𝓐𝓷𝓷𝓲𝓮

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.

You sit there in the clubhouse, sipping alcohol-free beer and doing notes for work, while Steve talks with some of his bikers. It’s become almost a routine now to come to the Dark Avengers’ pub after work on Fridays. Other days appear more normal, more domestic, but only on the veneer because your new home isn’t the one you lived in for the past years. Your new home is full of Steve’s presence and your blooming attempts to grow your own roots there.

You refuse to call it acceptance, because you hate how it all came to be and you're still afraid, but you’re adjusting. Learning yourself anew, as well as learning Steve. 

By now you know his tells enough to recognize the shift in him that day. Something’s under his skin, though it doesn’t appear to be anger. It takes you a few minutes of glancing his way from the corner of your eye and focusing on the way his thumb presses into your thigh, to realize he’s horny. 

Though that expression seems so bland and unfitting for the intensity of Steve’s arousal.

He’s not handsy, he doesn’t make innuendos or flirts you up. He strategizes, building his need to a point where he can spend hours unleashing it. 

Steve's attention is masterfully divided. He runs the conversation with Sam so smoothly, yet keeps looking at you in a way that betrays he's planning every single position he will take you in.

His hand rests on your thigh. A possessive brand. He doesn't need to move it under your skirt to give you a sign that in a few minutes you're going to be wrecked and screaming. By now, your body reacts to his touch eagerly. 

You’d prefer to say you were conditioned, but the way he made you fall apart that first time he took you is proof enough of how naturally responsive you are to his dark, filthy tricks.

Steve simply finishes his discussion, then places a hand on top of yours - stopping you mid writing a sentence in your notepad. He stands up and you know you should too. It's his graciousness that he allows you to go upstairs to the spare guest bedroom and fuck without people watching.

However, if you take too long to comply, he will do it right there on the table.

Not a quick, brutal thing either. Oh no, he'd deliberately make you feel so good, stretch it out, make you beg for all the filthy pleasure in front of all of the present Dark Avengers.

So it's best to follow his lead and go upstairs. He might suddenly pick you up and carry you, simply out of the fact he really wants to feel you in his arms, against his body. 

You never admit it out loud, but a zap of thrill shoots through you whenever he does that. Your husband showed you appreciation and worship in his own ways, but was never able to carry or manhandle you so easily.

Not rushing things like a wild animal doesn't mean Steve fucks you gently and tenderly. His commands grow harsher, urging you to take off your clothes before he rips them off.

He sits on the edge of the bed and makes you kneel before him. His hand is heavy and ruthless in the way he holds your head down as you try to swallow as much of his fat cock as possible; drooling and choking and tearing up. And hating how your core ignites with pleasure from the dirty act.

Steve watches it all in the mirrored wardrobe that's opposite of the bed. He notices the occasional rocking of your hips as you fight the growing need to be filled.

He rips you off of him and yanks you up to straddle his thighs. Makes you slide down on his cock in one stinging stretch. He urges you to ride him, giving you a spank every time he wants you to move faster.

Mouth on your breasts, sucking and biting until you're clenching so desperately. One hand in your hair, either pulling your head back when he wants to leave bite marks on your neck, or forcing you to look at him and hold his hungry gaze as you take it all like an obedient fucktoy.

He makes you look at him when you shatter with a soft scream. Fucks harder up into you, making you make those little whimpering noises.

"That's it, Cornflower. Such a beautiful fucktoy coming all over my cock."

Then the hand that was spanking and groping your ass slides down, gathers the sticky evidence of your orgasm on his fingers. The pressure of those wet fingers against your rim makes you tense, but you know better than to stop rolling your hips and meeting his hard thrusts. 

He finishes inside you right after you come for the second time, with two of his fingers deep in your ass. But Steve's not done. His need runs too deep, too hot.

He'll spread you out on the bed and kiss and maul all over your body, savoring the way you moan and desperately clutch at your surroundings - the bed sheets, your own hair, him. When you cry out futile protests as his mouth descends on your cunt and he sees the mess leaking out of your fluttering hole, Steve's dick stands to full attention again.

He gets off the bed for a moment. Satisfied conqueror that’s still not fully sated. He towers over you and watches your trembling body with dark pride. And more hunger.

Purposely, he walks to the door and opens it a fraction.

Then he's back to you, rolling you onto your side so that you're facing the door. He slides behind you, pulls one of your legs up and over his thigh. Then slowly - a mercy from him, truly - starts pushing his cock into your ass.

“Nnhhh-” you tense, toes curling as the pressure grows nearly unbearable.

"Be a good fucktoy." Steve commands in a low, breathy voice, curling his other hand around your neck.

When he's halfway in and you feel like he might split you open, the hand that was around your neck drifts lower. He starts playing with your clit, making your whole body shudder.

"That's it, Cornflower." He coos, petting your cunt. "You're going to take it all. And my sweet pussy is going to prove to me how much you like having your ass full of cock."

Your gaze flicks toward the ajar door, but your focus blurs. There's too much overwhelming sensation. Which Steve increases with every slide of his fingers, every inch forced into your tight hole, every word he rasps.

"Come on it like a good cockslut and I'll fill you up." His rhythm quickens. Faster. Harder.  "Then I'll take you home and fuck my pussy some more. Have you bloated with my seed until morning."

A floorboard creaks somewhere. You can't even be sure that anyone's walking this way. But the rush of fear and potential humiliation pairs with the onslaught of sensations.

You clench down hard, creaming all over Steve's fingers. Your cry is pitched high, choked with breathlessness from the forceful thrusts brutally stretching your ass as he mercilessly chases his own peak.

Your pussy tightens even harder when you feel the warm spurts filling you.

"My perfect cumdump." Steve's dirty words are spoken so softly, and paired with a gentle kiss to your shoulder.

A contrast to the way he just fucked you.

He wraps both arms around you, holding you tight and intimately. While his cock is still throbbing in your ass and your used holes are still on display for anyone who might appear in the hallway.

No amount of makeup will cover the marks on your neck and chest, and Steve won't allow you to wear a scarf or turtleneck. He wants everyone to know you're his. Most of all, loves that you are reminded of his ownership with every glance in the mirror, every curious look from others, every movement that flares with the imprint of his cock inside you.

July 5, 20XX

Yesterday was Steve’s birthday, and we all went out by the lake. It was a lot of fun just being around everyone again. I feel like I haven’t done that enough lately.

There was another group there—some kids we go to college with—and they sort of joined us. Well, Bucky was talking to one of the girls and invited them over. I was a little annoyed at that since it was supposed to be about Steve, but whatever.

The girl kept hanging around Bucky, too. Not that I can blame him for wanting someone to talk to when I was focused on making sure Steve had a good night.

You sit back, your mind trying to make sense of the entry. It falls right between the ones you read yesterday, but something about it still does not sit right.

Under your breath, you find yourself questioning it—why you just let it go. Why Bucky openly flirting with someone else did not seem to matter more.

The feelings are starting to feel familiar now, like something just out of reach, but you still cannot say you loved him then.

That realization sits heavier than you expect.

This is officially frustrating.

A soft knock on your door pulls you out of your thoughts as Steve peeks in. “Hey, tiger, you ready to eat or need a few?”

His smile is normal and easygoing, none of the tension from the day before in it. You relax slightly and smile back. “I can read more later. Breakfast sounds good.”

You set the journal aside as Steve walks in and moves to pick you up again. After setting you down near the bathroom so you can use the counter for support, he steps back, giving you space instead of hovering. Once you are done, he lifts you again and carries you to the kitchen, settling you on a stool at the counter.

After last night, letting him carry you feels different. You just cannot quite put a finger on how.

“So, find out anything new today?” Steve asks, pulling out cereal and fruit and starting to cut it up.

Leaning forward, you shake your head. “Not really. Just more of the same.”

He sets a bowl in front of you and takes a seat beside you, already digging into his own. His eyes linger on you for a moment before he nods.

Still frustrated, you exhale sharply and stab your spoon into the cereal.

Next to you, Steve chuckles. “Doesn’t seem like more of the same, tiger.”

You take a bite, avoiding the question for a second before deciding to just say it. “I just cannot figure it out. I mean, they are my memories, but I don’t understand the choices she made. It really feels like a different person.”

You slump a little, more annoyed than anything now.

Steve takes a bite of fruit as he studies you. “Wish I could help you there. I know you gave me whiplash a lot the past few years. Some days it was like you wanted to ring Buck’s neck, and other days you were over the moon.”

You frown slightly. “And I wasn’t like that before? I mean, swinging from one extreme to the other over everything?”

You need something to hold onto. Even a little.

He shakes his head. “No, not really. You had other relationships, sure, but… it was different with Bucky.” He shrugs. “I always figured it was because you cared more. Nothing else really made sense.”

You take another bite just to have something to do, your thoughts tangling tighter instead of loosening.

And underneath it all is something else you are trying not to look at too closely—how easy it is to just… reset with Steve. Like nothing happened.

Like something did.

The two of you sit in that quiet for a moment, until Steve clears his throat and stands, taking the bowls to the sink.

Then, a little more hesitant, “So… the others are coming over tonight. I figured you might want to shower before then.”

That makes everything in you pause.

This moment—this exact thing—is why Peggy and Bucky did not want him taking care of you.

You push that thought away, along with the nerves creeping in behind it, and nod. “Yeah… that would probably be a good idea.”

Looking at him instead of the floor takes more effort than it should, but you manage. “Um… we could just do it now. So my hair can dry.”

You do not say that you would rather get it over with.

But it lingers there anyway.

Steve nods and moves around the island to pick you up again, talking as he walks this time. “You okay with me choosing your clothes, or do you want to get them yourself?”

That should not be as loaded a question as it is. Because just the day before, Steve put all your clothes away—even the underwear. Somehow, him picking it out and knowing you were wearing it feels… different. Not bad. Just enough to leave you off balance. But pushing his help away feels wrong too.

With a small, dismissive gesture, you answer, “You pick. I’m sure it will be fine.”

He bypasses your room and carries you into his instead, setting you down on the wide counter of his ensuite bathroom. “I’ll be right back.”

You sit there for a moment, staring at the shower, trying to picture how this is going to work.

When he comes back and sets your clothes down beside a few of his own, he notices your expression immediately and rests a gentle hand on your knee. “Hey, I can call one of the girls if you’d feel more comfortable.”

You shake your head right away, the response coming out before you can think about it. “No. I would crush Wanda, Natasha would leave bruises, and Pepper would mother-hen me to death before it was over.”

He huffs out a laugh, clearly agreeing.

You blow out a breath. “I think we just need to treat it like a bandage and just… rip it off.”

Steve rolls his shoulders a little, both of you wading through the awkwardness of it all.

Oddly, even knowing you have scars now, you are more worried about your own reaction than his. You are not afraid of being naked in front of him. That part does not bother you.

It is just… unfamiliar.

Meeting his eyes and seeing nothing but concern there, you grab the bottom of your shirt and pull it over your head.

Your gaze drops immediately.

The long scar running from your shoulder down across your abdomen catches your eye first. Then the others—smaller, scattered, already fading into pale lines.

For a second, you just… stare.

You are faintly aware of Steve pulling his own shirt off, stepping closer, his hand returning to your knee, but your focus stays locked on your skin.

It does not look like yours.

Even without remembering what you looked like before, something in your stomach turns.

Steve sees it happen. The way you go still. The way your breathing changes.

He does the only thing he can think of.

Hooking his fingers gently under your chin, he lifts your gaze to his. “Hey. Talk to me.”

You let out a shaky breath. “It feels like… even my body isn’t mine. Not just my mind.” You swallow, your vision starting to tilt. “I—I think I’m gonna pass out.”

Before you can tip backward, Steve steps in, bracing himself between your knees and pulling you flush against him.

You fold into him without thinking.

His arms come around you, solid and steady, and the warmth of his skin is immediate—grounding in a way you did not realize you needed. You cling to him, breathing shallow at first, then deeper as the dizziness ebbs.

He does not rush you. Does not try to fix it.

He just holds you.

And lets the quiet settle around you both.

After a few minutes, you take a deep breath, squeezing him tightly. “Help me stand so I can get the rest off.”

Instead of answering, he pulls back, helping you slide off the edge so your feet touch the floor. With a hand braced on his shoulder to steady yourself, you step out of your pajama pants and underwear. Once he is sure you are steady against the counter, he does the same, then moves to turn on the water, letting the temperature adjust.

The lines of muscle along his back should distract you, but your gaze drops instead—to your legs, where more faint scars mark your skin. Another long one runs down your right hip. You reach out and touch it, feeling the raised flesh, trying to reconcile the emotions rolling through you.

Steve pulls you out of your head again, this time with a hand settling gently on your shoulder. “Ready?”

When you nod, he wraps an arm around your waist to keep you steady, and together you step into the shower. He pulls the door closed behind you, sealing you both into the small space.

You close your eyes as the warm water hits your skin, letting it wash over you, trying to let it take some of the tension with it—the not knowing, the disconnect. Steve’s arm stays around your waist, loose enough to give you space but firm enough that you know he is there if you need him.

Your eyes open again to find his already on you, a small, gentle smile on his face.

You return it faintly and glance toward the shelf, spotting the toiletries you picked up the night before. “Let’s start with my hair. That should be easy.”

He hums in agreement and reaches for your shampoo, placing it in your hand. He lets you handle it, does not take over, just stays close—steady, patient—as you figure it out again.

