The heat was unbearably heavy, relentless, pressing down until even breathing felt like effort. The air shimmered, and sweat traced slow paths down her spine, Y/n was wearing a baby pink suit and her hair was tied up in a bun. She was walking home from college, with her friend.
“Yaar bohot garmi lag rahi hai!” Her friend, Aliza said wiping her face with her dupatta.
“Haan lag to rahi hai. Chal Aalam chacha ki shop se juice pi kar phir ghar chalte hain.” Y/n suggested and the girl nodded in agreement as they often visited that shop.
The two of them made their way to the juice shop and greeted the old man. “Salam Aalam chacha.”
“Arey beti bade dino baad aayi tum dono!” Aalam said getting the two girls. Y/n noticed a new guy behind the counter who was manhandling the juicer.
“Chacha college ki chuttiyan chal rahi thi.” Aliza replied sweetly.
“Acha acha, dono pineapple hi piyogi na?” He asked knowing their usual order. Aliza nodded but Y/n shook her head.
“Mere liye aaj mosambi.” She replied, her gaze flickering to the long haired man behind the counter.
“Theek hai baitho banwata hoon.” The old man gestured towards the tables and they walked over.
“Tu uss naye ladke ko kya dekhe ja rahi hai!” Aliza nudged Y/n, pulling her chair to sit down but Y/n stopped her.
“Udhar nahi idhar baith.” She sat facing towards the counter so she could get a perfect view of him and gestured her friend to in front of her. Aliza rolled her eyes and sat where Y/n had asked her to. Y/n kept staring at him, watching as his bicep bulged while he turned the handle of the mixer to squeeze out the fruit juice.
“Ghoorna band karegi tu use!?” Aliza whisper yelled.
“Arey dekh na kya mast item hai,” y/n replied looking at her friend, “nahi nahi tu mat hi dekh, mera hai.” She said grinning mischievously.
“Khuda ka khauf kar, Y/n. Wo juice centre me kaam karta hai.”
“Arey to me konsa Imran Khan ki beti hu jo mere liye kisi minister ka ladka ayega!?” Y/n said sarcastically. “Mere abba bhi esa hi koi layengy…par itna haseen to sirf ye hi hai.” She said checking him out.
“Tujhe uska naam bhi nahi pata.” Her friend reminded her, right then, Aalam yelled out,
“Hamza ye mosambi aur pineapple, table number 4 py dede.” Y/n smirked deviously.
“Hamza naam hai uska.” Aliza facepalmed at her antics.
“Tu pagal hai.” She muttered as Hamza arrived with their order, a bored expression on his face. He placed their glasses on the table and left.
“Tu bhi na yaar samjhti nahi hai, ek to itni zidd karke abba ko college me admission ke liye manaya, wo bhi unhone girls college me karwa diya. College me haryali ke naam py sirf pedh aur wo manhoos guard.” She explained taking a sip of her juice, “ab sabki tumhari tarah bachpan me to magni nahi hojati abba ke dost ke bete se!”
“Acha acha personal mat ho!” Aliza raised her hands in surrender. “Par usne to tujhe ghas bhi nahi daali?” She glanced back at Hamza who was focused on his work.
“To kya pehli bar me aake meri god me baith jae, sabr rakh ghas bhi dalega aur piche bhi ayega.” She smirked downing her juice in one go.
Over the next few days Y/n went to Aalam’s shop every day, without fail. Sometimes Aliza would tag along, other days she went alone. She sat there, watching him carry the heavy crates inside, admiring his built. Sometimes she’d deliberately spill juice on her table and sweetly call out to him,
“Hamza ye juice saaf kar do na please.” He’d come over, clean it and leave. She’d pout at his indifference but wouldn’t give up.
As summer was coming to an end, there were less customers at the juice shop but Y/n didn’t relent. There was just one couple sitting in shop when she arrived. Taking her seat at her usual spot, she ordered two pineapple juices. Hamza was curious about the two glasses but he didn’t comment. He kept the glasses on the table and moved to leave but she called out,
“Hamza.” He turned back at the sound of his name. “Ye tumhare liye hai.” She said sliding the other glass towards him. “Baitho na mere sath.”
He glanced around the place, realising he had time to spare he sat down on front of her. “Mat karo.” He finally spoke, if she thought he was only good looking, she was wrong because he had the sexiest voice on top of being hot.
“Kya nahi karoon?” She asked curiously.
“Yehii sab,” he replied, “tumhe lagta hai mujhe nazar nahi aata? Tum roz yahan aati ho aur mujhe kam karte dekhti ho. Mat karo ye sab accha nahi lagta.” He explained.
“Par mujhe to bohot acha lagta hai.” She said leaning on the table, both her arms crossed. “Mujhe Hamza acha lagta hai.”
Hamza’s jaw dropped at her blatant confession. He quickly stood up, “ghar jao.” And walked away leaving the juice untouched. She smirked seeing him get flustered and drank both the glasses.
Over the next few days Y/n didn’t go to college due to her mother being sick, she stayed home and looked after her. As much as she loved her mother she was disappointed she couldn’t go see Hamza at the shop after college ended.
Hamza noticed her absence and part of him believed it was his words that made her stop coming. He didn’t know why but he felt an empty ache inside him. No matter how much he pretended to dislike her presence, he secretly craved it.
A few days Y/n was dragging Aliza to the shop and her friend was having none of it. “Y/n tu samjh kyu nahi rahi hai usne tujhe reject kardiya, aur tu ab bhi wahin jana chahti hai.” Y/n had told Aliza that whole interaction with Hamza and she didn’t want her friend to embarrass herself more.
“Usne reject nahi kiya, aur agar kar bhi diya hai to maine to nahi kiya na!! Chal na pleaseeee.” Aliza gave in and the two of them arrived at the juice shop but Hamza wasn’t there.
“Chacha, Hamza nahi aya? Chutti py hai kya?” Y/n asked trying to sound nonchalant but failing.
“Beti Hamza ab yaha kaam nahi karta.” Aalam replied and Y/n froze.
“Kyun?” She asked trying to sound just curious and not that she had ulterior motives.
“Use kahin aur naukari mil gayi hai, woto waise bhi yahan sirf guzare ke liye kam karta tha.” Aalam explained and Aliza nudged Y/n to get moving.
“Yar mai itni repulsive hu ke wo kaam hi chor ke chala gaya!?” Y/n wallowed in self pity as the two sat down at the table. Aliza smacked her arm.
“Aisa mat bol.” She didn’t like listening her friend talk bad about herself. “Suna nahi chacha ne kaha wo yahan sirf guzare ke liye naukari karta tha! Acchi naukri mili aur wo chala gaya.” Aliza shrugged.
A few days passed and Y/n was heartbroken at Hamza’s sudden departure, believing she was the reason he left. She stopped being her loud bubbly self, she had internalised that her personality drove people away and made her unlikable.
She visited the shop less often now but still went sometimes. It wasn’t like she never went there before Hamza’s arrival, so why should she stop after his departure. She was sitting at her usual table when she heard a rumbling sound of a motorbike and Aalam excitedly yelling Hamza’s name. She peeked outside and her heart broke all over again. Hamza was here with a girl, she was extremely beautiful, and honestly she complemented him as she stood by his side. As she observed the girl she started comparing herself to her. She looked rich, and so put together. Maybe that’s why Hamza chose her.
She watched them sit outside and felt tears spring to her eyes but she held them back, feeling stupid for falling for someone at first sight and crying over her unrequited feelings. She blinked rapidly to stop the onslaught of waterworks and slung her bag over her shoulder and walked out of the shop. Hamza glanced at the person exiting the shop and he recognised her, he didn’t notice her tears nor did he say anything but his gaze followed her until she disappeared into an alley.
The next day Hamza arrived at the juice shop hoping to see her again, and it was just his luck he saw her sitting inside, a book opened in front of her. He made his way over to get table, pulled out a chair and sat on it.
“Tum abhi bhi yahan aati ho?” He asked, and she looked up at him.
“Aalam chacha tumhare abbu hain?” She asked, he looked at her confused as to why she was asking, but he still shook his head, answering her question with a no. “To kya ye dukaan tumhare abbu ki hai?” She asked angrily.
“Nahi.” He replied looking at her, trying to decipher where she was going with this.
“To tumhe kya matlab yahan kon ata hai kon nahi?” She replied with an attitude. “Tumhare se pehly se yaha ati hu aur tumhare baad bhi aungi.” Hamza knew she was upset with him, and that’s why she was acting this way.
“Mere jaane se pehly…” Hamza started hesitantly, “tum itne din aayi nahi, mujhe laga meri baato ki wajah se-“ he didn’t know how to continue. She on the other hand was freaking out, he noticed her absence? Her heart started melting at his concern and she turned into a puddle, forgetting how angry and upset she was in the first place.
“Nahi wo meri ammi ki tabiyat kharab thi..” she answered.
“Oh accha, ab thik hain wo?” Hamza asked and she nodded.
“Tumhe laga main tumhari wajah se nahi arhi thii aur mujhe laga tumne meri wajah se kaam chordia.” She confessed not looking at him.
“Kya?” He was taken aback, and he quickly explained, “mujhe nayi jagah kaam mil gaya hai, Rehman bhai ke pass.”
“Rehman Dakait?” She asked and he nodded, he was anxiously praying she won’t run away screaming in terror. But what she said next calmed him a little. “Mere abbu unke karkhane me kaam karte hain.” Okay so she’s a civilian but not the kind who’d run after hearing Rehman’s name.
After a few seconds of awkward silence Y/n remembered the girl from yesterday, her puddle of a heart turned stone cold again and she stood up and left, leaving Hamza confused. The second she stepped out of the shop, rain pelted down on her harshly. With summer coming to an end, it was expected, but it still felt unexpected. Hamza followed behind her and started his bike catching up to her quickly. He stopped the bike beside her and called out loudly,
“Y/n, baitho mai ghar chor deta hu!” She stopped and glared at him.
“Jao apni girlfriend ko choro jaake.” She yelled over the sound of the rain.
“Meri konsi girlfriend?” He asked incredulously.
“Kitni hain jo mujhse puch rahe ho konsi?” She said walking away but he grabbed her wrist and pulled her back.
“Hai to ek bhi nahi par jisko banana chahta hu wo bhaag rahi hai.” He smirked pulling her even closer.
“Jhoote! Kal jo aayi thi sath wo kon thii?” She jerked her wrist back, walking away.
“Suno suno,” He caught her again, Damn hin and his long arms. He pulled her back. “Kahi baith kar baat kare?” She didn’t want to but the way he was looking at her, there was something in his eyes she couldn’t say no to.
She gave in reluctantly. “Theek hai.” He took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. “Hum ispy jaengy?” She asked, sharply looking at the bike.
“Haan toh.”
“Giraogy to nahi?” She asked fearing an accident, the temperature is dropping and it’ll hurt like a bitch if they fell.
“Hamza ki bike se Hamza ki jaan gir jaye? Iss zindagi me mumkin nahi.” Hamza smirked confidently and she blushed at his words but schooled her expression back to sternness.
“Baate mat banao.” She hesitated to get on the bike and he got off, helping her sit securely.
He drove them off to a park nearby, the rain was still pouring relentlessly. He got off the bike and helped her down, leading her to the gazebo seeking shelter from the rain. He admired her as she shook off a few water droplets from her hair.
“Naraz ho?” He asked and she paused looking over at him.
“Humara narazgi ka koi rishta nahi hai.” She replied coolly. He inched closer and took her hand in his. He made her sit on the bench placed there and crouched in front of her.
“Hai. Mujhe Y/n achi lagti hai.” He said repeating what she’d said to him that day in the juice shop.
“Hamza-“ he shook his head stopping her
“Bolne do, maine tumhe pehli baar dekha, tab tum baby pink color ka suit pehni thi, tumhare balo me jooda bana tha aur aankho me kajal tha. Meri nazar theher gayi. Mujhe pehli nazar me ishq hogaya tha. Par tab jo main tha wo tumhare layaq nahi tha, aur ab jo main hoon wo usse bhi baddtar hai lekin me tumhe chahta hoon.” He pulled out something from the pocket of his pants and showed it to her. It was her silver bracelet she’d worn to college that day but had lost it.
“Ye to mera-“ she started and he nodded.
“Haan tumhara hai, uss din tum shop py bhul gayi thi, agar tum bhi mujhe chahti ho to mai tumhe ye wapas kar dunga, mere pass tum hogi, par agar tumhari na hai to ise mai rakh lunga, tumhari yad ke liye.” Hamza held it out towards her, to choose whatever she wills.
“Wo ladki kon thi? Kal jo saath thi?” She asked, her answer completely depending on his’.
“Minister ki beti hai. Inn ameero ke baccho ko gareebi fascinate karti hai. Farmaish kardi gareebo ki zindagi nazdeek se dekhni hai. Baap ne laga diya kaam py, after all waha sabse gareeb to mai hi hoon.” Hamza answered honestly, a hint of humour in his voice.
“Fascinate, after all? English huh?” She teased.
“Excuse you madam, I’m a college graduate. Gareeb hoon uneducated nahi.” Hamza sassed back. She chuckled looking at him.
“I’m impressed.” She smirked but then she turned serious, “lekin kya matlab minister ki beti hai to tum use apni bike py bitha kar ghumaogy.” She huffed angrily.
He tugged her closer, their faces inches apart. Her heart beating in her chest loudly. “Tum ek baar haan to bolo, minister ki beti kya minister bhi taras jaega mere piche baithne ko.”
She smiled bashfully at his promise and took the bracelet from his hand, she brushed her lips against his ear and whispered lowly, “Mujhe Hamza accha lagta hai.”
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SYNOPSIS:He wore the shirt she bought him the night he stoped being Jaskirat Singh Rangi. Twelve years later, the girl who loved him is assigned to evaluate what came back.
“Good evening, Mr. Rangi,” she says professionally, sitting down across from him with a file in her hands and eleven years buried alive in her chest.He looks up.
And for one terrible second, she watches him forget which name he’s supposed to answer to.
word count: 11.2k
A/N:t his is probably one of the longest things i’ve written on here and somewhere between the angst and well more angst, i managed to sprain the pinky finger on my left hand 😭 so the second i hit post, i will be RICE-ing my hand like my life depends on it.
but genuinely, this story became very special to me while writing it.i hope you love it as much as i do. Do let me know if you wish to be added to the taglist!!
To read a happier ending click here!
His eyes were green.
