards Harlem."

"Yeah, okay," you nodded.

"Okay - one, two -"

Frank stopped, pulling you off the ground and up into his arms. You let out a yelp as you did, the shock of his sudden grip catching you off-guard. Your hands instinctively clung onto the fabric of his shirt - maybe it was support, maybe it was for comfort. You didn't know, but either way, you knew in your soul that he wouldn't drop you. Call it intuition if you will.

"That wasn't on three," you said through gritted teeth, barely able to talk through the pain.

"Right you are," Frank hoisted you up a little bit. He began the descent from the rooftop, both your weapons now tucked away in his back pocket. "But you wouldn't have got up on three."

"Yes, I would."

"Bullshit," his body shook beneath you as he chuckled. "I know humans. I know humans in pain. They don't do jack-shit at the best times, let alone with a knife in their goddamn leg."

"Look at you, Castle," you shot back. "Such an understanding man."

"Right," he rolled his eyes.

The two of you stayed silent for the rest of the walk back to...wherever the hell it was you were going. Did Frank even have an apartment? You'd always worked in the assumption that he slept in drains and rummaged for food from bins. Like a raccoon.

Still, it would have made sense for him to have a place to crash. He was clean shaven every time you saw him; his hygiene seemed pretty fucking impeccable too. Not like the rest of the crusty ass criminals lingering around the dark corners of New York. Their clothes were always thick with blood and caked in dirt. You figured, though, that if Frank was happy to commit vast amounts of homocide, he probably didn't draw the line at robbing an Old Navy mannequin of its clothes whenever he needed new ones.

Turns out that Frank did have a place - it was a few blocks south of Central Park, tucked away in the corner of a surprisingly nice building. It wasn't anything like you'd expected; neat, tidy, a little bare. That checked out though. He spent years in the military - a place that prided itself on routine and order. Everything was perfectly organised, from the boots by the door to the chipped mugs on the side. What you hadn't expected was for Frank to have a dog. The pit-bull was sat patiently in his little bed, completely unfazed by the sudden presence of two people drenched in red.

"Nice place," you broke the silence.

Frank placed you down on the sofa, giving a light shrug in response.

"Keeps me dry," he said. He shrugged his jacket off and tossed it aside, reaching for a bottle of vodka from the coffee table, then pressing it into your hand.

"No thanks," you shook your head. "Not much of a drinker."

"Sweetheart, I'm about to pull a knife out of your leg," Frank shot back. "I suggest you down that thing like it's the elixir of goddamn life, okay?"

"Right," you took the bottle in defeat.

Naturally, it tasted disgusting. Burnt the inside of your mouth and made you pull a face that elicited a snort from the Punisher himself. It was weird to see him like this - cracking jokes and sharing his alcohol with you. You'd spent the better part of two weeks watching his trial; watching as your then-boyfriend and his partner tried so hard to get him thrown in jail for the rest of his living days. That had been a stressful few weeks for Matthew. He'd been tired and cranky and...angrier than usual.

Sometimes you wondered if it had all been bad-timing. If everything bad had just come at once, and your relationship ending was merely collateral damage and there was no actual reason for it. Because if there was no reason for it, then maybe it could be fixed, right? Maybe you and Matt could reunite once more.

That wasn't the case, though. You remembered those few weeks; tired green eyes hidden behind red-rimmed glasses, fists bloody and cut up from how hard he'd hit the wall. Court documents scattered all over the kitchen table and tense conversations over dinner. The arguments, the tip-toeing around one another, the weight of the world on your fucking shoulders. Maybe your relationship wasn't toxic or mean but hell, it had brought you too much grief. Your lives were too hectic and chaotic to ever consider the idea of fully loving another person. At least each other.

"Mother fucker!"

Your voice cried out through the apartment - in his defence, Frank had given you a warning before he pulled the blade out your leg. If you hadn't been too busy thinking about your ex, you might have heard him.

"Ah, so you are here," Frank muttered. "You zoned out. I thought you'd died or something."

"No such luck," you groaned in pain.

"Deep in thought, huh?" he asked.

"Something like that."

"This next part is gonna hurt too," he said.

The next few minutes were tense; you never thought that you could have sterilised wounds with vodka, but the more you know. By that point, you'd experienced so much distress that you barely felt Frank stitching you up. He recounted some old story from the war in an attempt to distract you, but you couldn't have recalled a single detail of it.

"The good news is that you're not gonna die," Frank declared, wrapping a bandage around your leg. "The bad news is that you're gonna have an ugly scar."

"Makes a good story round the dinner table, though," you replied.

"Sure does," he agreed. "You ever been shanked through the leg before this?"

"A couple times, but not that deep," you replied. "I used to get stitched up by someone that...that Red knew."

"So your boy had his own medic?" he took a seat beside you, eyebrows raised.

"Not quite," you shook your head. "Just a nurse with a good heart."

"And your boy never stitched you up? Not once?" Frank asked.

"He did," you said. "He tried to keep me out the fight a lot, though. Never liked me getting involved all that much."

Frank snorted. "That's bullshit. You can hold your own better than him."

"You've saved my life like twice now," you reminded him. "I wouldn't call that holding my own."

"I know. You pretended to be a lawyer so you could break into the interview room and be all gracious on my ass, remember?" he said. "I mean shit like that. Shit that you do. You're naive as fuck but I have mad respect for you."

"Naive?!"

"You brought a knife to a gunfight with one of New York's filthiest gangs," Frank explained. "Fought Fisk for what...two years?"

"Two and a half," you corrected him.

"There you go, then - you might be naive, but you got heart," he said. "Never lose that."

You saw a lot more of Frank after that night. Maybe you wouldn't go as far as to say you were friends, but you'd definitely upgraded from man who saved my life once to man who saved my life twice and has a questionably decent sense of humour. Because despite him being rugged and rough around the edges and just a tiny, tiny bit vengeful, you felt safe with Frank - at least when you were on the right side. You figured he might have not given you such a warm welcome if you were still with Matt.

That subject didn't come up for the first few weeks of your odd...partnership, was it? Whatever it was, it had started with Frank always just happening to be right where you were. Whenever you set your sights on your next target, he'd be there to help you. Even if it was the most minor thing in the world, like the guy who had held up your favourite bagel store last week, or the woman who scammed your neighbour. The most menial, harmless people who you just wanted to rough up a little bit. He'd be there.

You didn't question. You didn't want to question it, mainly because you feared for the answer. Who was Frank roughing up every night in order to get your location? Maybe he was just stalking you.

On the second or third week - of which almost every night had been filled with his alarming presence and increasingly deep chats - he finally brought Matthew up. You knew it was coming eventually. All your past ventures as a vigilante had involved him. There was a lot of history and it had to come out at some point.

You were perched on some scaffolding uptown, having extended your search for ones of the Dogs of Hell slightly past the Kitchen. It felt safer in a way, because you knew Matt wouldn't be around to hear anything. Maybe that's why Frank had waited til that specific moment to ask.

"So," he began. "You and Red - what's the deal there?"

"There isn't one," you replied. "Not anymore."

"What, he dump you or something?"

"It was a mutual dumping," you shot back. "Nothing in particular happened. I mean...shit happened, but that's exactly it. Life just got in the way. Kinda beyond our control."

Frank snorted. "C'mon. You don't just end a relationship because shit happened, that's not how love works-"

"- right, because you're the world's leading expert, aren't you?" you cut him off. "It was strangling the life out of us and it became more effort than it was worth."

Frank glanced over at you, uncharacteristically silent for a moment. He had a lot of grievances with Matt Murdock - a lot - but right then, his number one reason for beefing with him was that he hadn't tried just a little harder to keep you around. Because Frank hadn't known you long, but he did see something in you. Something of value; not to just to him, but to every human in the world. You'd fought and you'd maimed people just as much as he or Matt had, but you hadn't lost your spark. You were still outspoken and sarcastic even in the face of death; you never gave up a fight and you seemed to take every inconvenience in your stride. Not many people rolled with the punches like you did.

Frank couldn't deny that he didn't know you all that well. Not in the way Matt did. The only image he had of you was the one you had shown him. Still, it was more than enough for Frank to start wondering if Matt was just a little bit crazy for letting you slip through his fingers.

"He didn't fight for you?" Frank asked. "I know the man doesn't beg but hell, he didn't even push a little bit?"

"He was so tired at that point that he practically held the fucking door open," you quietly replied. "Him and I were never meant to happen, really. We were kidding ourselves for a long time."

"But you loved him?"

"Of course I did," you didn't mean to snap, but what kind of fucking question was that?

"And he loved you?"

You glanced over at him. "Yeah - and before you give me spiel on I would have fought my wife a thousand times over because I lost her just remember that there were times where I almost did lose Matt. Where he almost lost me. And we still couldn't make it work."

