𝓐𝓷𝓷𝓲𝓮

Natasha slid into the seat across from Bucky, the chair scraping lightly against the floor. She lifted her coffee, taking a slow sip as her gaze drifted—not to him, not yet—but to the movement around them. People coming and going, voices low, the steady hum of a place that did not care about anything happening at their table.

Only then did she look at him.

He looked wrecked.

His hair was disheveled, like he had been running his hands through it too many times. His face was drawn tight, shadows settled deep beneath his eyes.

Bucky leaned forward, elbows braced on the table, like he had just remembered she was there.

“I’m crazy, right?” he muttered. “To be stressing over this.”

Natasha did not hesitate. She shook her head once. “No. Something’s different.”

He scowled, his gaze dropping to his coffee before lifting back to her. They held there for a moment—long enough that it said more than either of them would. Then he sighed.

“I just don’t get it,” he said, quieter now. “We were getting married… and now—nothing. Like it never happened.”

Natasha did not interrupt. She let him talk, taking another measured sip of her coffee. He did not need solutions. He needed space.

He glanced at her again, jaw tightening. “I know,” he added quickly. “Without her memories, how could she… reciprocate anything.” His hands curled into fists against the table. “But still—I should matter.”

Natasha reached out, tapping lightly against his wrist. It was enough. His fingers loosened.

“You do matter,” she said calmly. “Just not like before.” A pause. “This is about her. Not you.”

Bucky nodded, but his attention had already drifted, his gaze pulled toward the window. People passed by outside, blurred and distant.

Natasha watched him instead.

After a moment, he spoke again, quieter than before. “It’s like I don’t even recognize her anymore.”

Natasha tilted her head slightly, considering him.“Or,” she said, just as calm, “she’s just not pretending anymore.”

His eyes snapped back to hers. They held there—longer this time.

Bucky broke first, grabbing his coffee and taking a long swallow like it might steady something in him. Then he leaned back in his chair again, shoulders sinking, the fight draining out just enough to leave something heavier behind.

It had been a few days since Peggy stopped by.

Things had settled back into something like a routine between you and Steve. He had been quiet that first day, more withdrawn than you were used to, but with a little effort—and a lot of patience—you had pulled him mostly back to himself. Mostly.

Right now, though, you kind of hated him.

He sat beside you on the garage floor while you lay on your back, trying to lift one leg, then the other, without letting either touch the ground. Your muscles trembled with the effort, your core burning as you fought to keep control.

Physical therapy sucked.

One upside—if you could call it that—was that Steve loved to work out. Which meant he had turned one corner of his garage into a small personal gym, and now you were putting every piece of it to use whether you liked it or not.

“Don’t let it drop,” he reminded you, entirely too calm about your suffering.

“I’m trying,” you shot back, breathless, already cursing him under your breath as your leg wobbled.

When you finally finished the set, you let your head fall back against the mat, chest rising and falling as you caught your breath, muttering something that was definitely not grateful.

Steve just smiled, staying close without hovering. Because he would catch you if you needed it. Because he always did.

You lay there for a moment longer, staring up at the ceiling, already dreading what came next.

“Come on,” he said gently.

You groaned but let him help you up, his hand firm but careful as he guided you to your feet. When he stepped back, his arm hovered just behind you—not touching, but close enough to steady you if needed.

You took a breath. Then another. And started forward.

The concrete felt too hard under your feet, your balance still uncertain. You wobbled almost immediately, and his hand came to your arm, steadying you before you could tip too far.

“Easy,” he murmured.

You nodded, resetting. Then you tried again.

This time, you closed your eyes for a second, grounding yourself, before stepping forward—

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

You stopped, breath catching as you realized—

You had done it. Without him.

A laugh burst out of you, bright and surprised. “Did you see that?”

Out of the corner of your eye, you caught the way Steve had started to reach for you—then stopped himself, pulling his hand back.

Smiling, you glanced at him, a little breathless but proud. “Look at that. I’m starting to need you less.”

His expression softened immediately, pride clear in his eyes—but the smile that followed was quieter than you expected.

“Yeah…” he said. “I see that.”

Something in the way he said it lingered.

You turned, wobbling again, but this time it did not feel like failure—just part of the process. You steadied yourself and made your way back, slower, more deliberate, managing a few more careful steps on your own. Progress.

Afterward, he helped you shower again—though this time, he barely needed to. His hands hovered more than they held, stepping in only when your balance faltered. Each time, a little less.

By the time you made it back into the living room, you felt it—tired, but lighter.

You reached for your journal, settling back into the couch, but before you could open it, Steve lingered nearby. When you looked up, you caught the thoughtful look on his face. “What’s up?”

He dropped down beside you, leaning forward slightly. “We should do something,” he said. “Celebrate the progress.”

Then, after a beat, a small smile tugged at his mouth. “We both need to get out of the house.”

He did not say it. But you felt it. The quiet tension that had been hanging between you since Peggy left.

“Okay,” you said, curious despite yourself. “What are we doing?”

Steve leaned back, already pulling out his phone. “I’ll call Sam. He always has something going on.”

You huffed a quiet laugh and flipped your journal open as he stepped away, listening to his side of the conversation drift in and out from the kitchen.

“Yeah… tonight works… alright, we’ll be there.”

A moment later, he came back, slipping his phone into his pocket.

“There’s a band Sam’s been raving about,” he said. “They’re playing at some hole-in-the-wall place downtown.”

He moved toward the kitchen as he spoke. “I’ll make us something light to eat, then we can get ready and head out.”

“Sounds good.” You settled back into the couch, the idea of getting out loosening something in your chest as you turned back to your journal.

Your handwriting filled the page—familiar, but still just out of reach. You had written more in high school. Which meant these entries were taking longer to get through.

The lights were low, the band cutting through the steady hum of the crowd, music threading through conversation and laughter in a way that filled the room without overwhelming it.

You sat between Sam and Steve at a tall table near the middle of the space, the press of people and sound still a little too much at first. Voices overlapped, glasses clinked, and for a moment it felt like trying to step into a world that had kept moving without you.

Then Sam turned toward you, grinning. “I’m really glad you two came.”

His eyes flicked to Steve. “You’ve been keeping her all to yourself, man.”

Steve snorted, rolling his eyes, the tips of his ears already turning red. “Oh, shut up.”

Sam just grinned wider, turning back to you like nothing had happened. “I love this band,” he said, leaning in just enough to be heard over the music. “Not just the records—they actually put on a show.”

You smiled, glancing back toward the stage. “I can see that. The music’s… okay.”

Sam stared at you like you had personally offended him. “Okay?” he repeated. “Okay?”

He gestured toward the stage, animated now. “Listen to the riffs, the rhythm—actually listen. That’s not just okay.”

You laughed, lifting your club soda for a quick sip, letting Steve jump in before Sam could launch into a full defense.

“They do sound good,” Steve said easily. “Not really my usual thing, but I like it.”

Sam waved him off with a scoff. “You’re both hopeless.”

You only smiled, your attention drifting for a moment.

Steve had relaxed.

You could see it in the way his shoulders had dropped, the tension from the past few days easing just enough to let him settle into himself again. His hand rested lightly on your knee, his thumb moving absently back and forth like he was not even aware he was doing it. Grounding. Familiar.

You let it steady you, the noise and movement around you fading into something manageable as you leaned back and let yourself just listen.

Sam was right. They were good—tight, precise, every part working together in a way that felt intentional. Even if it was not something you would have chosen on your own, it was easy to get caught up in.

And more than that—

It felt good to be here.

Out of the house. Different air. Different sounds. Something new.

Sam leaned toward Steve again, nodding toward the stage. “See that? That’s what I’m talking about. A good frontman knows when to step back, let the rest of the band shine. That’s how you work a crowd.”

Steve smiled, following his gaze—and something in the way Sam said it catches. You pause.

The moment flickers—just at the edge of your mind. Not like Steve. Not like Tony. Softer. Less defined. But there.

You reach out, resting your hand lightly on Sam’s arm to get his attention. When he looks at you, you smile, a little uncertain but sure enough.

“You’ve said that before,” you say. “To me… and Wanda, right?”

His expression softens immediately, something warm and easy settling in. “Yeah,” he says. “Different show, bigger crowd—but yeah.”

A small laugh slips out of you, something loosening in your chest as the three of you turn back toward the stage.

You let the feeling stay this time. Do not question it. Do not chase it. Just… let it be yours.

Because for the first time since you woke up—this does not feel like trying to remember your life. It feels like you are actually living it. Even if only a little.

Part Nine

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Not the kind from the safehouse. Not intimate, not human. The Tower’s version of quiet was mechanical and curated, softened by excellent insulation and expensive engineering. A hum behind the walls. The faint whisper of cables and hidden systems. The elevator moving upward with impossible smoothness.

Steve watched the floor numbers tick by and, against his better judgment, his mind went back to the doorway in Brooklyn.

To your hands around his neck.

To the way your fingers had slipped into his hair with an ease that still unsettled him because it had felt so natural.

To the warmth of your mouth, deliberate this time, fully awake, no confusion in it at all.

And most of all to that tiny, involuntary sound he had made when your teeth caught his lower lip.

The memory hit so vividly that he had to look away from his own reflection in the mirrored panel, as if privacy still mattered from himself.

His mouth twitched before he could stop it.

By the time the elevator opened onto the residential level, he had schooled his expression back into something neutral enough to pass. Or so he hoped.

He did exactly what he had come back to do.

No detours.

No checking whether Bucky’s door was open.

No lingering in the common room to see who was watching him too closely.

He went straight to his quarters, shut the door behind him, and crossed to the bathroom with the blunt efficiency of a man trying not to think about how badly he wanted to turn around, skip all of this, and go straight back to you.

The shower ran hot enough to steam the mirror within minutes.

Steve stepped under it and braced both hands against the tile for a second, letting the water pound down over the back of his neck and shoulders. Mission grime loosened. The stale smell of travel, fuel, sweat, city air, safehouse dust. One layer of the last twenty-four hours stripped away after another. Usually the heat helped him reset. Returned his thoughts to a practical line.

It did not work today.

Because the moment his body stopped moving, your kiss returned with merciless clarity.

Not the first one this morning – quick and startled and interrupted.

The second.

The one by the door.

He closed his eyes and let the water run over his face.

It made no difference.

He still felt the press of your mouth with humiliating precision, as if his skin had memorized it. The hand that came up to scrub water back from his hair slowed halfway to his mouth without his really deciding it. His fingers touched his lower lip.

Just lightly.

The exact place where you had bitten him.

A ridiculous, private smile tugged at the corner of his mouth before he could stop it.

It stayed there a second too long.

If anyone had seen him then, they would have laughed. Or worse, understood. Steve Rogers, standing under scalding water with his fingertips at his lips like some half-struck idiot replaying a kiss instead of preparing for the day like a sane man.

He almost laughed at himself.

Almost.

Instead he exhaled slowly, tipped his head forward under the spray, and admitted one simple truth to himself because there was no point lying in an empty bathroom.

He had liked it.

Not merely in the broad, abstract sense that anyone liked being kissed by someone they cared for.

He had liked it in detail.

The warmth. The softness. The intention in it. The way you had smiled against his mouth like you knew exactly what you were doing to him.

That thought lingered.

He shut the water off before it could pull him any farther down that road.

Afterward he dressed quickly – clean jeans, a dark T-shirt, a fresh henley left unbuttoned at the throat because his hands seemed less interested in buttons than usual. He towel-dried his hair and looked at himself in the mirror just long enough to confirm that he no longer resembled a man who had slept in his clothes in a Brooklyn safehouse and then been kissed breathless in the doorway.

He was not sure he succeeded.

Still, Tony first.

Everything else second.