That is the first thing she remembers — or rather, the first thing she lets herself remember, because with Jaskirat Singh Rangi there has always been a careful taxonomy of allowed memory and forbidden memory, the kind of interior housekeeping that psychologists are trained to do and that she, in particular, has become devastatingly good at over the course of the last eleven years.
But his eyes. She can allow herself his eyes, at least for a moment.
They were green the way certain forests in the foothills are green — not the glossy, tourist-pamphlet green of postcard Himachal Pradesh, but something older and more complicated. The green of moss on stone walls.
The green of the fields behind his house in the late monsoon, when everything smelled of wet earth and possibility and the particular kind of young-summer-evening that makes you believe, stupidly and irrevocably, that the future is something you can touch.
They were the color of a world before anything bad had happened to it.
She used to tease him about those eyes. Used to say, Jassi, you look like a film hero, you know that? Like someone who should be running through a wheat field in a song sequence. And he would duck his head — this boy who was six feet of contained restlessness, who could throw a cricket ball clean across three rooftops, and she would feel a fizzing pleasure in her chest that she was, at sixteen, not quite old enough to name correctly.
She had also forgotten how he kissed. Not the fact of it. But the weight.
She could recall the angle of light, the sound of pigeons somewhere two buildings over, the particular smell of dust and cardamom that lived in the courtyard in summer — but the weight of his hands, the specific pressure of his mouth, the way he exhaled against her jaw like he was finally putting something down: that, she had lost.
Or she had thought she had lost it. And now his hands were at the back of her neck and his thumbs were at her jaw and she was understanding, in the way that the body understands things before the mind catches up, that she had never actually forgotten. She had only stopped letting herself remember.
His mouth moved to her temple. She felt him breathe.
She is thirty-one now.
She knows exactly what to call it.This feeling.
She just does not permit herself to call it anything anymore.
The memory of his eyes dissolves the way all her good memories do — slowly, like sugar in warm water, until only the shape of the sweetness remains — and then there is a rough cut, the kind of splice that happens in badly-edited films when the editor runs out of patience or footage, and she is no longer sixteen and standing on a roof in Pathankot with the sun in her eyes and Jassi's laugh in her ears.
She is sitting in a corridor outside Ajay Sanyal's office.
Her hands are shaking.
On the other side of Ajay Sanyal's office.
The man himself,Ajay Sanyal sat in a particular way of sitting in chairs that communicated absolute ownership of every room he had ever occupied. He did not sprawl. He did not perch. He simply inhabited space the way water inhabits a vessel — completely, without apology, filling every silence to its edges.
He looked at Jaskirat Singh Rangi across the steel table and said:
"Jaskirat. I think it's time to revisit old demons."
Pathankot. Eleven years ago. A Tuesday in May, which she remembers because she had a chemistry exam on Wednesday and she had been trying, with increasing desperation, to understand thermodynamics, and the entire afternoon smelled of her mother's rajma and someone's jasmine creeper and the specific heat of a Punjab afternoon pressing itself against every window like an uninvited guest.
She heard him before she saw him.
That was always how it was with Jaskirat — you heard him first, because Jaskirat Singh Rangi moved through the world at a particular frequency, a kind of kinetic restlessness that preceded him the way sound precedes a train
. She heard his footsteps on the roof next door — their houses shared a boundary wall, and the rooftops were separated by roughly four feet of empty air, which was nothing to someone with his wingspan and general disregard for the concept of reasonable caution — and then she heard him call her name.
"Meher! Meher. Are you studying?"
She was. Demonstrably. She had three textbooks open, a highlighter in her hand, and a studied expression of academic seriousness that she was extremely proud of. She looked up at the roof next door.
Jaskirat was standing with a cricket bat slung over his shoulder like he was posing for a recruitment poster, wearing a white cotton kurta that had somehow gotten grass stains on it despite the fact that there was no grass on their roof, and his eyes were green in the afternoon light, and her heart did the thing it always did, which she had filed under thermodynamics in her head because it seemed like a reasonably accurate description: the rapid and involuntary transfer of heat.
"Yes," she said, in her most discouraging voice. "I have chemistry tomorrow."
"Chemistry will be there tomorrow," he said, with the absolute philosophical certainty of someone who had never struggled to understand chemistry in his life. "Cricket will not. Inder Uncle went to Amritsar and he has the ball. We'll use mine."
"Who is we?"
He grinned. He had a very specific grin — not wide, not performative, but private, like a parenthetical, like he was sharing it specifically and only with her, and she had catalogued this grin in the folder she kept labeled things that are fine and normal and mean nothing — and said, "Me. Priya. Ranjit from the corner house. And you, if you stop being so boring."
"I'm not boring, I'm studying."
"Same thing." He paused. "Your Maa already said yes."
This was his most devastating rhetorical tactic, and he knew it, and she hated him for it: he always went to her mother first. Her mother, who thought Jaskirat Singh Rangi was essentially an additional son, who fed him parathas with an extra pat of butter, who asked after his NDA preparation with the focused concern she usually reserved for her own children's report cards, who said, when he had left last Diwali, Mehu, that boy is going to do something great, you mark my words, in a tone of conviction so complete it sounded less like prediction and more like instruction.
Meher put down her highlighter.
She tried not to smile and was approximately thirty percent successful.
"Fine," she said. "Give me two minutes."
He was already swinging a leg over the boundary wall. "I'll jump across and wait."
"You could use the stairs —"
"The stairs take four minutes." He had already cleared the gap, landing on her rooftop with a sound like a single note of percussion, easy and inevitable. He looked down at her textbooks and raised an eyebrow. "Carnot engines?"
"Don't."
"You're doing it wrong. The efficiency formula —"
"Jaskirat Singh Rangi, if you explain thermodynamics to me right now I will throw this textbook at you."
He raised his hands in surrender, still smiling, and the afternoon light caught the green of his eyes, and she thought — very quietly, in the part of her that was not yet entirely literate about its own feelings — I could look at you forever and it would not be enough.
She didn't say that.
She went to get her cricket shoes instead.
Her family's reaction to Jaskirat's presence at dinner that evening was — as always — completely disproportionate to the occasion. Her father pulled out the good glasses. Her mother produced a bowl of halwa that had not been on the menu that morning.
Her younger brother Arjun attached himself to Jaskirat's side like a small, determined barnacle and demanded to be told everything about the NDA written examination — how many papers, bhaiya, how many marks, is it harder than board exams, will I have to do maths — until Jaskirat, with the infinite patience he had for children and almost no one else, sat down on the floor with Arjun and actually began drawing out the paper structure on the back of a grocery receipt.
Not impatiently. Not in the abbreviated way of someone performing the performance of being gracious. Actually, genuinely — he turned toward Arjun and talked through it the way he talked through anything that mattered: slowly, in the register of someone who has thought about this for a long time and wants the other person to understand it exactly right.
Meher watched this from the kitchen doorway, a glass of water in her hand, and felt something complicated and tender move through her chest.
"He's a good boy," her mother said, appearing beside her with supernatural silence, the way mothers do.
"Mm," said Meher, attempting neutrality.
"Smart. Hardworking." Her mother's voice was the auditory equivalent of a nudge. "And very handsome, nahin?"
"Maa."
"I'm just observing. I'm allowed to observe." Her mother took the water glass from her hand and went back to the kitchen, and as she left she said, over her shoulder, with devastating casualness: "The Rangi family is coming for Baisakhi, you know. His mother told me. She is so proud of him."
Meher watched Jaskirat patiently explaining something to Arjun — watched the way he tilted his head, the way his voice dropped into a register of genuine seriousness that he rarely used with adults, the way Arjun looked at him with the uncomplicated hero-worship of a child who does not yet know enough about the world to be cynical about its heroes — and thought:
The only way to become Mrs. Jaskirat Singh Rangi is by studying hard enough and becoming extraordinary enough for him.
The thought arrived with the quiet certainty of something she had known for a long time without having the vocabulary to express it. She filed it away — in the folder labeled thermodynamics, in the cabinet marked future, in the room of her interior life that she kept very carefully locked — and went back to the kitchen to help her mother with the dishes.
She was not in Pathankot anymore. Hadn't been in a long time.Her hands were still shaking.
She pressed them flat against her thighs — pressure interrupting the tremor response, a trick she had taught to field operatives who needed to hold a weapon steady after a cortisol spike — and counted her breath.
In for four.
Hold for four.
Out for four.
The box breath. She had prescribed this to nineteen different agents over the last three years and was now, in a corridor in New Delhi outside an intelligence officer's office, using it on herself, which was either evidence of its clinical validity or a profound irony, and she was not currently in a position to determine which.
She was a psychologist.
She had a PhD from JNU. A post-doctoral fellowship from NIMHANS. Eleven years of experience working psychological evaluation for RAW, specifically with the rehabilitation of field operatives — the careful, technical work of helping people who had been through things that did not have adequate language put themselves back together in ways that allowed for continued functional life.
She had sat across the table from men who had watched their entire units die. She had spent eight months doing rehabilitation work with an agent who had been held in a facility she was not permitted to name in any document. She had, on four separate occasions, talked people back from the edges of things that she still thought about sometimes when she could not sleep.
She was a professional.
She pressed her hands harder against her thighs.
The file she had been given was face-down on Sanyal's desk, where she had put it. She had read as far as the column marked field alias — had read the name Hamza Ali Mazari next to the name Jaskirat Singh Rangi — and then she had put the file down and walked into the corridor, and that was where she was now: four minutes and forty-three seconds later, sitting in a plastic chair, trying to remember how to breathe.
Because Harleen was dead.
She had known about Harleen for years — not from the file, but from her own memory, from the early 2000s when the news had reached their mohalla in fragments and her mother had gone quiet for a week and Meher had understood without being told directly that something catastrophic had happened to the family next door in her absence.
By then she was already at JNU. By then she had already begun, carefully and deliberately, the process of filing Jaskirat Singh Rangi's green eyes in the folder labeled past and closing the drawer.
She had not known he had been recruited.
She had not known — could not have known, it was classified, it was deeply and entirely classified — what had happened to him in the years between his sentencing and now.
What had been done to him.
What he had been made into.
She pressed her hands flat against her thighs.
Sanyal's aide opened the door and said her name.
She stood up.
She smoothed her kurta.
She assembled herself, item by item, the way you pack a bag: the professional face, the clinical frame, the eleven years of careful training arranged like ballast against the pull of everything else.
By the time she walked through the door, she was Dr. Meher Kaur, psychological evaluation specialist, RAW rehabilitation division.
She was completely composed.
She was also lying.
[ She knows about Yalina. She knows about Zayan — who is Yalina's son, not the name of anyone Jaskirat killed, though in a conversation about guilt they sometimes blur into the same category of person: the one whose life was altered by the shape of his cover.
She knows about Aalam, who agreed to be shot rather than tortured, and about Pinda — Gurbaaz Singh, his best friend since childhood, the drug peddler who helped him get the weapons the first time — who died by his hands the second time, in a Karachi house, because recognition is a liability that cannot be managed any other way. She knows all of this now.
She did not always.
The file filled in the years she was not present for. The file is a terrible document.]
{Interrogation Room B - 1st Session}
He knew his name.
He checked this the way he had learned to check things: not by assuming, but by actually going to look, the same way you verify a lock you have just turned, pressing the door to be sure.
His name was Jaskirat Singh Rangi. He was born in Pathankot. His mother's name was Prabhneet Kaur. His father had been a soldier, had been hanged by the men of MLA Sukhwinder Singh over a plot of land and a debt that had turned into a death sentence delivered with complete impunity by men who owned the local machinery of justice and therefore had no particular fear of it.
He knew this.
He also heard, overlaid on Sanyal's voice like a signal on the wrong frequency, Yalina calling him Hamza.
Hamza.
Not Jaskirat. She had never said Jaskirat. She had never met Jaskirat. Yalina Jamali — Jameel Jamali's daughter, who had been, when he arrived in Lyari, nineteen years old and conducting her life with the absolute conviction of someone who believed the world was legible — had known only Hamza.
Had loved only Hamza.
Had screamed at only Hamza, when she found the diary, when the chemical revealed the names and the list and the whole architecture of what he actually was: You ruined my life. You did this. What are you?
And he had said: I am targeting terrorists. I am not targeting the people of Pakistan. I am not targeting you.
And she had said: And Zayan? What are you targeting my son for?
Zayan. Who was three years old. Who called him abbu. Who had, in the house in Karachi, a specific way of falling asleep in Jaskirat's arms — going heavy all at once, the dead weight of complete trust — that
Jaskirat thought about now, in Interrogation Room B, with the fluorescent lights humming and Sanyal asking him to walk through the timeline of the final month, and could not think about without a specific pressure appearing in the middle of his chest that was not quite pain but was in the same family.
He had left Zayan in Pakistan.
He had left Zayan in Lyari with Yalina, who had chosen not to betray him — who had, when Omar Haider pointed a gun at their son's head and demanded she confirm his identity, eventually done so, because there are things you cannot ask a mother to endure, and Jaskirat would not, would not blame her for that — and who was now in Pakistan in a life that existed in the shape of the lie he had created, married to a man who was not real, mother to a son whose father had a different name.
"Jaskirat." Sanyal's voice, precise and flat. "The events of the final month."
He opened his mouth to speak.
What came out was:
Pinda.
Pinda at the party — Gurbaaz Singh, who he had not seen in years, who had arrived in the context of a drug delivery from Indian dealers, who had looked at him across a room in Karachi and gone very still in the way of a person whose brain is doing something rapid and difficult. Who had said, later, drunk and hallucinating and frightened: Jassi? Jassi, is it you?
He had tried to calm him.
He had tried everything.
Pinda had attacked, and the fight had been brief and desperate and terrible in the specific way of things that happen so fast you cannot process them while they are happening, and then Pinda was on the floor and Aalam was in the doorway asking him to leave, telling him: I'll take the blame. Go.
And he had left.
And then Aalam was dead too, because Jaskirat had gone back in and shot him — not to punish him, not for betrayal, not for anything other than the single most terrible kindness he has ever performed: sparing him from what Major Iqbal would have done to extract information, which was something that Jaskirat knew with clinical precision because he had been on the receiving end of Major Iqbal's methods and there are things worse than a clean death, and Aalam had known this too, which is why his eyes, in the moment, had said yes. Had said I know. I understand. Do it.
Aalam, who had been his handler. Who had owned the juice shop in Lyari. Who had said, the first time they met in the back room with the maps and the codes and the entire fiction of Hamza Ali Mazari spread out across a table between them: You are not the first man to do this. You will not be the last. The country does not forget its own, even when it must pretend to.
He had believed that.
He is trying to still believe it.
"Jaskirat." Sanyal again.