"Fuck," Frank muttered. "You predicting my lectures now?"

You shrugged. "Clearly, I'm spending too much time around you."

"Can I just ask you one more thing?"

"Well, there's no sign of the bastard we're looking for, so..."

"Did he protect you?"

You thinned your eyes at him. "Course he did."

"No, I mean did he really protect you?" Frank pushed.

You swallowed, trying to ignore the question. Deep down, you knew that Matt would have done anything for you - almost anything. If it came down to him having to end someone's life to save yours, you knew how it would have gone. That was a far fetched scenario for most but one that you almost found yourself in far too many times. Every time, you and Matt had both escaped alive. You'd made it out without him having to make that decision. That was just dumb lucky really.

"I know what you're getting at Frank," you murmured. "You're pointing to the fact that I would kill for him, but he wouldn't kill for me."

"You said it. Not me."

You let out a derivative snort, standing up. "Why the fuck do you care? Why are you asking so many questions?"

"I'm making conversation-"

"- so ask me about my day then! Or...my favourite shows!" you exclaimed.

"Okay, fine," Frank held his hands up in surrender. "How was your day?"

"Shitty," you snapped. "No thanks to you."

He didn't try to follow you when you up and left. You were glad about that.

You kept to yourself for a few days; stewing in annoyance at Frank and a little in heart-break. Even though it had been nearly four months since you and Matt had broken up, there was still hurt there. You didn't feel much for him anymore but you had, at some point, loved him. For the better part of two years, in fact. It just left an ache in your chest to know that it had been a little one-sided. You managed to fit him into every aspect of your existence, but Matt had only ever made room for you in one side of his life. You'd given him your all. He'd half-assed it.

Rather than going out at night, you stayed in your apartment. The city was safe in the hands of Frank and Matt - maybe not so much if they ever crossed paths, but you knew for a fact they actively avoided one another. It was a miracle that Matt had retired the idea of taking out Frank; instead, he just focused his energies else-where.

After three nights of staying in, you were woken one night by a tapping at your bedroom window. It was not long after midnight, and your first instinct was to reach for your newly acquired gun. You'd done so on The Punisher's advice.

Speaking of the Devil (not that one, though), Frank was relieved to be greeted by the sound of the safety clicking off. It meant you were taking what he'd said seriously. That knives did jack shit and that at least bullets went through walls.

"Attagirl."

"What the fuck, Frank?!" you demanded, kicking the sheets aside. "You can't break into my house-"

"- there was word on the street that you were dead," Frank cut you off. "I ain't seen you for days, either. How was I to know better than the fact you're just holing up in here watching Friends?!"

"Why would I be dead?" you asked.

"Just word on the street," he quietly said. "I was beating the shit outta one of the rats from the Cartel and they just...they said something of concern, that's all."

You let out a sigh, tossing the gun aside.

That was the first time you saw Frank getting...bothered. He had no reason to care about you; certainly not one enough to break into your goddamn house at some ungodly hour.

"Well, I'm alive!" you declared.

"Really? Here I was, thinking I was having a good ol' chat with your ghost ," he deadpanned. "It would just be nice if you gave me some of warning when you're gonna fuck off for days at a time like that, yeah?"

"How?" you pushed. "I don't have your number, Frank. Every time I've met you before this, you've just rocked up outta the blue."

"Okay, I'll give you that," he muttered.

You dropped back into your bed, reaching out towards your night-stand. There was a moment of fumbling - and one of tossing around random crap - before you produced an old flip phone.

"Take this," you tossed it at him. "It's a burner phone. I've got the number saved in my phone and mine is saved to that one too."

"Thank you," Frank replied. "D'you mind if I stay for a while? It's fucking freezing out there."

You pondered for a moment - Frank Castle in your home? What a weird fucking thought. Had he asked you a few weeks ago, you would have run in the opposite direction. He wasn't the same man anymore to you, though. He was no longer the Punisher. He was Frank Castle, who you now knew like an old friend. You knew that he was a terrible singer and that his favourite band was Guns N' Roses. You knew that he was partial to a good Taylor Swift song and that he could barely shoot with his left hand. You knew him.

"Sure," you shrugged.

Pulling aside the covers, you shuffled over so that Frank could join you. He kicked off his boots and jacket - you were pleasantly surprised to see that for once in his life, he wasn't drenched in blood. There was just a black t-shirt and sweats; ones that felt comfy against your bare legs as he slipped into the bed beside you.

You weren't sure what was happening, even less so why you were letting it happen. Nothing had made much sense since you and Matt had broken up, and you'd just stopped questioning the why's of things a long time ago. Frank was a steady presence and that was what you needed in that moment.

Neither of you said anything when you woke up the next morning, still in the same bed. You'd completely fallen asleep on Frank's side and he'd instinctively wrapped his arms around you. It felt natural - like you were supposed to be there with him, bundled up in blankets and saying nothing at all. It was like two pieces of a completely different puzzle that had fit together nicely. It also made a picture that made absolutely no fucking sense but...wasn't art subjective? Whatever picture it created, whatever confusing reality became of it, you liked it. Frank liked it. It was a weird, unreadable abstract piece but it brought comfort.

"We're gonna have to get up at some point," you murmured.

"I ain't got anywhere to be," Frank replied. "Do you?"

"Absolutely not," you said.

"Good," he muttered. "I gotta get some rest anyways if I'm gonna keep beating up bad guys for you."

"With me," you corrected him. "You might bring a certain amount of power but I have the brains."

"I'm not so sure you do, sunshine," he snorted.

"Complain all you want but I know you enjoy protecting me," you shot back. "You wouldn't keep showing up otherwise, would you?"

"I'm doing it outta the good of my heart," Frank insisted.

"I'm pretty sure you have a revolver where your heart should be, Frank Castle."

He knew then that he would do much more for you than Matt Murdock ever would. He wouldn't just stop at wiping out someone for you - he would do it to anyone who just hurt you. Whether it was one person or ten. Even a hundred. You'd accidentally become important to him and like hell was he gonna sit around and not protect you within every inch of his life.

It was a complicated situation to navigate, though. Frank wasn't good with feelings at the best of times, let alone when it came to the ex-partner of his sworn enemy. That territory was beyond complex. It was filled with land-mines and hidden traps and god knew what else. It was one that he couldn't even begin to deal with - but it was also one he couldn't run away from.

Things only continued on that up-hill trajectory after your morning together. Frank would stop by a few nights a week when he didn't see you, or you'd come stumbling back to his after a fight. You always said it was to see Max, your new favourite pit-bull, and Frank would always pretend to agree. It was nothing to do with the fact that you were the first person he'd loved in almost a decade, or the fact that you only ever felt safe with him.

There were some complications though.

Complications being that Frank knew some part of you would always love Matt.

In the same way you could never take away his love for Maria, Frank could never take away your love for Matt. Even if you stopped being in love with him, the man still had a piece of your heart. Whatever version of you had existed in the two years you spent together lived on in your memories. It lived on in the fact you saw Matt everywhere you looked in Hell's Kitchen; your favourite bar, the place you had your first kiss, the roof-top you'd first dropped the L-word.

Frank knew that. He knew even more that someone as bright and as sparky as you should end up with the guy with morals. A guy like Matt.

So, he just swallowed it down. It didn't mean that Frank stopped seeing or hanging out with you - in fact, things just stayed the same. That weirdly intimate limbo that you found yourself in just carried on. You continued to fall asleep with him and wake up beside him. The banter and flirty conversations persisted. Anything more than that was scary. Anything less was even worse.

Frank was good at hiding the fact he didn't like talking about Matt. It was just as well really, because neither did you. You just wanted to shut that history down and move on. Whether that meant with Frank, you weren't sure. All you knew was that Matthew Murdock belonged in the past. The future, however, was uncertain.

By three or so months into your little adventure with Frank, you had a routine. It differed from night to night but generally, you would always call or text him by 9PM. Sometimes, it was the location of where you wanted to meet. Other times, it was just a message to check in and let him know you were staying in that night. Either way, it brought comfort to him to always know that you were safe, even if the random emojis you sent never showed up on his shitty little flip-phone.

Naturally, when Frank hadn't heard from you for a day or two, he became worried. He brushed off the fact you hadn't texted him for one night; maybe you were busy. Maybe you'd fallen asleep. There was a million reasonable explanations for one goddamn night.

But two? No. He couldn't believe you would go two whole nights without contacting him, or making an appearance at his door. It had become such a common occurrence that it felt out of character for you to be so absent. Something was up.

Your apartment was empty, but your phone was there. That in itself was a massive sign that things were wrong, because the device was like a fifth limb for you. There was untouched food on the stove and a half-eaten pot pie on the side. That was wrong too. You weren't messy. Your apartment was always spick-and-span. Cluttered, yes, but messy? No.