You swap the shampoo for the conditioner, and as you rinse your hair, you wobble slightly. Steve’s hand comes to your hip immediately, steadying you. “Thanks.”

He nods, glancing toward the shelf. “What next?”

Normally, you would shave next, but you have a feeling that is going to be the trickiest part, so you opt for body wash instead. You point over your shoulder, and he hands it to you again.

This time, though, it takes a little maneuvering.

You lean toward him, your hand bracing on his shoulder so you can reach your back, and you feel him still slightly when you get close. Out of the corner of your eye, you catch the way he swallows before he quickly looks away.

He shakes his head like he is resetting, then offers you his hand again when you shift to wash your legs.

You take it, but as you lift one foot, your balance goes.

You tip backward, and even though his arm is there, the sudden weightless feeling makes you grab onto him, pulling him off balance with you. The two of you stumble, and he barely catches you both, one hand braced against the wet tile just behind your head.

Steve exhales sharply. “Careful, tiger.”

“Sorry.”

Your arms had wrapped around his neck when you fell, and for a second neither of you moves, both of you breathing through the spike of adrenaline.

Then, slowly, carefully, he rights you both.

You are closer than necessary now, and it takes a conscious effort to take a small step back.

Steve waits until you are steady before letting go completely, offering his hand again.

This time, you take it tighter. One foot. Then the other.

You manage it without incident, and when you hand him the loofah to rinse, you flick your fingers at him, sending a splash of water into his face.

He gives you an unimpressed look. It lasts all of two seconds before he ruins it by laughing.

You smile back, scrunching your nose. “Now to shave. This should be an adventure.”

Steve gives you a half grin, muttering a mock, “Women,” under his breath as he hands you the soap and razor.

“Hey, at least I don’t clog the sink once a week, mister,” you shoot back.

He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Now get to it. I don’t have endless hot water, and I still need to shower.”

When you quirk a brow at that, Steve just shrugs. “Two birds.”

Now you roll your eyes, but you lean back into the arm around your waist anyway and start to shave. When you get to your legs again, you pause.

Steve catches the hesitation immediately. “Maybe lean back on the wall, and I can help steady you—just hold your foot.”

You try to picture it, then nod. “Okay, but if I fall and take you with me, I’m tickling you again. No mercy this time.”

He snorts at that and helps you shift, guiding you back against the tile. Once you feel steady, you lift your leg, bent at the knee, and he catches your foot while keeping a careful eye on the one planted on the shower floor.

The position sends heat creeping up your neck, but he keeps his focus where it should be—on keeping you balanced.

You work through it, trying to be methodical, just getting it done.

When you finish one leg, you press lightly against his hand to shift, then lift the other. Again, his attention flicks between your face and your footing, more concerned with you slipping than anything else. Which is exactly why you knew you could trust him.

When you finish, you stay leaned back against the tile for a second, catching your breath. “Your turn.”

Steve is quicker than you—for obvious reasons—and as you watch him, you cannot help the thought that slips in. This moment right here is exactly why they did not want this.

You were right—he is different from the sixteen-year-old version of himself. Bigger, steadier. But the way he moves… that is the same. And somehow, that makes it easier to relax, to just watch him without overthinking it.

He gets you back for earlier, shaking his head after rinsing his hair and sending water droplets everywhere.

You laugh, the sound echoing softly off the tile.

Once Steve is finished, he turns off the water and, with his arm around your waist again, helps you step out of the shower.

A fluffy towel is already in his hands, and he stays close, steadying you as you dry off, still careful with your balance. You are both a little less stiff now, the worst of it behind you, and it shows in the easier way you move around each other.

Your back proves the hardest, and after a moment, you just hand him the towel. He does not comment, just helps—quick, efficient, nothing lingering. After you finish drying your hair, you lean against the counter while he dries off as well.

Then comes the trick of getting dressed.

Thankfully, he simply hands you the pile of clothes and lets you handle it yourself, only keeping a hand within reach in case you need the extra support. Once you get your underwear and pants on, the bra and shirt are easier.

As you pull on the last pieces, Steve starts dressing himself.

You let yourself watch him for a moment, trying to find your center again. Your thoughts drift—to that dream. The one that keeps coming back. Steve standing over you, bathed in sunlight, saying something you can never quite hear.

His eyes meet yours, and you snap out of it, heat creeping into your face.

Steve does not comment. He just steps closer and picks you up again. “Couch or bed?”

“Huh?” Your brain lags behind, still half in that dream, but then it clicks. “Oh—couch. And can you bring me my journals? I want to read some more.”

“Sure, tiger.” He adjusts his grip easily. “I’ve got some work to do from home today, but I’ll be in the study if you need anything.”

He sets you down on the couch, brings the crate of journals over, and hands you a bottle of water before heading off to the study.

The quiet settles back in once he is gone.

With a small shake of your head, you pull out the oldest journal again. Even through the immature ramblings, it starts to feel… familiar. Not clear. Not whole.

But closer than anything else has.

After working for a few hours, Steve comes out to join you on the couch, but you barely notice him, absorbed in your middle school self’s ramblings. He just picks up a book from the side table you had not noticed and begins to read.

You pass a few hours like that until a knock at the door makes you both look up. “Expecting someone?”

Steve shakes his head. “No, but with you here, someone might have decided to drop by.” He stands, leaving his book on the end table. “Don’t worry.”

You nod as he heads to the door, but when he opens it, you catch the quick flicker of surprise on his face—followed immediately by something more guarded.

Your curiosity spikes. Then you hear it. A throat clears. “Can I see her?”

Bucky.

He sounds… unsure. More unsure than he had even been when you broke things off.

Steve nods and steps back. “Of course.”

Bucky steps inside, his eyes scanning the room until they land on you. You catch the way he winces slightly at the sight of you curled up on Steve’s couch.

Behind him, Steve closes the door. “I’m going to finish up in the study.” He glances at you. You nod.

Bucky notices the exchange and looks away as Steve leaves.

You drop the journal into the crate beside you and wait. This is awkward as hell, but you will be damned if you let him make you feel bad right now.

He shifts his weight, clearly uncomfortable, then exhales and rolls his eyes at himself before taking the chair closest to you.

“Hey, b—” He cuts himself off, jaw tightening slightly before finishing with just your name.

“Hi.” You let the silence stretch just a little.

He chose to come here.

Bucky licks his lips before finally meeting your eyes. “I just wanted…” He gestures vaguely. “…to make sure you were okay. Not that Steve can’t take care of you, but… well. You know.”

You bite your lip and nod faintly. “You okay?”

He swallows and looks away, and that is when you really see it—the dark circles under his eyes. “I’ve been better.”

“Bucky—” You start, instinctively, but he lifts a hand.

“Not your fault.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Just… dealing with the change.”

Everything you have learned, everything you are starting to piece together, sits right on the edge of your tongue—but without the full picture, you cannot bring yourself to say any of it.

So you take the safer route. “The others are coming over tonight. Kind of a ‘released from the hospital’ thing. As much of a party as I can handle.”

He gives a small smile at that. “That’s good. You should celebrate.”

You fidget slightly. He looks like a kicked puppy, and you do not know if you caused that—or if it was always there. It pulls at something in you, but with everything shifting the way it is, you are not sure stepping in would actually help.

Bucky leans forward, unable to relax enough to sit back. “Uh… how is Steve doing? I mean, helping you and all.”

Your thoughts flick—unhelpfully—to this morning. To last night. You force them away.

“He’s been good. Letting me do as much as I can myself. I think we’re going to start working on my at-home therapy later.”

“Right…” His gaze drifts again.

Then, abruptly, he stands. “I should go. Um… just text me if you want. Or call.”

You watch him, wishing—just a little—that you could stand, walk him out, offer something more than this distance. But you know how that would end. “Okay. You too.”

Bucky looks at you one last time, hands shoved into his pockets, then turns and heads for the door. It closes with a quiet click.

A moment later, Steve walks back in. “You okay?”

You let your head fall back against the couch, staring at the ceiling. “No. That was the most awkward thing that has ever happened… that I can remember.”

Steve huffs a quiet laugh and sits beside you, draping an arm around your shoulders and pulling you gently into his side.

You go easily, still tangled up in it.

“I feel bad,” you admit. “For hurting him. But at the same time… I’m so confused. Everything I think I know keeps changing.” You close your eyes, frustrated.

Steve squeezes your shoulder. “I know, tiger. I wish I could promise you that you’ll get your memories back and everything will make sense, but… life’s messy.”

He hesitates. There is more he could say. That you will find your way back to Bucky. That things will settle.

But the words catch. Because of what you said last night. Because of what it stirred up in him. And because he still has Peggy—even if they have not spoken since she walked out.

So instead, he just holds you a little tighter.

Part Six

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Clint Barton knows when someone is about to throw up. He has three kids after all. He also has a wife who suffered with morning sickness so he knows the signs. The colour draining from someone’s face, sometimes a flush of the cheeks depending on the person, a gulp of trying to push it down, then a silent heave. 

And he sees the signs as he looks across at you. The gasp of shock when you look at the screen, the colour that drains from your face, the heave that comes when you stand abruptly, knocking the chair to the ground. When your hand goes to your mouth, he knows the heave will come again and will probably be followed by you being violently sick. 

So he moves silently, knowing you don’t know where the downstairs bathroom is, and pushes open the door. He calls your name as you heave again and your freehand follows the other to your mouth. You trip over your own feet as you make your way to him, Steve and Bucky hot on your tail. You proceed to be violently sick into the toilet, as Bucky barks orders for an ice pack as your body burns up. When your vision blurs you hear Sam’s voice and then he’s by your side, attaching you to the monitor from earlier in the day. Bucky’s knelt at your other side reassuring you softly, before calling out harshly in Russian to Natasha. Steve’s behind you, a hand around your waist and you’re sure he’s holding you up. 

When you’re finally done Clint’s hand appears between the huddle around you, and a cold bottle of water is offered to you. 

You say a quiet thank you, before you rinse your mouth with it. Someone tabs your mouth with tissue and you take a few more sips. 

“How?” You ask. 

You don’t see the men that surround you exchange glances. Bucky strokes your head softly.

“What do you mean fae?”

“That picture. The photo.” You say confused.

“The last one?” Steve asks, and you nod in reply. “Who was it?”

“That’s him. The one they sold my wings too.”

Bucky moves instantly, a growl in his chest. Darcy slides into his spot, a worried look on her face. 

Then there’s yelling. 

“How dare you? How fucking dare you come into our home and lie?!! I want you out now!!”

“Sergeant Barnes, the incident today is part of a wider investigation.” You hear one of the detectives say.

“I don’t give a shit! OUT!!!”

“Sergeant Barnes, if you or anyone else hampers  the investigation we will have cause to note it as obstruction and”

“And what? You’re going to arrest me? I’d like to see you try.” Bucky growls.

“Detectives, you might want to remember that you’re on our private property and that you came here so Y/N could identify those that attempted to kidnap her today. Their behaviour was a direct attack on a dragon’s mate. James’ reaction is completely understandable. We only agreed for you to be here if you were accompanied by Colonel Rhodes, who is in fact a military and government official, who you have apparently lied to. If this is the man that Y/N’s parents sold her wings too, this is much bigger than the NYPD. Isn’t it? Stalking. Kidnap. Maybe even trafficking. Then there’s of course the possible human collection of those like us, or worse parts of us.” You hear Natasha say.

Stalking. Kidnapping. Collection. 

You lose track of what Natasha is saying as you process her last words. 

Collection. Collector of things. The Collector. That’s what your mother had called him. You feel a stir of something in your chest.

You move abruptly.

“Careful sweetheart.” Steve tells you as he helps you to your feet. 

“Easy Y/N. Careful of your blood pressure.” Sam warns you. 

You take a moment to steady yourself and catch Darcy’s worried expression. You reassure her you’re okay and squeeze her hand in insistence. You hear a further commotion from outside of the bathroom, the opening and closing of a door and then Tony’s voice, followed by a women’s voice you don’t know. 

You hear Steve mutter something and Clint leaves the bathroom and then comes back. 

“She wants to talk to Y/N, Nat’s right, looks like this is passed the cops remit.”

There’s another loud back and forth and you hear the detectives arguing with the woman. Bucky’s voice gets louder more and there’s a mention again of him being an obstruction, and him being arrested. A boom of Thor’s voice follows, along with a threat from Loki. 

Something surges over you. Something you haven’t felt in a long time and you’re suddenly moving out of Steve’s arms towards the noise. 

Tony is the nearest to the bathroom. He has his back to you. He’s flanked by two blonde phoenixes. One is Pepper. The other you don’t know. Not until she turns at the sound of your footsteps. 

Sharon Carter. 

Phoenix. CIA Agent. Steve’s ex-girlfriend. 

You feel her eyes on you but don’t look at her as she steps to the side and you step between her and Tony. 

Bucky turns sharply and pulls you into his arms. He sniffs you throughly, and you hear one of the detectives huff. There’s another pull of something in your chest and you turn to look at the detectives sharply. 

“Were you threatening my dragon?” A voice asks. It’s harsh and threatening and you suddenly realise it’s coming from you. 

“There she is.” Loki says amused. You ignore him. 

“He’s done more to protect me than you have. A restraining order that took months, repeated phone calls to 911 and the local PD, being stalked. I had to move because of that human asshole.” You pause and turn towards the female human Police Officer, who looks like she’s about to pass out. “No offence.”

She waves you off. 