The Tower was more awake now. Somewhere down the corridor, somebody laughed too loudly at something on their phone. An elevator chimed. Music drifted faintly from the gym. It all felt disjointed to Steve, like the building had resumed its ordinary pulse while the people inside it had not agreed on the same reality.

Tony’s lab, however, was exactly as Tony’s lab always was: light, motion, noise, and controlled chaos masquerading as genius.

The doors slid open to a room full of holographic screens, suspended schematics, scattered tools, and at least three open projects in different stages of disassembly. Classical music played from somewhere overhead – something string-heavy and dramatic enough to announce either inspiration or impending violence. Dummy’s little mechanical arms twitched near a workbench covered in components Steve did not bother trying to identify. One corner of the lab had been taken over by what looked suspiciously like the exploded remains of a coffee machine.

Tony stood at the central station with his back partly turned, one hand moving through a cluster of blue-lit displays while the other held a screwdriver like a conductor’s baton.

He looked up the moment the doors opened.

The expression that crossed his face was brief but unmistakable.

Suspicion first.

A sharp, measuring sort of suspicion, as if he had already written Steve’s entrance into a script he deeply disliked and was waiting to see whether the next line would confirm it.

It irritated Steve because he understood it.

Tony, for all his noise, had always been fiercely protective in the strangest, most specific ways. And right now Steve looked very much like the oldest friend of the man who had blown up your life. If he had come in here to urge patience or fairness or any of the other words people used when they wanted consequences diluted, Tony would have cut him apart for sport.

Steve spared them both the trouble.

“She asked if you could get her a new phone.”

Tony’s entire face changed.

Not softened – Tony Stark rarely softened in ways anyone could trust at first glance – but the suspicion went out of him at once, replaced by brisk focus so immediate it almost looked like relief.

“Of course she did,” he muttered, already turning back to the nearest console. “Because naturally Barnes couldn’t just betray someone like a normal idiot, he had to do it in a way that ended with property damage.”

He flicked two fingers through a floating menu. “Color?”

Steve blinked. “What?”

“The phone. Color.” Tony glanced back over one shoulder, impatient now that he had shifted into task mode. “Did Quantico ask for black, silver, obnoxious floral, blood-red vengeance chic, what?”

Steve thought about it.

“She didn’t say.”

Tony made a face. “Useless. Fine. I’ll default to something she won’t throw across a room on sight.”

There was an entire rack of boxed devices in a glass-fronted cabinet near the rear wall – of course there was; Tony approached preparation the way kings approached fortifications. He walked over, keyed something in, and began pulling components down with the speed of a man who had long since optimized this exact kind of emergency.

Steve watched him for a second.

Tony talked while he worked, not because he needed help but because silence had never suited him when anger gave him momentum.

“She’ll have everything transferred.” Box open, seal gone, screen already booting under his hands. “All contacts except the one I blocked myself preemptively, because I prefer not to watch version two meet the wall, if I have to take a guess to what happened to version one. Music account still there. Passwords preserved. Photos too, assuming there’s anything on the old one recoverable enough for FRIDAY to scrape.”

His fingers moved over the setup screen fast enough that Steve could barely follow.

“And she’s got access to Deezer,” Tony went on. “And Tumblr, because apparently the internet insisted on inventing one site specifically for reading increasingly deranged text posts and emotionally unstable fiction at three in the morning. Fanfics, I think. Or occult manifestos. Hard to tell the difference sometimes.”

Despite everything, Steve nearly smiled.

There was something so profoundly Tony about the way he tried to make care sound like mockery, as if affection became safer when wrapped in sarcasm and technical competence.

“Thank you,” Steve said.

Tony did not look up.

“Don’t thank me.”

The words came flat, but not dismissive.

Tony finally set the phone down on the bench and turned fully toward Steve, arms braced on either side of the console behind him. The humor had burned off his face now, leaving something colder and more pointed.

“I’m currently combing through the Tower’s security footage,” he said, “to find out exactly who Terminator decided to torch his life with.”

Steve did not answer immediately.

The nickname might have drawn a tired snort from him on another day. Not this one. Not with the rest of the sentence attached to it. The room felt sharper all at once, the bright holographic light suddenly too clean around the edges.

Tony watched his face and added, “What? You think I’m kidding?”

“No,” Steve said.

Tony gave a short nod as if that was at least one thing not worth arguing about.

The classical music shifted overhead into something more aggressive.

Steve glanced at the suspended screens nearest Tony. Most held harmless project data – engineering diagrams, diagnostics, a rotating model of some suit component. One, half minimized, showed a grid of timestamps and camera angles.

He looked back at Tony.

“Is it someone from the Tower?”

Tony’s mouth tightened.

That was answer enough before he even spoke.

“If Natasha saw them once,” Tony said, “then my money says yes.”

He reached for the phone again, thumb dragging through the last stage of setup with rough efficiency. “And when she wants to know – and she will, because I know her and so do you – I’m not doing what Romanoff did.”

There was no real accusation in the name, but there was disagreement. Clean and hard.

Steve thought of Natasha downstairs the night before, perched in the armchair with that cut-glass stillness of hers, admitting she had seen enough once to know something was wrong and then holding it in until events outran her. He understood how it could happen. Understood hesitation. Understood the danger of naming what you could not yet prove.

Tony plainly did not care.

“When she asks,” he said, “I’ll tell her exactly who stabbed her in the back while knowing damn well what they were doing.”

The lab seemed to go quieter after that, though the music kept playing and mechanical arms still moved in the background. It was only the kind of silence that came when somebody finally said the ugliest thing in the room aloud.

Steve leaned one hand against the edge of the workbench nearest him and looked at the phone in Tony’s hand.

He found, unexpectedly, that he did not know what answer he wanted.

Not because he wished to protect the other woman. He didn’t.

Not because he thought you were too fragile for the truth. He had already seen enough to know the opposite. You might break, but you would want facts in your hands when it happened.

No– what stopped him was the shape of the next wound. The way betrayal widened when it acquired a face. A specific one. Somebody you had passed in hallways. Shared meals with. Maybe laughed with. Somebody who had looked at you and known exactly what they were doing anyway.

He thought of you in the safehouse saying it was not revenge, or you would have done it in front of Bucky.

He thought of the way you had kissed him in the doorway after that, with gratitude and dangerous honesty and no idea yet, perhaps, of how much sharper the hurt might still become once the nameless part of it became named.

Tony seemed to read some version of that on his face because he sighed and leaned back against the console.

“I know,” he said, a little more quietly. “It’s ugly.”

Steve met his eyes.

Tony lifted one shoulder. “But ugly doesn’t get less ugly because everybody tiptoes around it.”

No. It didn’t.

That was part of the problem.

Steve thought of Bucky in the ruined bedroom, saying he had ended it the day before as if chronology had any power to clean morality. Thought of the blood on his knuckles. Thought of Sam refusing to give up your location. Thought of the shattered phone in the safehouse and the toast plate in the sink and your hand in his hair.

“I’m going back to her,” he said.

The sentence left his mouth before he had fully decided whether to say it.

Tony’s brows went up just slightly.

Not mocking. Not shocked. Only registering.

“Good,” Tony said after half a beat. “You should.”

Steve almost asked whether Tony thought that wise. Whether he saw complications Steve was trying very hard not to stare at directly. But Tony, for once, seemed uninterested in teasing him toward that edge.

Maybe he understood too well what kind of morning this was.

Instead he held the phone out.

“It’s set. Charger’s in the box. I threw in noise-canceling earbuds because if she’s staying in one of my depressing little witness apartments, she deserves at least one luxury. And before you ask, no, Barnes does not have the number, and won’t get it from me.”

Steve took the box.

It was lighter than it should have felt.

“Thanks,” he said again.

Tony clicked his tongue. “You thanked me already.”

“I meant it again.”

That won him the faintest narrowing of Tony’s eyes, as if a second thank-you carried implications he had not expected. Then Tony huffed out something almost like a laugh and waved him off with the screwdriver.

“Get out of my lab, Rogers. I’m busy being vindictive and useful.”

Steve turned to go.

At the doors, Tony’s voice stopped him once more.

“Hey.”

Steve looked back.

Tony had already turned partly toward the security screens again, but his expression when he glanced over was serious in the rare, unvarnished way he usually reserved for moments after catastrophe, when all the jokes had burned off and left only the clean metal underneath.

“If she asks before I finish,” he said, “don’t lie to her.”

Steve held his gaze for a second, then nodded once.

“I won’t.”

Tony looked satisfied with that, or at least satisfied enough.

The doors slid shut behind Steve as he left the lab.

The corridor outside felt almost dim after all that bright machinery and sharp-edged certainty. He stood there for one second with the phone box in one hand and the whole conversation still moving around in his head.

Tony’s anger. Natasha’s silence. Sam’s protectiveness. Bucky’s collapse. Your face in the morning light.

It struck him then, not for the first time but with new force, how completely the Tower had rearranged itself around your absence. Everyone was reacting to the shape you had left behind. Some with rage, some with guilt, some with efficiency, some with watchfulness. Nobody untouched. Nobody neutral.

Least of all him.

He looked down at the box again and thought, absurdly, of Tony making sure your Deezer and Tumblr still worked, muttering about fanfiction while plotting digital vengeance. The detail was so oddly tender it nearly caught him off guard.

Then he thought of the safehouse, of you waiting there perhaps with your headache mostly dulled by now, maybe sitting by the window, maybe pacing, maybe trying not to think too hard about the kiss before he got back.

He had promised.

That mattered more than reports. More than the rest of the Tower’s tense orbit. More than the ugly knowledge Tony was dragging out of camera feeds one timestamp at a time.

So Steve headed for the elevator again with clean clothes, a new phone, and the sharp certainty that whatever else the day became, he was going back to you exactly as he said he would.

The second ride to Brooklyn felt different from the first.

The urgency was still there, but it had changed shape.

Earlier, Steve had ridden through the city with anger sitting under his skin like a live wire, every red light another insult, every mile between the Tower and the safehouse another chance for his mind to build worse versions of how he might find you. Now he rode with cleaner clothes, damp hair drying in the wind, Tony’s carefully packed replacement phone tucked under one arm at stops, and the memory of your kiss returning often enough to make the whole world seem strangely sharpened around the edges.

He hated how easy it was, now, for his thoughts to split in two.

One path led to you in the morning light, tired and honest and wounded, asking if you were taking advantage of him.

The other led to your mouth on his in the doorway, your hands in his hair, the bite at his lower lip, the small smile that had followed.

And beneath both ran the same steady current: you were still hurting. None of that had changed. Whatever passed between you now existed inside that fact, not outside it. Steve held onto that with both hands. He had to.

By the time he parked outside the safehouse again, the day had advanced into that thin pale brightness New York sometimes wore before afternoon fully settled. The building looked no less anonymous than before. But this time, when he climbed the stairs, the knot in his chest was not made of dread.

He knocked once.

The door opened almost immediately.

You did not hesitate.

That, more than anything else, struck him first.

No cautious “Who is it?” muffled through the wood. No wary pause. No dragging footsteps that told him you had to decide whether to trust whoever stood outside.

You just opened the door.

You had showered.

The evidence of the night before had not vanished – no miracle had touched your face and turned grief into grace – but the water had restored some basic human shape to you. Your hair was still slightly damp, brushed back from your face in a way that made your features look clearer, less wrecked by sleep. You had changed clothes too. Clean ones this time, softer, simpler, nothing dramatic. You looked more awake. More alert. Less like someone surviving minute to minute and more like someone bracing for the next hour on purpose.

Still fragile.

Still sad.

Still carrying hurt in the slight guardedness around your mouth and the faint shadows beneath your eyes.

But steadier.

Steve felt something in him loosen at the sight.

He held out the box. “Tony.”

You took it and stepped back to let him in. He followed you into the apartment, closing the door behind him while you opened the package right there in the middle of the living room with an impatience that had less to do with excitement than with wanting one practical thing in your life restored.