Frank might as well have gone out his fucking mind looking for you. There weren't many places you could be - at least not ones you could go without telling him. If your passport was still in your nightstand, and wallet still in your bag, you couldn't have gone far. At least he could limit your location down to the whole of North fucking America, right?

The last place he checked was the one he'd been dreading the most.

Matt Murdock's place.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't the most realistic place for you to be, but Matt might have known something. Frank hated that he had to turn to him in order to protect you, but that was the main thing - he was protecting you. Or at least trying to.

"Red!" he yelled from outside the door. "I know you're in there! It's...it's important. It ain't nothing to do with me or you, it's about-"

Frank stopped talking when the door opened. He knew that Matt Murdock was going to be on the other side, but it felt startling to see him outside of the red suit. At least when the matter was to do with...vigilante business.

"You've got some nerve showing up at my door, Frank Castle-"

"- is she here?" he demanded. "Is (name) here?"

"What do you want with them?"

"I ain't seen my girl in days, Murdock," Frank pushed past Matt, entering the apartment. "I'm going out of my fucking mind!"

"Your girl?" The words rolled off of Matt's tongue with confusion.

"I...I can't go into it right now," he admitted. "I just need to know if she's safe."

"She is," Matt said. "She's in the bedroom."

"In the...are you fucking kidding me?"

Frank Castle wasn't a quiet person. His voice carried through walls - multiple walls. And when you heard it, you immediately came to find him.

It looked...questionable. You, exiting Matt's room. In his clothes, no less. What looked even worst was the bruise around your eye and your split lip. You'd been beaten up pretty badly and Frank's brain was working so goddamn quickly that he couldn't piece together a single explanation. At least not one that he liked.

"Frank?" you gently greeted him.

"H-hey," he stuttered. "You wanna tell me what's goin' on?"

Your eyes fell to the floor. "Not really."

"Of course," he snorted. "Why would you owe me an explanation, huh? Why would you owe me anything after..."

He trailed off, then stopped completely.

"After what?" Matt interjected.

"I've saved your girl's ass twice," Frank glanced between the two of you. "You wanna tell him about that, huh? How I rescued you when you two were still together? About how you stole his bar card to sneak through the court and see me?"

"Frank," you tried to reach out to him. "You're getting the wrong end of the stick."

"Yeah, no," he snorted. "I don't think I am."

"Will someone just tell me what the hell is going on?!" Matt demanded.

"You wanna know what's going on, Red, huh?" Frank turned to face him. "We've spent every day over the last three months together. You know what she's like, don't you? Clumsy as fuck and all brave heart. A certified dumb-ass, right? Yeah, well, I helped her fight. Helped her wipe out Kitchen Irish and the Cartel. Stitched her up and all. Looked out for her, lost sleep over her. And then she disappears off the face of the fucking Earth for two goddamn days and I go out my skull trying to find her, and...she's here. With you. All in cahoots, even though I know for a goddamn fact that you don't deserve her for a second."

"Frank!" you snapped. "If you would shut the hell up for just one second and let me explain yourself, you'll see that you've got the wrong idea!"

"You're in his bedroom, in his clothes," he dejectedly said. "Don't lie. Don't act like I'm a fool-"

"- I was kidnapped," you cut him off. "The Cartel kidnapped me, okay? And Matt rescued me. That's all it is."

Matt, who had completely given in on trying to understand what the fuck was going on, gave a shrug. So what if you were gallanting about town with Frank Castle? That wouldn't have even been the weirdest thing he'd seen this week. It didn't mean that the idea of you and Frank completely killed him inside, but he didn't have the energy to bring it up. Your relationship was dead to the world. Nothing he could say or do would bring you back, so why bother trying? He was just grateful he'd rescued you in time - and maybe a little ostentatious that Frank hadn't.

"She's telling the truth," Matt said. "I don't know what's going on between you two - and frankly, I don't want to know - but I can assure you that we're not in cahoots."

"See?" you urged. "Just...you just gotta listen to me, Frank. Okay?"

"You two clearly need to talk - and I need to go for a walk whilst I get my head around this whole thing," Matt announced. "Feel free to be gone when I get back."

A silence fell over the apartment as he picked up his jacket and left. Did you feel guilty? Absolutely.

Guilty that you'd worried them both; guilty that Matt had been dragged into the middle of the situation. Most of all, you felt guilty that you were realising your love for Frank Castle right in the middle of your ex's living room. Only about six feet away from the very place you'd both once laid your heads, amongst...other things.

"The Cartel got me the other night," you quietly began. "Dragged me off the street when I went out to grab some shopping. They were trying to get through me to get to you and...well, Matt got to me. Took a couple hours but he saved my ass, just because he'd been patrolling that area by chance."

"They wanted to get to me?" Frank's eyes flickered up from the floor.

"Yeah. They thought we were...in cahoots," you tried to fight back a smile at the phrase. "I told them they were wrong but hell, Frankie, now I ain't so sure."

He scrunched up his nose. "I was always worried about Red. Thought you were always gonna have feelings for him and all that."

"I'm always gonna care for him, but I don't love him anymore," you said. "That's the difference."

"The difference between what?"

"Between him and you - I don't love Matt."

"I know I said earlier that I ain't stupid but hell, are you even speaking English right now?"

"I love you!" you blurted. "Is that clear enough for you?"

"Clear as fucking day."

Frank reached out towards you, taking you by the waist. He crashed his lips on yours, a large hand resting on the back of your head. You know that feeling after you've been underwater for a long time and you come up for air? That's what it felt like. As though you were finally breathing after weeks and weeks of holding your breath; as though you needed his touch the same way you needed air in your lungs.

"You're gonna have to be patient with me, because I don't know what the hell I'm doing," Frank admitted, resting his forehead against yours. "What I do know is that I love you too. And I'm going to protect you with my life, okay? I ain't ever leaving your side from now on. I'm finding the men that hurt you and I'm going to maim them."

"How romantic."

"Heck, I'll get Red to help me-"

"- yeah, I don't think he will," you fought back a smile. "You know I'm gonna have to talk to him later, right? I owe him an explanation. Not that I can explain a single second of this."

Frank smiled. "Yeah, I know. For now, though, just....just-"

"- just what?"

"Just kiss me."

Do they not have furniture up there? You thought mildly as you stared for what was probably too long at the grounded seraph in the middle of an IKEA. A few strands of his blonde hair fell onto his forehead, his chiseled jaw set with a deep frown. He had the same perplexed dread on his face that you had had on yours moments ago, staring out at the swirling snowstorm that had swallowed up the landscape. After a moment, his eyes darted to you, and he seemed to come back to himself, taking a deep breath and running a hand through his hair.

“Sorry about that ma’am,” he said gently, his full pink lips upturned slightly. His eyes—the most gorgeous shade of blue you’d ever seen—flicked back towards the storm, his shoulders deflating a little with defeat. “How did it get so bad? I was in here for ten minutes…” he mumbled, shaking his head.

“Folks, we’re gonna have to wait this one out,” someone else said, and you turned to find the store manager, Bruce, his nametag said, standing along with you and Blonde Gabriel at the doors, his hands on his hips. It was only then that you noticed the gaggle of people surrounding you, about eight other employees and twenty unfortunate souls who had decided to do some shopping during a snowstorm, you included.

You turned to look outside again, and there wasn’t a doubt that Bruce was right. There was no way anyone could drive in the middle of all that unless they had it out for themselves. You couldn’t even see your car, and you had snagged a spot right in front of the store.

Bruce sighed deeply, giving his employees a wordless look before glancing at his watch and up at the rest of you. “We close in about two hours, so hopefully it clears up by then. I’ll make a few calls to see about plows coming down here, but in the meantime…make yourselves comfortable,” he said, taking one last look at the storm before walking towards the back of the store.

You glanced back at the angel to see he had taken out his phone, furiously typing away at the screen, running his hand through his hair again. You guessed it was a stress habit he had, and you found yourself wishing you could replace his hand with yours.

“Can I help you with anything?”

You jumped a little, startled by the voice that thankfully pulled you out of your thoughts before they got too self-indulgent.

“I’m so sorry,” the employee in question said, her brow creased with worry. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” she said, her Eastern European accent wavering.

You shrugged away her worry, giving her a bright smile. “It’s okay…” you made a quick sweep of her auburn hair, her dark makeup, her nametag that said WANDA in block letters. “…Wanda. I’m fine, just bummed about the snow,” you said, jerking your thumb at the doors.

She scoffed, glaring at the storm as if she could control it with her mind alone. “After this, I’m moving to Tahiti,” she joked, and you laughed along with her. You were about to tell her to save you a seat on the plane when she frowned at something past your shoulder. “Stevie, you okay?”