“If you’d have done your jobs properly then, today wouldn’t have happened.” You tell the detectives, as you take a step and end up nearly nose to nose to the one that’s standing nearest to Bucky. “And now, you think you can ask me about him. About the man that helped ruin my childhood.”

“Y/N.” Steve says your name softly to start with as he slips an arm across your waist. When you don’t respond, he glances at Loki as the fae takes a step forward to take you in more. Steve says your name again, firmer this time. You blink quickly and smile softly at him, before curling into his side. You feel Bucky behind you as he presses into your back.

“I think it’s time you headed out, let Agent Carter here do her job.” Rhodey tells the detectives.  “Expect a phone call from the Commissioner on your way home.”

They don’t move right away and the atmosphere in the room changes. It feels like the friends around you move, even though they don’t. You’re still curled into Steve’s side when you hear the door open, footsteps and a quip from Tony. The room settles and is silent for a moment.

“Y/N.” A voice says and you turn towards it. Sharon. “I need to speak to you.”

“No.” Steve says firmly. 

You lean away from him and your eyes meet Sharon’s. You’re not sure why but she takes a step back. 

“Do you have him?’ You ask. “The Collector?”

“We do.” She tells you. “The delivery guy gave him up, Daniel followed soon after. Seems they were concerned with your involvement with Barnes. With all of you.”

“As they should be.” Natasha tells her, a bite to her voice.

“Are you sure fae?” Bucky asks, lips placed tightly to your ear. You nod. “We do this and then I want you gone. She’s needs rest.”

Sharon nods and Bucky guides you back over to the table. This time you sit in his lap. Sam places a blanket over your legs. Steve stands as close as he can, hand on your shoulder.

You watch as Sharon pulls out her phone and sets it up to record your voice. She says the date and time, and then clears her throat.

“Y/N, please can you tell me how you know The Collector.”

Fancy a cuppa? My Ko-Fi.

TAGLIST

You come to with pleasure radiating from your slick and aching core. You’re in the delicious confusion between asleep and awake, at first unable to tell if you’re still dreaming, because the sensation between your legs is so fiercely, exquisitely good. A tongue runs a slow, careful circle around your clit, then sucks, then releases, then presses with the firmness of a promise. You gasp, a wild animal sound, and arch your back, your chest keening upward from the bed.

You feel the strong hands gripping your hips, the slow, possessive drag of teeth. Things are still new fairly new with Derek, and you’ve had sex a few times, but this is the first night you invited him to sleep over. He hadn’t put his mouth on your most intimate parts yet, though you’d been hoping he would, but you’re not complaining now. Better late than never, and all the better if he was finally eager enough to devour you that he had to wake you up in the middle of the night.

You moan appreciatively and start to tease one of your breasts as your other hand reaches down to tangle in Derek’s hair.

Only your fingers don’t comb through the mop of semi-short curls you’d been becoming more familiar with.

No.

This hair is straight.

Your eyes shoot open, and you try to scoot away, but with no success. Iron-strong hands clamp down, one to your hip and one flat to your belly, pinning you with a casual, absolute authority. The tongue—god, the tongue—doesn’t stop; if anything, the pace becomes even more deliberate, as if responding to your alarm with smug certainty.

Your vision sharpens, pupils blown wide in the moonless dark. Panic ricochets through your limbs, but the grip on your hips is an unbreakable vise. You grope for context, memory, reason—last night, you’d fallen asleep with Derek, bodies tangled, skin to skin, almost feeling safe for the first time in months. You’d moved across the country, desperate to leave the obsession behind, to put miles and months between yourself and the man who’d once held the world’s attention. The man whose attention you had fallen prey to.

But when you wrench your head to the right, the vision that meets your eyes is so wrong it takes the air out of your lungs. Derek—sweet, funny, uncoordinated Derek—in his boxers, wrists and ankles lashed to the guest chair with zip ties, duct tape stretched across his mouth. His eyes are wide and watery from fear and shame. Your heart lurches, then stutters, a single, panicked drumbeat.

Steve lets you feel the flicker of triumph ripple through his mouth before he drags the flat of his tongue up your center, tilting his chin so he can meet your frantic, pleading stare head-on. There’s no malice in his face, only the intimacy of careful hunger, the kind that should make you feel desirable—special—but only feels like a curse laid on your body, an old claim stamped over every cell.

You want to scream, but your voice crumbles in your throat, too knotted with disbelief and terror. You feel a savage guilt for Derek, for the confusion and terror in his eyes, and it mingles with the confusion of your own body betraying you, bucking into Steve’s mouth with a reflexive, desperate pleasure. Steve knows it, too. He never lets you pretend, and the awful thrill of that shoots heat through your entire body.

He lifts his mouth, shining with you. “You miss me.” It’s not a question.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t find you? That you could vanish, play house with someone else?” He’s not angry, not even disappointed. He’s something worse—a little amused.

He wipes his mouth, runs his thumb over your slickness, then brings it to your lips and presses, urging you to open.

“Did you think I’d forget about you?” The thumb presses harder, against your teeth, until you part your lips and let him slide in, the taste of yourself a bitter confirmation.

You cannot look at Derek, trussed and helpless, so you stare at the ceiling, trying to memorize the precise number of paint cracks above your head, as if counting them could anchor you to this reality, make it less of a nightmare. Steve’s palm presses down, heavy on your abdomen, holding you in place while he climbs up your body, planting slow, proprietary kisses along your skin as he goes. His hands are everywhere, cataloguing, reacquainting, staking claim.

“You don’t belong to him.”

Steve’s hands grip your thighs and yank you open, hips canted up so there’s nowhere to hide. You squirm, or try to, but he’s already undone his tactical pants, somehow keeping your legs pinned with one forearm while he shoves his pants down just far enough to free himself. The edge of the zipper scrapes your skin and the cold, practiced drag of his cock through your wetness is so familiar it makes your head ring. He never needed to prep you much, never needed sweet talk or foreplay—your body always betrayed you, just like this, slick and clenching and ready, even with a horror show playing out three feet away.

“Don’t look at him,” Steve growls. The command vibrates through the base of your spine. He lines up and pushes, slow at first, then hard and all the way, the stretch making you whimper before you can stop yourself. “Look at me,” he snaps, hand wrapping your throat hard enough that the world collapses to a pinhole of his furious blue eyes. “You look at me and remember who you belong to.”

You nod, or something close enough. His expression softens, cruelly, as he brushes a strand of hair back from your forehead, as if he’s tucking you in for sleep rather than staking his claim to your body.

“God, you’re so fucking wet for me,” he murmurs, voice a low croon, every syllable vibrating through your cunt as he draws back and slams in again, sealing your hips together like a puzzle that only he can solve. “You really thought you could run away?” Each thrust is a question mark punctuated with bruising emphasis.

You shake your head, but he grabs your chin, thumb digging into the hinge of your jaw. “No, no, don’t lie. You did think that. You thought you’d start over, escape me. But you were wrong,” he hisses against your ear, his breath hot and foul and achingly familiar. “You’re mine, and you will always be mine. You want proof?” His hips piston, unrelenting, bruising, his hand never leaving your throat. You make a strangled sound—half terror, half the involuntary pleasure that shames you more than his violence ever could.

“Christ, you’re clenching. You like it when I take you like this,” he says, grinding in deep enough you feel the base of him grind against your clit. He lowers his mouth to your ear, breath hot and thick. “Say it.”

You choke on a sob, the words stuck in the cage of your throat. Steve’s fingers tighten, more warning than threat. “Say it,” he repeats, and the timbre of his voice—low, old as the first sin—thrums through your bones, through your traitorous flesh.

“I—” you gasp, the inside of your head dissolving, bright white at the edges. “I’m yours.” Your voice is a paper-thin whisper, no louder than the tick of your heart.

He hitches your knees higher and pounds into you, not even pretending to care about Derek’s strangled sounds just feet away. Steve’s thumb strokes your jaw, almost tender. “Listen to me,” he says, then leans down, voice low and private against your ear. “I’m going to fuck you until you forget his name, and then I’m going to keep fucking you and fill you up with my cum, unquestionably breed you tonight, because I can smell how ripe you are.”

More humiliation. But with his super human strength and hearing, this shouldn’t surprise you either.

“If you do a really good job for me, I might even let him live. Does that sound fair to you?” His eyes hold yours, blue and diamond-hard. You’re nearly delirious from the pace he’s set inside you, the friction and force and certainty of him, and shame eats you alive because you’re close—damnably, pathetically, wetly close.

He reads it in you. He always does. “That’s my good girl,” Steve croons, voice all honey and razor wire at once. “You want to come. You want me to make you come right here, right in front of him. Prove it to me.”

He leans his weight forward and slams in again, making your whole world condense to that stretch, that ache, that pressure building inside you. Your eyes water; you will not cry, will not give him that satisfaction. But your body is lost, wrecked by him, every sweet nerve shredded on his rhythm, pain wrapped up tight with pleasure, horror inseparable from heat. It builds, inevitable as a tidal wave. Steve holds your face as you come, wants to see it, wants it to be for him alone. You break, shuddering around him, a choked scream escaping your throat, every atom of yourself violently claimed.

He fucks you through it, relentless, somehow only gaining momentum. You’re numb to everything but sensation, a single nerve lit up from within. When he comes, it’s with a guttural, satisfied groan, arms braced so hard on either side of your head you think the bed frame might splinter. You feel jet after jet of his release, warmth blooming inside you, grossly comforting in its familiarity. He stays buried for a few seconds after, grinding your hips together in a knot of animal insistence. For a moment there is only your mingled breathing, the wet, obscene sound of your aftermath.

He rolls off, leaving your body slicked and hollowed and shaking, but he holds onto your wrist so you can’t scramble away. “Don’t move,” he warns, voice ripe with threat and promise.

Steve releases your wrist and stands, looming over the bed, his face unreadable, perhaps even bored. Blood pounds in your ears. You watch, paralyzed, as he saunters over to where Derek is bound. Derek’s chest heaves, sheer terror in his eyes as Steve offers a tight smile and then, with clinical detachment, grasps his cock—still fat and half-hard and glistening with your shared filth. Steve pumps once, twice, collecting a mess of slickness in his palm, and then leans down.

He smears it across Derek’s face, in broad strokes, painting your shame onto his cheeks and lips. Derek thrashes desperately but the chair tips and clatters uselessly. The tape muffles his wounded howl. The smell of sex, so thick in the room, seems to intensify. Steve wipes his hand on Derek’s hair.

“There,” he says, almost kindly. “Now he gets to have a part of you too,” Steve says. “Isn’t that nice?” He pats Derek’s shoulder with cruel gentleness. The mockery in his voice lands like a slap, and even through the numbness, it stings.

Steve returns to you, crouching by the side of the bed, level with your ruined face. His finger traces the edge of your jaw, then tips your chin up. “You see, sweetheart?” His voice softens, but the chill never leaves it. “No matter where you run, I’ll always know how to find you. I’ll always know how to make you feel this alive.” He brushes a stray tear away with the pad of his thumb, as if kindness could ever stitch this moment back together.

He palms your cheek, and you can feel the tremor in his hand, not rage but something more elemental. Possession. His gaze is a raptor’s, sharp and infinite, and his voice almost gentle as he says, “You’ll remember this, every morning, every night, every time you catch your own reflection.” The words root in your bones, dark seeds. “You’ll remember whose you are, especially when you can’t hide it anymore. I’m going to make sure of it.” His thumb presses into the soft place under your jaw, forcing your head up. “I want you round and ruined with me.”

I feel like I should run and hide. *taps microphone* I don't even know if this thing is still on.

↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

This had become a habit.

Steve ran every morning, and somewhere along the way you started joining him. More often than not, it ended the same way—back at the compound, already sweating, breathing a little harder than usual, the two of you slipping into a spar without needing to say it out loud.

It was not quite training anymore. Not exactly play, either. Something in between.

You ducked under his arm as he threw a right hook, your body already moving before you fully registered the motion. Your fist drove forward in a quick jab toward his middle, but he twisted out of the way, using the momentum to bring his knee up toward your hip. You barely avoided it, and the smirk that crossed his face was immediate.

You did not let him keep it.

His left side was open—like it always was—and you shifted your weight, letting the movement carry you into a kick aimed at his knee. He caught you just in time, his hand wrapping around your ankle in that now-familiar way.

Your eyes met. And for a second, it lingered. Just a second longer than it needed to. Then he pushed you back.

He shifted again, and you already knew what was coming. You threw your guard to the right, blocking the strike before it landed, the edge of a smile pulling at your mouth. “You’re still telegraphing.”

It was not just familiarity—you knew his patterns—but it was more fun to pretend it was.

Steve adjusted mid-motion, redirecting, and the next hit slipped through just enough to count.

“Yeah,” he shot back, breath a little heavier now, “well, so are you.”

You scoffed, dropping low and sweeping his feet out from under him. He reacted just a fraction too late this time, hitting the ground with a solid thud.

You were on him immediately. But not fast enough.

He caught you as you moved in, and suddenly the two of you were rolling, grappling for control in a way that was less about technique and more about instinct. It shifted quickly—positions changing, weight redistributing—until he managed to trap both your wrists in one hand and pin them above your head.

And then—you both stopped.

He had you pinned, exactly where he meant to, but instead of finishing it—ending it the way he should—he did not move.

Because suddenly—he did not want to.

You were too close.