You slid the phone out first.

Then the charger.

Then your fingers caught on something else in the box and paused.

Steve saw the expression on your face change before he saw what you were holding. You pulled out a credit card with one brow lifting slowly, and attached to it by a bright yellow Post-it was Tony’s handwriting, all aggressive slant and careless confidence.

For self-care.

For one second, you only stared.

Then a sound escaped you – small, startled, not quite a laugh and not quite the beginning of tears. Something in between. Something that made Steve’s chest tighten unexpectedly, because he recognized that expression now: the particular shock of being cared for when you had not asked for that exact shape of care.

“Tony,” you said under your breath.

There was so much in the single word that Steve did not bother translating it. Exasperation. Affection. Grief. Gratitude. The absurdity of receiving a revenge-proofed phone and an emergency spending line from a billionaire who coped with emotion by pretending it was logistics.

“He set everything up,” Steve said. “Your contacts, your accounts. Blocked one number.”

Your mouth thinned briefly. You did not ask which number. You did not need to.

You slipped the card and the note back into the box for a second, then reconsidered and slid the card into your bag instead, as if even in your current state you understood Tony well enough to know refusing that particular gesture would somehow be ruder than taking it.

Steve watched you for a moment longer than necessary.

The apartment felt different than it had that morning. Not lighter, exactly. But less airless. The shower had washed the smell of stale liquor from the room. The broken phone still lay by the wall for now, but it no longer felt like the center of the place. The bottle from last night had disappeared into the sink, rinsed but not yet thrown away. The curtains were open a little wider. Somewhere along the way, between his leaving and returning, you had done the small ordinary things people did when they were trying to reclaim control one gesture at a time.

He found himself absurdly proud of you for it.

Not because showering was heroic. Because getting upright at all after a day like yesterday could be.

“What do you want to do?” he asked.

You looked up from the box.

For a second he thought you might say nothing. Or sleep. Or ask him to stay inside where the world could not touch either of you for a few more hours.

Instead your gaze dropped to his hand.

More specifically, to the Harley keys hanging from his fingers.

When you answered, your voice held an odd kind of caution, as if you were asking for something half impulse and half necessity. “Would it bother you if we went somewhere?”

His answer came without pause. “Where?”

You shrugged, but it was the shrug of someone naming a need too shapeless to explain fully. “Forest. Out of the city. Doesn’t matter where.”

Steve did not hesitate.

He had expected something like this, maybe. Not the specific destination, but the impulse itself. The need to move. To put distance between yourself and every wall that remembered yesterday. Between yourself and the Tower skyline even from afar. Between yourself and asphalt and glass and all the human density of a city that would keep existing while you fell apart in it.

“Okay,” he said.

Nothing more elaborate than that.

He reached for your hand.

You let him take it.

The contact came as naturally as if he had been doing it for years, and that nearly undid him for a second. Your fingers fit into his palm with tired trust, and he held on while you grabbed the safehouse key, slung your bag over one shoulder, and stuffed the phone inside with the rough practicality of someone who did not have energy left for tidiness.

Then, just like that, you left.

The city swallowed you both again for a while.

Steve got you onto the bike carefully, waited until you were settled, and felt the exact instant your arms went around his waist. He closed his eyes briefly behind the visor when your head came to rest against the center of his back. Not because the contact was unexpected. Because it was too easy to like.

Then he started the Harley, and Brooklyn fell away behind you.

He did not ask you to talk on the ride.

Did not shout over the wind to fill the space with plans or false brightness. He only drove north and west, out through the long thinning seams of the city, toward the first place his mind supplied that would give you trees enough to disappear into and road enough to breathe on. The Palisades made the most sense – close enough to reach without turning the ride into an ordeal, far enough that the skyline would finally loosen its grip. If he kept going, he could find you river views, cliffs, dense wooded trails, the smell of wet leaves instead of concrete.

So that was where he went.

The farther you got from Manhattan, the more the world seemed to unclench by degrees. Buildings gave way to stretches of road. The air changed. Traffic thinned. The river flashed silver now and then through gaps in the guardrails. The wind cooled as the city heat dropped behind you.

Still, grief did not loosen just because scenery improved.

Steve felt that too.

At first it was only in the way your hold on him changed. Most of the time your arms stayed steady, your body leaning into his back with a quiet, almost exhausted dependence that made him hyperaware of every inch of contact. But sometimes, without warning, your grip would tighten in a different way. Not for balance. Not because he had braked or turned. A small convulsive pressure, as if something had gone through you all at once.

The first time it happened, he knew immediately.

You were crying.

Not loudly. Not even enough that he could hear it over the engine and the wind. But he felt it. In the tiny tremor of your hands where they clasped over his middle. In the sudden damp warmth that seemed to exist even through layers of clothing where your face pressed against his back. In the way your whole body curled inward around him for a few seconds as if you had tried to make the hurt smaller and failed.

Steve’s throat tightened.

He did the only thing he could do without pulling over and forcing words into the moment.

He lifted one hand from the handlebar at the next straight stretch and laid it over your hands where they locked against him.

Just rested it there.

A weight. A promise. A quiet acknowledgment: I know. I’m here. I’m not making you explain it.

He felt your grip tighten under his hand in answer.

Not dramatically.

Just enough.

And when the next wave came twenty minutes later, or maybe forty – time had gone strange inside the motion of the ride – he did it again. Hand over yours. Warm pressure. Nothing spoken. The same answer every time.

Eventually the road narrowed into greener country.

Trees gathered closer. The smell through the visor shifted from traffic and hot pavement to damp earth, leaves, river air, the clean mineral scent of a place less built over. Steve turned onto a quieter road, then another, following signs he barely needed to read. He knew enough of the area to find a stretch where the woods came right up near a small trailhead and the traffic fell away into almost nothing.

When he finally parked and cut the engine, the silence that rushed in was immense.

Not total. Never total. The forest had its own sounds. Wind moving high through branches. A bird calling once and then again farther off. Tires hissing faintly on a distant road. The ticking of the cooling engine beneath you both.

But compared to the city, it felt like stepping into another language.

You did not move right away.

Steve waited.

Then your arms loosened from around him, and he climbed off first before turning back to help you down. Your hand landed in his automatically the second your boots touched the ground. Not out of ceremony. Out of instinct. He closed his fingers around yours and together you started walking.

The forest was not deep wilderness, not truly. This close to the city, everything had a trace of human reach on it – worn footpaths, signs half-hidden among the trees, a rail fence in the distance. But it was enough. Enough space for the branches to knit overhead in places. Enough shade. Enough leaf litter underfoot. Enough living green to muffle the rest of the world.

You walked without speaking for a while.

Steve let you set the pace.

The path dipped gently, carrying you a little farther from the road, and the air beneath the trees felt cooler. Sunlight broke through in long, thin bands that shifted with the leaves above. Somewhere nearby water moved – faint, maybe just runoff or a stream he could not yet see. The ground smelled rich and damp beneath the sharper scent of pine.

You still held his hand.

He kept thinking about that, against his will.

Not because it was the first time. It wasn’t anymore. Because in daylight, in motion, under the open sky, it looked less like crisis and more like choice.

That thought was dangerous.

He kept it to himself.

When you finally spoke, you did not look at him.

Your eyes stayed ahead on the path, or maybe not even on the path, maybe on nothing at all. Your voice came low, almost too low for the words to survive intact.

“Do you think she’s prettier than me?”

Steve stopped.

You did not. Not immediately. You took one more step before the rest of the sentence cracked open inside you.

“Do you think that’s why–”

Your voice broke.

Not delicately. Not in some cinematic catch. It simply failed you halfway through, the words collapsing under the weight they had carried too long. The question itself remained hanging there, unfinished but complete in meaning.

Steve’s heart clenched so hard it felt almost physical.

He understood at once what this was.

Not vanity.

Not pettiness.

Not really even curiosity, though it wore that shape.

This was the oldest wound betrayal knew how to make. The one that hollowed people out from the inside and then whispered that maybe the damage had always been there, waiting to be noticed. Maybe you were not enough. Not beautiful enough, not soft enough, not easy enough, not whatever enough the other person had required to keep choosing you.

He had heard some version of that question in different forms before, from different people, though rarely spoken aloud. Most were too proud. Too ashamed. Too aware of how exposing it sounded.

You asked it anyway.

That alone told him how badly this had gotten under your skin.

He moved before he thought better of it.

He stepped in behind you and wrapped both arms around your shoulders, drawing you gently but firmly back against him.

Your body yielded at once, as if the effort of staying upright inside that question had already used too much of what you had left.

Your hands came up to his forearms where they crossed you, holding on there instinctively. He felt them trembling the second they touched him.

That almost broke him.

You were not sobbing this time. Not yet. It was worse in some ways, the quiet of it. The way your whole body seemed to vibrate on the edge of collapse while you stood there staring straight ahead into the trees, trying to survive your own thoughts with his arms around you.

Steve lowered his mouth near your temple, not quite touching.

“No,” he said.

The word came immediate and certain.

Then, because he knew certainty alone would not be enough against the poison already working through you, he tightened his hold slightly and went on.

“No. That’s not why.”

Your fingers clenched harder on his arms.

He could feel how hard you were fighting to keep your breathing even. One inhale. One exhale. Then another that shook halfway through.

Steve closed his eyes for a second.

He wished, with a depth that startled him, that he could take the whole question out of you. Physically remove it. Drag it away from wherever it had lodged in your chest and grind it into the dirt under his boots. But people were not machines, and hurt was not a foreign object you could extract once it became belief.

So he did the only thing possible.

He told the truth.

“This isn’t about you being less,” he said softly.

He felt your head dip, just slightly, as if the words hurt as much as they helped.

Steve kept speaking anyway, slow and careful, giving each sentence room to land.

“It’s not because she’s more beautiful. Not because she’s better. Not because there was something missing in you that he went looking for somewhere else.”

He swallowed once.

In another life, in another cleaner story, perhaps he would not have presumed to speak for Bucky at all. Perhaps he would have refused to interpret another man’s betrayal. But this was not about defending Bucky. It was about stopping the lie before it rooted deeper in you.

“He did it because he failed you,” Steve said. “Because he made selfish, cowardly choices. Because whatever was wrong was in him, not in you.”

A long silence followed.

The forest moved around you both. Leaves whispered overhead. Somewhere, farther down the trail, a branch cracked under some small animal’s weight. Steve felt the warmth of your body through your clothes, the fine shaking still in your hands, the slow unsteady rise and fall of your breathing against the cage of his arms.

Then, very quietly, you said, “That sounds nice.”

The words were not cruel.

They were tired. Raw. Honest.

Steve understood at once what you meant: that it sounded like comfort, like the right thing to say, like something decent and clean in the face of humiliation. But sounding right and feeling true were different things, and you were not yet able to make the leap between them.

He nodded once against your hair, though you could not see it.

“I know.”

His hand shifted from your shoulder down one arm until he could cover your trembling fingers with his.

“I also know it probably doesn’t feel true right now.”

That made you let out one strangled breath that might have been relief or grief or both.

Steve rested his cheek briefly against your temple then, no more than a second. Grounding. Human. There.

“If you want the truth from me,” he said, “I’ll give you that, not the easy version.”

You stayed very still.

So he gave it.

“The truth is, being cheated on makes almost anyone ask that question. It gets into your head and starts tearing at whatever was already tender. Makes you compare things you shouldn’t have to compare. Makes you look at yourself through his betrayal instead of your own eyes.” His fingers tightened carefully over yours. “That doesn’t make the question true. It just makes it cruel.”

Your head lowered another inch.

Steve could not see your face from where he stood behind you, and in some ways that made this easier. It let you hide. It let him hold you without asking you to perform composure for him.

He looked out over the trail instead, over the green dimness and the moving light, and let his voice drop lower.