"The final month," Jaskirat said. "Yes. Let me —"
And every question that followed arrived in voices he was not expecting.
Bansal asked about the ammunition. He heard Major Iqbal's voice layered underneath, the specific register of a man describing violence with the pleasure of an academic.
Sanyal asked about the extraction. He heard Yalina — call me when you're safe, at least call me, Hamza, just tell me you're alive — and the last call, from the hospital corridor, her number on his screen, and him pressing it and saying: I'm alive. Two words. That was all he had been able to give her at the end.
Bansal asked about Rehman Dakait. He heard Pinda's voice. The old voice — the Pathankot voice, twenty years old, sitting outside the chowk with his legs stretched out and his arms behind his head saying Jassi, yaar, you take everything too seriously. And the newer voice. The Karachi voice. Jassi? Is it you? It's you. What are you doing here, what are you —
The questions continued.
He answered them.
He kept his voice level and he answered them in the operational vocabulary that had been installed in him over years of training, and the fluorescent lights hummed, and somewhere very far underneath the level surface of Hamza Ali Mazari's answers, Jaskirat Singh Rangi was making a sound that had no outlet.
Eventually Sanyal said: "Take a break."
Jaskirat sat alone in the room and heard his dead.
Pinda, who he had killed.
Aalam, who he had killed.
Harleen, who was dead before he got there.
His father, whose voice he could no longer clearly reconstruct. This frightened him more than all the other losses. He went looking for it sometimes in the silence of early mornings — his father's specific voice, the cadence of it, the register of a soldier who was also a father, serious in all things including warmth — and found only approximations, only the shape of it, not the sound.
And under all of them, not dead but not reachable:
His mother. Prabhneet Kaur. In Pathankot.
Jasleen. Who was alive. Who had Pinda's children, or so the welfare report said — Pinda had asked him, before the court, to take care of her, and Pinda had done it, and then Pinda had died in Karachi by Hamza's hands, which was a sentence he was not yet capable of holding all at once without something in him fragmenting.
He pressed his hands flat on the table.
He asked himself: Who are you?
The room did not answer.
What came, eventually, into the silence was not a name.
It was a word.
Balidaan.
[The first time Jaskirat killed twelve men, it was to protect his family. His father was already gone. Harleen was already gone. Jasleen was the one he could still save, and so he went with Pinda to Atif Ahmed in Uttar Pradesh, and he got the weapons, and he went to Sukhwinder's house and he killed twelve men and he brought his sister out of that house and he has never, not for a single hour since, been sorry.
The second time is harder to count. The operations in Lyari. The necessary deaths. Pinda. Aalam. The twelve names he has ticked off a list in a diary written in invisible ink that only appeared under a certain chemical Yalina found, because Yalina was curious and thorough and looking for something to explain the man she'd married, and found instead the whole architecture of her husband's lie.
Both times destroyed him.
The question that Interrogation Room B cannot answer — the question that no debrief protocol in RAW's considerable institutional library was designed to ask — is whether the thing destroyed was the same thing both times.
Whether the first killing made the second possible.
Whether Jaskirat was always capable of this, and Hamza was just the name they gave to the capability. Or whether Hamza was constructed in the ruins of Jaskirat and the construction was thorough in ruins of bygones.
He does not know.
He is sitting in a room trying to find out.]
Three weeks before he left, Meher is nineteen. It is December, the December of 2000, cold in the way Pathankot does cold — serious and dry, the sky in the evening going first amber and then the specific deep blue of a place that has no ambient light to compete with the stars.
She had been saving since October.
Meher's pocket money was not generous, her expenditures were not minimal (reference books, bus fare, the occasional chhole bhature with Simran, a tube of kajal she had decided she needed and then hidden from her mother), and the shirt she had seen in the market on the street near the vegetable stalls had cost approximately twice what she had in hand in October. So she had saved.
The result: enough. Exactly enough.
He was leaving to become what he had always been going to become — an officer, a soldier, his father's son, a person who served — and the fact that this leaving involved a permanent renegotiation of the geography of her life, which had always contained him as a fixed coordinate, was something she was handling with extraordinary maturity by not looking directly at it.
She found him on his roof, not hers. She had climbed the stairs to her own roof and called across the four-foot gap and he had looked up from his study materials with the expression of someone being rescued from voluntary suffering and jumped across in one easy movement, the way he always did, the way that had always looked to her like a small casual miracle, like someone who had decided gravity was a suggestion.
He landed next to her with a single thud of percussion.
She held the shirt out before she could rethink it.
Green and black. Wide stripes, not subtle, not trying to be. Good cotton, softer than it looked, the kind of material that would get better with washing and time. She had spent seventeen minutes in the shop deliberating.
She said, "Mere paas kuch paise hain. This is what I bought for you."
He took it.
He turned it over in his hands.
He looked at it and then at her and then at the shirt again, and she watched something move across his face that she didn't have a precise name for — something that was complicated and young and serious and, underneath all of that, grateful in a way that had nowhere to go.
"Meher —"
"You can just say thank you, Jassi, you don't need to make it a whole —"
"Thank you," he said. Quietly. Meaning it.
"It'll be too big." She said it matter-of-factly, though her heart was doing the thermodynamics thing with a force she was choosing to ignore. "You haven't quite —" She gestured vaguely at his general situation, which was: six feet and lean and still in the process of becoming the physical fact of himself.
He looked at the shirt. "I'll grow into it."
"That's the idea." And then, because she was nineteen and there is a specific brand of honesty available only to nineteen and soon to expire: she laughed, the soft helpless kind, and said: "Grow your muscles into it. I want to be a strong army officer's wife."
The words left her mouth and landed in the cold December air between them, and for approximately one second she heard them from the outside — heard their full implication, their entirely undisguised content — and felt the heat arrive in her face.
But Jaskirat wasn't laughing.
He was looking at her.
With the full quality of his attention, which was the thing about him that had always undone her most completely: when Jaskirat looked at you, he looked at you with all of himself, nothing elsewhere, nothing managed or withheld.
And his eyes in the December light were very green, and his expression was something she had never seen on his face before — not the private grin, not the restless energy, but something older and younger simultaneously, something that said: I know. Something that said: yes. Something that said: I am afraid of everything this means and I am also entirely certain of it.
He said: "Okay."
Just that.
Okay.
She stood in the cold air in December and felt the word settle somewhere in her chest like a stone settling in water — finding its depth, sitting down, becoming permanent — and thought:
This is enough. This is exactly what I needed. This is enough.
She went inside before she started crying.
She sat on her bed and pressed her hands to her face and thought about green eyes and the word okay and the weight of a future that was, in that moment, as real to her as the cold.
[Jaskirat never got to be an officer. He left for training in 2000 and while he was gone, Sukhwinder Singh's men came to the house over a land dispute and a debt, and his father was hanged, and Harleen was murdered, and Jasleen was taken, and when he came back the future that had been agreed upon in December on a rooftop with a green-and-black shirt between them had been replaced entirely by something else.
Green and black, broad stripes. The same shirt. It no longer too big for him.
It was logged after the events at Sukhwinder's house as Item 47 in the evidence list.
Nobody noted that it had been bought with four months of saved pocket money by a girl on a rooftop who believed in a future she was going to be extraordinary enough to deserve.
It is the last thing he wears as Jaskirat before he becomes Hamza.
I think he knew that things would never be the same after the decision he was about make. I think he put it on deliberately.
I think it was the only goodbye he knew how to give her.
But did she deserve it? No. Absolutely not.]
They were in different rooms.
This is true in the precise literal sense: Meher was in the anteroom outside Sanyal's office, which had a plastic chair and a water cooler that produced a sound like a perpetually startled animal, and Jaskirat was in Interrogation Room B, which had a steel table and fluorescent lights and the institutional cold of rooms designed by people who understand that discomfort is a tool.
But they were also in different rooms in every other sense.
In her head, he was Jassi.
He had always been Jassi — since before she had the vocabulary for what she felt about him, since before she understood that Jassi from next door was a category that was going to resist filing no matter how many labelled folders she constructed. Jassi who jumped rooftops. Jassi with the private grin. Jassi who said okay in December and meant everything she needed him to mean.
In his own mind — and she had read enough of the file, and possessed sufficient clinical training, to construct an accurate model of what was happening in his mind — he was Hamza. Had been Hamza for long enough that Jaskirat was now a place he was returning to rather than a place he simply was.
The way you return to a language you learned before another one colonised your mouth: with effort, with gaps, with the occasional word from the other tongue slipping in unbidden.
She thought about this. She was a psychologist; she thought about identity architecturally, in terms of load-bearing structures and pressure points and the question of what happens to a building when you remove its central column and replace it with a different one. Three years is not an abstract period of time. Three years is long enough to form new neural pathways, to establish new reflex patterns, to make a new name feel more immediately present than the old one.
Identity, she had written in her doctoral thesis, is not a thing you possess but a performance you sustain — and what happens when you sustain a different performance, in a different language, with different people, for long enough that the original performance becomes the thing requiring effort?
She was the person whose job it was to know.
She thought: I feel proud of him.
The thought arrived without warning, the way honest thoughts do — without announcement, without permission, simply present.
I feel proud of him.
He saved our country. He was given a choice that was not really a choice and he said yes and he went in and twelve years later he came out the other side having done what he was sent to do, having avenged the attacks, having taken apart the network piece by piece, having left behind — having left behind —
She felt proud of him.
She began to cry.Now was not the time.
{Sanyal's office. Three weeks ago.}
Three monitors. One showing internal feeds, one rotating through international news including Pakistani channels, one displaying a map. Meher had been called in on a separate matter — a field operative with moral injury, which is the specific psychic damage that comes not from fear but from conflict with your own values, which presents differently from PTSD and requires a different clinical approach — and she had her notes and her professional face and no particular reason to expect the afternoon to go differently than any other afternoon.
Then the second monitor changed.
The text read: Sher-e-Baloch.
Below it: a face.
She had known the name. She had known it in the clinical, technical way she knew all operationally relevant context — as a threat designation, a figure in the intelligence landscape, not as a person. She had not known the face.
But she had known this face.
Not like this — not with the beard, not with the hair, not with the years of Karachi written into the set of his jaw — but underneath all of that. She had known the specific way his eyes sat in his face, the specific ratio of his cheekbones. She had known the architecture of this face since she was twelve years old.
She had mapped it compulsively and involuntarily for eleven years of consciously trying not to think about it and had apparently remembered every coordinate.
The ground came out from under her.
Not suddenly. Not with sound. Silently, the way the best catastrophes manage it — not the spectacular collapse but the quiet withdrawal of the surface you had been standing on, leaving you upright and apparently fine and utterly airborne.
Sanyal was watching her.
He said, carefully: "Dr. Kaur. We will be receiving a field operative in the next seventy-two hours for full debriefing and psychological evaluation —"
"Yes," she said. Her voice was level. "I understand."
"The operative has been in deep cover for approximately twelve years in total, with an extended active period of —"
"Three years in continuous deep cover. Yes. I'll need the full file."
"Of course." A pause. "Meher."
She looked at him.
Sanyal's face was the face of a man who has spent forty years making his face unreadable, but in the area around his eyes there was something that might, in a person less practiced, have been called concern. "Are you the right person for this evaluation?"
She held his gaze for exactly long enough.
"Yes," she said. "I'm the only person in this building who can do it correctly."
She believed this.
She was also not entirely certain she wasn't lying.
She went out to the corridor and she sat down and she read the file and she put the section about Harleen down and did not read it again.
She read the section about Pinda twice, slowly, with her hand pressed flat against the page, and when she put the file face-down on the desk and walked out of the office she was already building the clinical framework, already constructing the approach, and she told herself that this was professionalism and not the act of putting something very large in a box so that she could carry it.
{Interrogation Room B — second session}
"Tell me about Pinda," Bansal said.
He had a particular method of asking questions that sounded like the answer was already written on his notepad and the question was a courtesy, a formality.
Jaskirat had been debriefed before — smaller operations, early period, when the methods were being established — and had learned to recognise this method and respond to it with the operational vocabulary, precise and documented, that neutralised its effect.
"Gurbaaz Singh," Jaskirat said. "Known as Pinda. He was —" He stopped. "He was from Pathankot. He was my friend."
Was. Past tense. He had used the past tense without having to decide to. That was something.
"He appeared in Lyari as part of a drug delivery chain from Indian dealers," Jaskirat said. "He made contact through the supply chain. He recognised me at a party."
"And the outcome?"
Jaskirat looked at the table.
The outcome. As if Pinda were a variable that had resolved itself. As if Pinda — who had sat outside the Pathankot chowk with his legs stretched out and his arms behind his head; who had driven through the city in the early morning with blood on his shirt and a weapon in the boot and asked no questions, had just driven; who had said, before the court, Jassi, I'll look after Jasleen, I promise, I'll look after her — as if Pinda were a column in a spreadsheet that had finally been completed.
"He died," Jaskirat said. "During a confrontation in my house. He was under the influence and —" He stopped. "He would have exposed me. The exposure would have —"
He stopped.
What he did not say: He was my oldest friend. He knew me before. He was the only person in Karachi who knew who I actually was and I put my hands on him and now he is dead and I cannot complete this sentence because Aalam took the blame and I shot Aalam to spare him torture and there is no version of this that resolves cleanly, there is no version of this in which I am not the person who killed both of the people who knew I existed.
He said: "It was operationally necessary."
Bansal wrote something down.
Sanyal watched him.
Every question that followed had a second voice behind it. Bansal asked about the Balochistan operation and he heard Yalina: At least you were targeting terrorists, not ordinary people, right? Tell me you were targeting terrorists.
And he had said yes, and that was true, and he had also left her with their son in a city that now knew her husband's real name, and both of those things were equally true, and the truth did not resolve the latter.
Bansal asked about the final confrontation with Major Iqbal. He heard Iqbal himself — the specific quality of Iqbal's voice during interrogation, the particular technique of a man who had been trained by people who had refined cruelty into a methodology — and his body responded before his mind could intervene, a physical flinch that he converted into the motion of shifting his weight in the chair.
Bansal asked about returning to India.
He heard his mother.
Not a specific sentence. Not a specific memory. Just the quality of her voice — Prabhneet Kaur, who had sat in the front row at his sentencing and held her dupatta to her mouth and made no sound — a quality he could reconstruct precisely and which he had spent twelve years not reconstructing, because reconstructing it made the distance unbridgeable and the distance needed to be unbridgeable for the work to be possible.
"I went to Pathankot," he said.
The room went very still.