Closer than you had been before. Close enough that he could feel your breath, uneven from the spar, slipping into the space between you. Close enough that pulling back would mean breaking something he had not realized he was holding onto.

Something shifted. Not in the movement. In him.

His gaze dropped. Just slightly. To your mouth.

Neither of you moved. Not right away. And then he did.

Not pulling back—leaning in.

You met him halfway.

The kiss was not careful.

It was not the soft, measured press you had fallen into before. It was quicker than that, rougher at the edges, driven by momentum and something that had been building long before either of you named it. Your breath caught when his free hand found your hip, and the sound seemed to pull you both deeper into it instead of breaking it.

It shifted without either of you deciding it would—angles changing, closeness tightening, something warmer and less certain threading through it as you both tried to find the rhythm at the same time.

It lasted longer than any of your previous kisses. Long enough to feel different.

“…good morning to you too.” Sam’s voice cut clean through it.

You both pulled apart immediately, like the spell had snapped, eyes wide and faces flushed—though it was not entirely clear if that was from the spar or what had just happened after.

Sam’s grin did not help. Not even a little.

You and Steve both looked at each other for half a second—then away just as fast. Each of you let out a slightly unsteady breath, pushing yourselves up off the ground as if that might reset something. It did not.

“Morning,” you both managed, almost at the same time, neither of you looking at him.

Sam just shook his head, deeply entertained. “I’ll let you two get back to… whatever that was.” He did not wait for a response, already turning and heading out to start his own run.

It took a moment before either of you looked at each other again. And when you did—you laughed. Just a little.

Because he looked exactly how you felt—flustered, a little disheveled, like something had shifted and neither of you quite knew what to do with it yet.

The sound seemed to knock something loose in him. Steve let out a breath, a crooked sort of smile pulling at his mouth. “We’re never gonna hear the end of this.”

You shook your head. “Not sure who’ll be worse. Bucky or Tony.”

Steve groaned immediately, tipping his head back toward the sky. “God, please don’t let Tony find out.”

You bumped your shoulder lightly against his, pulling his attention back down to you. “He’s definitely finding out.”

You were right. Of course you were.

Two days later, Tony called both of you into the briefing room.

Steve walked in first—and stopped. Completely.

The room was set up like a classroom. Chairs in rows. A whiteboard at the front. Diagrams already pulled up—far too detailed to be anything other than intentional.

Tony stood at the front like he had been waiting.

Steve’s brain stalled out somewhere between recognition and denial.

“…no,” he muttered under his breath.

You stepped in behind him, took one look, and understood immediately. “Nope.”

You turned on your heel and walked right back out.

Steve followed immediately. Not even a question.

Steve sat in SHIELD headquarters, trying to listen to Fury explain something—he could not remember what anymore. He nodded in the right places, gave the appropriate responses, but none of it stuck. The words passed through him without landing.

Normally, that would not happen. The soldier in him did not allow for distraction. But you had a way of getting under his skin.

By the time he stepped out of the office, he could not have repeated a single thing Fury had said.

He made it as far as the bathroom before stopping, bracing his hands against the counter as he leaned forward and stared at his reflection. For a moment, he just stood there, letting the quiet settle—then the thoughts came back anyway.

The last week. You and Bucky. Too close. Too quiet. Heads bent together like whatever you were saying did not belong to anyone else.

It should not bother him. It did.

And if he named it—if he was being honest—it was not just irritation. It was jealousy. Because that had always been his place with you.

And worse than that—the part he did not want to look at—was how inevitable it felt. Bucky had always been the easier one. The charming one. The one people gravitated toward without trying.

Steve scrubbed a hand over his face, like he could wipe the thought away, but it did not quite leave.

With a breath, he pushed off the counter and headed back out, the feeling still sitting just under his skin as he made his way through the corridor and out the front doors—

—and nearly walked straight into Sharon.

They both stopped short, just barely avoiding each other. When she realized it was him, her expression shifted easily into a smile. “Steve. You haven’t been around much lately.”

He returned it automatically, a small, polite thing. “Haven’t needed to be here.”

She reached out, her hand brushing lightly against his arm—casual, but not accidental. “Well, you’ve been missed.”

He nodded once, a distracted sort of acknowledgment. “Thanks.”

A familiar prickle ran up his spine, enough to pull his attention toward the street. And then everything else dropped away.

You stood a few feet off, sunlight catching the movement of your sundress—softer than anything he was used to seeing you in. It hit him all at once, sharp and immediate, and before he was fully aware of it, he was already stepping out of the space he had been sharing with Sharon.

Your gaze flicked between him and the blonde at his side. You saw his reaction—but it did not land the way it should have, because you knew exactly who she was. Why was she touching him like that? And more importantly— Why had he let her?

It registered a second later that you were not looking at him, but past him, and by the time his brain caught up Sharon had already stepped back into his space, her hand settling lightly on his shoulder.

Your eyes narrowed—slightly.

Steve felt it before he fully understood it, shifting without thinking, easing out from under Sharon’s touch as he stepped closer to you instead.

“Who is this, Steve?” Sharon asked, her voice sweet and polite, though the bite beneath it was not hard to hear.

He did not hesitate. He said your name, then added, just as easily, “My girlfriend.”

Sharon’s attention snapped fully to him.

And you softened—a little—because it was the first time he had said it, and it felt right.

Of course, she spoke again, her focus settling on you now. “Nice to meet you. No one had any idea Steve was dating anyone.”

You heard the edge clearly. It only made your smile sharpen. “Well, Steve can be a private person. But I’m sure you knew that.”

Her eyes narrowed just a fraction, the polite mask slipping, and Steve’s gaze moved between the two of you, certain he was missing something—just not what.

Sharon stepped a little closer to his side, not touching this time but deliberately near. “Of course. Steve and I go back a bit.”

You did not blink, your smile steady. “I’m aware.”

Steve’s attention shifted fully to you now, picking up on the edge in your voice even if he could not quite place it, while Sharon’s smile sharpened as if she had gained ground. “Oh, so he told you.”

“No.”

The word came easy, and you held her gaze just long enough for it to matter before adding, just as evenly, “I’ve read about your aunt.”

Steve’s eyes widened—because yes, you had absolutely just gone there—while Sharon’s composure tightened, her lips pressing together as she recalibrated. “They were close.”

You tilted your head slightly, glancing at Steve, and the edge in you softened for a moment—just enough to ease the tension in his shoulders. “They always will be.”

That one hit home.

Sharon’s jaw set, the last of her earlier ease slipping. “Well. I should get back to work.”

You gave a small nod, dismissive without needing to be anything more, and she turned sharply, her annoyance just visible as she walked away.

Steve tracked Sharon for a second, but by the time his attention snapped back to you, you were already moving.

He had to lengthen his stride to catch up, your pace brisk—just fast enough to make it difficult, just slow enough to be intentional—and with every step his confusion sharpened into something closer to irritation.

You did not slow until the end of the block, the pause at the curb forcing you to stop, and he closed the last bit of distance between you, saying your name quieter this time. “What's going on?”

You looked at him, your smile gone, and shrugged. “What do you mean?”

He scrubbed a hand over his face, frustration slipping through now. “Just now. Back there.” He gestured behind you both. “With Sharon. What did I miss?”

You turned fully toward him, your eyes narrowing. “Seriously?”

Steve blinked, thrown. “What?”

You crossed your arms, the tension pulling tight through your shoulders. “You let all the women in your life get that close?”

That caught him off guard. “Sharon's a friend.”

Wrong answer.

The traffic shifted, and you threw your hands up before stepping off the curb, crossing without waiting and forcing him to follow.

His mind was racing now. He did not understand—but he knew you were upset, and that was enough to keep him moving after you as you cut into the park without slowing.

This time he had to jog to catch up, reaching for your arm to stop you, but you pulled free almost immediately, the irritation in the motion sharper than anything you had said yet.

“What's wrong?” he asked, searching your face and finding nothing he could read. “Tell me, or I won’t know.”

You rolled your eyes, looking away. “She still likes you.” Then you snapped back to him, the frustration breaking through. “And don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

Steve recoiled slightly, caught off guard, but the thought from earlier—Bucky, the way you had been leaning in close, the quiet conversations—snapped back into place, and he stepped forward again before he could stop himself.

“Well, what about you and Bucky?” he shot back. “The way you’ve been lately?”

You blinked at him, thrown. “Huh?”

Now Steve crossed his arms, the words coming faster as the irritation caught up to him. “You’ve been secretive. Sitting close, talking in hushed voices—then stopping when I come around.”

Understanding dawned, and you pinched the bridge of your nose.

“I was trying to plan something with him.” You looked at him flatly. “Something nice for you, you idiot.”

Steve stopped short. “You were?”

“Yes,” you snapped, louder than you meant to, the edge still there even as it shifted. “Now why the hell were you letting her touch you like that?”

Confusion flashed across his face, then realization followed close behind. “I didn’t even notice,” he said quickly. “I didn’t think it meant anything.”

You looked like you wanted to slap him. You did not. Barely. “It meant something, Steve.”

He dragged a hand through his hair, the tension catching up to him. “I—” He glanced at you again, catching the flicker of hurt under the anger, and it steadied him just enough. “I’m sorry. I was just trying to be polite. It didn’t even occur to me she was doing something I should be suspicious of.”

You exhaled, slower this time, studying him—really studying him—and what you found there took some of the fight out of you. “You swear it meant nothing to you?”

“No.” It came out fast, immediate, without hesitation. “I forgot she was even standing next to me the second I saw you.”

That settled something in you. The tension in you eased, not all at once, but enough for something warmer to slip in where the anger had been. “I did see that.”

Steve held his hand out, not pushing, just offering, and after a brief hesitation, you took it.

“Can we just walk?” he asked. “Through the park. Talk about anything else?”

You glanced down at your joined hands, then back up at him, the last of the tension settling into something quieter. “Sure.”

A small pause—then a sharper look. “But don’t let it happen again.”

He nodded immediately, relief easy and unguarded.

And after a moment—just long enough to make sure you were both still there—you started walking again, side by side.

It still tickled you that Steve’s birthday fell on the Fourth of July. If anyone had been born to be an American hero, it was him.

Tony had insisted you all go into the city to watch the fireworks over the river, though Pepper had been quick to keep him from turning the whole thing into a spectacle. He had wanted to add his own contributions—something loud, something unnecessary, something that would have spelled out Happy Birthday, Spangles across the sky. She had shut that down immediately.

Sam and Bucky had found sparklers somewhere and were now chasing each other through the crowd like overgrown children, a handful of actual kids trailing after them and adding to the chaos. Natasha had taken up position on a nearby fence post, tracking the movement with sharp, watchful eyes, her attention never fully leaving the children darting in and out of the crowd.

You sat on a blanket with Steve, his back against a tree, you tucked easily between his legs with one of your hands caught loosely in his. You leaned back against him, both of you watching the sky as the crowd settled into that quiet anticipation just before the show began.

For Steve, there was not anywhere else he would have rather been.

Not because it was his birthday—but because of this. Because of you.

You were calm. Settled in a way that still felt new enough for him to notice, and he found himself holding onto it without thinking, his arms tightening just slightly as he rested his head against yours. It still struck him sometimes—how the two of you had started on opposite sides of everything, how quickly you had gotten under his skin, how easily that had become something he did not want to let go of.

There was more to it now.

He knew that.

He was just… waiting for you to see it too.

The first firework cracked across the sky, light bursting outward in a wash of color that pulled a quiet murmur from the crowd.

You barely noticed.

You were too warm, too comfortable, too aware of the way he held you—steady and certain in a way you had not expected to ever trust.

It had been a while since you made that choice. To trust him over the people who had made you. And every day since, it had settled a little deeper.

Because this—this was worth it.

You shifted slightly, just enough to glance at him from the corner of your eye, taking in the way he looked out at the sky, relaxed in a way he rarely let himself be. Some part of that was you. You knew that now.

And that felt like something fragile and rare, something you wanted to hold onto without breaking.

You turned your head, resting it more fully against him, your cheek brushing his.

And somewhere between one breath and the next, before you could overthink it—

“I love you.”

For a second, nothing changed. He did not move.

And you found that you did not need him to.

You had not said it for an answer. You had said it because it was true.

Then his hand shifted, fingers curling gently under your chin as he tilted your face up toward his.

His eyes were already on you. Warm. Certain.

Like he had known—just not when you would say it.

He kissed you softly, easy and unhurried, and when he pulled back his mouth brushed your ear, his voice low enough that it belonged only to you.

“I love you, too.”

You melted into him, your face pressing into the curve of his neck as his arms tightened around you, holding you close while the sky lit up again overhead.

Neither of you looked up. You did not need to.

Something was off with Steve.

No—that was not quite right.

Loving someone and being loved in return was something you had never let yourself hope for, and yet somehow you had found it. Not with a perfect man—but one who was perfect for you.

The two of you were still learning what it meant to be together. Learning how to talk more and assume less, how to make time for each other when everything else tried to take priority. There were still bumps—you had a feeling there always would be—but this was not that.

This was not a bump.

It was… something that would not move.

You had not expected to be in a relationship, but you understood enough to know how they changed over time, how things shifted and deepened. And in one very specific way, the two of you had not moved at all.

It was the physicality of it.

Steve kissed you. Held you. And you could feel it—he wanted more, just like you were beginning to—but every time it edged in that direction, he pulled back. Not abruptly, never that. Always gently, like he was surfacing before he let himself go too far.

It had been easy to ignore at first.

It was not anymore.