“You want to know what I think?”

You nodded once.

He hesitated.

Not because he lacked an answer.

Because he had too many.

Because all the true ones were dangerous.

Because what he thought about your beauty had long ago moved far beyond anything neutral, and he had spent months – longer, probably – teaching himself not to let that show except in those looks you now claimed you had always known how to read.

Still, there were truths he could say safely enough.

“I think he was an idiot,” Steve said.

That pulled the smallest, wettest almost-laugh out of you.

Good.

He held onto that tiny break in the pain and kept going.

“I think anyone who made you feel like you had to ask me that doesn’t deserve the power he still has over your reflection.” He let out a slow breath. “And I think you’ve been hurt badly enough already without helping him do the rest of the job from inside your own head.”

That hit.

He felt it in the way your hands moved on his arms – not looser, not yet, but less desperate. The trembling eased a fraction. Your shoulders sagged back into him with a weariness that finally admitted how exhausted you were.

After another long moment, you turned your head slightly, enough that your voice reached him more clearly.

“He really never told you?”

The question came so small he almost wished he had not heard it.

He answered anyway.

“No.”

That, at least, was simple truth.

You nodded once more. Steve was not sure whether that comforted you or not.

Then you whispered, “I don’t think I even want to know who she is for the moment.”

Steve believed that too.

Not forever, maybe. Tony had been right about your appetite for answers. Eventually the namelessness of it might become unbearable in its own way. But right now? Right now the faceless hurt was enough. A name would only sharpen the blade while the wound was still open.

“Then you don’t have to know today,” he said.

Today.

Not ever.

He chose the distinction on purpose, and he suspected you noticed.

You did not comment on it.

Instead you covered his hand with both of yours and leaned back harder against his chest, closing your eyes at last.

Steve held you there beneath the trees and let the forest keep breathing around you both.

He could have stayed like that for an hour.

Could have rooted himself into the path and become one more unmoving thing in the landscape if it meant giving you one place where you did not have to carry your own weight completely.

Eventually you spoke again, so quietly he had to bend his head to hear it.

“I hate that I care.”

That, more than anything else, sounded like the truth at the core of your pain.

Not only that Bucky had done this. Not only that it hurt.

That some part of you still cared enough for the answer to matter.

Steve closed his eyes once more.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “I know.”

He did not tell you not to. Did not rush to say you would stop soon, or that caring was weakness, or that feeling conflicted meant you were not healing correctly. None of that would have helped. Some wounds came with loyalty still tangled in them, and cutting the loyalty free all at once was rarely possible.

So he only held you.

Your hands remained on his arms.

His chin rested lightly near your temple.

And when the first tear slipped silently down your cheek – not the violent grief of last night, just one quiet surrendering tear he could not see but somehow knew had come – Steve tightened his embrace by the smallest fraction and stayed exactly where he was until you were ready to move again.

You kept walking after that.

Not with any destination in mind. Not toward a marked trail or scenic overlook or anything that would have justified the drive in practical terms. You just moved beneath the trees because motion felt easier than stillness for a while, and because the forest offered a kind of privacy no room ever truly could. Here, there were no walls to throw voices back at them, no city glass, no elevators humming up and down beside other people’s grief. Only earth underfoot, roots breaking the path in rough dark ridges, and the endless layered sound of leaves shifting against one another overhead.

Steve did not let go of your hand.

Sometimes your grip loosened when your thoughts drifted too far inward. Then a branch would snap somewhere or the path would dip, and your fingers would tighten around his again, as if your body remembered before your mind did that he was there. He learned the rhythm of it quickly. The ebb and return. The way sorrow moved through you in waves instead of lines.

The day remained cool beneath the canopy. The air smelled of wet bark and moss and river stone somewhere in the distance. Sunlight reached the ground only in fragments, pale strips sliding over trunks and fern and the backs of Steve’s hands when they passed through the brighter patches. The woods were not silent, not truly. They clicked and sighed and whispered with small life. Somewhere above, a bird called twice in a sharp descending note. Somewhere farther off, water moved over rock.

Steve understood, now, why you had asked for this.

It was not only escape.

It was scale.

The city made grief feel trapped inside architecture, reflected back from windows and steel and the faces of strangers. Here, pain had room to thin out at the edges. Not disappear. Never that. But spread. Become part of something larger than the four walls of a safehouse and the memory of a kitchen and a ruined room in a tower.

After a while, when the silence between you had settled into something companionable again, Steve asked, “Why the forest?”

He kept his voice low, not because he feared to startle you, but because the place itself seemed to ask for quiet. It absorbed noise and returned it gentler.

You did not answer at once.

You stepped over a root, ducked beneath a low branch, and only then said, “Do you remember I grew up in Acadia?”

Steve nodded. “Yeah.”

He did remember.

Not because you talked about it often. You didn’t. But because Steve remembered details people offered once when they mattered, especially when they came wrapped in the tone you had used the handful of times you mentioned childhood. Not nostalgic. Not exactly bitter either. Just factual, with the kind of restraint that usually meant a story had sharp edges under it.

You looked ahead as you spoke, not at him.

“When my stepmother started in on me – my weight, my clothes, whatever she felt like criticizing that day – and my father never once told her to stop, I used to disappear into the woods.”

Steve’s jaw tightened.

The words were simple enough, but he heard the childhood inside them all the same. A girl being picked apart in her own home while the one person who should have intervened stayed silent. Not dramatic on paper, maybe. No bruises someone else could point to. Just the slow intimate violence of being watched and found wanting over and over until the walls themselves started to feel hostile.

He pictured you younger without meaning to. Smaller. Angry in the way children got angry when they still half expected fairness to exist if only someone older would finally choose it. Pulling on boots, maybe, or not bothering with boots. Walking out before dinner or after. Head down. Jaw set. Heading for trees because the trees at least did not speak.

“Given the number of psychos in the world,” he said, “you got lucky.”

It came out drier than the tenderness he felt under it, which was probably for the best. If he let too much softness show every time you revealed another broken place in your history, he would never stop.

You gave a little shrug. “I know.”

Then, after a beat, quieter, “But the forest never scared me. It was a refuge.”

That lodged somewhere deep in him.

Steve looked around with new attention then – not at the trail itself, but at the way you moved through it. The almost unconscious certainty in your steps now that you had had time to settle into the place. The way your shoulders sat a little lower than they had in the city. The way you lifted your face slightly every so often, as if checking the air for something familiar.

A refuge.

Not because it was safe in the practical sense. It wasn’t, not entirely. He had already said as much. But because it was honest. Trees did not ask you to explain yourself. Did not tell you what to be. Did not watch your pain and turn it into commentary. They simply were. You could bring any amount of ugliness to them and they would not flinch.

Steve understood the appeal of that more than he liked to admit.

You walked on until the trail widened around a massive old trunk that rose from the earth like part of the land deciding to stand upright. It was enormous – easily wider than Bruce in the Hulk form, which was saying something. Its bark had gone dark with age and weather, deeply ridged and furrowed, roots like thick ropes disappearing into the ground in all directions. Moss climbed one side. The crown vanished so high above them that the branches seemed almost to join the sky.

You stopped in front of it.

Steve stopped too.

For a second neither of you spoke. The tree seemed to create its own silence. Something about its age, maybe. Its mass. The sheer indifferent fact of its existence.

Then you said, “Steve?”

He looked at you. “Yeah?”

You still were not looking at him.

Your gaze stayed on the bark, one hand trailing lightly over its surface as though touching it grounded you. When you finally spoke, your voice had changed. Softer. More careful. As if each word had to be chosen and released separately.

“Can I kiss you?”

For one startled second, Steve could only stare.

The question itself hit him almost harder than the morning kiss had.

Not because he had not imagined kissing you again. That would have been a lie too obvious to survive even inside his own head. He had imagined it often enough in the hours since the safehouse doorway that he had stopped letting the thought complete itself. But because you asked.

Permission.

After everything that had been taken from you without honesty. After all the blurred lines of the last day. After waking in his arms and kissing him and hearing him stop you because he would not let something true get tangled with revenge. Now, here, in the forest of your childhood refuge, you asked.

The care of it went through him like a blade wrapped in velvet.

So, because deflection arrived before thought sometimes, and because if he answered too directly right away he was not sure what his own voice would do, Steve said, “You’re asking permission now?”

You turned your head enough to give him a look. Tired. Slightly offended. Entirely yourself.

“It’s not exactly charming to answer a question with another question.”

Despite everything, something in him almost smiled.

“Why?” he asked.

Your brows drew together. “Why what?”

“Why do you want to kiss me?”

There.

The real question beneath the easier one.

Steve watched your face closely as he asked it, watched the answers move behind your eyes before they became language. He was not challenging you. Not trying to trap you into proving something. He only needed the truth spoken plainly between you. Needed to hear that this was not self-destruction wearing a different face. Not the same ache reaching for a different body because the first one had become unbearable.

You looked away again, toward the tree.

When you answered, your voice came quieter than before, but steadier too. As if saying it aloud cost something, and you had decided it was worth paying.

“Because…” You stopped, swallowed once, started again. “Because when you kiss me, I don’t think about anything else.”

Steve’s breath caught.

You kept going.

“Because it feels good. Because I like it.” Your mouth tightened slightly at the honesty of that, but you did not take it back. “And because right now I need something that feels good.”

The words hung between them in the cool green air.

Steve understood the risk in them instantly.

Not manipulation. Not cruelty.

Need.

Plain, exhausted, aching need.

And that was exactly what made his next breath so difficult.

Because the answer he could have given as a man – simply a man, selfish and hungry and already too aware of how your mouth felt – would have been easy. He could have stepped into you then, cupped your face, kissed you under that tree until the rest of the world blurred at the edges, and some part of him would have loved the simplicity of it.

But Steve was not only a man with a pulse and a mouth that still remembered yours.

He was also the person standing nearest your hurt.

That mattered.

He looked at you for a long moment, and because he had already asked for truth, he gave you the same in return.

“That’s not a small reason,” he said.

You folded your arms loosely over yourself, not defensive exactly, but bracing. “I know.”

“No,” Steve said gently. “I mean it.”

He took a step closer, not enough to touch you. Only enough that the space between you felt intentional instead of accidental.

“If you want me to kiss you because you like it, I understand that.” His voice lowered. “If you want me to kiss you because it gives you five minutes where your head shuts up and stops hurting you, I understand that too.”

Your eyes lifted to his then.

There was vulnerability there again, naked and sharp-edged. But there was also stubbornness. And the beginnings of shame, maybe, because now that the reason had been spoken, perhaps it sounded ugly to you. Too selfish. Too needy. Too much like using comfort without being able to promise what it meant.

Steve reached out before he thought too hard and touched two fingers lightly beneath your chin, not lifting, only anchoring.

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting comfort,” he said.

Your throat moved once.

“But,” he added, and felt your whole body listen, “I need to know you’re not asking for it because you think you owe me something. Or because Bucky made you feel empty and you want to fill the space with the first thing that works.”

Something in your expression changed at that. Not offense. More like relief that he understood the exact ugliness you were trying not to become.

“I don’t owe you anything,” you said immediately.

He believed you.

“And this isn’t about filling a space with the first thing that works,” you said, quieter now. “If it were, I wouldn’t have asked you why you looked at me like that. I wouldn’t have cared if it hurt you.” Your eyes stayed on his. “I asked because it’s you.”

That nearly undid him.

Steve let his hand fall.

The forest seemed suddenly too vivid around them. The bark texture of the tree at your side. The cool air in his lungs. The weight of his own body in his boots. The way your hair still held the faint damp memory of your shower when the breeze moved it. Every detail sharpened because the thing between you had crossed another threshold and there was no going entirely backward now.

He took one more step in.