It took you a moment to realize she was addressing the angel —Stevie . He was still typing away on his phone, his thumbs flying furiously. He let out a long sigh, looking up at Wanda and giving her a genuine, albeit stressed, smile.

“I’m good Wan, just telling Bucky off for sending me out in the blizzard of a lifetime,” he mumbled, frowning down at the device as if it were actually the offending ‘Bucky’. “Wait for me if it clears up, I’ll give you a ride home,” he told Wanda, offering another small grin to the both of you before walking off, placing his phone to his ear.

“You know him?” The words slipped out of your mouth before you could stop them, your voice painfully wistful as you watched him go. You cringed, looking over at Wanda to find her grinning at you knowingly.

“I do, unfortunately,” she said rolling her eyes. “He works with my brother. And often gets into trouble with my brother,” she deadpanned. “Do you know Steve?”

“Uh, no, we just met. Kinda,” you said, looking towards where he retreated. You swore there was a trail of pixie dust on the ground following his tracks.

“Do you  want  to know Steve?”

You looked at Wanda, that knowing smirk still on her face as if she could see all of the not-so-savory thoughts that had passed through your head moments ago. You could feel heat blaze on your neck, and you huffed out a nervous laugh, looking down at the wicker mail basket that you had forgotten you were holding.

“You know, I still didn’t pay for this. I should go do that,” you said, holding it up for Wanda to see.

She just cocked an eyebrow at you, turning in the direction of the register. “Okay then. Follow me, and I’ll ring you up,” she said, beckoning you to follow her.

You sighed, placing a cool hand on your embarrassingly warm cheek. You took one last glance at where your angel had disappeared to, hoping he’d choose to stay here on earth just a little while longer.

***

Two hours later, and things weren’t exactly looking up. A chorus of groans rang out in grim harmony as Bruce doled out the bad news to the crowd of shoppers.

“Are you serious? My kids are still with the sitter, I need to get home,” one lady complained, flapping her arms with exasperation.

Bruce shuffled nervously, wiping his glasses on the corner of his blue uniform vest. He had a sort of twisted, constipated look on his face, and you couldn’t help but feel bad for the poor guy. “I’m sorry ma’am, but that doesn’t look like it’s gonna happen tonight. The Department of Transportation rep was pretty adamant that the plows won’t be here until early morning.”

“Wait a second, the morning? So, you mean we’re actually stuck here? For the entire night? This is ludicrous!” another man exclaimed, a wave of murmuring bubbled up amongst the other patrons, growing louder and louder despite Bruce’s best efforts to mitigate the situation.

“Settle down, everyone.”

The angel’s— Steve’s —voice cut through the chatter with ease, all other voices dying down in response to his authoritative tone. He hadn’t even raised his voice, his words alone commanding respect and compliance without even trying. He stood towards the back of the group with Wanda, his shoulders squared, his jaw set, his entire figure composed and in full control as his gaze swept over the rest of his fellow patrons.

You weren’t sure if you wanted to salute or get on your knees.

“Look, this is a stressful situation for all of us. I get that,” Steve began calmly, his tone taking on more warmth. “I’m sure none of us saw this coming when we woke up this morning, but we’re here, and there’s nothing we can do about it. We’re all trying our best here, and Bruce is right,” he said, gesturing in the direction of the front entrance. Everyone else seemed as enraptured as you, all eyes trained on him with no protest. “The snow is still coming down bad, and even if the plows could make it out here, it would still be dangerous. At the very least, we’re in a warm, dry place with comfortable furniture we can hang out on until morning.” He sounded so sure, so unwavering, that you couldn’t help but believe what he was saying, to hold onto his words like an anchor out at sea.

“And food,” Bruce chimed in, looking measurably more at ease. “We still have plenty stocked in the café, including the meatballs. There’s coffee too.”

“And we have a projector in the back,” Wanda added. “We can hook it up to a tablet and put on Netflix.”

“Perfect, dinner and a movie,” Steve said enthusiastically, opening his arms in appeal to the others. “Can’t get any better than that, right? We’ll make the most of this. It’ll be fun, like a…a—”

“Sleepover?” another lady blandly finished for him, crossing her arms over her chest.

Steve chuckled, ducking his head a little. “Not exactly the word I was fishing for, but that works too,” he said, glancing up sheepishly. He straightened again, placing his hands on his hips, some authority returning to lines of his figure. “Let’s get this party started.”

He made his way over to Bruce, the two of them beginning to plan out whatever needed to be done, and Wanda made her way over to you, shaking her head and grinning fondly over at Steve. “He’s good at that, right?” she said, snorting lightly.

“It was quite the rousing speech,” you said mildly, ignoring the heat that threatened to invade your cheeks.

“Trust me, he sounds even better when he’s drunk,” Wanda said with a small chuckle. You laughed at that, and she regarded you for a moment with a calculating look, as if she were trying to take you apart and see what you were made of from the inside, out. She must have liked what she saw, because she grinned at you, tilting her head towards the other side of the store. “The projector’s in the back, and I bet we can find a white sheet to hang up, too,” she said, turning and heading towards the rear, following the main aisle that ran through the whole store.

You jogged a little to catch up to her, various room and furniture displays lining either side of you. It was almost like you were stuck in a human-sized dollhouse that some cruel, giant child had trapped you in for their amusement.

It didn’t take long for Wanda to find the projector, and the two of you managed to find a large white tarp to hang up. You found a good spot that would accommodate the group, pushing couches together to create a makeshift home theater. All the while, Wanda talked about her childhood, and leaving Sokovia when she and her brother were young. You told her about yourself, maybe a little too much, but it was surprisingly easy to talk to her and fill in the silence as you worked, despite only knowing her for less than an afternoon. The two of you were just about finished hanging the tarp when someone came and interrupted.

“Uh, Wanda?”

The two of you turned to find one of her coworkers, a lanky, brown-haired kid who couldn’t have been past 17, his hands and feet shuffling with nervous energy.

Wanda sighed, giving him a bland look. “What is it, Parker?”

He turned a little pink, scratching at the back of his head and tugging at his collar. “The toaster oven is acting up again,” he blurted quickly, as if he had said something forbidden. “We tried to jiggle the chord like you do, but...” he trailed off, haplessly shrugging his shoulders.

Wanda shook her head at him, sending a side-eyed look your way, and you bit your lip to keep from smiling. “This place would fall apart without me,” she murmured, more to herself than you or the kid, gesturing for him to follow her towards the back again.

You looked over the little movie set up one more time, adjusting some couches and making sure the projector was in a good spot. You eyed the tarp and noticed one of the corners was hung a little unevenly. You probably should have waited until Wanda came back to fix it, but you figured you could handle one corner on your own. You carefully climbed the ladder the two of you had found, holding on with one hand while the other attempted to fix the tarp.

“You know, you really shouldn’t use a ladder unsupervised like that.”

You jolted, the ladder shifting enough to make you yelp, grabbing onto it for dear life with both hands, tarp be damned.

“And I probably shouldn't startle you on a ladder like that, shit,” the deep voice chastised itself, a pair of large hands bracketing your waist to steady you and the ladder. “Easy, take your time stepping down,” the man said, his hands holding you steady as you made your way down. You turned around, ready to tell the man not to worry about it, but your voice caught in your throat.

Because it was your angel.

Steve .

Standing right in front of you like a dream. He was even more breathtaking up close.

For a moment, you just stood there, your mouth slightly agape, your brain working overtime to formulate words it could push out of your vocal cords. Your eyes swept over the golden waves of his hair, the sharp line of his jaw, the spattering of freckles that dotted his cheek and neck, until you finally gazed into the blues of his irises, cerulean swirls mingling with whisps of emerald. And his eyelashes—

“Are you alright, ma’am?” he asked, slicing through the murky mess of your mind. There was a small wrinkle between his brows, concern riddled over his prepossessing features. When you didn’t respond right away, the wrinkle grew deeper and he glanced over you, no doubt trying to figure out if you had, in fact, hit your head on the way down and sustained brain damage.

“Hi,” you finally blurted out, your voice a couple of octaves too high.

You wanted the ground to swallow you whole.

Steve’s face lightened up a little, a whisper of a grin beginning to form on his lips, though the concern was still there. “Hi,” he said back, amusement dancing in that one syllable.

It grew quiet again, the two of you unsure how to proceed with what was already an incredibly awkward encounter. That’s when you both realized how close you were to each other, and your gazes both trailed slowly down to Steve’s hands, which were still firmly holding onto your middle. Even then, he held on for a second longer than necessary, his fingers dragging along the fabric of your shirt as he pulled them away from you, reaching up to smooth over his hair with a light chuckle.