That morning, you woke tangled in your sheets, heat clinging to your skin, your thoughts still caught somewhere between sleep and something else entirely.

You had never had a dream like that before.

Not like this.

Even when you were younger—when curiosity had first started to creep in—it had never hit like this. Never lingered. Never followed you into waking.

This did.

And as you lay there, staring up at the ceiling, one thing settled in with quiet certainty—

something had to give.

It took you a few hours to gather the courage, but eventually you found Natasha and dragged her into one of the smaller, less-used common rooms before you could lose your nerve.

She sat without protest, giving you a look that said she already knew exactly what this was about—she was just going to make you say it.

For a moment, you dropped your head into your hands.

Then, gathering what little courage you had left, you peeked at her through your fingers. “This stays here. If Tony—or anyone else, especially Steve—finds out, I will end you painfully.”

Her mouth curved slightly, but she nodded, leaning forward just enough to show she was paying attention.

You let out a breath and leaned in as well, lowering your voice—then paused, suddenly remembering.

“FRIDAY, that threat goes for you too.”

Natasha’s amusement flickered a little more openly this time as FRIDAY responded smoothly, “Privacy protocol activated, Ms. Rogers.”

You relaxed by a fraction. “Thank you.”

Natasha did not rush you. She just watched, steady and patient, waiting you out while you tried to make the words line up into something that would not make you combust.

They did not. So you gave up and said it anyway.

“How do I get Steve to sleep with me?”

Natasha huffed a quiet breath that was just short of a laugh, but she reined it in quickly when she saw how serious you were.

“Just to be clear,” she said evenly, “we are talking about—”

You cut her off immediately, flushing bright red. “—sex. Yes. Now answer me.”

That earned a real reaction—subtle, but there—her shoulders shifting slightly as she contained it.

“Steve,” she said after a beat, settling back into herself, “is very old-fashioned. He was raised to respect women, and sex was… not something openly discussed.”

You deflated slightly, your gaze dropping until she spoke again.

“That being said,” Natasha continued, “he’s still a man—and very attracted to you.”

You looked back up, gesturing for her to keep going.

“Knowing Steve, he just needs a push. Something that tells him it's okay.” She let that sit, watching you process it.

You bit your lip, trying to picture what that even looked like—and coming up blank. “How?” The question came out smaller than you meant it to, your eyes flicking back to hers. “I mean—I’ve never… I don’t know what I’m doing.”

That caught her.

Her eyes widened slightly, the realization clicking into place faster than you would have liked. “Hydra never had you… distract anyone?”

You shook your head immediately. “I was a weapon, not a woman.”

Something in her expression shifted then—subtle, but unmistakably softer than you had ever seen from her.

“Then don’t overthink it,” she said, her voice quieter but steady. “Next time he pulls back, don’t let him.”

She paused just long enough to make sure you were listening.

“It might get a little messy,” she added, a hint of her usual edge returning, “but you two tend to figure things out together.”

That—you could work with.

You swallowed, already feeling a plan start to take shape, because of course it did. “Okay. I can try that.”

Natasha’s mouth curved, just enough to warn you what was coming.

“If that doesn’t work,” she added, almost casually, “we can always go shopping. Something that makes the message a little clearer.”

You flushed immediately, swatting at her arm, which only widened her smile and earned a low, quiet laugh.

Mission accomplished, you pushed to your feet and headed for the door, pausing just before you stepped out. “Thanks, Natasha.”

She gave you a small, knowing smile. “Anytime.”

You did not feel any more prepared—but you had something you had not before.

Intent.

It stayed with you over the next few days, quiet but persistent, settling in the back of your mind until it was impossible to ignore.

It was a few days before you and Steve were truly alone again.

He brought you outside, past the tree line that bordered the property, to a small clearing where he had somehow managed to set up a quiet picnic dinner. The two of you ate and talked like you always did, easy and familiar—but there was a thread of nerves running under it for you this time, something sharper than usual.

You were going to try.

Steve seemed to notice something was off—he always did—but not enough to press, and you were grateful for that.

When everything was packed away, plates and glasses tucked back into a basket you had no idea where he had managed to find, the two of you stretched out side by side, looking up at the sky. Neither of you knew much about what you were seeing, but it did not matter. It was still beautiful.

You lasted all of a minute.

Propping yourself up on your elbow, you leaned in and kissed him first, not giving yourself the chance to second guess it. You usually let him start things, but if you did not move now, you were fairly certain you would not at all.

He kissed you back easily, slow and unhurried, his arm sliding around you as you sank into him. At first it was familiar—soft, steady—but when you shifted, pressing closer, it changed. He adjusted with you, rolling so he was above you, and the kiss deepened, a little more insistent, a little less careful.

Your hands found his hair, holding him there, while his settled at your hips—steady, grounding—but not moving any further.

You wanted them to.

Before you could think too hard about it, he pulled back slightly, breath catching as both of you tried to steady it. He lingered there, close enough that you could still feel it, his eyes searching yours, something uncertain flickering across his face as he started to ease away like he always did—

—and this time, you did not let him.

Your legs wrapped around him, holding him in place, the movement small but deliberate.

He stilled.

His gaze dropped back to yours, searching, trying to understand what you were asking for.

You swallowed, nerves catching up to you all at once, but you did not look away. Instead, you tugged him back down, kissing him again—more certain this time, even if your hands were not.

He hesitated—then let you.

The shift was small at first, but you felt it in the way he responded, the hesitation giving way to something warmer, something more sure as he began to understand what you were asking for.

After that, it was not rushed. If anything, it slowed, each movement measured, deliberate, his eyes returning to yours again and again in quiet question before he continued. You answered the only way you knew how—staying close, meeting him there, letting him feel that you were not unsure.

It was not perfect. It was no practiced. There were moments where you both fumbled, where hands did not quite land where they meant to, where one of you let out a breathless laugh that softened the tension just enough to keep it from becoming too much.

But it worked—because it was the two of you.

And somewhere along the way, without either of you quite noticing when, you found a rhythm that felt right—something that belonged to both of you, not something you were trying to imitate or figure out.

Afterward, you stayed where you were.

That, more than anything else, felt like the best part.

You rested against him, your head on his chest, listening as his breathing slowly evened out beneath your ear while his hand moved in slow, steady circles along your back. Every so often, he pressed a soft kiss into your hair, absent and easy, like he could not help it.

Above you, the stars had not moved.

Or maybe they had, and you just had not noticed.

It did not matter.

There was something different now—something quieter, deeper—settling into place between you.

Not new.

Just… finally understood.

Steve’s voice broke the silence, low and warm as he murmured something soft against your hair, and you answered in kind, your words just as quiet, just as certain.

And for a moment, stretched out beneath an open sky with no one else around, it felt like you had found something steady enough to hold onto—something that was yours.

Steve adjusted his tie for what had to be the hundredth time, his reflection offering no reassurance whatsoever. Behind him, Bucky let out a quiet chuckle.

Steve exhaled heavily and turned. “I know, I know. I just want this to go right.”

Bucky smiled, resting a hand on his shoulder. “You’re fine. Everything’s set. Now all you have to do is enjoy it.”

Some of the tension eased out of Steve’s stance, though not all of it. His thoughts drifted—unhelpfully—to you, and he could not help but wonder if you were just as nervous.

He closed his eyes for a second, then opened them again, already starting—“Do you have—”

Bucky cut him off without missing a beat. “Yes. You’re covered. Now relax before I get Thor to hold you down and we pour Asgardian mead down your throat.”

Steve huffed out a quiet laugh, lifting his hands in surrender. “Not necessary.”

The door opened before he could say anything else, and Sam stepped in, his expression already giving him away.

“Oh good,” Sam said, glancing Steve over. “You haven’t passed out yet.”

Steve shot him a look. Bucky snorted.

Sam did not even pause. “So—funny story. Loki’s here.”

That wiped the humor right off both their faces.

“What?” Steve and Bucky said at the same time.

Sam nodded, hands sliding into his pockets like this was completely normal. “You know how he pops in and out to bother Cipher. That whole chaotic… whatever you want to call it.”

Steve rolled his eyes, but there was no real annoyance behind it. Ever since you had called him out, Loki had made a habit of dropping in just to test you—sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Once, he had even tried it as Steve.

It had not ended well for him.

Bucky crossed his arms. “Why is he here?”

Sam scratched his cheek, shrugging. “I asked. He said something about ‘respecting a worthy opponent.’”

Steve let out a short laugh, shaking his head. “Of course he did. Only she could manage to make even Loki like her.”

They all shared a look at that—equal parts amused and resigned—before a knock at the door pulled them back, the shift immediate as all three straightened.

On the other side of the building, you were in much the same state as Steve—nervously tugging at your dress, checking your hair for the hundredth time, staring at your reflection like you might find an answer there for how the two of you had even gotten here.

Beside you, Natasha calmly adjusted things that did not need adjusting, humoring you without comment until she finally said, “Relax. Once he sees you, nothing else is going to matter.”

You let out a small, alarmed sound, your expression giving away just how nervous you were. It felt too much like that first date all over again—only this time, you knew exactly what was coming.

Natasha’s half-smile did very little to help.

Pepper stepped in a moment later, her presence alone enough to take the edge off. She met your eyes in the mirror, smiling softly before coming up behind you and wrapping you in a gentle hug. “You look beautiful.”

“Thank you,” you murmured, leaning back into the warmth of it.

Then came the knock.

You already knew who it would be.

Tony stepped in, quieter than usual, the sharpness in him softened into something almost gentle as he moved to your side. “It’s time.”

You drew in a steadying breath and took his offered arm. Natasha and Pepper shared a look, both smiling as they slipped out ahead of you.

Tony’s hand shifted briefly over yours, grounding, and when you glanced up at him he gave you a small, familiar smirk. “Remember—I can help you run at any time.”

That earned a soft laugh, some of the tension slipping away. “No, thank you. I’m not running from this.”

“Suit yourself,” he said, nodding once, though the fondness did not quite leave his expression as he led you out, guiding you toward the back doors.

As the doors at the back opened, Steve’s breath caught.

You stepped through dressed in soft white lace and satin, and for a moment everything else fell away. This was real. You were really going to marry him—and you looked devastating.

He could not take his eyes off you.

Beside him, Bucky and Sam exchanged an amused, affectionate look, but Steve did not notice.

You barely felt the floor beneath you as Tony guided you down the aisle toward him. It all felt surreal—after everything, after what you had been made to do, you were walking toward a man you had once been meant to destroy.

And choosing him.

Tony’s hand tightened gently on your arm, grounding you, and though you never looked away from Steve, you squeezed his arm back in quiet thanks.

When you reached him, Tony turned you to face him, lifting your veil before pressing a soft kiss to your cheek.

Then the officiant spoke. “Who gives this woman?”

Tony glanced at you, something softer passing through his expression before he smirked. “I do. Reluctantly.”

A ripple of quiet laughter moved through the crowd—there was not really a bride or groom side here. Everyone present belonged to both of you.

You hugged him quickly, then turned—

and stepped into place in front of Steve.

He reached for you without thinking, taking your hands like he needed to anchor himself, and the moment he did, everything else settled.

It was a wonder either of you made it through the vows.

The officiant spoke, words passing somewhere around you, but neither of you was really listening—too caught in each other, too aware of what this moment meant after everything it had taken to get here.

But Steve did hear one thing.

He did not wait.

The second he was given permission, he pulled you in, dipping you back over his arm and kissing you without hesitation, the kind of kiss that drew laughter and cheers from everyone watching.

You laughed into it as he helped you back upright, both of you a little breathless, a little overwhelmed—and completely sure.

Still holding his hand, you did not hesitate.

Together, you turned and ran back down the aisle, laughter trailing behind you as you made your escape toward the waiting car and whatever came next.

At the reception, it felt like your once non-existent family had grown into something impossibly large.

Tony and Pepper stayed close, Tony grumbling in an overdramatic fashion about “losing his baby sister,” even as Pepper smiled like she knew exactly how much he meant it. Bucky and Natasha handled the toasts, each taking their turn telling stories that were just embarrassing enough to make you bury your face in Steve’s shoulder while the room laughed around you.

Sam, of course, took full credit for everything, leaning back in his chair and telling anyone who would listen that he had seen it coming first.

Clint was there with his wife and kids, grounded in a way that kept the chaos just shy of tipping over into something destructive, which you appreciated more than you could say. Across the room, Thor and—somehow—Loki stood in quiet conversation, and the look Thor gave him at one point told you Loki was absolutely up to something.

Some things, apparently, never changed.

There were others, too.

People you had met along the way, who had somehow become part of this—part of you.

Wanda Maximoff, Happy Hogan, Scott Lang, James Rhodes, Bruce Banner, Peter Parker—faces that had once been unfamiliar, now easy and known, surrounded by families and laughter that did not feel distant anymore.

They were yours, too.

Through all of it, you and Steve stayed close, your hand in his like neither of you had quite convinced yourselves you were allowed to let go yet. Every so often, one of you would lean in, trading quiet kisses that drew cheers and teasing from the room around you.

You did not mind.

When it came time for your first dance, he led you out onto the floor, his hand steady at your waist as yours rested in his. The music started, something soft and familiar, and the two of you moved together easily, falling into the rhythm without thinking.

The room faded.

It was just him.

Just you.

The rest of it—the laughter, the noise, the people—blurred into something distant as you followed his lead, turning and stepping in time with him, your focus narrowing until there was nothing else left to see.