Close enough to see the pulse flutter in your throat. Close enough to notice the way your breath changed when he entered your space. Close enough that if either of you leaned a fraction, the answer to your question would no longer be verbal.

“You don’t need my permission,” he said softly.

Your brows lifted a little. “No?”

A faint, helpless smile touched his mouth then, gone almost before it existed. “You asked whether you could kiss me. I’m telling you I’m not stopping you.”

That made your lips part slightly.

You looked at his mouth again.

This time he felt it everywhere.

Still, he did not move first.

Not because he didn’t want to.

Because he had asked for honesty, and now he wanted you to be the one to cross the last inch if this was what you truly meant.

You stared at him another second, then another. Steve had enough time to notice your hands trembling still from what the day had done to you, enough time to see you inhale as though bracing yourself for impact, enough time to think, absurdly, that the entire forest seemed to be holding its breath.

Then you rose onto your toes and kissed him.

This kiss was nothing like the morning one.

Nothing like the one in the safehouse doorway, either.

Those had carried urgency, gratitude, relief, the immediacy of the moment. This one began slower, almost reverent in its caution, as if you were confirming to yourself that you were allowed. Your mouth brushed his once, then again with more certainty. Steve answered gently at first, one hand coming to your waist, the other lifting to the back of your neck, and the second he felt you soften into it, the restraint he had been holding like a shield shifted into something warmer and deeper.

You sighed against his mouth.

The sound melted straight through him.

He kissed you more fully then, still not hurried, but no longer holding himself at such a punishing distance either. He could feel the truth of what you had said – that kissing him made you stop thinking for a while. He felt it in the way your body gave up some part of its rigid vigilance. In the way your hands, which had hovered uncertainly at first, came up and settled against his chest as if they had finally found somewhere to rest.

Steve let his thumb move slowly at the base of your skull.

You made another small sound. Not hurt. Not sadness. Pure feeling, stripped simple.

He almost lost himself there.

Because he liked it too. God, he liked it too much. The softness of your mouth. The way you opened to him by degrees, careful and then not so careful. The subtle change in your breathing as the kiss deepened and with it the strange new knowledge that this was no longer only comfort borrowed from catastrophe. Something real lived in it now. Fragile, badly timed, dangerous – but real.

When you finally drew back, it was only enough to breathe.

Your forehead came to rest lightly against his chest instead of his own because you had let yourself slump closer while kissing him, and Steve tightened his arm around you automatically to keep you steady.

Neither of you spoke for a few seconds.

The silence afterward felt different than before. Less haunted. Not healed – nothing so simple – but quieter inside the bones.

Steve looked down at the top of your head and said, very quietly, “Anything else in there besides pain?”

Your answer came muffled against him.

“For a few seconds? No.”

He closed his eyes briefly.

Maybe that should have made him sad. Maybe it did, a little. That even now the best he could offer you was a pause in the storm rather than a way out of it.

But a pause mattered.

A pause could be mercy.

Steve rested his cheek lightly against your hair and said, “Then we’ll start there.”

He did not know whether he meant the kiss, or the day, or whatever impossible thing stretched ahead of them both.

Maybe all of it.

You nodded once against him and stayed where you were, beneath the enormous old tree, with the forest holding your grief at the edges and Steve’s arms around you while the world, for one brief and honest moment, asked nothing more.

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Your eyes began to flutter as light spilled into the room alerting you to the morning hour. You let out a long breath as your body came back to you, suddenly remembering the night before and feeling a warmth beneath your palm and a hand on your waist.

Your eyes finally opened and you looked up to see Bucky sleeping soundly.

Your heart began hammering and you began to panic. You were finally feeling like yourself again, had a whole host of amazing friends and colleagues and now you'd ruined everything. Ruined it all with your bodies unrelenting need.

You tried to pull away from Bucky, but his grip on your waist tightened and his eyes opened into slim slits. He lifted his free hand and rubbed at them sleepily with a grumble.

"Morning." He rasped with a deep morning voice.

"Morning Bucky." You whispered back.

"You okay?" He said with concern, as his brow raised and his head lifted from the bed to look down at you more clearly.

"Mmhmmm." You mumbled, finally pulling yourself free to sit up and swiping your palms down your face.

"Hey what's wrong?" Bucky continued as he shuffled next to you, rising into a sit beside you.

"Nothing...I just..." You mumbled into your hands before dropping them into your lap.

"What is it?" Bucky asked softly once more, placing a palm on your shoulder and gently rubbing your flesh in an attempt to soothe you.

"Last night." You breathed shakily, "Is it going to change things, between us?"

"Do you want it too?" Bucky replied and you felt your breath catch in your throat and your palms shook in your lap.

"I...I don't know..." You mumbled, avoiding eye contact, "I don't think I'm ready for another relationship. Not yet."

"Then it doesn't change anything." Bucky reassured you, slipping his arm around your waist and pulling you against him. "We're friends, good friends."

"Okay." You sighed, dropping your head onto his shoulder, "I'm sorry."

"You don't need to be sorry." He whispered, placing a kiss to your temple, "Besides, I'm happy to be the friend who helps when you're in need."

He placed a playful nip to your jaw that made you giggle softly.

"You're impossible." You chuffed.

"Yeah well, you love me." He shrugged.

"Sure." You scoffed, rolling your eyes.

"Come on, let's get some breakfast." Bucky said as he released you and stood from the bed. You tried not to stare as he made his way towards the bathroom with a half hard cock swinging between his legs.

Bucky knew you were still panicking and despite his growing feelings for you, he knew you weren't ready for anything after Brock and the way Brock treated you, so he was happy to take a backseat until that time.

He made sure to reassure you a few more times over breakfast that everything was okay and you finally settled with a full stomach, happily sipping on your coffee while you talked about trivial things.

As you were listening to Bucky rant about something Walker had done that week, your phone buzzed on the table top and you lifted it, heart hammering when you saw it was Steve.

Daddy: Morning princess, make sure you drink plenty of water today.

You let out a giggle, causing Bucky to raise a brow at you so you quickly showed him your screen, watching as he laughed and shook his head in amusement.

You took a picture of your hand around your cup of half drunk coffee and sent it back to Steve with a smirk on your face and were surprised when he replied almost instantly.

Daddy: Princess, I'm serious. Water. Now.

An evil grin spread across your face and you slumped back in your seat with two hands on your phone and a twitch in your brow.

"What are you up too?" Bucky smirked from his seat, sipping on his coffee.

"Nothing." You teased before typing out a response.

You: Why don't you make me.

Again your phone buzzed quickly after in your hands.

Daddy: You really wanna play that game?

You: What game? 

The ticks popped up that the message had been read and then... nothing. No response. You furrowed your brow at your screen and bit down on your lip nervously.

All of a sudden Bucky let out a loud laugh and you looked over to see him looking at his phone in his hand, with a grin spread across his lips.

"What is it?" You asked with a raised brow, fidgeting with your phone in your hands.

"Steve just text me." Bucky replied with a smirk, leaning towards you slightly, "Said if you haven't drank water in the next 5 minutes I've got to spank your ass red."

"Really?" You chuffed in amusement, yet another threat of spanking and you couldn't decide if you were aroused or scared he would follow through.

"Really." Bucky repeated as his expression turned stern.

You stared each other out across the table, daring the other to make a move. When Bucky's jaw ticked, you gulped audibly under his unwavering stare.

"Fuck, okay fine!" You yelled, slapping the table as you stood and stomped over to the fridge.

You swung open the door and grabbed a bottle, dragging your feet and dropping back into your seat, shaking the bottle at Bucky with a moody pout.

"Brat." He teased and you stuck your tongue out like a petulant toddler.

You twisted the cap and drank a few mouthfuls before snatching up your phone and snapping a picture of the new beverage in your hand and sending it to Steve with a moody face emoji, trying not to internally preen at his immediate praiseful response.

Steve: Better princess.

The next few weeks flew by with a relative normality. There were no more sexual encounters with Bucky and Steve but you found that the one night had sated you for now at least.

You and Bucky were hanging out all the time, wether at his place or yours, even car sharing to work. If you weren't with Yelena, chances were you were with Bucky somewhere and your friendship had blossomed even more.

This man had wound his way into your soul, like two halves of the same crumbling cookie. You weren't perfect, neither was he, yet put you together and it created the most amazing friendship possible.

You had rarely seen Steve since that night, except for the odd passing in the halls at work or he'd pop over to say hi if he was at Buckys. But you had been texting a lot and despite the physical distance, your friendship was growing over.

For right now, you had everything you needed and for the first time in a long time. You were truly happy.

Everything tag - @late-to-the-party-81

@the-wandering-wonder @rnurse-kole @chemtrails-club @marvelgurl

SS Tag - @buckysdecaflove

Bucky - @wickedfun9

CE tag - @mommad @venigrantrogers

Steve is quiet over the next few days. Not moping, not brooding—just… quiet.

It is not heavy enough to suffocate the room, but it lingers all the same, settling into the spaces between words and stretching the silences a little longer than they used to be.

Thankfully, there is a routine to fall into.

After breakfast, he heads out to the office for his new job, leaving you to your own day. By the time you return home, he is already there, sleeves rolled, something simmering on the stove like he has been doing it his whole life instead of just the past few days. Dinner is easy, conversation lighter than it probably should be, both of you skirting around anything that might linger too long.

Then, like clockwork, he drives you to the bar.

He waits up front when your shift ends, leaning against the car or sitting behind the wheel, always there before you step out into the parking lot. No questions asked, no comments made—just a quiet presence you had not realized you had started to rely on until it was there every night.

It is simple. Predictable. Safe.

And maybe that is why neither of you mentions what happened.

Or what changed.

Or the fact that, somewhere in between breakfast and midnight drives, something has settled into place without either of you quite acknowledging it.

The first day that Steve is off work is when it really starts to bother you, because you can see he is closed off, still letting what happened at that office eat at him. After breakfast, you try to go about it directly.

“Meet anyone new at the office?”

He shrugs, still looking at the paper in his hands. “Yes, but I’m mostly at a drafting table focusing on the work, so it’s really just small talk.”

You watch him for a minute, trying to figure out how to help. And then the worst idea ever comes to you, and you have to fight back a groan. It is such a bad idea you avoid it like the plague—right up until the point of no return, when you still have not managed to pull him out of his shell.

Tonight you do not have work either, so it surprises him when you head to your room to get dressed. He says nothing, guessing you have something planned you simply have not told him about yet—which is strange, but he knows he is not your keeper.

When you walk back in wearing a navy dress, your hair and makeup done lighter than you would for the bar, you pull the book from his hands. Steve just blinks at you.

“We’re going out.”

Steve gives you a confused look. “We are?”

Grabbing his hand, you pull him up, then drop it as you head toward the door. “Yes.”

Still lost, he follows you. “Where?”

As you reach the door, you take a breath and glance at him over your shoulder. “Church social.”

His jaw drops, but you are already moving down the sidewalk toward the church a few blocks away, so he scrambles to catch up. Once beside you, he is still deeply confused. “…you’re joking.”

You do not hesitate as you glance at him sideways. “Do I look like I joke about things that unpleasant?”

Steve opens and closes his mouth a few times, but your determined pace stops him from arguing. He just shoves his hands in his pockets and matches your stride.

Purposely, you arrive a few minutes late, hoping to avoid getting caught by a small group. When you step inside, it is like everyone already knows—but you keep your posture straight and walk right into the middle of it, Steve just a step behind you now.

Around you, conversations dip. Eyes turn. As you make your way to the refreshments table, whispers trail in your wake.

Steve watches you—how you let the looks and whispers roll off you like it is nothing. Only the slight tension in your shoulders gives you away. You are used to this.

And that gives him pause. Because this… this is your life?

You grab punch for both of you and hand him a glass before nudging him forward. “Go on.”

He looks at you, baffled, but after a discreet eye roll, he moves toward the other men.