“Uh, you’re Wanda’s friend,” he said haltingly, jerking his hand back towards you for a shake. “I’m Steve, nice to meet you.”

You marveled at the dichotomy of the man in front of you, the one who had not long ago commandeered a group of strangers, who now seemed a little flustered and nervous just talking to you. You took his hand and shook it, vines of electricity zipping up your arm from the contact.

“Nice to meet you, Steve. I’m Y/n,” you said, desperately trying to keep the breathy wonderment out of your voice.

He smiled at you, and there was another pause, the air thick with a tension you couldn’t quite place. You scrambled for something to say,  anything to say, when a pinging sound rang out, Steve’s face dropping as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. He groaned audibly, pinching his eyes shut and opening them again, shaking his head at the screen.

“Everything okay?” you asked carefully, resisting the urge to smooth out the frown on his face.

He puffed out some air, his cheeks inflating a bit as he swiped a few more times on his phone. “Yeah, just some work stuff I had to get done. It’s infuriating to do without a laptop, and the service in here is pretty shoddy anyway.”

“Ah,” you said, nodding slowly. “Well, I’m sure your boss will understand considering the circumstances. And if not, I’m pretty sure we’re only one more billionaire space race away from the proletarian revolution.”

You immediately wanted to kick yourself for trying to make a stupid joke, but your regrets dissolved as soon as Steve laughed, his whole body leaning back a little, his hand clasped against his impressively broad chest.

“Gosh, I needed that,” he said once he settled down, that damn smile lighting up his features again, sending a torrent of butterflies through your gut. He glanced up at you and lifted his shoulders helplessly, stuffing his hands in pockets. “This sucks, doesn’t it?” he breathed out, sounding relieved that he could finally give voice to his own negativity, to deflate and let it go, away from the ears of the angry mob.

You gave him a sympathetic smile, quirking your own shoulders up a bit. “It does, but like you said before, it could be worse. We could’ve gotten stuck in a Wal-Mart,” you said with a shudder.

He laughed again, and you couldn’t help the swell of pride that rose in your chest, the warmth that spread through you at the sight of him growing a little lighter.

“What exactly had you out in this storm, anyway?” you asked as you began to meander together along the main aisle towards the cafe. “Something about a Bucky, you said...”

“Don’t remind me,” he said, rolling his eyes with another sigh, though he didn’t seem as disgruntled as before. “My roommate Bucky found a stray cat a couple of weeks ago, and he’s been doting on her ever since. He asked me to stop by here on my way home to see if they had any nice cat beds for her. Apparently, the one we have isn’t ‘up to her caliber',” he said grudgingly as he took out his phone and handed it to you.

You were able to see that his lock screen was a picture of the fluffiest, white-furred cat you’d ever seen, with startling marble eyes and the cutest little nose. You cooed, and Steve chuckled, taking a look at the photo himself before slipping it into his pocket.

“Alpine,” he said, giving you a cursory glance. “She’s a cutie, I have to admit.”

“She is, and your roommate is right. She deserves a throne to sleep on, Steve,” you chided playfully, eliciting another laugh from him and earning yourself a small nudge from his arm that sent your butterflies into another tizzy.

“What about you?” He asked, turning smoothly, walking backward so he could face you as you spoke. “What made you run out in a blizzard?”

You hesitated, trying to find the right way to articulate your words. “I...I didn’t have a real reason,” you admitted, looking down at your shoes. “It’s just...this time of year is a little hard for me, and I impulsively decided to do some retail therapy.”

For some reason, shame rolled over you, as if you had committed a crime instead of just feeling a little down. This time of year was hard; it was cold, dark, and it was full of holidays that you no longer felt connected to, ones that reminded you of how lonely you really were. You sighed, chancing a glance up at Steve.

He slowed his steps until he came to a complete stop in front of you, a concerned look on his face. “You okay?” he asked softly, so softly that it made your heart ache.

You swallowed down the emotions that threatened to bubble up, pushing out a smile and straightening your posture. “I’m good. Believe it or not, I feel better than I did this morning. This is kind of my comfort store, so...”

“’Comfort store’?” he parroted, raising an eyebrow.

You chuckled, feeling a smidge self-conscious about opening up to a stranger, but Steve seemed like the sort of person you couldn’t help but confide in, the sort of person who would take what you said and tuck it in between his heart and left lung. “Yeah, my comfort store. When my siblings and I were younger, our aunt did a good amount of babysitting for our mom, and she would always drag us out shopping with her. She was always redecorating her place, so we went to IKEA a lot,” you explained, looking around at the furniture displays that surrounded you. “To pass the time while she shopped, we would play this game where we would go around to the different rooms they had set up and we’d pretend we were different people with different lives based on the room we were in. It was the best thing about coming here.” Those were some of the memories you held dear, remnants of a simpler time, or at least simpler than they were now.

When you looked back at Steve, his eyes were filled with something that left you feeling heady, a warmth that made it hard not to want his arms wrapped around you in the cool darkness of your room as snow piled up on your windowsill—

“Let’s play, then.”

You blinked at him. “What?”

“Let’s play,” Steve said again, gesturing to the displays. He gave you a boyish grin, one that made the thumping in your chest go faster. “I think we’ve got some time to kill before dinner’s ready,” he added.

You stared at him incredulously, your jaw hanging open a bit. “You wanna play the childhood game I played with my siblings?”

“Why not?” Steve shrugged, glancing up at you through those thick, gorgeous lashes. “Unless, of course, you know any other fun ways we can pass the time,” he said, a coquettish quirk lifting the edge of his lips.

It might have just been the harsh fluorescent lighting playing tricks on your eyes, but you swore there was a heat behind his gaze, a  want behind his irises, and all executive function in your brain short-circuited.

Maybe you had actually hit your head getting down from that ladder and heaven just happened to look like a Swedish furniture store.

As quickly as the look came, it went, Steve jerking his thumb at one of the displays. “C’mon, we got nothing to lose,” he insisted, shooting you another dazzling grin and heading over there.

You helplessly followed after him, the two of you coming to a stop in one of the kitchen displays. Steve leaned against the counter, crossing his arms and considering the place before looking at you. “So,” he prompted, gesturing around. “What about this room? What’s our life like in here?”

He said it so casually, our life, as if you weren’t in the middle of your very first real conversation ever, as if the thought of spending the rest of eternity here in this store with you was something he wouldn’t bat an eye at. Warmth spread through you, but by some miracle you managed to smother it down before it reached your cheeks, averting your gaze from him to the décor around you.

You sighed, placing your hands on your hips, examining the kitchen you were in. It was modern looking, with obsidian marbled countertops, a stainless-steel sink with the appliances to match, and glossy black cabinets that were sleek and didn’t have handles. You thought for a moment, making a show of tapping a finger against your chin and narrowing your eyes while Steve looked on with an amused expression. You turned to him triumphantly.

“You’re a high-powered attorney,” you began confidently, trying to keep your grin at bay. “You make enough to pay for our Central Park penthouse and then some. In fact, you just made partner at your firm last month, and you said you would take me to Milan to celebrate.”

“Is that so?” Steve asked, struggling to keep his own face serious. “And what does my lovely wife do with her time?”

“ Wife,” you barked out, clearing your throat to compose yourself. If he noticed the heat spreading across your neck and face, he didn’t say anything. “Uh, yes, well I spend my days scanning your credit card on Fifth Avenue, hosting cocktail parties for the other wives at the club we’re members of,” you said, letting a giggle escape you at the image of being a stuck-up socialite. “The only time this kitchen has ever actually produced a meal was when we hired those caterers for John Mulaney’s second baby shower as a favor for a friend of a friend.”

Steve laughed, shaking his head at you, his crystalline irises beaming in a way that made your breath catch a little. You had the passing thought that you would do practically anything to hear the sound of his laugh over and over again.

“Alright,” he said, all business again. “What aboooout...this one?” he asked, leading you over to the next kitchen display, placing a light hand on the small of your back.

The small contact made fireworks ignite through your entire body, and he pulled away far too soon, pulling out a chair at the cherry red vinyl table in the middle of the kitchen and gesturing for you to sit. You smiled at him, and you realized how easy it was to smile at him, how easy it would be to peel back your outer shell and offer him every ounce of joy you had to give.

“Thank you, honey,” you quipped, pushing the thought away and keeping up the little game you two were in.  That’s all it is, just a game, you reminded yourself.

“You’re welcome, sweetheart,” Steve responded in kind as he took the seat across from you, crossing his arms over the table and leaning in towards you. “Whatcha got? Lay it on me,” he urged.

You laughed, taking a look around before deciding on what life this room would hold. The floor was covered in black and white linoleum tiles, the cabinets were a soft mint green, and there was a retro SMEG refrigerator in the corner, circa 1944. You crossed your own arms on the table and looked right at Steve, a surge of boldness allowing you to lean closer to him, too.