"Before I came here," he said. "I went —" He stopped. "I needed to see if they were —"
Sanyal said: "I know. It was noted."
It was noted. He had been watched. Of course he had been watched. He had stood outside the gate of the house where he had grown up, in the street he had walked every day of the first twenty-one years of his life, and watched his mother close the gate from the inside — watched her do it without looking up, without seeing him, because he was dead to her, had been dead to her for years.
He had watched Jasleen in the courtyard with her children, going about the ordinary business of an ordinary afternoon, and he had stood in the street and cried with the particular total silence of someone who has had enough years of practice to make no sound while they do it.
He had stood there for twenty minutes.
Then he had turned and walked away.
Balidan Parmo Dharma, he had said to himself, in the street, like a man trying to remember the rules of something. Sacrifice is the highest duty.
He was not sure it had helped.
He said: "I didn't go inside."
"I know," Sanyal said. Again. Still with the same careful neutrality.
[About Pinda.
Gurbaaz Singh Pinda drove a car through Pathankot at three in the morning with blood on his shirt and weapons in the boot, for his best friend, without asking questions.
He promised to look after a woman he didn't know well enough, for his best friend's sake, and he kept that promise for twelve years, long enough to become someone she didn't have to look after anymore.
He went to Pakistan as part of a drug supply chain and walked into a party in Lyari and recognised a face he hadn't seen in twelve years and the recognition cost him everything.
He is listed in the file as "collateral outcome - cover maintenance." He gets three lines.
This is what the file does to people. It makes them three lines. It removes everything except the function and the result and it calls what is left a record.
Pinda deserves more than three lines. He was a person who loved badly and inconveniently and with his whole body, the way people from Pathankot do. He was a person who showed up.
He also actively was betraying his own motherland in the name business.
Three lines.
I am angry about the three lines.I am angry for Jasleen.]
[And so we come to Yalina Jamali.
Who is not in the file very much. Who is the wife, the cover, the asset maintained, the person who discovered the truth and kept silent for the sake of her son and eventually broke when Omar put a gun to Zayan's head because there are things that are not abstractly possible to maintain under specific concrete threat.
Who called a number and said: my husband is alive. Make sure he stays that way.
Because even after the diary, even after the confrontation, even after the full extent of the lie was visible, she made that call. She told her father, who told Sanyal, who blackmailed a general into releasing him. She saved his life after he had spent twelve years constructing the life that erased his.
I don't know if this is love. I don't know if love is what I would call it. I think it might be something more complicated than love, something that happens when you build a life with a person for long enough that the person and the life become inseparable, so that even when you know the truth about the person you cannot quite dissolve your investment in the life.
She is still in Karachi.
She has their son.
The file says: no further action required regarding Yalina Jamali. The cover is sufficiently dissolved. She is not considered a threat.
She is not considered a threat.]
{Interrogation Room B — Ecaluation Phase}
She had composed herself.
She had stood in the corridor for exactly six minutes — she knew because she counted, habit, the internal timekeeping she had developed sometime in her second year working with RAW, the clinical metacognition of a person who monitors their own state as a professional practice and had used those six minutes to: verify that she was not going to cry, review the clinical framework for identity reintegration following extended deep-cover immersion, remind herself of the ethical obligations of her role, and arrive at the following decision, clearly and without equivocation:
she was both the right person for this evaluation and a person with a personal history she was obligated to manage, and these two things were not in conflict, because the reason she was the right person was not personal but clinical — she had more contextual knowledge of Jaskirat Singh Rangi's pre-cover identity than anyone else in the building, and that context was therapeutically essential, and she was going to use it correctly.
She had fixed her hair.
She had drunk water.
She had stood outside Interrogation Room B for twenty-three seconds, which was fifteen longer than she needed and eight shorter than she felt like, and then she had opened the door.
He was at the table.
He was looking at the middle distance.
She had a single moment, in the doorway, to see him before he saw her. And she used it — not unprofessionally, not indulgently, but simply: she looked. She looked at the fact of him. Twelve years older. The beard. The hair. The particular way he was sitting, very still, with his hands flat on the table, with the practiced interior composure of someone who has learned to manage the surface independent of whatever is happening underneath.
She looked at his eyes.
Brown.
Not the green of the fields in monsoon. Not the green that had been the first thing she reached for whenever she allowed herself to reach. Brown — the colour of tired earth, of a world that has been through its seasons. Brown in the way that things go brown when the green has been worked out of them by long continuous effort.
She looked at his eyes.
She filed what she saw.
Then she walked in and sat down across from him.
She said: "Good evening, Mr. Rangi."
Her voice was completely level.
He looked up.
And she watched it happen — the moment of recognition. Not slow, not uncertain; he knew her immediately, with the completeness of someone who has been keeping a face somewhere very safe for a very long time and retrieves it without effort. She watched the recognition move through him and then she watched what came after it: the choice. The deliberate, visible, conscious choice to become Hamza-still. To arrange the surface. To put on the face that had kept him alive in Karachi.
He looked at her with Hamza's eyes.
He said: "Good evening."
She put her folder on the table.
"I'm Dr. Meher Kaur," she said. "Psychological evaluation specialist, rehabilitation division. I've been assigned to your post-operative assessment. The purpose —"
"I know what a psychological evaluation is," he said. Hamza-precise. Not rude. Simply economical.
"Of course," she said. "Then let's begin."
She was very good at her job.
She asked about sleep — he reported fragmented sleep, night terrors consistent with PTSD presentation, specific recurring content (she noted: voices, faces, the particular sensory memory of specific events, a clinical finding of significant intrusive symptomatology).
She asked about appetite (disrupted, low; he ate because he knew he was supposed to). She asked about somatic symptoms (headaches, yes; elevated startle response, yes; physical tension primarily in the jaw and shoulders — he moved his jaw slightly when she said this, the involuntary acknowledgement of something accurate).
She asked about his relationship to time: did the past feel like the past, did the present feel present, did he experience temporal displacement, moments where he was not certain which time he was in?
He paused at this question.
He said: "Sometimes the voices overlap."
"Which voices?"
"The dead." A pause. "And the living. And sometimes they're in each other's voices." Another pause. "Yalina asking questions in Pinda's voice. Pinda saying things that were Aalam's." He stopped. "I know they are different people."
"Knowing doesn't always interrupt the overlap," she said. "That's not a failure of yours."
He looked at her.
"It's a feature of how memory and grief interact in the context of extended dissociation," she said. "Your mind was sustaining two identities for three years. The architecture was necessarily — unstable. Permeable in places."
He said: "That's a very clinical way to describe it."
"It is," she agreed. "Would you prefer a different one?"
He almost smiled. Almost. The corner of his mouth moved.
She wrote something in her folder.
She turned a page.
She asked: "What is the difference between Jaskirat and Hamza?"
The question dropped into the room like a stone into deep water — going in cleanly, disturbing the surface in a widening circle, continuing to fall long after the visible impact was done.
She watched him.
He looked at his hands. He looked at them for a long time, as if they were containing something, as if the question had the effect of making the hands suddenly visible in a new way.
He said: "No one has asked me that before."
"I'm asking now."
He was quiet for a long time. A full minute. She waited. She was excellent at waiting.
He said:
"Jaskirat is violent."
He said it flat and factual, a clinical observation about a third party. "Unpredictable. Emotional. He makes decisions because he loves people. He loved his father. He loved Harleen. He loved Jasleen enough to —" He stopped. Reorganised. "He acts from feeling. He does not assess first and then act. He acts first and the consequences arrive after and he carries them, but he cannot — he cannot go backward. He cannot make himself not act." A pause. "That is a liability in the field."
She wrote nothing. She wanted him to hear only silence, not the scratch of documentation.
"Hamza is controlled," he said. "Predictable. He assesses before he acts. He knows the operational value of every relationship before he allows the relationship to function. He does not love people first — he cannot afford to. He makes the decisions that Jaskirat couldn't make without falling apart." Another pause. The word that came next arrived with a particular weight: "Hamza is necessary."
The word necessary was, she thought, the saddest word in her entire clinical career. Not because of what it meant but because of how he said it — not with pride, not with bitterness, with something more precise than either: the grief of a person who has understood that being necessary is the thing they have been reduced to.
"And which one is in this room right now?"
He looked up.
For the first time since she had entered the room, he looked at her directly. Not through her. Not past her. At her — with the full quality of attention that was, she now understood, not something either Jaskirat or Hamza owned exclusively but something that had always been simply his.
His eyes were brown.
She looked back.
He said: "I don't know."
[About the shirt. I am telling you this once again because it is important.
It was green and black, wide stripes. She bought it in December of 2000 for approximately five hundred and fifty rupees that she had saved over four months by declining cinema trips and exercising extraordinary self-control near bookshops.
He was wearing it the morning of the attack on Sukhwinder's house. He had put it on deliberately. She knows this now because she has thought about it for eleven years and there is no other explanation for why a person going to do what he was going to do would put on a shirt that was too big for him, a shirt that had been bought for a future that no longer existed.
She thinks he put it on because he was going to do something he couldn't come back from and he wanted to go in as himself. As Jaskirat. In the shirt that had been bought for the officer he was going to be.
She has spent eleven years trying to separate two images: the boy who received the shirt on a December rooftop and the man who wore it into a house where twelve men died. She has been trying to put them in different rooms in her head. She has been trying to make them stop being the same person.
They are the same person.
He is sitting across the table from her.
He is the same person and his eyes are brown and she is looking at him and trying to separate the boy from the man and finding that she cannot, that eleven years of trying has not helped, that the green and the brown are in the same face and always were.]
The evaluation continued.
She asked the correct questions in the correct sequence with the correct clinical framing, and he answered them in his Hamza-register — precise, controlled, economical — except that the register was, as the session continued, becoming fractionally less absolute. She could track it.
A word here that was not operational vocabulary. A pause there that was not the calculated pause of someone managing disclosure but the unguarded pause of someone actually thinking. The Hamza-stillness, intact and immaculate at the beginning of the session, developing microscopic imprecision at the edges.
She was watching him come back to himself the way you watch ice become water — slowly, without drama, the change happening at the edges first.
She asked about his support system.
He said: "My mother." A pause. "My sister, if —" He stopped. Started again. "Jasleen. I don't know if — I have been gone for twelve years. I was dead. I am still, to them —"
"They don't know you're alive," she said.
"No."
"Your mother," Meher said. "Prabhneet Kaur. She is in Pathankot. She is well — physically well. She kept your room exactly as it was."
He looked at her.
"It's in the welfare file," she said. "A welfare officer visited the family under cover, six months into the operation. Your room: textbooks on the shelf, study materials, the cricket bat." A pause. "She kept it."
He pressed his hand flat against the table.
He said: "The cricket bat."
"Yes."
His jaw was very tight.
She waited.
He said: "Jasleen's children —"
"Two boys. The elder one looks like Pinda." She said this without looking up from her notes, because she had calculated, correctly, that the way to say unbearable things is to say them while doing something else, so that they can land without requiring an immediate response. "The younger one looks like her."
He was quiet for a very long time.
She let him be quiet.
Then he said: "She deserves to know." His voice was different. Lower. "About Pinda. That it wasn't — that I didn't —" He stopped. "She thinks he disappeared. She doesn't know he died. She definitely doesn't know —"
"I know," Meher said.
He looked up.
"There are ways to do it within protocol," she said. "I have clearance. I can find a way to tell her the truth — not the operational details, but what he did. What he agreed to. What he —" She stopped. "She should know he chose it. In the sense that he could have chosen otherwise and didn't."
He stared at her.
"I can't promise the exact shape of how I'll do it," she said. "But I can promise it will be done. You have my word."
He looked at her for a long time.
He said: "Thank you."
She nodded.
She looked at her notes.
She wrote something.
She said: "I'm also going to recommend that your mother be told you're alive. Not the details — not the operational context — but that you're alive. She is entitled to that." She paused. "You are entitled to that."
He said nothing.
She said: "The country asked a great deal of you. It is not asking you to let your mother believe you are dead when you aren't."
He said, very quietly: "It's asking me to let Yalina —"
"I know," she said.
The room was very quiet.
She said: "I know. And I don't have a clinical resolution for that. The file has no protocol for that. I'm sorry."
She was.
She was sorry in the direct, unmediated way of a person sitting across a table from the consequences of something very large and very terrible, and the sorryness was not professional, was not clinical, was simply the response of one person to another person's permanent loss.
He looked at his hands.
She looked at her notes.
It was not sudden.
She had expected it might be sudden — had read about precipitous breakdowns, the dam-giving-way model, the structural-failure model, one more question being the one more that the load-bearing elements cannot hold. She had seen it happen that way before.
His was geological.
Slow. Incremental. The kind of change that happens at depths you cannot directly observe and announces itself only when the landscape has already shifted, when you look up and find you are somewhere different without having seen yourself move.
She tracked it across the sessions.
Session two: he used the word Jassi in reference to himself in the third person, caught himself, did not correct it.
Session three: he described his father's voice and then stopped and said, with a flatness that contained enormous things: "I can't remember exactly what it sounded like anymore."
Session four: he talked about Harleen without the operational vocabulary. Without calling it collateral or antecedent or backstory. He called her Harleen and he stopped mid-sentence and did not continue and she let the silence be exactly as long as it needed to be.
Session five: he talked about the night at Sukhwinder's house. Not the operational version. The real one. He talked about what the house had sounded like when he arrived. He talked about finding Jasleen.
He talked about not being able to separate, in the months afterward in prison, the satisfaction of having done it from the horror of having done it — that both were present simultaneously, that they did not cancel each other out, that he had been trying for twelve years to reconcile this and had not managed.
She said: "You don't have to reconcile it. Some things are irreconcilable. The clinical goal isn't resolution. It's coexistence."
He looked at her.
He said: "That sounds like something that should be easier than it is."
"Most true things do," she said.
Session six was when it happened.
She had been running the identity reintegration protocol — a structured series of questions designed to help the operative consciously inhabit both identities rather than cycling between them, to understand them as a continuous self rather than opposed fictions — and she had asked him to describe a specific memory from before 2000. Concrete. Sensory. Unambiguously Jaskirat's.
He was quiet.
Then he said: "There was a girl next door."
She breathed.
She did not move.
"She used to sit on the roof and study," he said. "She was very serious about studying. She had folders. She organised her notes with a colour system." A pause. A pause that contained something — a sound that was almost a sound, not quite. "Her mother made halwa every time I came over. Too sweet. Always too sweet. But she made it like it was a special occasion."
She watched his hands on the table. They were very still.
"She used to call me Jassi," he said.