Taking up an empty space near the edge, you survey the room. A few people meet your eyes, but none return your polite nod. Across the room, you spot an old friend from the USO tour—Betty.

Well. She used to be a friend. Now she is the kind of woman who does not speak to trash like you.

You look away.

A younger girl brushes past you, bumping your shoulder without apology. You let it go. Another woman approaches, smiling too brightly, her eyes cold. “Sandwich?”

“No, thank you.”

She looks at you like you have insulted her and walks away.

From across the room, Steve sees all of it. And none of it sits right with him. But you act like it is normal—like it means nothing—and he does not know what to make of that.

The preacher’s wife, Mrs. Hodgkin, approaches, her polite smile already telling you exactly how this is going to go.

“Oh, hello, dear. I didn’t think you came to things like this.”

You return her smile, feeling the room’s attention shift toward you. “I don’t normally. I decided to make an exception.”

Across the room, Steve is already moving.

Mrs. Hodgkin lets out a soft, false laugh. “How lovely. I see you brought a young man. I didn’t realize you’d… settled into something so… unconventional.”

Your smile sharpens, turning just a touch too sweet. “It works for us.”

She gives you a pitying look. “Well… after everything that happened overseas… I suppose one can’t expect things to be quite the same afterward.”

Steve reaches you then. You catch his eye—he is asking without words.

You give him nothing.

He steps in beside you, not touching, but close enough that Mrs. Hodgkin’s attention shifts to him. His voice is steady. Quiet. “You suppose wrong.”

The room stills.

Mrs. Hodgkin blinks at him. “I only meant—”

“I know what you meant.”

Steve does not raise his voice. If anything, it gets quieter. Firmer. “And you’re still wrong.”

She inhales sharply, scandalized more by the interruption than anything else. With a tight smile, she takes a step back, her eyes flicking once to you before settling on Steve like he might do something worse. “Well… lovely seeing you.”

She disappears into the crowd far faster than you would have thought possible.

You breathe out slowly through your nose. Steve turns to you—and he is not leaving your side now. Not after that.

“We should go.”

He just nods. You turn toward the door, and he follows without question.

He does not touch you. Does not ask. Does not push.

But the room has shifted. And for the first time, it is not just you being judged.

Neither of you speaks on the way home. For that, you are grateful—but you can see the cogs turning in his head, so you know it is only a matter of time.

You make it to the porch before he finally asks, “What was that?”

Instead of going inside, you veer off and sit on the porch swing. It creaks softly as you settle, your gaze fixed out over the lawn instead of on him.

“Nothing,” you answer with a resigned sigh.

Steve watches you for a moment, then steps closer. Two steps, and he is in front of you. He crouches down—not touching, but close enough that you cannot ignore him.

“That wasn’t nothing.” His voice is still steady, but gentler now.

You let out a quiet, humorless laugh and shrug, still refusing to meet his eyes. “People talk.”

“You don’t deserve that.”

Your eyes snap to his. You expect pity. You do not find it. Just concern. Steady. Certain. Your shoulders drop a fraction. “I suppose you want an explanation.”

He shakes his head. “Only if you want to give one.”

That gives you pause.

You look away again, out across the yard, the swing shifting faintly beneath you as you push it with the toe of your shoe. Do you want to tell him? Would it change anything?

The quiet stretches.

This is Steve Rogers. If anyone is going to look at you and see a person instead of a problem, it is him.

You look back at him.

When you speak, your voice is flat—like you are reporting something that happened, not something that still sits under your skin.

“You know how people saw us USO girls. Like we were all easy just because we spent time around soldiers. After the tour ended, I signed up to be a nurse before we even came back stateside.”

Your jaw tightens, but you do not look away. “There was an officer I attended who got… friendly. At first it was nothing. It was normal to be kind—they were hurt, scared. But he stuck around while he recovered. Kept finding me. The attention stopped being general.”

Steve’s expression shifts, subtle but unmistakable. His jaw tightens. He does not interrupt.

“One morning, it was slow. I went into a supply tent for bandages.” You pause, fingers tightening slightly in your skirt before you continue. “Before I even turned around, he was behind me.”

The swing creaks softly as it rocks once. “He pressed into me. Kissed my neck.” Your voice lowers. “I tried to push him off. He didn’t move.”

Steve’s hand curls slightly where it rests on his knee.

“His hand landed on my knee. Started sliding up.”

You swallow once. “I told him no. Told him to stop.”

The words linger in the space between you. “He didn’t.”

“Another nurse walked in. She gasped. That got his attention. He just… stepped away. Like nothing had happened.”

You let out a slow breath through your nose. “The look she gave me…” You shake your head faintly. “Disgust. Even though I was crying.”

Steve shifts, like he might say something—but he does not. Not yet.

“The next day I reported it. Command told me to leave it alone. Said it would ruin a good officer’s reputation.” Your mouth presses into a thin line. “When I pushed, they suspended me. Said I was too emotional.”

You glance away again, out into the dark. “By then the story had already spread. Twisted into something else. They figured I was pregnant. Because why else would a ‘stable woman’ make trouble?”

Your fingers tighten again, grounding yourself. “When I went back, the soldiers treated me like I was easy. The nurses didn’t want anything to do with me. So they sent me home. Said it would ease tensions.”

A small, humorless breath leaves you. “When I got back, everyone already knew. Or thought they did. And after that…” You shrug faintly. “I stopped correcting them.”

Now you finally meet his eyes again. “There wasn’t any point. No one believed me. Didn’t want to.”

You breath out once more. “I’m trash. Spoiled. And there’s no convincing anyone otherwise.”

Silence settles between you. Steve watches you for a long moment. Then, gently—but firm—

“They’re wrong.”

You wave him off, looking away again. “Doesn’t matter.”

A breath. Then you glance back at him. “You shouldn’t make a habit of that.”

His brows furrow slightly, though he knows exactly what you mean. “Of letting people be wrong out loud?”

The corner of your mouth quirks, almost a smile. “It doesn’t change anything.”

Steve studies you for a second. He has seen otherwise. Lived otherwise.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “It does.”

You look back at him.

“Just not all at once.”

After that, he moves to sit beside you—still not touching, but there. The two of you remain like that, the porch swing creaking softly as it sways, neither of you speaking.

Eventually, he rises and heads inside to start dinner.

Part Four

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“You’re mine; get used to it,” he snarled against your neck, teeth dangerously close to your untouched mating gland. Steve held back. His instinct told him to claim and mate you, but he wouldn’t do anything against your will. “I’m going to claim your sassy ass, and you will love it.”

“In your dreams.” You tried to buck the alpha off you, but he didn’t budge. He was having a blast sniffing at your neck while one of his arms snaked around your middle. “Hey, stop pressing yourself against me.”

You growled at him, feeling his erection press against your ass. “Why would I let go of my mate. You’re supposed to be mine, doll. There’s no way I’ll let you slip through my fingers.”

“If you don’t let go of me, I’ll go full Viking and put your head on a spear!” He laughed at your words. You were angry, but somewhat pleased when he tightened his hold on you. This alpha wasn’t going to abandon you for some random pussy. He was already obsessed, and you kind of liked it. “I mean it.”

“I’d like to use my spear on you too,” he husked in your ear, hoping you’d give in to his advances. “I can help you relax and forget about that ex of yours.

You let out a lip-curling growl and elbowed his ribs. “Get. Off. Me. I don’t want or need your pitiful cock.”

“Pitiful,” he roared, pushing against your back to press you into the couch. He used his free hand to spank your ass, earning another growl. “You will learn to respect your alpha.”

You snorted. No alpha would ever tame you or tie you down. “You think I’ll roll over and offer my neck to you. Dream on. I just dropped dead weight. I don’t need a new alpha, and I don’t want one.”

Steve manhandled you, flipping you over to pin your hands above your head. He searched your face, his gaze intimidating and commanding. “You are lying.” He hummed when you averted your gaze. “You’re hurting. I can see it written all over your face.”

"Well, many people believe that you should celebrate after ending a bad relationship." The truth is, it feels like you lost the life you had and the comfort you had grown accustomed to. It stings that you wasted so much time building a relationship only for an alpha to tear it back down.”

Steve leaned over your body to bury his face in your neck, nudging you. “He was a fool for giving up on a feisty and fiery omega like you. I’d never give up on you. If you want to leave my pack, I’ll chase you down and mate you in front of the pack.”

“Yeah, because you’re a possessive asshole. You believe you can claim me after knowing me for how long? Five seconds.” You huffed when he moved one hand under your ass to give one cheek a tight squeeze. “Hey!”

“I know you for fourteen hours and a few minutes,” Steve whispered in your ear. “But I already know what you need, doll.”

Steve’s grip loosened. He pulled back to look you in the eyes. For a moment, you saw hesitation in his eyes before he got off you to give you space.

The alpha was choosing to hold back and not mate with you by force.

You noticed. You hated that you noticed.

“I don’t need an alpha to tell me what I need,” you said, trying to sound fierce while your heart was thundering in your chest. Your heart raced not only from rage but also due to the alpha’s closeness.

His gaze held yours, steady and infuriatingly calm.  Steve dipped his head, his eyes raking over your body. “Maybe not. This doesn’t mean I’ll stop trying to make you mine.”

“You’re arrogant and an asshole,” you snapped. “I hate you.”

He smirked. “You’ve mentioned that.”

“You’re insufferable.” You shoot back.

“And yet,” he said, voice lower now, “you didn’t leave or stay away. You willingly came here today.”

Heat shot to your cheeks and somewhere lower. Anger, mixed with something far more dangerous, was threatening to take over. You crossed your arms, glaring at him to stop yourself from giving in to the alpha. “I’m here because you threatened me, bastard!”

You showed his palms and took a step back. “You want the truth? Fine. I don’t know how to do this. I see a threat, I remove it. But when it comes to you…” His jaw tightened, and he huffed. “You make me want things I’m not used to wanting.”

“What things? Acting like a decent human?” You scoffed, but there was something in his eyes making your stomach drop.

“Out there, we were always on the run. Rogues must be hunted and locked up. These are the rules.” He looked at you, squaring his jaw. “We weren’t a threat to anyone. Just people yearning for a warm and safe place. Still, they all painted us as villains. So, when I saw a chance to settle down and have a safe place for my people, I took it. I’m just not used to having someone like you around.”

“That’s not my problem.”

“No,” he said. “It’s mine.”

You should have walked out then. Maybe you would have, if he looked smug or dangerous. But he just looked at you like he wasn’t sure what to do with you.

It made your chest feel tight in a way you hated. You wanted to comfort him, and it was the worst feeling ever.

“I’m not going to be used,” you said, eyes still fierce.

“I know.”

“I’m not going to obey and roll over just because you expect it.” You narrowed your eyes. “Stop acting as if I belong to you.”

Steve didn’t answer. He crossed his arms over his chest, eyes glued to your face.

Your heart was beating out of your chest, hearing his next words, “I can try to be more patient.”

You hated how easily he got under your skin and how you wanted to believe him. And you hated even more that, for one moment, you wondered what would happen if you let him in.

Steve was about to say something when the door flung open. You flinched seeing Bucky stumble into the office. “Steve, are you done smooching that omega? We have a problem!”

“What problem?” Steve hissed at his friend. “Now is not the time for one of your dramatic entrances, Bucky.”

“There are people…uh…from the government, I think. They are looking for rogues,” Bucky panted heavily. “We are done for…”

Part 4

You never imagined your ex-husband’s choices would come back to haunt you three years later. But now, you’ve been kidnapped by a powerful mob boss who claims he needs your help. You’re willing to cooperate, if only you actually knew anything worth telling him.

The longer you’re around him, the more your fear begins to fade. He’s nothing like you expected. In fact, he treats you with more care and respect than your ex ever did.