“We got married right before the invasion of Poland,” you began, letting the image unfold from your mind. “You enlisted as soon as you could, and there’s not a day that goes by where I don’t worry about you. I got a job at a factory manufacturing sheet metal that helps us stay afloat,” you said, making the “Rosie the Riveter” pose. Steve chuckled, but didn’t interrupt. “Your mom lives just up the block, and she comes over every evening in hopes that I’ll pick up some cooking skills. She even tried to teach me the family cookie recipe, but I failed miserably,” you concluded.

You were ready to laugh at yourself, the very real image of your kitchen nightmares running across your mind, but it died in your throat at the look on Steve’s face. His smile had fallen, replaced by a grim line and a tight jaw. His eyes dimmed and darkened, a storm pulling 50-foot waves around his pupils, his gaze firmly fixed on the tabletop.

Your mouth suddenly felt too dry. “Steve? Are you okay?”

He took a sharp breath before finally looking up at you, his lips just barely upturned. “Yeah,” he said, his voice wispy and far off. “Yeah, I’m fine. What you said just reminded me of when I was younger. My mom was a nurse, so she had crazy hours most of the time, but more often than not she would manage to pull through for school functions,” he said, and some of the light returned to his eyes, though he still looked far away. “Especially bake sales. It was important to her, even though she already wore herself so thin, and the other moms judged her for not always being there.

“She would let me stay up late the night before and help her make her famous brownies. ‘Forever’ Brownies, she called them, because people always told her they could keep eating them and never stop,” he breathed out a laugh, but it sounded achingly hollow. “She said the key was her super special secret ingredient, and I wasn’t allowed to tell a soul what it was. She made me pinky swear,” he said, trying to play it off as something funny, but you could tell it meant everything to him. His entire heart was on his sleeve, exposed and beating in sync with his words, and you felt like you were bearing witness to something you shouldn’t have been.

You hesitated, drawing in a deep breath. “Is she...did she...”

Steve nodded, saving you from the rest of that question. “Two days before my high school graduation. Cancer,” he explained, and his grief was so palpable that you felt pinpricks in your nose and a boulder in your throat.

“I’m so sorry, Steve,” you whispered, because there wasn’t anything else you could say, there wasn’t anything you could do to fill that void for him, to take away that pain even though every string in your own heart yearned to.

Steve shook his head a little, pushing out a wide grin that didn’t quite reach the rest of his face. “Don’t be. She was a good woman.”

You grinned back at him. “Well, I already knew that,” you said, and his brow furrowed with confusion. You just shrugged, looking down at your hands. “She obviously raised a good man.”

It was silent for a long moment, the air thick with everything the two of you had spilled into it, heavy with all the things you didn’t dare say. When you glanced up at Steve, he was already looking at you, so intently, so intensely,  that you swore there wasn’t enough oxygen in the whole world to inflate your lungs at that moment.

“You know,” he began, his voice unsteady, splintered and cracked at the edges. “I don’t really talk about her that much. With anyone.”

You knew what he meant without him saying it. That he had given you a small piece of himself, even though you were a stranger, that he trusted you enough to take a small sapling from the branches of his heart and plant it into your palm.

Maybe he felt it too, that magnetic pull you had felt towards him since the moment you met only hours ago. Or maybe you were just a stranger, a person with no stakes that could carry a secret with no true meaning.

You brushed aside the thought, stuffing down the emotions buzzing between the layers of your skin, giving him your best smile. “Well, thank you for sharing her with me. Come on, we can try another,” you insisted, getting up and urging him along to the next display.

He hesitated for a moment, his brow still furrowed as if he were trying to piece something together, but he shook it off, joining you at the center of the next kitchen, leaning against the island counter.

This kitchen was a little more rustic, with a faux stone wall on one side and wooden countertops. Copper pots hung from various hooks, and a pair of glass doors opened up to a backyard setting, complete with a picnic table and fake plants.

You thought for a moment, taking in every detail carefully before speaking. “We decided to take a gamble and move abroad to a cottage in the French countryside, where you work at a small vineyard that makes the best wine in town, and where I’m a local beat reporter who famously broke the news of the three-legged calf that was born at the dairy farm up the way,” you decided, looking to Steve for his input.

He had a soft grin on his face, as if he were picturing that charmed life, him coming home with grape-stained hands and fresh duck for roasting, and you pouring over notes at the picnic table for the article you were supposed to write.

“France, huh?” was all he offered with a honeyed smile, albeit a bit subdued.

You fought that heady feeling again. “Yeah. Not bad for a home, right?”

He looked at you silently for a moment, his eyes scanning your face, searching to find purchase, something to hold onto. “Je pense que tant que je suis avec toi, je serai toujours à la maison,”  he said quietly, his gaze steady on yours. There was a weight behind what he had said, you could tell by his tone, and you could feel that weight curl down your spine and pool at your feet in a way that made the hairs on your body stand on end.

You shook your head slowly at him, catching the corner of your bottom lip between your teeth. “I don’t know what you just said, but I’m gonna need you to say it again,” you told him with a wry grin. “Just like that, too.”

You were almost too satisfied to see a tinge of pink coat his ears, his lashes fluttering against his cheeks as he looked down at his shoes. You laughed, giving him a slight nudge just to bring back the joking nature of the game, to shake off the growing density surrounding your heart. “I’m pretty sure it’s your turn now, dear husband,” you singsonged, placing your hands on your hips and looking up at him expectantly.

He pointed at himself incredulously. “ My  turn?”

“Absolutely, yes,” you said matter-of-factly. “I wanna know what your mind is made of, or if I just married another pretty face,” you added with a smirk.

He glared at you playfully, hardly able to keep his grin from spreading before he abruptly pushed off from the counter, walking straight towards the main aisle again. You laughed, hurrying after him as he scanned the displays on either side, pausing occasionally before shaking his head, as if he were looking for something in particular. You were about to ask him what his M.O. was, when he finally slowed, his gaze fixed on a certain display.

When you caught up to him, you could see it was one of those sets that were made to look like a tiny apartment or house, a fully furnished living room connected to a bedroom and the matching bath. The living was filled with warm colors, one wall made entirely of polished wood, lined with bookshelves and a fireplace with fake flames flickering. The couch was styled in a way that made it look a little worn, as if it had already seen a bunch of love instead of coming straight from a factory. There was a small coffee table with two empty mugs on it and a cute pot of flowers. The rug looked decadent and soft, an invitation for you to take off your shoes and dig your toes into it.

You looked over at Steve, and he looked over at you, the two of you sharing a smile cut from the same cloth. You plopped down on the couch and he followed suit, resting his arm just behind you along its edge.

“So, what’s our life in here?” you asked quietly, shifting your leg just a bit until it touched his. His hand found your shoulder, his fingers languidly following its curve up and down. He let out a long, pensive, breath before he seemed to settle on something, a dreamy sort of look hazing over his features.

“I’m a teacher,” he began, and by the way he said it so assuredly, you knew he was telling you the truth, not a fantasy he had conjured up. “An art teacher at the middle school not too far from here. It’s not exactly what I thought I’d be doing with my fine arts degree but...I don’t think I’d trade it for the world,” he said, grinning softly at you. “What about you?”

You smiled back at him, and he pulled you in a little closer to his side, enough to make your heart stutter. “I work at a bookstore,” you told him, telling the truth back to him. “Not exactly what I thought I’d be doing after college, but it makes sense for me to be surrounded by books all day. Kinda where I belong.”

He hummed appreciatively, taking another look around, his thumb sweeping slowly across your collarbone. The two of you sat there for a moment in silence, nothing but the distant rumble of the HVAC system filling in the space. It was almost scary how comfortable you felt, how settled and at home you felt when you were nowhere near home at all. And this time, you didn’t fight the feeling, you didn’t scold yourself for getting too involved in this game, too involved with him. You just sat in it, and allowed yourself to indulge and succumb to the syrupy sweet haven you had found in the middle of a storm.

“You know, I bet if we knock down that BOGO sale sign, we’d have enough space for a couple more bedrooms,” Steve joked, nodding at the cardboard fixture a few paces in front of you.

“A couple?” you chuckled. “Will we be expecting a lot of guests, dear?”

He scrunched up his nose, a small smirk on his lips. “Guests, maybe. I was thinking more along the lines of the pattering of tiny feet.”

You raised an eyebrow at him. “Really? And I assume those tiny feet are attached to tiny humans?”

“Ideally.”

“Right. And how many of those tiny humans are we talking about?”

He thought for a second. “Five.”

“ Five,”  you snorted, pulling away from him to get a good look at his face. “Two, at most. I’m not a womb factory.”