Nothing else that mattered.

And as you moved together, caught somewhere between the music and the moment, it settled in with a quiet certainty—this was where you belonged.

Evans Varaint Masterlist

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Not because some ugly part of him felt satisfaction at being named in the fantasy of retaliation.

It didn’t.

If anything, the sentence struck him like another form of grief – evidence of how far the night had dragged you from yourself, from whatever steadier ground you usually occupied. It told him how angry you were, how humiliated, how exhausted by the sheer uselessness of your own pain. That was what he heard first. Not invitation. Not possibility. Just hurt sharpened into the shape of a weapon and then set down again before you even fully lifted it.

Still, Steve was only human, and he could not pretend the words passed through him without consequence.

He swallowed once and said, quieter than he intended, “You’re drunk.”

It was not an accusation. Barely even a correction. More like something he reached for because it was easier than saying what else had flashed through him in the instant after your confession: the hot, immediate refusal of the idea; the anger at Bucky for having reduced the night to this kind of thought at all; and beneath both, the deep unsettling ache of knowing that even now, when you were raw and hurting and not wholly steady, part of you trusted him enough to speak the ugliest truth in your head aloud.

You gave a faint sound that might have been irritation.

“No. No, I know my limits. I’m not.”

Steve believed you.

Or rather, he believed that you meant it exactly as you said. You had been drinking, yes. Enough for your balance to go soft, enough for your words to blur at the corners. But not enough to become someone else. Not enough to turn your thoughts foreign to you. If anything, the alcohol had only worn down the barriers between feeling and speech.

You were not saying this because the rum had invented it.

You were saying it because you were too tired to hide it.

Silence followed.

Steve felt it like another presence in the room. Not awkward, not quite, but charged in a fragile way. He became acutely aware of everything all at once: your weight against him, the warmth of your body in his arms, the dampness still drying on his shirt from your tears, the low lamp light pooling across the floor, the bottle sitting abandoned a few feet away, the faint city noise behind the windows.

He did not know where to put his eyes, so he kept them on the wall beyond your shoulder and let his hand continue its slow path up and down your back.

Then you spoke again, and this time the words came softer. No edge left in them. No provocation. Only truth, plain and almost childishly simple.

“I’m just… tired, Steve.”

That undid something in him.

Because yes. Of course you were.

Tired of the crying, tired of the anger, tired of being asked to survive a day you had not chosen, tired of thinking, tired of feeling humiliated, tired of wanting things that no longer existed in the shape you wanted them, tired of holding yourself together for one more hour and one more conversation and one more wave of hurt.

Steve understood that kind of tiredness far too well.

Not the same story, never the same story, but the same bone-deep exhaustion that turned every emotion into weight. The kind that made sleeping seem less like rest and more like surrender, and yet left a person desperate for it all the same.

He shifted slightly – not enough to dislodge you, only enough to look down a little more fully at the top of your head.

“Do you want to try lying down?” he asked.

He kept his voice low, careful not to make it sound like dismissal. Not you should go to bed now in the way people said when they wanted grief tidied away. Just an offer. A possibility. A gentler surface than the floor.

You did not answer right away.

Instead you tilted your face just enough that your voice reached him less muffled than before.

“You’ll stay with me?”

The question came so quickly after the last one that Steve knew it had been waiting there already, underneath everything else.

He did not hesitate.

“Yes.”

A beat passed.

“Promise?”

That word entered him differently.

Smaller than the others. Softer. And for that reason maybe the hardest to hear.

He closed his eyes briefly.

You had already asked for truth once tonight and taken it like a lifeline. Now you asked for something even more fragile: certainty. The simple assurance that he would not get you on your feet, guide you to the bedroom, settle you under a blanket, and then disappear once you were horizontal and quiet enough to be left alone with the rest of your thoughts.

Steve understood that fear too.

Not because he would ever have done it. Because he knew why you needed to hear the opposite spoken aloud.

“Promise,” he said.

He felt the slightest slackening in your body then, the small involuntary release of somebody whose mind had been braced for abandonment and, for the moment, no longer had to be.

Steve waited another second before moving. “Okay,” he murmured. “Come on.”

He loosened his hold carefully, one arm sliding from around your shoulders so he could rise without dropping you. The second the support changed, your fingers caught at his sleeve on instinct.

“I’m here,” he said at once.

Only then did he push himself to his feet.

He stood and turned back toward you immediately, offering both hands. You looked up at him with eyes still swollen and lashes clumped from tears, and for a second he had the absurd thought that no one should have been allowed to hurt you on a day when you looked this defenseless. It was an unhelpful thought. A useless one. He pushed it aside.

You put your hands in his.

He pulled you gently upward.

You came to your feet in stages, unsteady not just from the alcohol but from the sheer physical aftermath of crying. Your legs wavered beneath you almost at once. Steve stepped in without thinking, catching you by the elbows first and then more firmly by the waist when your balance tilted too far forward.

You made an irritated little sound, half at yourself, half at the betrayal of your own body.

“Easy,” he said.

“I’m fine.”

The automatic answer was so familiar that if the situation had been different it might have almost made him smile.

Instead he only said, very mildly, “No, you’re not.”

You huffed a breath through your nose, but you did not argue harder than that.

The bedroom was only a few steps away, yet Steve moved as if crossing something longer and more dangerous. Not because the apartment required caution. Because you did. Because the moment did. His hand stayed at your back while the other steadied your forearm, and he felt every tiny correction your body made to stay upright. Every sway. Every pause. Every second where you leaned into his support just a fraction more than before.

He did not mention it.

At the bedroom doorway he stopped.

The room was bare in the particular way safehouses always were. A neatly made bed. One lamp on the side table. Curtains half drawn. A dresser with nothing personal on it. A chair in the corner. Stark’s idea of comfort stripped down to functionality. It looked impersonal enough that Steve’s chest tightened again at the thought of you spending the night here alone if he had not come.

You looked at the bed and then, unexpectedly, back at him with something almost like reluctance.

Steve understood at once.

“You want me to stay close,” he said softly.

It was not really a question.

Your mouth tightened. You looked away, embarrassed maybe, or simply too tired to hide the truth elegantly.

“I don’t…” You swallowed. “I don’t really want to sleep by myself tonight.”

The honesty of it felt intimate in a way far more dangerous than your earlier remark about revenge. Because this was not about anger. Not about making anyone pay. This was need in its simplest form.

Steve nodded as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.

“Okay.”

You searched his face again, perhaps for pity, perhaps for judgment, perhaps for that tiny recoil people sometimes failed to hide when confronted with another person’s dependence.

He gave you none of it.

Instead he asked, practical because practical was gentler, “Do you want under the blankets or on top?”

That seemed to help. The question gave you something small and manageable to answer.

“Under.”

“Alright.”

He moved to pull the covers back, but before he could do more than turn toward the bed, another thought struck him. He looked at you more closely in the lamplight and asked, “Have you eaten anything today?”

Your expression went blank for half a second in the way people’s expressions did when they genuinely had to search their memory and found nothing useful there.

Then you shook your head once.

“No. Wasn’t hungry.”

Steve exhaled slowly through his nose.

Of course you hadn’t been. Hunger had no place in a day like this until suddenly the body demanded payment for being ignored.

“You need something that isn’t alcohol,” he said.

The words came out firmer than most of what he had said tonight.

You leaned one shoulder against the doorframe and looked at him with all the exhausted stubbornness of a person who had reached the end of her usable strength hours ago. “I’m not hungry now either.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

One corner of your mouth twitched, not with humor but with weary annoyance. “Bossy.”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “A little.”

He stepped closer again when your balance dipped.

“You don’t need a meal. A piece of toast. Crackers. Anything. But you’re not going to bed on an empty stomach after drinking and crying for half the night.”

You closed your eyes briefly, as if even the prospect of chewing sounded like a task someone invented specifically to torment you.

Steve’s expression softened despite himself.

“I know,” he said. “Still.”

You opened your eyes. “You always do that.”

“Do what?”

“Sound patient while actually not giving me a choice.”

This time he did smile, faintly. It barely touched his mouth, gone almost as soon as it appeared. “Eat first,” he said. “Then you can accuse me of tyranny.”

That earned him the smallest real reaction yet – a breath that might have become a laugh in another life, on another night.

It vanished quickly, but he had heard it.

He guided you back toward the living room rather than letting you collapse into bed immediately. You complained under your breath once, too low for him to catch every word, but you came. In the kitchenette he found what he expected: emergency supplies, bland and practical. Bread in the freezer. Crackers in a tin. A jar of peanut butter. Instant soup packets. Bottled water.

He settled for toast and water because it was fastest and least likely to turn your stomach.

While the bread browned, you stood leaning against the counter with your arms folded and your eyes half-lidded, looking like someone only a step away from lying down directly on the kitchen floor if left unattended. Steve opened a bottle of water and pressed it into your hand.

“Drink.”

You obeyed with poor grace, taking a few swallows before muttering, “You’re enjoying this too much.”

“I’m really not.”

That was true. If he was firm, it was because he had no desire to spend the night holding your hair back while your body rebelled against an empty stomach and too much rum on top of too much grief.

He set the toast on a plate and handed it over once it had cooled enough not to burn you.

You looked at it as though it had personally insulted you.

“Steve.”

“You can eat half.”

You stared another moment, then took a reluctant bite.

He watched the way you chewed slowly, more from fatigue than reluctance now, and felt an absurd wave of relief at the simple fact of you swallowing something. It said nothing about healing. Nothing about tomorrow. But it was care, and care sometimes reduced itself to the least glamorous acts in the world – making sure somebody had bread in their stomach before they tried to sleep off heartbreak.

You ate more than half in the end, though the last bites seemed powered entirely by stubbornness and his unwillingness to look away until you finished enough to satisfy him. Then you drank more water. By then your eyes had gone glassy with exhaustion again.

“Done?” he asked.

You nodded.

“Good.”

The bedroom seemed even quieter when he led you back there.

This time, when the bed came into view, you did not hesitate. Steve pulled back the blankets and turned down the lamp to a softer glow. You sat on the edge of the mattress first, then looked up at him with sudden uncertainty that went straight through him.

“You said you’d stay.”

“I did.”

“I don’t want…” You stopped, rubbed at your face once, and started over. “I don’t want you on the chair.”

Steve glanced at the chair in the corner, then back at you.

You looked miserable, embarrassed by the need and too tired to pretend otherwise. There was no seduction in it. No awkward charge beyond the one his own awareness tried and failed to suppress. Only the plain truth that after everything, you did not want distance. Not tonight. Not when sleep would mean losing conscious control for a few hours and trusting the room not to change while you weren’t watching.

He answered just as plainly.

“Okay.”

Your shoulders dropped.

He toed off his boots, set them by the bed, and shrugged out of his jacket. You watched him do it with heavy-lidded concentration, as if reassuring yourself he really meant it. He left his T-shirt and jeans on – there was no question of anything else – and pulled the blanket aside farther so you could climb in first.

You did, slowly, curling onto one side with the boneless caution of someone whose body had finally admitted how exhausted it was.

Steve settled on top of the covers for a moment instead, trying to decide the least intrusive way to keep his promise.

Then you turned your head on the pillow and asked, voice already blurred by sleep and weariness, “Are you coming?”

He hesitated only long enough to move under the blanket rather than over it. He lay down beside you fully clothed, on his back at first, leaving careful space between your body and his.

The mattress dipped.

For maybe two seconds you stayed where you were.

Then, with the complete lack of self-consciousness of someone too tired to invent any, you moved toward him.

Not fast. Not dramatically. Just a slow instinctive shift until your shoulder met his side, until your hand found the fabric of his shirt, until you were close enough that the space he had left no longer existed. Steve went still again, but not because he meant to pull away. Only because the reality of your nearness hit all at once.

You made a tiny sound of relief.

Then, even more quietly, “Can I–”

You did not finish.

You did not need to.

Steve turned onto his side toward you and opened one arm.

That was all the permission you needed.

You came into him immediately, fitting yourself against his chest with none of the hesitation you had shown in words. One arm slid across his middle. Your forehead tucked under his chin. Your knee bumped lightly against his thigh as you settled. It was not graceful, and it was certainly not calculated. It was the movement of someone seeking warmth and safety before their body shut down from sheer depletion.

Steve wrapped his arm around you.

Carefully at first. Then more securely when he felt how hard you pressed in, as if closeness itself was the only thing convincing your nerves that the night had truly changed shape.

There.

He had you.

He could feel your heartbeat through the layers of fabric between you – too fast still, but slowing. Could feel the lingering tremors in your muscles each time your breathing threatened to catch. Could smell the faint trace of rum on your skin, the salt of tears, the ordinary familiar scent of your shampoo underneath.

It nearly hurt, how much tenderness the moment demanded from him.

He kept his hand between your shoulder blades and resumed that slow, absent caress that had steadied you on the floor. Your body answered almost immediately. Tension bled out of you in increments. Your hand, still fisted weakly in his shirt, loosened a little. Your breathing deepened.

“Better?” he murmured.

You nodded against his chest.

“Don’t go anywhere.”

The words were so quiet he almost missed them.

“I won’t,” he said.

You seemed to consider that for a second, then tightened your hold on him by a fraction anyway, as though your body wanted physical proof in addition to verbal promise.

Steve let you.

He would have let you hold on all night if that was what it took.