But once before, you trusted the wrong person. Once before, you ignored the warning signs and let your heart overrule your judgment, until there was almost nothing left of you. Do you dare trust yourself again?

Nothing changes after that. At least, nothing for you.

The routine is still there, steady as ever—but Steve is a little different. Not toward you. Toward everyone else.

At the grocery store, when someone shoots you one of those looks, he shifts just enough to stand between you and them. Subtle. Easy to miss if you are not looking for it.

At checkout, he pays. The first time he does, you glare at him. Steve just shrugs. “Least I can do when you pay for everything else.” With a huff, you let it go.

The most noticeable change comes when he picks you up from work. He does not wait in the car anymore. Now he waits by the door, and the moment you step outside, he is already falling into step beside you, matching your stride back to the car. 

The first time, you give him a look. He just smiles like this is normal, like it has always been this way. You shake your head and let it be.

Because, if you are honest… it is kind of nice having someone on your side for a change.

Things settle into that new version of normal—familiar, if a little shifted—until one night you are both stretched out on opposite ends of the couch, watching a late-night variety show.

The host makes a joke that Steve laughs at outright. You do not. You give a small, half-smile—gone almost as soon as it appears. More habit than anything real.

Steve glances at you, curious, but you do not notice. Your eyes stay on the television. If he really thinks about it—really thinks—that might be the closest thing to a real smile he has seen from you in weeks. And he has never heard you laugh. Not really.

There have been small, soft sounds—more breath than laughter. Sarcastic, dry. Never anything that lingers. Never anything that feels… easy. 

He turns that over in his mind. Even after you turn off the television and retreat to your separate rooms, it stays with him. He lies on his back, staring at the ceiling, the thought circling. Then something clicks. Small. But enough. He nods once to himself before finally closing his eyes.

A week later, on your usual night off, the two of you sit on the couch reading. He keeps stealing glances at you.

With a deep breath, you snap your book shut and look at him. “What?”

More hesitantly, Steve closes his. He scratches the back of his neck for a second. “You’re not working tonight, right?”

You shake your head, unsure where he is going with this. “No… why?”

He nods decisively, a small smile forming. “Good.”

Then he stands, offering you his hand. “We’re going out.”

Automatically, you take it and stand—but his words catch up with you, and you narrow your eyes as you let go. “That sounds like a terrible idea.”

Steve’s smile only widens. “Humor me.”

When you do not respond, he jerks his head toward the hall. “Go get dressed. We’re going dancing.”

Rolling your eyes, you throw your hands up—but head to your room anyway. You dig through your closet and settle on a flared green dress with white polka dots. As you fix your hair and makeup, you curse yourself under your breath for letting him talk you into this.

When you meet him by the door, he is dressed just as nicely. You glare at him as he opens the car door, but you slide in anyway. Steve only smiles and rounds the car, driving you to a small club with live jazz music you have seen before—but never dared to enter.

He opens your door again, and the two of you step inside. For once, the room does not shift. There are couples and small groups, all too wrapped up in each other to notice you. No whispers. No looks. No pause in conversation.

The two of you are led to a small table and order drinks. At first, you just watch, waiting for the other shoe to drop—for someone to say something, to look too long, to make it known. Nothing happens. And slowly, almost reluctantly, you relax—just a fraction—as the waiter sets your drinks down.

You take a sip and finally look over at Steve to find him watching you—calm, quiet. “You’re doing it again.”

He gives you a crooked grin, then offers his hand. “Dance with me, doll.”

You glance out at the dance floor, where several couples are already moving together. With a groan, you slap your hand into his. “Fine.”

Steve just guides you out. One hand settles gently at your waist, the other holding yours as he leads you into the rhythm. His eyes stay on yours.

After a minute, you finally give him a fleeting smile. “Okay… so this isn’t awful.”

He chuckles, because that small twitch is more real than anything he has seen from you since you started living together. And it feels like a win.

You dance through a few songs before drifting to the edge of the floor, catching your breath as you watch the other couples move.

Then Steve goes still. When you turn to him, he looks like a deer caught in headlights. Your gaze follows his—and you see her.

Betty.

Walking toward you both, all smiles, dressed in red. Of course she is. She always wears red.

She says your name like you are still friends. Then she turns, her smile shifting—sharper now, more calculated—as her hand lands lightly on Steve’s arm. “Stevie, it’s been so long.”

Steve flinches—small, but there. That is what she used to call him. Back when they were together. Before she dropped him the day after his first time like he meant nothing at all. He shifts his weight, clearly uncomfortable, but he is still Steve. He manages a polite, tight smile. “Betty.”

And then, without thinking, he shifts closer. His arm wraps around your waist. Startled, you look up at him—and when your eyes meet, you see it. 

Panic.

You let out a quiet breath and lean into him just slightly. When you look back at Betty, her smile is still there—but it is thinner now. Tighter. Her attention fixed entirely on Steve.

So you do the only thing you can. You slide your arm around him and nudge him forward. “Come on, soldier. You owe me another dance.”

Steve lets you pull him away, and the two of you step back onto the floor. He is much tenser than before, but the movement comes easily. A few steps in, the music starts to loosen him—just a little. Not enough.

Because every time you turn, she is still there. Betty stands exactly where you left her, watching. Waiting. Waiting for the song to end. Waiting for him.

And you already know—she is not going anywhere.

As you turn again, placing her directly in his line of sight, you say his name. 

“Steve.”

He does not look at you. His eyes stay locked on Betty, the confusion and hurt flickering there all over again.

You tighten your grip on his hand. “She’s not going to walk away.”

That gets his attention. He looks at you, completely at a loss. Overwhelmed in a way you have not seen before.

You take a breath. Make a decision. “So either you end this…”

His eyes flicker to Betty, then back to you. “…or I will.”

He lets out a shaky breath. “How?”

You swallow. You already know the answer. “Kiss me.”

Steve’s brows shoot up. “I’m sorry, what?”

You shift closer, steady despite yourself. “Kiss me,” you repeat. “It’s not going to do any harm.”

He searches your face, hesitant. Every time he has kissed a woman, she has disappeared from his life. But you are not them.

So, cautiously, he leans down and presses his lips to yours. At first, it is gentle. Careful. Just for show. But when you press up into him, something shifts. Something neither of you can quite name. His hand tightens slightly at your waist as he leans in just a fraction more. You adjust, tilting your head, letting the contact deepen—just enough to feel it. And then you both pull back, a little breathless.

For a moment, neither of you looks away. Then he turns you both, instinctively putting your back to the room. You tear your gaze from him and look past his shoulder.

Betty stands exactly where she was—only now she is flushed, her composure cracked. Eyes wide. When your gaze meets hers, she scowls—sharp, ugly—and turns on her heel, making a quick retreat.

You look back at Steve. He still looks a little dazed, like he is trying to catch up to what just happened—but the moment your eyes meet, he pulls himself together. “She’s gone.”

He nods, then lets you take the step back, giving you space again. “Good… thanks.”

You hum lightly, like it is nothing, and fall back into the dance. But Steve does not. Not really. He looks at you like he is seeing you for the first time. And something quiet shifts in him—something he is not ready to touch. Not yet.

As you take your seats when the song ends, you do not think about the kiss.

You absolutely do not.

Part Five

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Your boyfriend never mistreating you. It all started around the time you and him moved into the apartment next door to Steve. One day, Steve came home to see boxes outside of the apartment you and your boyfriend are moving into. You went outside to get another box when you saw Steve. You decided to introduce yourself to him.

“You must be our neighbor. I’m Y/N. Me and my boyfriend are your new next door neighbors.” You introduced yourself.

“It’s nice to meet you. I’m Steve.” Steve introduces himself.

Your boyfriend quickly grew annoyed when you didn’t come back into the apartment with a box. He huffs exaggeratedly and went outside to see what’s taking you so long.

“Why is it taking you so long to bring in boxes?” Your boyfriend asks.

“I was introduced myself to our next door neighbor. This is Steve.” You say.

Your boyfriend didn’t seem interested in the slightest. He picked up a box and put it in your hands. A heavy box to be exact.

“Less talking and more moving boxes into the apartment.” Your boyfriend says.

You gave Steve a smile before taking the box inside. Steve frowns to himself. He doesn’t like the way your boyfriend treated you just now. He would say something to your boyfriend, but he doesn’t want to overstep on your behalf. He assumes that you got it handled and goes into his own apartment.

A few months go by since that day and your boyfriend is still mistreating you. You and him have good days and bad days, but the good days don’t last long. Steve can hear your boyfriend mistreating you through the walls of his apartment. He always hears you two arguing. Yours and your boyfriend’s arguing is loud. Steve is scared that the arguing is going to turn into something physical and he’s going to see you with cuts and bruises. One day, Steve was leaving his apartment to hangout with Bucky when he saw your boyfriend getting rough with you in the hallway. His eyes went wide and he rushed over to you, shoving your boyfriend away from you.

“What the hell is your problem, man?!” Your boyfriend exclaims.

“My problem is the way you’re treating your girlfriend. Y/N is a wonderful woman and you’re treating her like she’s nothing.” Steve says.

“The way I treat my girlfriend is none of your fucking business. So, just mind your own damn business.” Your boyfriend says.

“Except, it is. I hear you two arguing all the time. I don’t like the things you say to her. Everything you say and do to her is disrespectful. I can tell that she’s nervous about standing up to an asshole like you, but I’m not. I’m standing up for her.” Steve says.

“What the hell did you just call me?” Your boyfriend asks.

“You heard me.” Steve says.

You gasped when your boyfriend threw a punch at Steve. Steve narrows his eyes at your boyfriend. He can tolerate a lot, except for bullies and the way your boyfriend is treating you. Steve threw a punch right back at your boyfriend. He got a few good punches in before your boyfriend took over the fight. Your eyes grew wide at what you’re witnessing. If you don’t stop this, it could possibly escalate into something even worse.

“Stop it!” You shouted.

You used all of your strength to push your boyfriend off of Steve. Your boyfriend looks at you for a few seconds before going into yours and his apartment, slamming the door behind him, making you and Steve flinch. You got a tissue out of your purse and gave it to Steve so he can clean up his bloody nose.

“I’m sorry that he hurt you.” You apologized.

“You don’t have anything to apologize for. He’s the one who should be apologizing. Like I said, you’re a wonderful woman. Someone needed to stand up to him.” Steve says.

“Thank you.” You smiled.

“You’re welcome.” He smiles back.

The bruises made themselves known when Steve was hanging out with Bucky.

“You got into another fight again, didn’t you?” Bucky says.

“This guy actually had it coming. Him and his girlfriend are my next door neighbors and he’s constantly mistreating her. I can hear them arguing all the time. I stood up to him for her.” Steve explains.

“That’s horrible. Is the girl ok?” Bucky asks.

“I hope she is. She thanked me before I came over here.” Steve says.

You in fact are not ok. Your boyfriend called the leasing office while you were thanking Steve for standing up for you and canceled the lease to yours and his apartment. Not only did your boyfriend pack his things into his car, he has your stuff scattered on the curb in a few different piles.

“Please don’t do this! We can talk this out!” You pleaded.

“That’s not an option anymore. You brought this on yourself. Have fun being single and homeless.” Your boyfriend says.

Your eyes teared up and you sat down on the curb in between two piles of your stuff. Steve had just gotten home at the same time your boyfriend drove off. They made eye contact as they passed each other. That’s when Steve saw you crying on the curb. He walks over to you and crouches down in front of you.

“What’s wrong? Why’s your stuff on the curb?” Steve asks.

“He called the leasing office and canceled our lease. He broke up with me and now I have nowhere to go.” You tell him.

Steve’s heart breaks for you. He hates that you were treated this way. He can’t just leave you out on the street. There has to be something that he can do for you. Actually, there is.

“Move in with me.” Steve says.

“What?” You asked.