Steve laughed, shaking his head slowly at you. “Can we at least compromise at three?” he bargained, pouting a little.

You looked at him, the slope of his nose, the curve of his cheeks, the twinkle in his eyes. Those eyes. You were lost at sea, surrounded by nothing but the shade of blue only the man in front of you could offer, and you could only hope no one would throw you a life preserver.

“Deal,” you said, barely over a whisper. “But only if they have your eyes.”

His gaze swept over your face, his hand trailing up from your shoulder to the nape of your neck, leaving goosebumps in its wake. “As long as they have your smile, I’m good,” he whispered back, looking down at your lips for a moment too long.

Your head was spinning, and you could have sworn his face had inched closer to yours. Your own gaze found his lips, and you had the overwhelming urge to close the distance between you and him, to find out how they would feel against your skin, how he would taste—

“Hey there, dinner’s ready!”

You and Steve jolted back as if you had touched scalding water, looking up to find the kid from earlier, Parker, standing not too far off, smiling enthusiastically at you and Steve. It took him a moment to recognize your flustered looks, the tinge of red across Steve’s face, and the heat blazing on yours. Parker’s smile faltered a little, his hands wringing together in front of him. “Um, was I interrupting something...”

“No,” Steve was quick to say, smoothing back his hair hastily and getting up, offering you a hand to do the same. “We’re right behind you.”

“Great!” Peter said, giving you a double thumbs up, though his smile was still unsure, zipping around and heading down the aisle towards the café. You and Steve followed after him, your head still spinning from what just happened, and what might have happened, had there been no interruption.

By the time you made it to the dinner table, you had managed to school yourself into something resembling normal, but Wanda wouldn’t be fooled.

“Having fun?” she asked as you sat down across from her, smirking at you in between a bite of Swedish meatballs. She glanced over at Steve, who found a seat at the other end of the table near Bruce, wiggling her eyebrows at you pointedly.

You just gave her a look, grabbing another bread roll and taking a big bite of it, hoping to swallow down the smile that threatened to splice your face. You couldn’t help it; your eyes slid over to the other end of the table, watching as Steve laughed at something Bruce had said, the fluorescent bulb over his seat making his hair look even more golden and radiant, as if there really were a halo crowning his head. His eye caught yours, and his smile grew wider, stealing a few more seconds to look at you before he was drawn back into the conversation.

Your stomach did flips, which didn’t bode well for the meatballs you had scarfed down, and you did everything you could to avoid Wanda’s sly expression for the rest of the meal.

The movie that had been decided on was  It’s a Wonderful Life, the whole group migrating to the projector setup you and Wanda constructed earlier. Wanda went up front to help Bruce put on the movie, and you decided on where to sit. You weren’t too keen on holiday films, so you chose one towards the back, far enough away from people that the glow of your phone wouldn’t disturb anyone during the film. The lights were dimmed, and you were just about to open Instagram when a deep, smooth voice cut in.

“I hope this seat isn’t taken,” Steve said, swiftly claiming the seat next to you despite the rest of the row being vacant. He kept his attention trained on the screen ahead, but there was an unmistakably impish grin on his face.

You wet your lips, pressing them together to contain your own grin. “Not at all, it’s yours to take,” you said, a gleeful tingle traveling across your skin.

The two of you were close again, though you weren’t touching, only a hairsbreadth between you. You wanted to close that space, to feel his skin on yours again, but you weren’t sure if that would fly now. You weren’t playing a game, you weren’t pretending to be husband and wife, but you didn’t want to let go of the fantasy just yet. For once, you wanted to take a risk, to take a dive without a parachute, so you inched your leg closer to his until the tips of your knees touched. You were sure your chest was going to explode.

For a moment he did nothing in response, seemingly unaffected as he kept watching the film. You were about to pull your knee away again in defeat, when he shifted his arm, resting it against yours so that the entire length of his was flushed against the entire length of yours. You took a deep breath and stretched your pinky ever so slightly until it rested against his, curling your tiny digit around his.

Again, he made no acknowledgment of your gesture right away, and you were about to run screaming for hills in shame when he lifted his entire hand, and in one fell swoop, gathered your hand into his, your fingers locked together like a braid. You glanced up at him and he was still focused on the screen, but his chest rose and fell as if he had just run a mile in the snow, his face spliced by a wide grin.

“Okay everyone, now’s a good time as any to get to sleep,” Bruce said after the movie concluded and the lights went up again. Steve was still holding your hand with no signs of letting go. “You have your pick of the beds here. The sheets are perfectly clean, so...first come, first serve, I guess,” he announced, gesturing around vaguely.

People began to get up, already looking around for a suitable place to sleep, and you shared a look with Steve, a reckless and coltish spark dancing around the rims of his pupils.

You both knew exactly where to go.

Without a word, you got up, hand in hand, laughing like school children as you ran down the main aisle, heading straight for the makeshift marital home Steve had found before anyone else could lay claim to it. You laughed until you made it there, falling back onto the bed in a gasping heap, hands still clutching onto each other as you smiled up at the ceiling.

Eventually, the laughter died down, replaced by a carbonated, nervous energy that fizzled and zipped between the two of you, the realization of the situation you faced hitting you both at the same time. It was only then that Steve let go of your hand reluctantly, sliding his palm against yours until it released, sitting up and running it through his hair like you’d seen him do plenty of time today.

He glanced down at you shyly, letting out a nervous chuckle. “I’ll take the couch,” he offered, patting the bed before standing up stiffly, as if his body and mind were working in different directions.

You sat up, shaking your head at him. “Don’t be ridiculous, dear. Why wouldn’t I share a bed with my lovely husband?” you joked, eliciting another chuckle from him. “But seriously, I mean, this bed looks plenty big for the both of us, and that couch is pretty lumpy,” you said, bracing yourself for rejection.

He hesitated before nodding slowly. “Okay. I promise to keep to my side,” he said with a wink.

You swallowed down the scream that erupted internally, instead pushing out a dramatic sigh, smoothing your hand over the duvet, which was surprisingly soft for a display bed. “It’s just gonna suck sleeping in jeans,” you said, looking down at the dark wash denim you had chosen that morning. If you had known how your day was going to end up, you would have chosen a pair of comfy leggings.

“Well, you can take them off.”

Your gaze shot back up to Steve and he blanched, immediately regretting his choice of words.

“I just meant—I mean,” he stuttered, looking down at the floor as if he were asking it to swallow him whole like you had earlier. “We’re gonna be under the covers anyway, we wouldn’t— I  wouldn’t see anything—”

“Steve,” you giggled, saving him from himself. “I get what you mean. That actually sounds like a great idea,” you assured him, getting up from the bed. He looked relieved to hear you say that, giving you a sheepish grin which you returned. After a moment, though, you raised your eyebrows expectantly, and he got the hint, turning around quickly and covering his eyes with his hands.

You unbuttoned your jeans, heat rushing to your face even though he couldn’t see you. It had been a while since you had taken your pants off in the presence of a man, and even then, you had never done so with a man who looked like he belonged standing on a pedestal in the middle of the Louvre. You just thanked your lucky stars that you had thrown on a pair of your good underwear that morning.

You got under the covers and told him it was safe, covering your own eyes as he rid himself of his own pants, the mattress dipping down when he slid in after you. Just then, the lights in the whole store went out, save for the emergency exit signs and stray lamps that cast a soft, red glow around everything.

“Have a good night, shoppers! Breakfast will be available in the morning when you wake up, seven a.m. sharp,” Bruce’s voice rang out over the intercom, a bit of feedback trailing after his voice.

You sank a little lower into the sheets and turned onto your side, pulling the duvet up to your chin and hoping Steve couldn’t hear the hammering against your rib cage. “It’s freezing in here,” you said, just to say anything.

“Yeah, according to Wanda, upper management controls the thermostat, even in a snowstorm,” he said, and you could feel him sit up a little. “I can go find some extra blankets—”

“No, it’s fine,” you said quickly. “Besides, can’t afford to lose your body heat now,” you added in a weak attempt at humor.

He huffed out a laugh, and you could feel just a bit of his breath fan over the back of your neck. “In that case, maybe I should move closer, if we’re sharing body heat and all.”

“Maybe you should,” you said, the words flying out before you could even think. You decided then that you had, in fact, met your demise at some point during the day, because there was no earthly way this was happening to you. Nope, you were definitely deceased.

Slowly, Steve shifted closer to you until his chest was pressed against your back, your figure dwarfed by his big, warm body bordering yours. “Is this okay?” he asked softly, his voice so close to your ear that it drew a shiver up your spine.

“Yes,” you breathed, your pulse thrumming in your throat.

You felt his arm snake slowly over you, coming to rest over your waist, drawing you even closer to him. “How about this?”