And Meher, who had been Dr. Kaur for six sessions, who had maintained the professional frame with the precision of someone who knows exactly how much depends on it, who had done this job correctly for six sessions and had every intention of continuing to do it correctly —
She said: "I know."
Two words.
Not Dr. Kaur's voice. Her voice. The voice that was from Pathankot, the voice that had called across a four-foot gap between rooftops, the voice that had said grow your muscles into it on a December afternoon and then been horrified and then been unable to be sorry.
He went very still.
Then he looked at her.
She said: "You explained thermodynamics to me the week before my class twelve boards and I still got a better mark than you would have." She said it quietly. "
You put the flour on the wrong shelf in our kitchen once and my mother pretended for three days that she hadn't noticed. Arjun cried for a week when you left for training." She paused. "Your father read from the Guru Granth Sahib on Sunday mornings. You always thought he was asleep when he did it. He wasn't."
He looked at her.
She said: "The shirt. I saw it on the news, when they were reporting on the house in Pathankot. The house where —" She stopped. "I saw it. I knew the shirt. I didn't understand it then, what you were —" She stopped again. "I understand it now."
He looked at his hands.
He said: "I put it on because —"
"I know," she said. "I know why you put it on."
A silence.
She said: "Your sister is going to be told the truth about Pinda. I promise you that. And your mother will know you're alive." She paused. "You will have that."
He pressed his hands flat against the table.
He said: "Meher."
Her name. Her actual name, in the actual voice — not Hamza's level register, not the careful operational control, but the voice she had last heard on a rooftop in Pathankot saying okay, which was the word she had filed in the cabinet marked future in the room she kept carefully locked, which was the room she was now standing in.
He said her name and then he said nothing.
He was very still and very quiet for a long time.
And then — not suddenly, not with sound, not the dam-breaking model — he broke.
He bent his head and the breaking happened in the small and almost invisible way that grief happens when it has been held for long enough that it no longer remembers how to be large: his hands came up and covered his face and he breathed, just breathed, and the breathing was not crying but was the thing that lives in the same room as crying, the thing that is grief happening in a body that has used up its water.
She was around the table in four steps.
Clinical training said: maintain physical distance. Assess before contact. The professional frame. The evaluation context.
She sat in the chair beside him and put her hand on his back.
She felt him breathe.
She felt the whole enormous weight of him — Jaskirat, Hamza, the boy from next door, the man the country made, all of them at once — in the rise and fall of the breathing.
She said nothing.
He said nothing.
They sat in the room, and the fluorescent lights hummed, and the breathing continued, and she kept her hand on his back the way you keep a hand on something that is trying to find its way back to solid ground: steadily, without agenda, just present.
This was not clinical.
This was just what you do.
When it had run its course — when he had straightened up, when he had pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, when the breathing had found its ordinary rhythm — she returned to her chair.
She straightened her kurta.
She picked up her pen.
She was a professional.
She said,"I'm recommending extended rehabilitation. Three months at minimum, with a specialist in identity integration. There's also a group program for operatives with prolonged deep-cover experience —"
"Meher."
She looked up.
He was looking at her.
He was looking at her with both of them present — not only Hamza, not only Jaskirat, but whoever was in the process of being assembled from the pieces: tired and present and looking at her in the specific way she had filed under thermodynamics at fifteen and never entirely correctly refiled since.
"Ask me," he said.
She looked at him.
"Whatever you want to ask," he said. "You are allowed to ask."
She held his gaze.
She simply shrugged"I'm not asking anything. I'm your evaluating psychologist and I'm going to refer you to the appropriate specialists and I'm going to ensure that your family knows you're alive." A pause. "That's what I'm here to do."
After all that he had been through she could not present to him the cruelty of obligation. He was not obligated to tell her. As much as it hurt she knew that.
He looked at her for a long time.
He said: "Okay."
Just that.
Okay.She stood up.
She closed her folder.
She said, "Good night, Mr. Rangi."
She thinks about his eyes.
This is the habit she has not broken. She has broken many: looking toward his house when she returns to Pathankot for Diwali; calculating the years; keeping the green-and-black colour combination in its own category, weighted with meaning it no longer needs to carry. She has dismantled all of these with the careful deliberate effort she applies to everything she decides is necessary.
She has not broken the habit of thinking about his eyes.
She has not broken it because she is not certain she wants to. Because the eyes are the last honest thing. Because in the years between the rooftop and the interrogation room she has had many opportunities to stop remembering and has not taken them, and this is not a failing — it is a fact, and she is too rigorously trained to mistake the two.
His eyes were green.
They are brown now.
This is the thing she is sitting with — not resolving, not healing, sitting with, the way you sit with things that are irreconcilable, which is a thing she told him in a room with fluorescent lights and which she is now applying to herself.
The green was real. The boy on the rooftop was real. The okay in December was real and it meant what she needed it to mean and she is not going to retroactively un-mean it just because everything that followed happened. The green existed. It was that colour. She was not wrong.
And the brown is also real. The brown is the colour of twelve years of Lyari and Pinda and Aalam and Yalina and Zayan and every name on the invisible-ink list. The brown is the colour of what the country asked for and received.
The brown is the colour of a man who put on a shirt she bought him with her pocket money on the morning of the worst thing he ever did, because he wanted to do it as himself, one last time, before becoming someone else.
She is not going to tell herself the green is still there underneath. She is not going to offer herself that comfort. The green is gone. That person is gone. The man in that room is not the boy from the rooftop and she is not the girl with the colour-coded study folders.
She is thirty-one years old.
She is a psychologist who works for RAW.
She has done her job correctly.
She has referred him to the appropriate specialists.
She has ensured that his mother will know he is alive.
She has ensured that Jasleen will know the truth about Pinda.
She has done everything that was hers to do.
She sits in her car in the underground car park of the RAW field operations complex and she thinks about the December evening when she opened her eyes after the kiss and saw green — the exact specific unrepeatable green of that evening and his eyes in it — and she thinks:
I loved him.
Past tense. That love is now utterly and fully complete.
idgaf. endgame steve rogers ruined ten years of development and was an assassination of the character. it took a progressive character and sent him to the 50s (the epitome of traditional values) and had him settle down with a woman who recruited nazis into an organization made in his “honor”. he left his best friend alone in the future and didn’t save him from being tortured in the past. it was an evil ending and I can’t believe we’re having it shoved in our faces again (doomsday)
#genuinely: this is what further research into the famous 'marshmallow test' showed#it wasn't that kids who were able to delay gratification were more likely to be successful later on#due to intrinsic qualities#it was that kids who had a stable upbringing were more likely to be successful#and ALSO: those kids had trust that their caregivers would keep promises#which is WHY they were willing to give up one marshmallow now for the promise of two marshmallows later#kids who did NOT have trustworthy caregivers#or who were in a fundamentally unstable situation#DID NOT have that trust so they wanted their one marshmallow NOW#same deal here i think#it's not that Gen Z is bratty#it's that they have no trust in the system and no faith that promises will be fulfilled#and frankly i do not blame them -@cicerfics
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*This was a totally random and spontaneous idea. Not edited. Light language (so we can get *the joke*), pining, light angst, hurt/comfort, and fluff. This work is for all ages! WC ~2k
Sam Wilson introduces you. Both your parents were veterans and active at the VA, so you practically grew up there.
At first, you’re reserved, a little formal, but very nice. Oddly enough, Steve just likes that you don’t hound him with questions about his military service and how it was different based on the decade, etc. You are just…around to listen.
He finds himself filling any (comfortable) silence between you with stories. Stupid things. Things that don’t have to do with the VA or his past or even his present, which is entirely work as Captain America.
Steve gets to a point where he is itching to live off of Avengers Campus, but he doesn’t want to live alone.
One day he finds you hunched over a laptop and grumbling, “why is everything so fucking expensive?”
A sentiment which, of course, he frowns at.
“Sorry,” you shrug, a look of sincere apology on your distraught face. “I didn’t realize it, but apparently, I’m poor with my measly three-thousand-dollar-a-month budget for an apartment. Now I have to find a roommate, and—“ you start wagging a finger at him sarcastically “—I don’t know if you’ve noticed there’re some real weirdos out there. It’ll take me longer to find a safe, stable roomie than it takes to—“
“I can move in with you.”
Steve almost gasps at how fast the words fly out of his mouth.
“Well, not ‘move in’ to your current place. I mean. I can—I would be willing to live with you. Sorry! That sounds bad. You’re not bad. I meant…you know, anytime you want to chime in and stop me would be helpful.”
You remain silent and smirking.
“Right. Okay. So…think about it? Or not, that’s fine.”
“Let’s talk figures, Rogers. The square-footage just doubled, and I need to rework the budget.”
Moving in is shockingly uneventful. You’re easy to get along with, when not suddenly up on your high horse about something, and Steve is easy to get along with under the same circumstances. You push his militant rigidity to the brink on purpose, but never too far.
Things sit out in the wrong place, but it’s never dirty. Stuff doesn’t always get returned promptly, but if he asks, you’re on it.
There are two bathrooms, thank mercy.
He has random and odd hours. You work nine to five, mostly. It’s the perfect level of independence without loneliness for Steve.
Sam and Natasha stop by regularly or ask you both out for drinks or to fun, new places.
One time, when Nat is ribbing Steve to go talk to a cute girl ordering at the bar, he panics and takes your hand in his on the tabletop.
“How can I do that when my date is right here?” he grits playfully through his pearly white teeth. “Leave it alone.”
Each word is punctuated by a shift forward and a slight tilt of his head.
Natasha is unamused and instantly grabs your other hand (which was holding your drink) to pull you toward the dance floor.
It’s awkward for multiple reasons. You’d pay a whole month’s rent to know what Sam and Steve talked about after you left.
Sam takes a different approach, luring—or attempting to lure—Steve into setting up just one dating profile online.
“You don’t have to put photos,” Sam assures, “and you can stick with your first name only. I swear to you, man, this’ll be good for you. Get you out there more. Help me out here, Tagalong!”
He turns to you for support. To be fair, you did quite literally tag along with your parents for years to the VA, and it stuck. Why it sticks as a grown-ass adult? You’ll never know. You just don’t mind Sam Wilson saying it because he means well and never uses it in public.
“Uh, nooooo.”
Sam’s face falls. “What?”
You look at Steve and grimace, clicking your tongue. “He’s not ready for that,” you conclude.
Steve jumps out of the chair, arms wide with victory.
“THAT’S WHAT I’VE BEEN SAYING!”
“I know you told her to say that,” Sam shouts back.
“Did not,” Steve barks.
“He did not.” You lean against your bedroom doorframe. “I just think it’s obvious.”
That makes Steve deflate a little. “Wait, but…I’m not that bad.”
“Oh gosh,” you fake with a huge smile, “look at the time! Gotta be off to bed…”
The men keep fighting albeit muffled from your side of the wall. The only part you can make out before giving them privacy is Sam, whining, “but you actually like bubble baths and walks on the beach, dude. You’re gonna be money on there.”
“Hey, why do you not, ya know, date?”
You look up from your breakfast, stunned because that came out of nowhere. You’ve lived together over six months now, and Steve hasn’t asked for one iota of personal—well, romantically personal—information.
Twiddling your fork around, you think.
“I always imagine what my parents would think of him, any guy I’ve ever considered being with longterm, and…I was just never proud to say ‘here, here’s the one,’ I guess.”
Your parents have been gone for years. You value their opinion anyway.
“Mhm,” Steve hums, “the one?”
You take a bite of food, straightening your back, tossing a dismissive hand in the air. “Yeah, if you believe in that sort of thing.”
He’s quiet for a while.
“So you’re waiting for the right partner?” Steve finally mutters, and he watches your noncommittal gesturing intently.
That was a ‘yes.’
Natasha knows. Sam knows. Steve suspects but won’t admit to anything. You are kind and unreadable.
You’ve always been kind, so there’s no discernible difference to signal you have feelings for him in return. He can’t bring himself to be anything less than a gentleman at home and makes absolutely no moves to find out.
He stays out in the living room a lot more, all hours, hoping you’ll mention staying in for a movie, praying you’ll be tired enough to fall asleep on his lap on the couch.
He’s in way too deep.
What Steve suspects is that it would be too awkward to start anything while living together, but he doesn’t want to leave you in the lurch for rent or a roommate. He also desperately doesn’t want to move out. The status quo is comfortable.
He loves being comfortable with you.
The stress of not telling you, while needing to make some sort of arrangements should telling you blow up in his face, starts to wear on him.
Steve is a pro at compartmentalizing his life, so it’s when he’s stuck at the apartment without any missions, a handful of meetings, and a team that all have lives for two long months that he cracks…in the least attractive way.
He’s messed up his sleep schedule with worry and playing innocent, and out of the not-so-blue, a horrible, vivid nightmare hits him. Steve isn’t even on the mattress anymore by the time he figures out there wasn’t carpet like this in Germany and the desk chair he grips is not a motorcycle.
“Rogers,” he hears. “Rogers, can you look at me?”
The dark room is somehow hollow and stifling all at once. His head turns slower than his brain tells it to.
Steve blinks.
“Do you know where you are?”
“Hey, sweets,” he husks from a dry throat. “What…”
“Can you tell me where this is?” You step closer and pry one of his hands off the mesh to cradle in yours. “Where are we, Rogers?”
“Home.” He swallows. “Our home.”
Your smile doesn’t reach your eyes, but you nod like he’s done well.
“Okay, Steve, I’m going to get you some water. If you want—“ your fingers smooth over the back of his hand, nudging the other to release the chair “—you can sit on the bed.”
You don’t leave. You don’t even get up from the floor.
He doesn’t notice he’s clutching your hands, shaking slightly until long seconds go by.
“Yeah. Okay.” Steve lets go, otherwise unmoving, contemplating how he ever thought the semi-rough industrial carpet felt the same as mud.
You carefully hand him the water and rub his back, using your nails to trace invisible patterns. He can’t remember what he was so scared of a minute ago. He only knows he’s sweating that empty kind of confused.
“What’s that supposed to do?” he asks absently.
You shrug. “Eh. Back scratches just feel good.”
Steve’s mind remains blank as he sips his water.
: We need to renew the lease soon. Like this week.
Steve has stalled as long as humanly possible; he is officially not being a gentleman now. He is a coward.
: Talk about it when I get home?
: Could you at least tell me if this is a hard NO on staying here or just some concerns/questions?
: I don’t get why you’re being like this.
Steve gets it, but he hates it.
: I’ll be back tonight. Should I pick up food?
: ffs
: Fine. Whatever you want.
Steve also hates when you’re mad at him…which has been happening more and more.