“Move in with me. You need somewhere to live and that’s with me in my apartment.” He says.

“That’s very sweet of you, but I don’t want to be a burdensome to you and overstay my welcome.” You say.

“You are not a burdensome and don’t worry about overstaying your welcome. You’re my friend and friends help each other out. Let me help you.” He says softly.

You stared at Steve for a few seconds before agreeing to him helping you. He helped you move into his apartment. He got the guest bedroom rest for you.

“Thank you for this. It really means a lot to me.” You say.

“You don’t have to thank me, Y/N. I’m more than happy to help you. My home is your home.” Steve says.

“Still, thank you.” You say.

Steve blushed and smiled when you kissed his cheek. You moving in with Steve is the start of a beautiful friendship between you and him or more. Who knows, it might turn into something more soon or later. You never know.

———

Living with Steve is the best thing ever for both of you. You two fell in love with each other not too long after you moved in with him. Actually, you and him became best friends, but that quickly turned into you and him falling in love. You two didn’t expect to fall in love with each other that quickly, but you and him aren’t complaining. Not only that, but you became best friends with Bucky. When Steve hangs out with Bucky, you’re there too. Bucky enjoys your company like Steve does.

Steve has been planning to propose to you. He has it thought out, bought a ring, and told Bucky about it. Bucky thinks that you’re going to fall in love with Steve all over again, in which you will. Steve has the ring safely in his pocket. He kept touching the ring box through his pocket just to make sure it’s still there and it is. Although, he can’t help but feel nervous about it. He doesn’t have a thing to worth about though. He knows you’ll say yes.

“You never told me where we’re going tonight.” You say.

“The Stark Expo.” Steve tells you.

“That sounds like fun!” You smiled. “Isn’t there an article in the newspaper about that?” You asked.

“Where do you think I got the idea?” He playfully jokes.

You giggled softly and kissed his cheek. Speaking of the Stark Expo, you and Steve are meeting Bucky there. In fact, he was waiting at the front entrance of the expo for you and him.

“Hi, Bucky!” You greeted him with a hug.

“Hi, Y/N!” Bucky smiles and hugs you back.

You took a look around the expo, getting a good look at the place. You stared at everything with the look of amazement on your face. Speaking of amazement, you’re going to be even more amazed in a little bit.

“There’s so much to look at here. What do you guys want to do first?” You asked Steve and Bucky.

“How about you lead the way and we’ll follow you?” Steve suggests.

“That sounds good to me!” You smiled.

“Me too.” Bucky says.

You and Steve walked hand in hand with Bucky alongside you two throughout the expo. There was so much to look at. Then you led Steve and Bucky to the area where Howard Stark is presenting a flying car. The three of you watched in amazement.

“Isn’t that amazing, Stevie?” You say.

“Yes, but I have something even more amazing.” Steve says.

“What is it?” You curiously asked.

“Follow me.” He says.

Bucky smiles as Steve walks away with you. He knows Steve is going to propose to you. Steve led you to an area with stairs. You and him are at the top of them.

“Are you going to show me the amazing thing you told me about?” You asked.

Steve gets the small ring box out of his pocket and gets down on one knee. You gasped softly when you realized what he’s going to do. He opens the ring box, revealing the most beautiful diamond ring you’ve ever seen.

“Will you make me the happiest man alive and marry me?” Steve asks.

“Yes!” You happily replied.

Steve smiles widely and puts the ring on your finger. He stands back up and kisses you softly and passionately.

“Are you even more amazed?” Steve asks.

“I’m speechless in a good way.” You smiled.

Steve smiles and kisses you again.

“We have to tell Bucky!” You say excitedly.

You and Steve were unable to contain yours and his excitement as you two ran back over to Bucky.

“We’re engaged!” You excitedly exclaimed, holding your hand up so he can see the ring.

“Congratulations! I’m so happy for you guys!” Bucky says just as excited as you and Steve.

You and Steve got married shortly after he proposed. Some people may say you and Steve got married too quickly after getting engaged, but you two didn’t see it that way. You two love each other and that’s all that matters. Something else that matters is Steve’s dream of joining the Army. At first, Steve thought it would be too soon join the Army after you two got married, but you told him that you fully support his dream to join the Army and he has your full support to do so.

“I’m not leaving you in the lurch, am I?” Steve asks just to be sure.

“You’re not leaving me in the lurch, honey. This is your dream and I fully support it.” You say softly.

“You’re my dream too, sweetheart.” He says softly.

You smiled when he said that. You kissed him softly and passionately. You kissed him the same way you did when you and him got married. Steve’s heart skipped a beat when you did that. Yours did too. You pulled away, gazing deeply in his eyes.

“I love you.” You say softly.

“I love you too.” He says just as softly.

You two kissed and hugged one more time before he left. Your eyes teared up as you watched him leave. You know that he’s going to be home before you know it, but you’re going to miss him a lot while he’s away.

As Steve was about to get the serum, he was laying in the machine, staring up at the ceiling. His nerves are through the roof. The only thing that calmed his nerves is thinking about you. The thought of you really calmed his nerves down, along with taking some deep breaths. After he got the serum, Steve steps out of the machine and looks down at himself, taking in his new appearance. He couldn’t help but wonder what you’re going to think of it. He had no negative thoughts of what you’ll think of his new appearance. He knows that you’ll love him either way.

As if Steve wasn’t hurting enough after witnessing his best friend falling off of the train during a mission to take down HYDRA, Red Skull wanted to hit Steve where it hurts for a second time. Red Skull did some research and found out that Steve is married. He sent a couple HYDRA agents after you. As you were about to walk up the stairs to go to yours and Steve’s apartment, a HYDRA agent grabbed from behind. He put his hand over your mouth before you could scream for help. You yelped when you felt a prick of a needle enter your skin. The sedative that was injected into you, knocked you out in less than 30 seconds. Then you were taken aboard of Red Skull’s plane.

When Steve got onto the plane, he fought any HYDRA agent who got in his way. He cautiously made his way to the cockpit of the plane, his shield held in front of him so he’s prepared for whatever threat is thrown his way. When he got to the cockpit of the plane, Red Skull wasn’t in there, but he saw someone else. The closer he walked over to the person- you who was passed out on the metal table that’s in the middle of the cockpit, he quickly realizes that it’s you. Steve’s eyes grow wide and his heart drops to the pit of his stomach. He quickly rushes over to you.

“Y/N, sweetheart, can you hear me?” Steve asks, trying to wake you up.

You mumbled incoherently. Steve noticed that you have an IV in your arm. He followed the IV to see what it’s connected to. His eyes go wider if it’s possible when he sees an IV bag full of Super Soldier serum being injected into you at this very moment. He carefully and slowly took the IV needle out of your arm.

“Y/N, you need to wake up.” Steve says, gently tapping your cheek to get you to wake up.

You groaned softly as you woke up. Your eyes fluttered open, immediately seeing your husband. You quickly latched yourself onto him, hugging him tightly. Steve helped you off of the metal table in the process.

“What’s going on, Stevie? How did I get here?” You asked confused and frantically.

“I don’t know, sweetheart, but everything is going to be ok.” Steve softly assures.

“You really shouldn’t lie to your wife, Captain.” Red Skull says.

You and Steve whipped your bodies around to see Red Skull standing in the doorway of the cockpit. Yours and his hearts sank when you two saw that he had a gun aimed at you two. Steve quickly put you behind him, shielding you from Red Skull.

“How did you get ahold of my wife?” Steve asks.

“I did my research throughly, Captain. This is what happens when you won’t leave things alone. Now, your wife has to suffer the consequences.” Red Skull says.

Steve knew exactly what Red Skull meant and he didn’t like it one bit. Out of anger, he walks over to Red Skull and throws a punch at him.

“I swear if you lay another hand on my wife, you won’t like what I’m going to do to you.” Steve says, his voice sounding protective and a bit dangerous.

“Are you threatening me, Captain?” Red Skull asks.

“No. I’m protecting my wife.” Steve says.

You stood out of the way of your husband and Red Skull as a fight broke out between them. Yours watched it go down with wide eyes. When Red Skull disappeared due to him touching the tesseract, the plane began to go down. That’s when you really started to panic.

“I don’t want us to die!” You exclaimed frantically.

“Hey, hey. Look at me. We are not going to die. I promise.” Steve says softly.

The softness of Steve’s voice made you feel somewhat better. You and Steve went over to the controls of the plane. The plane needed to be landed somewhere safe, but there wasn’t anywhere safe to land it. The only place to land it is in the water. Yes, that’s dangerous, but that’s the only place Steve can think of.

“The plane had to be landed in the water.” Steve says.

“What?! No! There has to be somewhere safe to land it!” You exclaimed.

“I wish there was, but there isn’t.” He says.

Steve cups your cheeks, gazing deeply in your eyes.

“Do you trust me?” Steve asks softly.

“You know I do, sweetie.” You say.

“Then you know what I have to do.” He says.

“I know.” You say.

Steve kisses you passionately.

“I love you, sweetheart.” He says softly.

“I love you too, honey.” You say just as softly.

Steve sat down in the Captain’s chair of the plane and you sat down in the seat next to him. Both of you take deep breaths as he began to get the plane towards the water. Steve quickly reaches over to you and grabs ahold of your hand, holding it as the plane plunged into the water.

60+ YEARS LATER…

Not only was SHIELD shocked that Steve survived being in the ice for years, they were shocked to see that another person- you survived alongside him. When Steve woke up, all he wanted to know is where you are. At first, he was frantic. He relaxed when he saw that you’re in the bed next to him. He moved over to the bed you’re on.

“Y/N, wake up.” Steve says, gently shaking you to wake you up.

Your eyes fluttered open. You almost became frantic, but then you saw Steve in front of you. You instantly felt relieved. You sat up and hugged him tightly.

“We’re alive.” You say.

“We are.” Steve says softly.

You moved back just enough to kiss him softly and passionately. You couldn’t help but tear up as well.

“I thought I lost you forever.” You say, your voice cracking.

“You’re never going to lose me, sweetheart. I’m not going anywhere. The only things that matter is that we’re alive and we have each other.” He says softly.

“Can we go home now?” You asked.

“Of course we can.” He smiles.

———

With help from SHIELD, you and Steve are now settled in an apartment in Brooklyn. The apartment is small, but you and him call it home. You’re having a hard time adjusting to this time period. Everything is different and feels different now. Everything about it makes you nervous. Maybe that’s because you’re not all the way settled into the idea of living in this time period. You always get lost in your thoughts, thinking about how much simpler life was in the 1940s. Steve often notices it.

“Sweetheart, are you ok?” Steve asks.

“No.” You say.

“What’s wrong?” He asks.

“I don’t- I don’t know how to adjust to life in this time period, Stevie. It seemed to come easy for you, but it’s difficult for me. I’m scared. I don’t know what to do.” You say.

Steve heard how scared you are. Tears are streaming down your face too. He moves closer to you and pulls you onto his lap. You began to cry softly in his arms.

“Hey, hey. Everything is going to be fine.” Steve says softly.

“Nothing feels fine to me! It’s scary being in a different time period!” You cried.

“It was scary to me at first, but then I adjusted to life in this time period. If I’m being honest, I’m still a bit unsure about it.” He says.

“You are?” You asked.

“Yes. The good thing is that we have each other to get through it.” He says softly.

Steve’s right. You were just having a hard time adjusting and too scared to remember that you and him have each other.

“I was too scared to remember that.” You say.

“Just remember that we’ll always have each other forever and always.” He says.

“You’re right.” You say.

“Aren’t I always?” He jokes, making you smile.

Steve always knows how to calm you down and make you laugh at the same time. You couldn’t help but giggle softly. Steve smiles and wipes your tears away.

“I love you so much, Stevie.” You say.

“I love you too, sweetheart.” He says and kisses you.