You could only nod in response, your vocal cords lending all their willpower to help your lungs expand. It felt more than just okay, to be in his arms like this. It felt right, like this was where you were meant to be, like every small decision you made that day, and the day before, the years before, led you up to this very moment. It felt so right that you forgot how wrong it was to feel this way, about a man you had only known for twelve hours, a man whose last name you didn’t even know.

“Coffee,” Steve said suddenly, knocking you out of the delirium you were in.

“What?”

“My mother’s super-secret brownie ingredient,” he explained, his voice heavy and laden with the memory. “She would add a fourth cup of freshly brewed coffee to the batter. Apparently, it complimented the chocolate flavors.”

You smiled, wider than you had in a while. “I thought you couldn’t tell a soul.”

You felt him shrug, the tip of his nose tracing the curve of your neck lightly. “I don’t think she’d mind if I told you,” he said, giving you another piece of himself.

Your chest splintered, your heart straining to escape the cage of your ribs and find a new home right next to his. You turned in his arms, careful not to stray too far, your face only inches from his on the pillow. You reached up and twined your fingers delicately into his hair, and it felt even better than you had imagined it would.

“Tell me more about her,” you whispered, his hand trailing up and down your back lusciously.

You made out his smile in the dim glow, the current of his endless irises cradling you farther out to sea with no way back.

***

You woke up to the sound of jazz music.

It was seeping out of the sound system, broadcasting over the entire store, filling the air with soft saxophone and notes of piano. It took you a moment to remember where you were until you recognized the broad chest under your cheek, the heavy arm splayed across your middle.

“Bruce has immaculate taste,” Steve said, his early morning timbre reverberating through you.

You hummed amusingly, letting yourself indulge in the soft cotton of his shirt before propping yourself up on your elbow, looking down at him. He smiled at you lazily, his eyes hooded as if he were still in the middle of a dream, reaching up to brush his thumb over your chin.

“Good news everyone,” Bruce’s voice crackled in, interrupting the music. “The plows came overnight, and your cars were dug out. Thanks for hanging in there with us here at your local IKEA. At this point, you’re all eligible for our friends-and-family discount,” he quipped before the jazz continued.

That should have been good news, but it made your stomach drop down to your toes, dread slowly rising through you.

The snow was gone, which meant that this whole thing was over, that everyone could walk away and leave the store, going on with their lives as if it all never happened, just an odd memory to keep in the back of their heads until they needed a cool story to tell at a party.

You weren’t ready for it to be over. You weren’t sure you had the strength to walk out those doors and leave this experience behind. To leave him behind.

“Looks like we made it,” Steve said, though he sounded more somber than he should have.

“Looks like we did,” you said back, tracing your thumb along his jaw, mirroring the path he made on your own skin.

There was too much to say, or perhaps too little, you couldn’t tell. Either way, the dream you had found yourself in since last afternoon was over, the enchantment broken, reality already setting in like a dark shroud over the morning. The two of you just looked at each other, studying every line and facet of each other, committing them to memory and tracing hidden messages on each other with your fingers, hoping the other could find a way to decipher them.

Someone cleared their throat. “Hate to intrude, but I feel the need to tell you the store has a ‘you bang on it, you buy it’ policy for the merchandise.”

You and Steve snapped away from each other, sitting up to find Wanda leaning in the false doorway of the room, an eyebrow raised at the two of you.

“Good morning, Wanda,” Steve grumbled, glaring at her as he got up and passed you your pants to slip on under the covers.

“I would say the same, but I know you’re having a good morning, Steven,” she said, sending you the most shit-eating grin you had ever seen. You glared at her too, but she was unaffected. “Breakfast is ready, if you two are interested. I warmed up the cinnamon rolls myself.”

“Sounds good, can’t wait to dig in,” you said, but you couldn’t recognize your own voice, standing to button your jeans and avoiding eye contact with Steve.

“You okay?” Wanda asked, far too perceptive, a wrinkle forming between her brows as she regarded you.

You looked at her and forced out a smile you hoped was convincing enough. “Of course I am. I’m right as rain,” you said, but she didn’t look like she was buying it. A quick glance at Steve told you he wasn’t buying it either, concern laced across both their faces.

You shook your head at the both of them, nudging Wanda with your hip as you scooted past her in the doorway. “I really am, now let’s go eat.”

And that’s exactly what the three of you did, sitting along with the others in the café, laughing off the last remaining moments of the weirdest night of all your lives. You could hardly taste the cinnamon rolls though, and you couldn’t find it in you to take a cup of coffee, the drink taking on a new meaning for you that left you feeling a bit hollow as the minutes passed.

It didn’t take long for everyone to find their way out, spilling out into the parking lot and packing their trunks with the things they had bought the day before. You, Steve, and Wanda loitered at the doors, saying your final goodbyes.

“Don’t be a stranger,” Wanda said, giving you a warm hug which you returned in kind.

“I won’t be,” you said, giving her a squeeze before letting go.

“Do you need a ride too?” Steve jumped in, his hands stuffed in his pockets, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet. “Or I could walk you to your car...”

“No, I can manage,” you assured him, smiling even though your heart was tying a noose for itself with your small intestine.

There was an awkward, heavy beat where no one said anything, You and Steve just looking at each other, Wanda looking at the two of you looking at each other. You were the first to gather yourself, adjusting the strap of your bag and giving them a small wave.

“Bye, guys. Maybe I’ll see you around during another blizzard,” you joked, though it fell flat.

“Yeah, maybe,” Steve said, his jaw clenching as he waved back.

You gave them both one last smile, turning and finally stepping outside, the cold air nipping at your ears and cheeks. You were aware of every step you took, each one taking you closer to your car, to you your apartment, to your home, but you couldn’t shake the feeling that home was no longer a place for you, that you had accidentally laid your roots down at the feet of an angel you would never see again.

“Y/n, wait!”

You turned to find Steve jogging to catch up to you, the tip of his nose already pink from the cold. He stopped a few feet in front of you, sighing with a sort of helpless expression, his shoulders sagging as if he wanted to make himself smaller somehow. His mouth opened and closed a few times before he finally spoke.

“I’m an idiot,” he blurted out, shaking his head more at himself than you. “A smack on the back of the head from Wanda reminded me of that,” he added, rubbing at the spot with a cringe.

The tips of your fingers felt numb, but it had nothing to do with the cold. “And why are you an idiot?” you asked him quietly, cursing the hope that rose in your belly.

“For letting you walk away from me like that,” he said earnestly, taking a few steps closer to you. His hand twitched a little, clenching into a fist as if he were stopping himself from reaching out to you. “I don’t want this to end. I don’t want us to end, if there even is an ‘us.’ But I want there to be,” he said unsteadily, lifting his shoulders towards his ears. “I really want to see you again. Is that crazy?”

Suddenly, you couldn’t feel the cold anymore, warmth blooming through you like a furnace. You took a few steps back towards him, your heart tugging you along. “No, it’s not crazy. I want to see you again, too,” you told him, your cheeks aching from the way your lips stretched into them.

He smiled back at you, and you swore the clouds parted just a little, the sky becoming just a little brighter. “Really?”

“Really,” you laughed, shaking your head at him.

He let out a long huff of air, glancing up at you through his lashes. “I should probably get your number then, before Wanda tackles me to the ground,” he said, extending his phone towards you.

You put it in, adding ‘from IKEA’ next to your name for good measure, though you had a feeling he wouldn’t need it. You handed it back to him, and your fingers lingered together for a second longer than necessary.

“I’ll call you,” he promised, stuffing it back into his pocket.

“I look forward to it,” you said, grinning at him. “Bye, Steve.”

“Bye, Y/n,” he repeated, giving you another small wave.

You turned reluctantly, your feet feeling so light that you might have floated off into the sky if it weren’t for the weight of your shoes. You stopped short, turning back to face the store. Steve was still there, standing where you had left him.

“Forgot something,” you said, gesturing towards the store.

“Yeah, I did,” he said tightly, his jaw set, his expression determined. With three long strides, he gathered you into his arms, bracketing your face between his hands and placing his lips over yours.

The kiss was soft and slow, wisps of cinnamon and sugar mingling between your tongues. His lips moved eagerly over yours, though not without gentleness, taking in as much of you as he could, consuming entirely as if you were the first breath of air after drowning.

It was a while before he pulled away, his forehead resting on yours, both of you gasping for breath.

“I meant,” you said when you trusted your voice, looking up at him. “I just meant that I forgot the mail basket I paid for yesterday.”

He smiled, his eyes inventing the color blue right before you, a laugh dancing at the edge of his lips, one that you caught with your own.

The French translates to (according to Google): I think as long as I'm with you, I'll always be home.