After a little while you shifted one leg between his, not seductively, not even consciously he thought, only in that blind sleepy way people chased the most stable position when they had finally found somewhere they felt safe enough to rest. The intimacy of it shot through him with humiliating force, and Steve had to close his eyes and breathe carefully once through his nose.

Not because he wanted this to become anything else.

That distinction mattered.

He held onto it with both hands.

You were tired. Hurt. Barely keeping yourself together. You wanted his arms around you because they made the room feel less empty, not because the line between comfort and desire had blurred for you in some meaningful way. Steve knew that. He would keep knowing it. Whatever his body did with the information was his problem, not yours.

So he concentrated on the weight of responsibility instead.

On the fact that you were finally, slowly relaxing.

On the way your breaths had begun to even out, though every so often one still shuddered at the edges. On the trust of being allowed to hold you through that. On the simple practical truth that he had promised to stay and this – this was what staying meant.

Your voice came again, drowsy now, almost drifting.

“Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

The word hit him with absurd force.

He looked down at the top of your head, though he knew you could not see him well in the dimness.

“You don’t have to thank me.”

“I know.” A pause. “Still.”

His hand moved once, lightly, over your hair.

He said nothing after that because there was nothing to say that would not turn too sentimental or too false. Instead he held you and listened as the room grew quieter and your body, inch by inch, surrendered to exhaustion.

Your breathing steadied first.

Then your fingers lost some of their grip on his shirt, though they never let go completely.

Then the little tension at the corner of your mouth eased where it had been set all evening with hurt and anger and pride.

Twice more your body twitched with the aftershock of a nearly remembered sob. Each time Steve tightened his arm around you just enough that, even half asleep, you seemed to settle faster.

He did not think about morning.

Not much.

Morning would bring its own difficulties. Embarrassment perhaps. Headache. Questions. The long, ugly road of what came next. He knew better than to borrow too much from tomorrow while tonight still needed tending.

So he stayed in the dark with you tucked against him, awake long after your breathing finally slipped into the deep soft rhythm of real sleep.

And when, even asleep, you shifted closer instead of away – seeking his warmth with the unquestioning trust of someone whose body had decided for her what it felt safe beside – Steve only tightened his hold the smallest fraction and kept watch while the night moved on around you.

Steve did not remember the exact moment sleep took him.

One minute he had still been awake in the dim hush of the safehouse bedroom, staring past your shoulder into the half-dark and listening to the quiet, steady rhythm of your breathing as it deepened against his chest. The next, the night had folded over him too.

When he woke, morning had already slipped into the room.

Not bright, not cheerful – just a thin grey wash through the curtains, the kind of light that belonged to late mornings after bad nights, when the day had clearly started without asking anyone’s permission. The safehouse bedroom looked flatter in it, more ordinary. The chair in the corner. The rumpled blanket. His jacket tossed over the back of the chair. Your discarded socks on the floor near the bed where you must have half-kicked them off before collapsing.

For one brief second, he did not move.

Your weight was still there.

You lay curled against him almost exactly as you had fallen asleep, one arm tucked between the two of you, your face tilted up just enough that he could see you properly now. You were awake. He knew that before your eyes met his. There was a certain tension in the stillness of you, a held breath under the quiet.

Then he looked at your face and understood something else immediately.

You had a headache.

Your eyes were narrowed against the grey light in that particular way people got when their skull seemed one heartbeat away from splitting open. There was a faint crease between your brows. Your mouth looked dry. Even the way you kept your head very still against the pillow suggested that moving too fast would be a terrible idea.

The sight tugged a tired, helpless kind of sympathy out of him.

You were still watching him.

Not awkwardly. Not even warily, exactly.

Just… closely.

As if waking up and finding him here had answered some question you had still half expected to turn cruel overnight.

Steve stayed where he was, one arm still around your back beneath the blanket. He did not pull away. He did not act startled or hurry to create distance just because daylight had arrived and made everything less forgiving. That felt like a rejection of the trust you had placed in him during the night.

So he only said, quietly, “Morning.”

Your mouth twitched faintly, though it was not quite a smile.

“Morning,” you answered, and your voice came hoarse from sleep, from crying, from the aftertaste of rum and all the things the night had done to you.

Steve searched your face for another second. “You look like your head’s killing you.”

“It is.”

The honesty of that almost made him smile for real.

“Water,” he said. “And probably coffee later. Maybe aspirin if Stark stocked the place like a sane person.”

You made a low sound that could have been agreement.

He was just beginning to wonder whether he should move carefully enough not to jostle you too much and go find what you needed when something changed in your expression.

It happened quickly, but not so quickly that he missed the thought arriving.

Your gaze dropped – briefly – to his mouth.

Then back to his eyes.

He felt the shift in the air before he understood it. A tiny, charged stillness. The kind that came just before a decision.

“Hey,” he began, though he had no idea what he intended to say after that.

You kissed him.

It was not clumsy, though sleep and hangover and the softness of waking lent it a slight uncertainty in the first second. It was also not hesitant in the way he might have expected if you had given yourself time to think. You did not hover there, asking permission with your breath. You closed the distance and pressed your mouth to his with a directness that sent shock clean through him.

For one impossible instant, Steve forgot everything except sensation.

Your lips were warm and a little dry from the night, softer than he had ever allowed himself to imagine with any detail. The angle was awkward because of the way you were half-curled into him, but the very awkwardness of it made it feel devastatingly real. No fantasy ever accounted for the slight drag of morning breath, the warmth trapped beneath blankets, the ache in a shoulder slept on too long, the faint sting of surprise so sharp it bordered on pain.

He tasted salt first.

Then the last trace of rum.

Then simply you.

And because he was not made of stone, because he had wanted this in ways he had never once let himself name aloud, because desire sometimes outran morality by a heartbeat before morality caught it by the throat, he kissed you back.

Instinctively.

Completely.

It lasted no more than a second or two, maybe less. But in that space his body answered before the rest of him could stop it. His hand tightened involuntarily at your back. His mouth softened under yours and then moved with yours, answering the pressure, the warmth, the startling intimacy of waking to find you here and then this. A rush went through him so sudden and fierce he felt it everywhere at once – chest, stomach, throat, the backs of his arms, the pulse jumping hard under his skin.

It was not gentle in the sense of detached caution.

It was gentle because he knew no other way to be with you.

That was what shocked him most.

Not that he wanted it.

That he already knew the shape of how carefully he would.

Then the rest of him caught up.

Steve broke the kiss.

Not violently. Not with any recoil that might have shamed you. He only drew back just far enough that your mouths no longer touched, his breath suddenly far too shallow in the small space between you.

“No,” he said.

The word came rough.

He swallowed and forced more steadiness into it. “No. Not like this.”

The reaction on your face hit him immediately.

It darkened – not with anger first, but with something quieter and more dangerous. Hurt. Embarrassment. The quick closing of someone who had just made themselves vulnerable and gotten pushed away in return. Your eyes shut for a second, and Steve hated himself for putting that look there even though he knew he had done the right thing.

He lifted his hand from your back toward your face, then stopped before touching you, uncertain whether even that would feel like too much right now.

“Not because I didn’t want to,” he said, voice low. Honest. Maybe too honest. “That’s not what I meant.”

Your eyes opened again, but you did not look at him straight away.

Steve forced himself to keep going.

“Not because you’re hurting and reaching for something. Not because of him. Not because of revenge.”

Your gaze flicked back to his then, sharper despite the headache and the sleep still clinging to both of you.

“It’s not revenge,” you said.

There was no slur in your voice this morning. No softening excuse left to hide behind. Only exhaustion and certainty.

Steve frowned slightly. “Then why?”

The question escaped him before he fully meant to ask it.

You stared at him for a long second, and then something in your expression shifted into a tired kind of resolve.

“Because if it were revenge,” you said quietly, “I would’ve done it in front of him.”

That landed with brutal clarity.

Steve felt the truth of it at once. You were not wrong. If you had wanted vengeance in its purest form, humiliation would have been part of it. Spectacle. Witness. The knife twisted where Bucky could see it.

This had not been that.

This had happened here, in the morning hush of a safehouse bedroom, while the world was still reduced to two people under one blanket and the aftermath of a ruined night. No audience. No punishment. No performance.

The realization only made the air between you feel more dangerous.

Steve said nothing.

You went on, and now your voice changed again – softer, but not less direct.

“Because I never said anything.” You wet your lips once, as if the movement itself reminded you of the kiss. Steve had to drag his eyes back to yours. “But I always knew the way you looked at me.”

Steve closed his eyes.

Not dramatically. Not because he meant to shut you out. Simply because that sentence entered him too deeply to meet with his eyes open.

For one brief, unbearable moment he could still feel the kiss in full sensory detail. Your mouth against his. The instinctive answer of his own. The way your breath had mingled with his in the small warm space between you. The ache now left by stopping. It all sat bright and immediate in his body, impossible to dismiss as imagination because it had happened, because he had let it happen for that fatal split second, because no matter how much discipline he possessed he could not unknow the exact feel of your lips on his now.

And over that came your words.

I always knew the way you looked at me.

He wondered, with a kind of exhausted disbelief, whether he had truly been that easy to read all along.

Maybe he had.

Maybe Bucky knew because Bucky knew him too well, had known him too long, had grown up beside him in the narrow old corridors of Brooklyn where every expression became familiar through repetition. Maybe you knew because you were you – because people sometimes saw most clearly the things directed at them, however quietly. Maybe Steve had been less careful than he believed. Or maybe some truths simply refused permanent concealment when they lived in the body long enough. In a look held half a second too long. In a silence that came too swiftly to your defense. In the reflex of watching for your reaction first.

He opened his eyes again.

You were still there. Still close. Still looking at him with none of the confusion he might once have hoped for, because confusion would have made this easier. Instead there was something almost calm in your expression now, despite the pain in it. As if naming the truth had at least removed one layer of uncertainty from the room.

Steve let out a slow breath.

“I tried not to let that matter,” he said at last.

The words came quieter than most of what he said, as if volume itself might damage them.

Your gaze did not leave his face. “I know.”

He almost laughed at that, but there was no humor in him for it. Of course you knew. Apparently you had known far more than he wanted to admit.

“It mattered anyway,” you said.

That was not a question either.

Steve looked at you for a long moment.

Every instinct in him pulled in two directions at once. One toward truth, the other toward restraint. He had spent so long forcing those two things to coexist that sometimes he could no longer tell which one was winning. He wanted – God, he wanted – to answer you plainly, to stop pretending his feelings existed only in the abstract. But he also saw you here, pale with a headache, bruised by heartbreak, still waking inside the emotional wreckage of the day before. Any confession from him now risked becoming entangled with all of that in ways neither of you could undo later.

So he chose the narrowest truth.

“Yes,” he said.

Your face changed.

Not into triumph. Not into relief, exactly. More into something sadder. A recognition, maybe, of how long this silence had lived between all three of you in different forms. Of how many things people could know and never say until the wrong moment dragged them out into daylight.

You shifted back half an inch, enough to give both of you slightly more space without truly leaving his arms.

Steve missed the warmth of your mouth instantly and despised himself for noticing.

His body had not yet caught up to his principles. His pulse still moved too fast. He still felt the ghost of the kiss along every nerve. It would have been easier, in some base physical way, if he had not answered you back at all. If he had gone rigid and cold and turned himself into a wall. But he had kissed you. Briefly, yes. Still enough. And now his own restraint sat inside him like a blade turned inward.

He dragged a hand over his face once.

“You can’t do that because you’re hurting,” he said finally, more to anchor himself than anything else. “And I can’t let you do it because I’ve wanted it.”

The truth of that seemed to thicken the room all over again.

You looked at him steadily. “That wasn’t exactly a no.”

It nearly undid him.

Steve let out one breath that might have become a laugh if things had been even a little less raw. “No,” he said. “It wasn’t.”

The corner of your mouth shifted, faint and tired.

Then the pain in your head must have surged again, because your eyes squeezed shut and your brow furrowed.

Steve seized on the practical distraction at once, grateful for it.

“Okay,” he murmured. “Before we say anything else either of us can’t sort through properly, I’m getting you water and aspirin.”

You opened one eye. “Running away?”

“Temporarily.”

That actually drew the ghost of a smile from you, fleeting but real.

Steve carefully eased himself out from under the blanket before the warmth of the bed and the memory of your mouth on his could persuade him to stay where he had no business staying if he wanted to keep his head clear. The mattress shifted as he sat up. Cool air touched the skin your body had kept warm. He felt the loss of closeness with ridiculous intensity.

He stood and had to steady himself for a second on the edge of the dresser, less from balance than from the sheer physical aftermath of the kiss. His body still hummed with it. The taste of you lingered just enough to be maddening. He pressed his thumb once, hard, into the heel of his palm as if a sharper sensation might discipline the rest of him.

When he turned back, you were watching him again through narrowed eyes, one hand up at your temple now.

The sight reset something in him.

Need first. Always.

He fetched water, found aspirin in the bathroom cabinet, and brought both back. You pushed yourself halfway upright with a wince, took the pills from his hand, and swallowed them obediently.

Then you held the glass a second longer than necessary and said, not looking at him this time, “I meant what I said.”

Steve stood at the side of the bed, quiet.

“I know,” he answered.

Because he did.

That was the trouble.

He believed you.

Not entirely in the shape of what the kiss meant yet – there would be time, or there would not, and he was not going to steal certainty from your vulnerability this morning. But he believed that it had not been revenge. He believed that you had seen him for longer than he understood. He believed that whatever passed between you now existed in its own right and not merely as a weapon against Bucky.