He’s been distant, he refuses to let Sam or Nat come around for fear they’ll play match-maker and ruin the whole thing, and he is about to ruin the whole thing anyway.
Because he is not smooth. Because he is not prepared. Because he’s built up this perfect and amazing, sweep-you-off-your-feet moment.
And he bungles it.
“Out with it,” you command, haughtily yanking your portion of food from the countertop beside him, heading for the dinette.
“I want to be with you,” he blurts.
“Thank god,” you sigh, settling in your spot. “So we’ll go down to the office and sign in the morning. I don’t want there to be an issue if you’re off to wherever for who-the-hell-knows how long on the date the thing expires.”
“No, I…” but Steve’s voice is too quiet.
“There’s only a tiny window where they’re open before I have to head to work, so let me physically sign first, right? Then I gotta go.”
“Sure,” he slurs.
“Steve?” You turn to see him staring down at his food. He’s still across the room. “Are you okay?”
“I said I—I meant that—“ he huffs out his breath and taps his fist on the counter “—I meant that I’m an idiot,” he finishes softly.
Approaching with that beautiful, open-hearted kindness that haunts his days and soothes his night, you cross to him, scratching his back just the way he’s grown to crave.
“Think you might be hangry,” you chuckle.
He cannot do this. Steve is hanging on by a thread until the graze of your hand slides down his forearm to take his plate, and he spins.
He’s thought about kissing you so many times, he mapped out the angles he’d have to hold himself at, how far he needs to lean to get to you, the care to take wrangling in his strength and sheer excitement.
Steve Rogers is good at planning, at least, this part.
Gentle pecks of his plush lips to yours leave gaps in contact that let you whimper, and he fears you stopping him. He presses, wrapping his arms around you and molding your bodies together. The linoleum of the kitchen floor makes sticky sounds beneath your shuffling feet, squeaking once you hit the adjacent wall.
The force of that knocks your frozen arms into his chest, and painfully, Steve relents to step away, but not far. He bites his bottom lip and tastes the balm from yours, his head tilted in shame but fiery eyes watching you from beneath long lashes.
Steve Rogers Masterlist | Steve Rogers Bingo | Main Masterlist
Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader
Word Count: 1861
Summary: All you wanted after a long day at work is to ride your motorcycle until your tension and stress disappeared. The last thing you ever expected was to find Steve checking out your bike or anything that follows.
Warnings: mutual pining/attraction; meddling friends (mainly Nat, but Tony to smaller extent); fluff; lots of fluff; gentlemanly Steve (absolute warning)
I do not give permission to have my works copied, translated, reposted, or fed into an AI machine.
****
Dr. Banner couldn't get back fast enough.
Exhaustion and tension threatened to cave you in as you stepped onto the elevator.
Who knew a shift with Tony Stark could feel like an eternity?
Oh, how you missed the quieter, can-hear-yourself-think time spent with your actual boss. There hadn't been one thought that Mr. Stark had kept to himself. If he wasn't talking through one problem he wanted to work on, he was blasting his music at an ungodly level. Your head thumped to the beat until it throbbed and screamed for the quiet you preferred.
Dr. Banner played music, sure, but it was always at a level that you could tune out when it suited you. He also never really spoke unless he needed your opinion on one matter or another. The two of you could spend almost the entire day in silence, working on your respective duties. It was something you wouldn't ever take for granted again while praying you wouldn't have Mr. Stark for company again the next day.
All you wanted in that moment was to hop on your bike and ride.
Where? It didn't matter. Just wind yourself through the streets and out to the more country-ish roads until you found the peace you desperately needed. Sure, maybe you'd stop for a bite to eat somewhere, but you had no plans to stop until the hour grew late.
Maybe you'd even make a weekend of it. It's why you kept a spare set of clothes in your saddlebags. All it would take is a quick search for a little place to spend the night.
Your grand plan ground to a halt the moment you stepped into the parking garage.
Some oversized dude had apparently taken a liking to your bike and was now sitting on it.
The absolute audacity. The nerve.
"Excuse me," you shouted as you marched toward the guy on your bike. "What exactly do you think you're doing? Didn't your mama ever teach you not to touch other's stuff? Get off my bike before I—"
The words died abruptly in your throat.
The great hulk of a man who'd been on your bike had turned toward you at the start of your tirade. But, you'd been so caught up in shouting it took a moment to compute who he was. When your brain finally caught up to your mouth, it was too late.
Staring back at you were the bluest eyes you've ever encountered. The same eyes you'd dreamed about a time or two. How could you not? After all, they belonged to none other than Captain America, Steve Rogers himself.
To his credit, he appeared at a loss, quickly and easily moving off your bike and taking a few steps away. His hand came up to rub at the back of his neck as pink suffused his cheeks. "I didn't realize it was yours. Tony's been talking up his newest bike, and I was led to believe this was it. My sincerest apologies."
Your earlier ire died swiftly.
His sincerity and horrified expression was more than enough to easily forgive him. It was a relatively minor transgression compared to if he'd been a complete stranger who'd wandered into the gated garage.
If anyone should incur your wrath, it should be Mr. Stark, not Captain Rogers. No, Steve Rogers had only ever been kind and even sweet whenever the two of you interacted. It wasn't often he'd come into Dr. Banner's labs. When he did though, he was always courteous and maybe a little quieter than you thought he would be as you worked. He wouldn't linger, either.
You had no idea that he often wished he had more excuses to come into Dr. Banner's labs. Nor were you aware that he's liked you from the first time he'd seen you, but he'd never found an opening that made sense. He'd give almost anything to have a chance to learn more about you.
"It's, uh, okay," you finally stammered when you realized you hadn't responded to him. No, you'd been a bit busy losing yourself to your thoughts while also staring at him. Not drooling or anything, mind you, but in a way that Steve couldn't quite read if he'd deeply offended you or not. "I wasn't aware that Mr. Stark was a bike man. He doesn't seem the type."
That earned you a huff of what could only be laughter.
Steve's eyes crinkled at the corners as his smile blossomed.
"Yeah," he said after a moment, "he's more a collector than rider nowadays. Prefers his suit, you know."
You smiled at him. "Oh, I know he does. I don't think he stopped talking about it all day as he worked in Dr. Banner's labs. You don't, by any chance, know when Dr. Banner's coming back from his mission, do you?"
"Not a fan of Tony in the lab?"
Your face must've shifted more than you imagined it did. One moment, Steve's grinning at you, and the next, he's shaking his head and chuckling under his breath.
"You won't tell him, will you? I don't want to bruise his ego or anything. I mean, he could use an ego deflation now and then, but he's an okay boss. I just prefer Dr. Banner. That's all."
Steve's hands came up as if to ward off any more of your words. His smile gentled once more into the one that filled your dreams at night as he said, "Your secret's safe with me. Bruce should be back by next Friday, I think. I'm not exactly sure since his mission doesn't have a strict turnaround or deadline compared to others."
"Ah, okay," you said, hoping he didn't catch a hint of your disappointment. You'd really been hoping Dr. Banner would be back by Monday morning. That way, there would be no more Tony Stark in the lab. "Thank you for letting me know though. I guess I'll, uh, see you around, Captain Rogers."
When you would've stepped towards your bike, ready to get one with your plans, Steve stepped in front of you, blocking you from it.
"Call me Steve, please," he said softly, his voice holding a hint of something you couldn't quite put your finger on. When you glanced up to meet his gaze, you found his eyes watching you with something you so wanted to be interest and maybe a little bit of hope. As if to confirm, he asked, "You going straight home? I know a diner nearby. Good food, great atmosphere. It's a good place to wind down after a stressful day."
That certainly had your attention.
All previous plans flew out of your head as you stared at Steve and saw that same expression deepen with his gaze. Even his posture shifted in a way that made you think of a puppy, hoping it would be the one chosen this time.
Now, that was the most surprising part of all.
It was well known around the Tower that Steve was ogled and drooled over every time he walks by. He could have his pick of any hundred-plus women that work within its glass-lined walls. That included you though you adamantly denied you were as bad as some.
"Are you asking me out?" you couldn't help asking. After all, you had to be sure for fear you'd make a fool of yourself.
He nodded so emphatically. "Bad idea?"
"Oh, no," you shook your head, a smile sliding back in place, "diner food sounds really good right now."
"Yeah?"
You nodded your head rather vigorously.
Steve beamed down at you before his cheeks went pink. "Okay, great, um, just let me grab my jacket and keys. Then, we'll go. Wait for me? Five minutes, tops?"
He almost made it a full stop, but you managed to stop him. Your smile widened into a full-blown grin. You even shook your head while gesturing to himself.
"You're wearing your jacket," you said softly, then pointed at the keys peeking out of his pocket, "and I believe those are your keys right there. Unless you somehow managed to lift mine, copy them, and return them without my noticing."
His cheeks darkened into a rosier color.
You couldn't help thinking how unfair the color suited him better than it ever would you.
"Sorry, guess I'm just excited you said yes," he murmured, his hue growing even darker and spreading.
Your heart, the traitor, started pounding in your chest at the sweetness of his words. It'd been a bit since anyone had shown this level of interest in you, and you found it a little daunting but also so sweet. You couldn't help but feel the butterflies kick up when his gaze met yours with an earnestness that literally stole your breath for a moment.
Before your courage could fail you, you rose on tiptoes and pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek. Pulling back, you said, "Well, my bike is calling me to ride. Wanna grab yours and show me your diner? Maybe after, we can go on the drive I had planned for myself. I mean, if you don't have anything else to do and want to spend more time together."
"I'd really like that, but I don't want to impose on your alone time."
Oh, this man could just about kill you with his gentlemanly behavior.
"Wouldn't have offered if you'd be imposing." You allowed yourself a squeeze of his arm before stepping back and picking up your helmet. "Now, I'm starving, so let's get going. Definitely want to get out of here before Mr. Stark tries to find me and drag me back to the lab."
Steve grinned. "I'd keep you safe."
"Hm, that's good to know."
The two of you quickly donned what gear you typically wore. You with your full-body protection gear and Steve with only a helmet that you made him put on. Despite hearing his protests about the serum, you weren't having it, not when you'd gained what you hoped to be the first of many dates with him.
Your bikes roared to life within minutes, then spun out of the garage and onto the city's streets.
*****
Meanwhile…
"You didn't have to throw me under the bus like you did, Romanov," Tony groused while watching the screens in front of them. "Can't believe I didn't see your meddling sooner."
Nat smirked, her eyes never leaving the screens. "You never do, genius. Besides, my plan worked just as it was meant to. Those two were never going to make a move if we didn't help them along."
"Yeah, I guess," Tony continued to grumble, "but next time, don't make it where I almost cost Banner his assistant. He'd never forgive me, and we don't need a Hulk situation in the city."
"You know I can't promise that."
'Tony sighed, his gaze going a final time to the screens. He watched as you and Steve made your way out of the garage. A smile flitted over his features.
"It's nice to see him happy, yeah?"
Nat nodded. Her smirk transformed into an honest smile as she said, "Yeah, it is."
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x reader she's like Barbie. she can be anything. she can be everything. she can do whatever I'm not dare to do in rl and she can choose her man. *sigh* Life've never been better.
hello child born between the end of the 1990s and beggining of the 2000s, welcome to my saw trap. in front of you is a computer, you can learn to code and guarantee yourself the only career that will be available in a couple of decades, or you can play around on ms paint and develop a beautiful creative mind that will starve to death forever, you have a few years to choose but by the time you do it'll be too late
Type: one-shot, fluff, they were roommates and idiots trope
Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader Word Count: 8,2k
Summary:
You hadn’t exactly planned to get caught in the rain. Then again, people rarely do. But you did.
You hadn’t plan to get caught in the soft spiderweb of feelings for Steve Rogers when your friend had set you up as roommates. Then again, people rarely do. But you did. It was impossible not to.
Arriving at your shared apartment soaking wet sees Steve springing into action to warm you up… and send you falling deeper in love with him with every passing second. But hey – what else was new, right?
Warnings: tooth-rottng FLUFF, idiots-in-love trope, they were ROOMMATES trope, brief mention of PTSD and its symptoms, one gratuitous 'fuck' and French
A/N: cross-written for the Winds of Autumn challenge hosted by @the-slumberparty and for @elixirfromthestars ' writing challenge. Thank you ALL for hosting and breathing live into the community 💕 for WoA I chose 'caught in the cold rain' for the WChallenge I chose “ Why don’t you tell me what I can do to make your day better?”
A/N 2: DIVIDER by @steviebbboi ;enjoy y'all 🥰
This was all your fault; it really was.
There was no one else to blame for your current state.
Soaking wet, hair and clothes dripping alike, shaking so hard you nearly dropped your keys when trying to fit it into the keyhole.
A few minutes was all it took.
And yes; it was all on you.
You had practically been praying for a sweater weather. You had been so fed up with the unbearable summer heat still gripping the reigns even mid-September that you prayed and begged and swore you might be able to kill a man for a single breath of autumn.
So clearly, you had called this upon yourself.
In all fairness, you had wished for Indian summer; the normal late September weather. The light sweater weather. You certainly hadn’t been hoping to be thrown into the weather of seasonal depression, the temperature drop equalling a time machine bringing the end of November to the air and people’s hearts alike. Unforgiving icy wind, endless downpours, poking umbrellas all around, ever-present grumbling as one’s coat brushed against another, the dampness and cold seeping into yours and everyone else’s bones.
Nothing nice and prayers-worthy about that.
The thing was, this had been a daily reality for about a week now – and so one would think you were well-equipped to deal with the weather at least.
Except like the fool you were, you left your waterproof jacket at home, because you had believed today’s weather forecast, confident that the desired sweet and slightly crispy autumn was coming at last.
You and the meteorologists had been wrong.
But that wasn’t the worst part, no – the worst part would be your giddy optimism in the face a sudden NY underground failure.
Taking the ride home from work, you had nearly slammed into people surrounding you in the train at the sudden slam of breaks. A system failure, apparently. Caused by the damage to the network due to previous intense rains. A mishap stopping the trains in their stations, forcing people out.
And like the optimistic half-wit, trying to find a bright side and making the most of a miserable situation, you had thought, hey, it’s only a few blocks from here! No rain on the horizon for a change. What an opportunity to soak in the lovely autumn weather! The buses and taxis will be packed, and walking is good for health anyway.
And sure it was. And you ended up soaking indeed.
The brutal downpour and icy wind caught you in about ten minutes after you had taken off to your brisk walk.