And that knowledge was both terrible and tender.

You set the glass on the side table and leaned your head back against the pillow with your eyes half-closed. “My head’s killing me.”

Steve almost smiled again, softer this time.

“Yeah,” he said. “That part I could tell.”

He sat back down on the edge of the mattress, but not too close. Close enough to stay. Far enough to give the room a little air.

After a second, your fingers reached out blindly and caught the hem of his T-shirt.

Not pulling. Just holding.

Steve looked down at them, then back at you.

You never opened your eyes. “Stay until the aspirin kicks in.”

The request undid the last of his resistance to the simple shape of care.

So he did.

He stayed beside you in the grey morning light, his mouth still remembering yours, his body still full of the shock of that brief instinctive answer, and his heart caught somewhere painful between what he wanted, what you had admitted, and what decency still required of him now.

“Steve?”

Your voice came soft through the dim, aspirin-dulled quiet of the room.

Steve turned his head toward you at once, but he did not answer immediately. He had already learned, in the space of a single night and morning, that you sometimes needed a second just to gather the courage for the question itself. So he waited.

The bed dipped faintly under his weight where he sat on the edge, one forearm resting on his thigh, his other hand loose near your knee on top of the blanket, close enough to reassure, far enough not to crowd. Morning still lay grey beyond the curtains. The safehouse remained hushed around you, stripped down to the small sounds of survival: old pipes in the walls, traffic far below, the faint hum of a refrigerator in the other room.

You kept your eyes closed when you asked, “Am I taking advantage of you?”

The question entered him more deeply than he let show.

For one brief second he simply looked at you.

Your face still bore the fragile evidence of the last twenty-four hours – swollen eyelids, the faint pinched set at the corners of your mouth, the exhausted stillness of somebody who had cried too hard, slept too little, and woken into a reality that had not improved in daylight. Yet the question itself was so painfully, unmistakably you that Steve felt something tight and tender pull through his chest.

Even now.

Even after the drinking, the tears, the kiss, the headache, the humiliation, the rawness of everything.

Even now you were still thinking about his boundaries. His feelings. The possibility of being unfair to him.

He answered immediately, because hesitation would only have hurt you.

“No.”

Your mouth did not move. Your eyes stayed shut.

You did not say thank you. Did not ask him to explain. Did not press.

You simply breathed out, very quietly, and let the answer settle.

Steve watched that tiny release happen in real time. The fraction of tension easing from your brow. The way your fingers, which had still been loosely holding the hem of his shirt from when he sat down beside you again, loosened a little more.

The silence that followed was not empty.

It felt full, but not unpleasantly so. Thoughtful. Weighted by too much still unresolved, and yet no longer sharp in the immediate way it had been earlier. The aspirin had begun to take the edge off your headache; he could tell by the way you no longer winced every time you shifted against the pillow. The worst of the hangover would still be there, but dulled. Your breathing had grown steadier. The room felt less like a place of crisis now and more like a place where consequences had come to rest, at least for the morning.

Minutes passed.

Steve did not count them exactly. He only sat there and let them happen. He glanced once toward the door, already thinking ahead in practical lines because practicality kept him from dwelling too hard on the lingering memory of your mouth on his. He should go back to the Tower. Shower. Change. Report in properly. Make sure Tony knew you needed a new phone. Make sure Bucky stayed the hell away from Brooklyn, if it came to that.

The thought of Bucky made something colder move through him.

He pushed it aside.

Then, with your eyes still closed, you asked, “You got back from the mission yesterday?”

Steve looked at you again.

“Yes.”

You nodded faintly against the pillow.

He could almost see the thought assembling itself behind your face, moving one tired step at a time through chronology. He had returned. He had walked into the Tower and found out you were gone. He had seen Bucky. He had come here. He had stayed. That left all the ordinary parts of his life suspended somewhere just out of frame, waiting to reclaim him the second he stepped back into them.

“You’re going back to the Tower after this.”

It was not phrased as a question.

Steve leaned back slightly in the chair and answered with the same plainness you had used. “Yeah. For a little while.”

You were quiet long enough that he knew there was another question coming.

When it arrived, it came small and almost casual in tone, which only made the vulnerability inside it more obvious.

“If I asked you to come back after, would you?”

Steve did not need to think.

“Yes.”

This time your eyes did open.

You looked at him across the narrow space between bed and chair, and though the morning had softened none of the last day’s damage, something in your gaze sharpened with surprise. Perhaps not because of the answer itself. Perhaps because of how quickly it came.

He held your stare without looking away.

You searched his face like you had at the door last night, except there was less suspicion in it now and more wondering weariness.

“You’d actually do it?” you asked. “Don’t you have a report to write, or debriefing, or literally anything more interesting than sitting around with me?” The faintest, driest shadow of your old humor touched your mouth and vanished again. “I’m not exactly the most fun person in the world right now.”

Steve almost smiled.

Not because you were funny, though even now you managed it. Because that reflex in you – to make yourself smaller, more manageable, less trouble than you clearly felt – had become visible to him in a hundred ways over the last twelve hours, and every time he noticed it he wanted to refuse it on principle.

“I don’t care about the report,” he said.

He could have softened the sentence. Said I’ll handle it later. Said It can wait. But none of those would have carried what he actually meant, and he had grown tired of trimming truth down to polite size around you.

So he added, “And I don’t care about anything else more.”

The words hung in the room.

Not grand. Not dramatic. He did not say them like a confession. Only as fact.

Still, Steve felt the air shift after them.

Your eyes stayed on his face a beat longer than before. Then your gaze lowered briefly to his mouth, just for a moment, and his entire body noticed.

He ignored that.

Or tried to.

You let out a slow breath. “Okay.”

It was not a demand. Not even a triumph. More like acceptance of something you had been afraid to ask for and had now received without having to bargain.

You talked through the practical details after that with a gentleness that almost made the conversation feel normal.

Steve would go back to the Tower.

He would shower, because you said with sleepy bluntness that he still smelled vaguely like quinjet fuel and the city.

He would change clothes.

He would do whatever he absolutely had to do to keep the world from collapsing in his absence, and then he would come back.

You asked – more cautiously now, as though embarrassed to need one more thing – if he could talk to Tony about getting you a new phone.

Steve thought of the shattered one by the wall in the living room, of the relentless buzzing that had driven you to throw it, and nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll get you one.”

You closed your eyes again after that, the effort of the conversation clearly costing you more than you wanted him to notice. Steve watched the line of your face relax by degrees. The aspirin was helping. The toast sat in your stomach now instead of only rum. Some color had returned to you, though not much. It would do for an hour or two.

“I should go,” he said at last, quietly.

You made a soft sound of agreement that did not sound much like agreement at all.

Steve stood.

The movement seemed to wake you more fully. You pushed yourself up with less difficulty this time and sat on the edge of the bed while he collected his jacket. He glanced at you once, half expecting you to stay there and let him leave from the bedroom, but instead you swung your legs over the side and stood too.

“You don’t have to get up,” he said.

“I know.”

You said it the same way you had said everything else that morning: aware of the option, uninterested in taking it.

So he let you follow him.

You moved slowly through the apartment, but with more steadiness now. Tired, yes. Sore. Hollowed out. But no longer wavering on your feet. Steve noticed everything automatically – the way you kept one hand briefly to the wall when turning out of the bedroom, the way you blinked against the brighter light in the living room, the way your shoulders still seemed to curve slightly inward as if some instinct in your body had not yet accepted that the immediate blow was over.

He also noticed the toast plate in the kitchenette sink and felt, absurdly, a small pulse of satisfaction.

At the door, he turned to face you properly.

The safehouse looked different in daylight. Smaller. Less intimate, maybe. The couch where you had fallen apart the night before. The kitchen counter where he had made you eat. The living-room floor where your broken phone still lay in pieces because neither of you had bothered to touch it. All of it now carried the strange, quiet weight of shared aftermath.

Steve reached for the doorknob.

“Steve.”

He looked back.

You had stopped about a step away from him.

“Mmh?”

For one second he thought you were going to ask him again not to be long. Or remind him about the phone. Or say something practical and small, something meant to make the goodbye easier to wear.

Instead you stepped in.

You kissed him.

There was nothing uncertain about it this time.

No hungover confusion. No half-sleep instinct. No startled collision of mouths in the soft grey haze of waking. You kissed him with intention – your hands rising to his neck, then higher, fingers slipping into the hair at the nape and along the sides, holding him there with a quiet certainty that made the breath leave his lungs in one sharp rush.

“This,” you murmured against his mouth first, your breath warm over his skin, “is to say thank you.”

Then you kissed him again before he could answer.

Steve responded.

There was no point pretending otherwise.

The kiss deepened almost immediately, and because he had already spent the entire morning trying not to think about how your first kiss had felt, the second one hit him with the force of everything denied catching flame at once.

Your mouth was softer now, fully awake, deliberate. He felt the exact shape of your lips this time – warm, pliant, insistent in a way that sent sensation racing under his skin. One of his hands went to your waist on pure reflex, steadying, anchoring, pulling you just a fraction closer before he consciously registered that he had done it. The other hovered for the briefest second as if asking permission even now, then came up to cradle the side of your jaw.

You made a faint sound into his mouth.

It wrecked him.

Because it was not a dramatic sound. Not loud. Not theatrical. Only a quiet little exhale of approval, surprise, relief – he could not have named it exactly if asked – but the intimacy of feeling it there between your mouths, of hearing it swallowed by the kiss itself, made something low and dangerous uncurl in him.

He kissed you more fully then.

Still careful. He could not seem to stop being careful with you even when he was kissing you like this, like he had been denying himself the right to learn the shape of your mouth and suddenly could not stop. His thumb slid once along your cheekbone. He felt the way you leaned into him, the way your hands in his hair tightened, the way your body moved closer of its own accord until there was almost no space left between you.

And then your teeth caught his lower lip.

Just a light bite. Not enough to hurt.

Enough to send a shock so immediate through him that the sound he made escaped before he could stop it.

It was low and rough and embarrassingly involuntary. A startled, broken little noise dragged up from somewhere far more honest than dignity. Under different circumstances Steve would have blushed to the roots of his hair over it. He knew that even while it happened. But in the moment there was no room for embarrassment, only the searing awareness of your mouth on his, your teeth on his lip, your fingers in his hair, his own pulse pounding so hard it felt like impact.

He felt you smile into the kiss.

That only made it worse.

Or better.

He had no language for the difference right then.

Steve deepened the kiss again in answer, just enough to taste that smile and lose himself in it for one more dangerous second. The hand at your waist tightened. His other hand slipped from your jaw into your hair, not tangling, only holding, as though the softness of it might disappear if he did not keep contact.

This time it was you who pulled back.

Not far.

Only enough that your mouths no longer touched, though your breath still did.

Steve stayed there, forehead almost touching yours, his mouth close enough that if either of you moved half an inch the kiss would begin again. He could feel the warmth of your skin under his palm, the rise and fall of your breath, the slight tremble in his own restraint. His lips still tingled where yours had been. His lower lip still carried the sharp sweet ghost of your teeth.

“You thank all your friends like that?” he asked.

The words came out against your mouth, quieter and rougher than he intended, carrying more of the kiss than the joke.

You smiled.

A real smile this time – small, tired at the edges, still shadowed by everything else, but real enough to strike him harder than the kiss had in its own way.

“Just the ones who put me first,” you said, “despite how they feel.”

Steve went very still.

Because of course that was what you had noticed.

Not only the care. Not only the staying. The restraint.

The refusal to take what was easy when you were hurting.

The truth of what he felt, and the fact that he had placed your well-being in front of it anyway.

Something in his chest pulled tight enough to hurt.

He looked at you for a long second, the smile still ghosting at your mouth, your hands not yet fallen away from his neck, and wondered how many times he was going to underestimate the sharpness with which you saw him.

Then he let out one slow breath and pressed a brief kiss to your forehead.

Not because he wanted less.

Because he wanted more, and because that still mattered.

“I’ll come back,” he said.

You nodded once.

“I know.”

And somehow those two words felt even more intimate than the kissing had.

Steve forced himself to step back then, though every part of him objected to the movement. Your hands slid from his hair, down the back of his neck, then away entirely. The loss of contact felt immediate and disproportionate.

He opened the door.

Cooler hallway air moved in around him. The ordinary world waited just outside: elevators, traffic, the Tower, Tony, reports, Bucky, consequences, all of it.

Steve paused on the threshold and looked at you one last time.

You stood barefoot in the doorway light, hair still a little disordered from sleep and his hands, mouth kiss-swollen, eyes tired but steadier than the night before. Hurt still clung to you. So did anger. Grief. None of that had disappeared. But now something else stood beside it too, fragile and dangerous and undeniably alive.

He left before either of you could say anything that would tangle the moment further.

The walk down to the street felt unreal.

The city was too bright. Too loud. Too normal. Steve crossed the sidewalk to the Harley and only once he had his helmet in hand did he allow himself to stop and breathe.

His body still held the kiss in vivid pieces.

The press of your hands at his neck. The softness of your mouth. The sting of your teeth on his lower lip. The sound he had made, swallowed by your smile. The way you had kissed him not out of vengeance or confusion, but with clear-eyed gratitude and something more dangerous underneath.

He shut his eyes briefly.

Then he put on the helmet, started the bike, and headed back toward the Tower with the taste of you still on his mouth and the certainty, sharp as a blade, that coming back to you afterward was no longer a question at all.

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