You seriously doubted there was any benefit to your health at all, safe for maybe points to your mental resilience and an excuse to stay in bed with a book and a cup of hot chocolate next week, because you were about to catch a grade-A case of cold.
By the time you got to your apartment door, you were ready to flop on the floor the moment you’d stumble inside, uncaring for the wet smack you’d make against the hardwood or the carpet should you make it further into the apartment.
Except you knew the floor would be unforgivingly hard either way, and cold and you first had to get out of your dripping shoes and then the drenched clothes sticking to your body like a second skin and it would take you forever to strip with how shaky and numb your fingers had turned, the only sensation being cold and stiffness bordering on pain and for god’s sake could you at least stick the damn key into the goddamn keyhole-
You finally opened the door with a gratuitous ‘fuck’ on your lips, practically throwing the door open.
And were met with a surprised sleepy supersoldier blinking at your owlishly, grey sweatpants hanging low on his hips, his white sleepshirt crumbled, the perfect case of bed hair and confused expression completing the most telling startled-from-his-sleep-but-not-Avenger-level-alarmed look.
Even in your state you had to admit he was adorable in a way men built like mountains shouldn’t.
You stared at each other mutely for several seconds, as if both surprised by each other’s presence – or at least state – processing.
You, drenched from rain and puddles, cold-dried by the wind, shivering all over and barely keeping your teeth from clattering as to hold onto the last shreds of your dignity and sanity.
Steve, still slightly disoriented, having just been woken up. Woken up by you, most likely, you thought regretfully, cursing your life-choices again. He was a light sleeper – a mere jiggle of keys would have interrupted his slumber, let alone your endless fumbling around the lock.
You spoke at the same time.
“I’m sorry for wak-” “What happened to you?”
Your voice trailed off, a chuckle of irony echoing in the back of your head.
What happened to you?
That was a question a lot more loaded that it might seem.
What had happened to lead you to this place, facing a sleepy Greek-godlike figure with a concerned look on his face?
A whole lot of coincidences; a whole lot of fate, maybe.
Sam Wilson, a friend from childhood, with whom you had only reconnected a few years ago.
You, having been looking for an apartment ever since your landlord had announced he planned to sell the building to a huge corporation which would, from then on, only rent the apartments to its employees.
Sam again, looking to move in with his girlfriend, claiming he was leaving a roommate behind, who would appreciate a kind, trustworthy and reliable replacement.
Your ‘Gee, thanks’.
‘Wait, no, he didn’t word it exactly like that,’ Sam had assured you. ‘I promise, he’s a real stand-up guy. Sure, a guy, but a respectful one and a neat one, with a sprinkle of a neat freak on top. He’s a great roommate and one of my best friends – I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t believe it could work.’
That was what your friend had said. And you believed him.
One thing led to another.
What Sam had conveniently failed to mention was that his real stand-up guy was a hulking drop-dead gorgeous supersoldier with the sweetest soul on the damn planet. Or maybe in the universe – what did you know? The universe had got a lot bigger ever since you found out it was perfectly possible for aliens to rain down from the sky through some kind of a hole in spacetime.
What Sam had conveniently failed to mention was that your future roommate was one of the heroes from the superhero band that had stopped these very aliens from taking over planet Earth.
After processing – even though you weren’t sure you’d ever finish processing – that you would share an apartment with Captain America, you accepted.
After all, you certainly weren’t one to look a gifted horse in the mouth; experience told you that could have done a lot worse than landing a person vetted by Sam Wilson and by a potentially world-ending event for a roommate.
In fact, you soon learned you couldn’t have done any better.
Steve was all the things Sam had promised.
And besides being the perfect person to share an apartment with, besides being the paragon of justice itself with a sprinkle of neat freak on top, he was also shockingly human.
Steve was a guy who had a routine until he didn’t, his schedule a little funny. He split housework with you in a way that left both of you content even as you felt he was doing a little bit more than his part whenever he could. He enjoyed cooking and baking and drawing and generally working with his hands, fixing any household issues before they could develop into a problem. Sometimes, nights found him in the living room with a book in his hand and quiet movie for a background when he couldn’t sleep. Sometimes, he left dirty dishes in the sink and a toothbrush on the basin instead of putting it into the holder and sometimes he forgot to put the toilet seat down. He was painfully respectful of your privacy and of your sleep alike whenever he was coming back at strange times, almost absurdly so for a man who seemed to barely fit in a doorway.
He had a sharp mind and a subtle but deadly sense of humour on a good day and a quiet demeanour on a bad day, usually after a sleepless or nightmare-filled nights, which were always followed by him walking around the apartment with his sweats tucked into his socks because the draught and the cold on his ankles clearly bothered him. The list could go on and on and it was rather embarrassing for you, the idea for just how long you could keep listing things you observed about Steve and his habits and him; but the point was that he was a guy who was absurdly ordinary guy and extraordinary in about everything at once.
He had introduced as Steve the very day you had met, clearly not standing for any of your Captain, Sir, Captain Rogers nonsense.
He became Steve to you soon after.
He turned dear to you just as fast.
You weren’t sure when it happened; when your relationship shifted from sharing an apartment to sharing a life. It happened gradually, through dinners and breakfasts and films watched together; through nights he found you on the couch, barely awake or already sleeping after having been waiting for him even as he had told you not to; through late-night talks, about both things you were passionate about and things you wished you could forget.
You weren’t sure when this man, larger than life in both frame and heart, became your close friend.
You weren’t sure when the small butterflies that appeared in your stomach every time he smiled turned so all-consuming, spreading their wings through your whole body, circling around your heart.
It must have happened somewhere between his first smile and the sparkle in his warm blue eyes, between the tear-streaked cheeks when you found his shaking breathless body curled on the floor, between a hug and holding your hand when he drove you back from your wisdom teeth removal surgery because no one else was available, between every single minute you had the fortune to spend in his company and those you couldn’t, longing for him instead.
Somewhere in between, you must have fallen in love, the urgent feeling in your chest slowly turning unbearable and heavy. It burned, to stifle it inside, the one secret you wouldn’t share for the fear of breaking something as precious to you as your peaceful life with Steve the friend.
You weren’t sure when exactly it happened, but it got you there.
It got you here; into this very moment, just like many others, facing him and rendered speechless for a breath or two, because god, was he handsome and lovely and sweetly worried and an image of domesticity at once and you were hit with a sharp tug of a feeling whispering of coming home.
What happened to you, Steve had asked, his gaze turning more concerned by the second as you remained silent safe for the rustle of your soaked jacket you had started to strip at some point and the one clatter of your teeth you failed to stifle.
What did happen again?
“Got caught in a rain,” you rasped, stating the painfully obvious. “Underground broke down. Thought I’d walk…”
Steve frowned, sleepiness wiped off his face to give way to compassion and sternness at once, a sigh leaving his lips as he slowly neared you.
“Seemed like a smart idea at the time…” you continued when he didn’t say a word, just gently – always so gently dammit – pushed at the door to get it closed at last, his arms quietly coming around you, engulfing you in his embrace. Your heart startled at the gesture. “Steve, no, I’ll get you all we---wow okay, this is nice, you’re really warm-“
He chuckled sweetly above your head as you babbled, protests dying on your lips with a sound resembling a whine and moan as his warmth enveloped you, so relieving and inviting, prompting you to melt against his firm and yet painfully soft body.
His voice carried an admonishing note as you trembled against him, his warmth and pleasant scent of comfort seeping into your body while the cold and smell of rain soaked him in return. You did not care for the scolding; it was a kind one. And Steve still was still holding you – that was the important part.
And the most painful one.
"You could have called,” he said, like a sweet, even if already lost bargain. “I’d come get you.”
You pressed closer to him, clearly having a glutton for punishment.
Those few innocent words burned through you like the most tender wildfire. An inflection and tone that couldn’t have been good for your heart and yet you revelled in them; a statement that felt like an oath:
I‘d come get you.
I’d always come get you.
I’d do anything for you.
Something so close to love, in your reach and yet untouchable, because he didn’t mean it – he couldn’t mean it, because Steve Rogers had a large heart, but surely would have told you if you had occupied space in it that way.
And yet he held your own heart in his palms and he didn’t even know. Was it wrong you let the gentle words wash over you and let them warm you just as much as Steve’s arms, even if they meant something different than you’d wish?
You gulped, a shiver that had nothing to do with cold running down your spine.
“You only got in like three hours earlier,” you reasoned, forcing yourself to focus on the practical matters as not to slip into whispering a true confession; and perhaps doing so anyway along the way. It was true, however; as per habit and your request, Steve had texted you he was home safe and sound barely few hours ago. Knowing that led you to immediately weed out the mere idea of calling him to pick you up as it appeared in your mind the moment the downpour started. You were aware, however bittersweet the knowledge was, that he would come – that was why you hadn’t called. For his benefit. “You needed to sleep.”
Steve sighed again. And you needed to be picked up, you heard in the weary and yet somehow fond sound.
He didn’t argue, however; his hold grew tighter, appreciative, his broad hand, oh so warm, running up and down your back, pressing a little stronger than he normally would in a hug; allowing the heat of his body sink deeper, into your very bones, sending you sinking deeper into the warmth blooming in your chest as well.
Pressed against his front, you couldn’t but breathe in, allowing everything that was Steve overwhelm over your senses. The woodsy notes and musk of his cologne, the soft material of his sleepshirt burning almost too hot as it clung to his body, the smooth movements of his rough hands, his warm breath brushing your scalp, the image of his minute smile behind your closed eyelids, his voice humming in his ribcage and filling your ears like honey.
“Why don’t you tell me what I can do to make your day better?”
His question was so genuine – and a little wavery in a way that made your belly tingle in response. Tell me what I can do and I will do it. Just say the word, it seemed to whisper in your head, your heart protesting and fluttering in your chest.
You already are, you almost replied as the shudders subdued slowly despite both of you now soaking. You’re back home. You’re safe. You’re with me. And you’re warm. And big. And strong. And you smell good. And you’re holding me oh so tight and gentle and it feels so profoundly nice and you really are warm and maybe this new shiver running down my back isn’t just that I’m cold, maybe it’s that naïve hope of which I should have let go of so long ago-
He noticed the fresh wave of tremble of whose origin you yourself weren’t entirely sure of – your weather escapades or the escapades of your poor heart – and the caress up and down your back grew faster, more of a rubbing to create warmth than a soothing gesture.
“Okay, doll, you’re getting into the bathtub right away. What can I do in the meantime?”
In spite of his words, a benevolent order one might say, he didn’t let go.
Despite his question sounding urgent, you took your time responding; because it took a huge portion of your willpower not to tell him to just keep holding you.
“…hot chocolate?” you suggested meekly, a shy but slightly mischievous smile tugging at your lips when Steve released you at last, those big warm paws of his settling on your shoulders for a moment. “And you should probably change.”
He glanced at his wet clothes self-deprecatingly, as if it was his fault – and in a way, you supposed it was. But you weren’t complaining. The wet fabric clung to his body in the most delicious way, no matter the scepticism he observed it with.
When his gaze met yours again, his smile was the sun itself; but you still missed the heat of his body against your skin.
“You got it, doll. Come on.”
Much to your regret and salvation, he released you completely. You still graced him with a grateful and once again shaky smile which you could and should blame on the loss of his body heat.
“Thanks, Steve. You’re the best.”
And he was.
And if that wasn’t becoming a bigger problem by the minute.
With some of Steve’s warmth lingering – mainly the one his actions and demeanour awoke deep within your body – you managed to get rid of your clothes with enough ease and patience to have the bathtub fill with steaming hot water before climbing in. Sinking into the water then felt about as pleasant as sinking into Steve’s embrace had been – except this time, it was the rest of your body which appreciated the heat, warming you from the outside, tension leaving your muscles, your brain relaxing and slipping into a mindless haze, an absent smile forming on your lips.
You soaked in the tub for long enough to almost fall asleep and slide under the water; the only thing convincing you to fight the slumber off – perhaps besides, well, drowning – was the premise of a delicious cup of hot chocolate made with utmost care and Steve’s company, all the more appreciated since you knew he’d stay for at least five minutes even as he was no doubt falling asleep on his feet himself.
Not wanting to keep him waiting any longer, your climbed from the tub, rushed through your routine and emerged from the bathroom with steam following you, no doubt making for an image of cosiness with your blissfully dry comfortable clothes, complete with fuzzy socks.
Steve must have agreed with your assessment, because he greeted you with a grin.
He had left the two mugs of top tier hot chocolate with actual melted pieces of the treat and whipped cream on top on the kitchen counter, having brought two blankets for the couch, now fumbling with the tv remote. A quick glance around the apartment told you that while you were nearly nodding off in the bathroom, he had made a quick work of cleaning the mess you had left behind; electric shoe dryers already placed in your boots, your drenched jacket near the heating with plastic film spread on the floor as not to do any damage.
You could kiss the lop-sided smile he gave you when you thanked him, your heart hammering in your chest with excitement and longing when he nodded towards the couch. To an outsider, the scene could easily appear as a quiet night in of a couple; a thoughtful beautiful man setting everything up for a date night full of seeking joy in simple domesticity and quiet intimacy.
One day, Steve Rogers was about to make someone incredibly happy.
The idea strung a sharp but brief note of jealousy in your chest, a lump growing in your throat as the rational part of you mocked you that the person wasn’t you. You would have known by now if you were; even though spending time with him did make you all kinds of happy.
You forced a smile through the light sting of tears, trying to stop your mind from racing and spiralling about the thought of having to move out to make space for the vaguely gorgeous and brilliant woman; or maybe sooner, just to put your heart at ease, because with every beat of it you felt yourself falling deeper into the trap of loving this man. It was beginning to hurt; and still, you approached him, smiling.
“Looking cosy. Feeling better?”
You nodded, unable to resist and placing your hand over Steve’s arm, his soft blues finding your gaze.
“Thank you, Steve. Really.”
The lopsided smile returned, his fingers brushing your shoulder. God, he was so close and all you’d have to do was to stand on your tiptoes. You’d kiss his cheek, a purely innocent display of gratitude of course, just to feel his smooth skin against your lips once-
You needed to get a grip. The brief hypothermia you had suffered was messing with your brain and was lowering your inhibitions and that was not good.
“Anytime,” he assured you, nodding towards the screen. “We don’t have to, but I was wondering if you maybe wanted to watch a movie? I feel like we could both use that. But if you’d rather be alone-“
You shook your head quickly, your smile coming easier now because of the absurdity and thoughtfulness of his question at once. To be alone when he was there? No thank you. Who cared that the rational part of your brain huffed again, telling you that maybe that would be a better idea unless you wanted to torture yourself with false hopes.
Saying no was not an option.
You really must have had a glutton for punishment; but in some ways, you learned Steve suffered from the same condition. So maybe that was just his persona rubbing on off you… And thank you, brain, for the worst possible choice of words.
You cleared your throat.
“A movie sounds great,” you said, the mental image of you throwing its hands in the air, grumbling something about your poor old heart. Steve was still very softly holding onto your shoulder though, facing you, mere foot apart; who expected you to think rationally in these conditions? “Fair warning though, I almost fell asleep in the tub. Might fall asleep half-way through this.”
Steve grinned, stepping back to get the mugs and beckoning towards the couch again as to tell you to get settled. You obeyed without protest; you knew him well enough to be aware there was no point in trying to get your mug yourself.
He was the nurturing kind of friend.
“Does that mean I get to choose the movie so you can blame your social and cultural ignorance on my choices?” he teased.
He was also the loveable little shit kind of friend.
“Rude… and I would never,” you protested, accepting the offering of the hot chocolate, now indeed all cosy, tucked in a blanket, sitting comfortably and wrapping your hands around the mug to warm your palms further. “…but deal.”
Steve’s laugh was perhaps warmer than the mug and sweeter than its content, but you stomped at the thought as soon as it popped up in your head. You had no time nor capacity for nonsense. You had a nice evening ahead.
Better not to ruin it.
You weren’t sure what you’d expected, but this was not it.
You had warned Steve about the possibility of you nodding off; after all, beyond having exhausted your body with the less-than-pleasant walk, nearly falling asleep in a bathtub and getting all comfortable on the couch, you had expected the large amount of sugar you’d consume to take its toll eventually and push you over the edge, the infamous sugar crash being the last straw.
You had expected to be out as a light in a matter of minutes, to be honest.
You had not expected the effect of all the warmth and sugars to evaporate much faster than that.
You were maybe twenty minutes into the movie and the anticipated sleep barely scratched the door of your consciousness; instead, the first reluctant shivers arrived. Blatantly ignoring Steve’s subtle side-eye and entirely obvious worry, you sank deeper into the couch, pulling the second blanket over yourself, tucking it all the way up to your chin, curling into yourself to preserve the warmth.
Thirty minutes in, you were shaking so hard Steve paused the movie, a crease forming between his eyebrows as he turned his upper body to you, right hand reaching out before pausing a few inches from your forehead.
“Can I?”
You hummed noncommittally, wondering yourself if maybe your grade-A case of cold was arriving sooner than expected and a fever already hit.
You were feeling just fine though; it was just the damn shivers which you couldn’t seem to stop.
Steve’s hand gently settled against your forehead, his frown deepening almost as if he could feel your heart speed up at the contact and didn’t approve. Which you knew was nonsense, because his whole mind was probably already consumed by the mission of assessing whether his inner Nurse Rogers should come out, but it worked well for cooling off your train of thought.
“It doesn’t feel like you have a fever, but we should probably check,” he hummed thoughtfully, shifting, prepared to rise his feet in search of the thermometer.
Your hand shot up from its safe warm haven, missing the target of his forearm but sending clear enough message to stop him.
He settled back down with a sigh, his hand sliding from your forehead over your cheek to the side of your neck, a delightful source of warmth spreading through your whole body and your suddenly deadly heartrate; a flicker of an image in which he’d place his hand exactly there and leaned forward, his lips brushing yours, nudged insistently at your brain.
You battled it with violent effort, refusing to even consider the soft look in Steve’s eyes was anything but concern for a good friend.
Because that was all it was: concern. What if you turned into an icicle, right? He had seen weirder things than that and he had spent whole seventy years frozen. He was naturally very worried about you having to endure the same.
“I’m fine,” you assured him with a smile that was shaky due to everything but cold. “Just my thermoregulation going haywire after all the excitement today--- Jesus how are you always so warm…”
Steve ignored your question, his hand still firmly set on your neck, the most delicious source of heat, his eyes roaming your embarrassingly shaking form.
“I’ve had a lot of practice with cold,” he said absently.
You could practically hear the wheels in his head turning, even as you were quite busy keeping your teeth from clattering. His eyes were so startingly blue, with the lightest speckle of green standing out for some reason, mesmerizing and warm as if to wreck the theory of these two colours normally belonging to the cold scale and you heart was positively about to beat your way out of your chest, because it appeared as if he was leaning forward a bit and maybe you were entering some kind of delirium, so it really was the time to move.
Move to kiss him, maybe, you bet his lips were warm too and yours were cold-
Okay, that was it.
“Okay, I think I’m gonna go for another soak-“
“Come here,” he muttered at the same time, effectively rendering you speechless when he released you only to scoot back a bit, his fingers beckoning lightly to himself, expression entirely serious.
What.
“I do run pretty hot and frankly I’d rather have you under supervision,” he said matter-of-factly, slipping into the Captain mode – managing to shoot your naïve hopes sky-high and shooting them dead in one sentence.
He was mission-oriented; that was all. He was worried, because frankly, your body was acting out and he was a good friend.
A good friend. A captain, responsible for his own.
There was nothing romantic about sharing body heat; he had probably done it dozen times on a mission.
He was simply concerned. And you should be and were grateful for that and for the practical and grounded approach to the matter at hand; you certainly preferred it to him rushing you to the doctor, because you were still pretty certain it was nothing to be worried about, nothing a good night’s sleep with loads of blankets on top of you wouldn’t fix.
So why the pang in your heart?
Why the regret and disappointment at him simply doing it to assure you’d feel better?
Because you were an idiot and you should have been so much more radical about forbidding yourself from catching feelings while living with Steve. But how could anyone blame you? He was just stupidly attractive and profoundly good and adorably ordinary in his extraordinariness, and you just wanted one touch, one taste, one moment of basking in his light and warmth and actual love.
Was that really so wrong of you?
You swallowed, voice set perhaps a little harsher than needed, the idea of him holding you out of pity making you a little sick to your stomach.
“Steve, you really don’t have to-“
“I want to,” he argued, voice so much softer in contrast to yours, and your body, that traitorous body acted, nearing to his despite your achy heart and hurting brain screaming at you to get to your feet instead, get to the bathroom or your room and lock the door and your heart and throw away the key to keep it safe.
“Steve-“
A smile tugged at the corner of his lips as he saw you wavering despite your verbal protest.
“Plus, I’m just doing my civic duty of protecting the innocent. You shake any harder, you’ll cause an earthquake.”
Deadpanning, you managed to stop your progress; in turn, your heart fluttered at the sparkle of mischief in Steve’s eye, that stupid muscle in your chest humming with fondness.
Godddamn him.
He knew exactly how to disarm you completely, to have you do his bidding, and he must have known of this power of his, blatantly abusing it for your wellbeing.
What a criminal behaviour.
With a sigh, you lifted your blanket a bit, scooting over to his open arms, carefully laying to his side as his arm slid under the blanket around your shoulders and pulled you closer; his warmth enveloped you in an instant, his hand rubbing gently at your arm, while his other busied itself with tucking the blanket around you to create a safe cocoon.
You felt yourself relax despite your better judgement, cheek laying on his chest, a steady thump-thump of his heart bargaining with yours:
How could you be short with him? Mad at him? He was just being the nicest person in the world, taking care of his friend, radiating warmth and smelling of comfort, selfless and without seeking anything but a simple thank you in return, if even that. And the charming bastard he was, he even tried to make you laugh.
It wasn’t his fault you had gone and fallen in love with him; it wasn’t fair to hold it against him that he was the best person you knew and your feelings were hurt just because he couldn’t think the same about you. Your mind understood that; it was your heart that was foolish.
You chased the thoughts away, only an echo of the ugly empty feeling remaining, giving way to a much more tender and insistent emotion; but mostly to sensation of your shivers subduing, almost as if they had been the trembles of an addict seeking their fix – Steve’s touch – rather than those of someone with messed up thermoregulation.
Maybe they were. But that wasn’t for Steve to worry about.
“Har har… how about your civil duty of being a sassybag…” you muttered in appreciation of his attempt, his chest shaking lightly with a chuckle.
“Oh, I’m taking that one most serious of them all.”
That he was.
The grin in his voice was infectious, however; you smiled against your will, poking his side lightly with your index finger.
“I noticed… but I forgive you.”
Because you’re really warm and sweet and for a moment, I guess I can indulge in the unhealthy delusion of you doing this because you like me close, postponing the ache of sobering up to reality for later.
“I’m glad. How’s that feel?”
Like I want to stay like this forever.
Like I want you to want to stay like this forever.
You shushed the traitorous voice.
“Warm… comfy,” you added after a while, rewarded by a rub to your shoulder, being pulled impossibly closer. And it felt so good.
“Good.”
Simply holding you and sharing his heat indeed for a moment, he let you soak in the comfort. Seconds passed, maybe minutes; you didn’t count the beats of his heart, but heard every single one of them, soothing, whispering the little lie that maybe some of them were for you.
You didn’t argue; you didn’t quite give in.
When Steve lowly asked you if you wanted to continue the movie, you just nodded, grateful for the distraction of how incredibly right you felt in the little fantasy of yours that this, you being here in Steve’s arms, was exactly where you belonged.
As he reached for the remote, you whispered a soundless ‘thank you’.
His ‘you’re welcome’ was softer and warmer than the blankets.
It was a herculean task to accomplish, fending off sleep, but having being in Steve’s company had rubbed off of you; you were anything but determined. Not knowing what the movie was about and what had happened on the screen in the past minutes – since the movie started, really – you still tried not to doze off at least.
You had a creeping suspicion Steve knew, deducting so from your silence or from the way your body was completely pliant against his, but he didn’t call you out, like the gentleman he was. Instead, he had simply stopped moving, safe from the periodical rise and fall of his chest, serving you as the most comfortable pillow you had ever had a chance of laying your head to, soft and warm and solid all at once.
And he seemed perfectly content to serve as one.
Just for that, you had stopped caring a while ago about his motivations. Had this been just a mission to keep a fellow human warm, so be it. He seemed pleased enough to do so and in your hazy sleepy mind, you knew one thing with absolute certainty – and that was that you did find this all kinds of pleasant too. Should the contentedness of yours come from a different place than his, well, you could deal with that later.
Or never.
You were just… happy and at peace.
You weren’t sure when exactly you had closed your eyes, but you had; your voice was slurring a bit too, your determination to fight your exhaustion clearly not enough to win over sleep.
“Thank ya’ for takin’ care of me, Steve.”
At that, the soft statue under you shifted the tinniest bit, Steve’s thumb brushing your arm gently as his arm had remained around your shoulders. His heart was beating a little fast, you thought absently, lulled back into obliviousness by the vibration of his voice.
“You already said that…” he reminded you, humour and something else, sweeter, laced into his voice. “Anytime.”
You hummed in response, sinking deeper into the softness enveloping you.
“Hey… I mean it, okay?”
“Uh huh,” you muttered again, the dreamland already calling you, insistent and so inviting. “Same… arenchya sleepy? ‘m sleepy.”
Silence only sweetened by his still rapidly beating heart settled, another slow caress to your arm, Steve’s voice reaching you from tender proximity and endless distance all at once.
“Then sleep, doll.”
Mmm.
The dreams wrapped around your wrists like tender ribbons, coaxing you to follow them, pulling gently.
You could give in so easily. Letting the dreamland take you felt as simple as breathing; comfortable and warm, and feeling so damn safe that your heart, while peaceful, was aching a little.
And maybe it was the tone Steve had spoken with earlier – so much emotion weaved into a few simple words, so much meaning – maybe it was the subconsciousness forming your dreams, but the memory of one of your favourites book which you had read multiple times flickered through your mind, making you smile. Or maybe it didn’t – you weren’t sure if you moved a single muscle, your body already floating.
Le sommeil partagé était le corps du délit de l'amour, the line read. A pondering of a man to whom sleeping with women meant nothing but entertainment, no feelings attached; not until he held a woman truly dear to him through the night, having fallen asleep peacefully, at last realizing that what he was feeling was love.
Sleeping with someoneor sleeping with someone, that was at the centre of his dilemma; the sharp contrast, one much more meaningful than the other. One a display of desire; the other, display of trust and love. A corpus delicti of love.
It was never like that for you – to you, the physical only came along with emotional, deep trust necessary to both. Having been learning about who Steve was, your mind argued lazily, there was no doubt in your mind Steve felt the same way about his relationships.
But the fact you could fall asleep right there, in his arms, and it felt like the safest place in the world…
It brought along a different memory; a memory of Steve’s large body curled into itself next to you on the couch, three blankets on top of him, your hands holding his, the contact seemingly somehow chasing away the demons of his past that had come to haunt his dreams. You had found him, lost in his own home, trapped in his own mind. He had agreed on a movie even as it had taken a long time to convince him that you weren’t going to back to sleep in your room while he’d try to fight off the invisible enemies his mind had created alone; so you had settled on a movie marathon instead. He had relaxed eventually, the dreamland taking him again, soft snores a lullaby to you – and you had never spoken about it again besides his quiet, ashamed and painfully genuine thank you the next morning. He had trusted you then, maybe feeling just as safe as you were now, despite you being nothing but an ordinary unenhanced human protecting him from evil.
It was a mirror image to how you were at this moment, you mused sleepily; you made him your pillow and a space heater and the source of comfort, while you tiptoed the line of reality and dreams.
His heartbeat thundered softly in your ear, calming but so vigorous and fast; and it slowly dawned to you that his body had stiffened under yours, the sensation nudging your consciousness and pulling you back, away from sleep.
Before you could voice your concern and confusion, his chest vibrated softly under you; his voice caressed you, tender with a hint of a rasp.
“…oui, c’est toujours vrai,” he whispered slowly, the words not making any sense.
Yes, that is always – still – true, you understood despite not being able to grasp at what he was saying truly or why, even as you knew French nearly perfectly, could probably speak it even in your sleep-
Your eyes snapped open, your heart jumping in your chest so fiercely it hurt.
Yes, that is always true.
It is true-
You had spoken out loud.
You had quoted one of your favourite books to him, out loud, speaking of shared sleep and love, and he had read that book too, you knew as much because you had talked about it before, he knew what that line meant, what it meant to you.
But it couldn’t be. He couldn’t be saying what you meant he was saying-
Except that tone. That soft, soft inflection to his voice, his thumb brushing over your arm again, reluctant but firm, his breath having hitched, awaiting your reaction to this… revelation?
And he got it; all sleep evaporating from your body, realizing you were basically lying on top of him – gods, you had no inhibitions in your semi-sleep state – your heart pounded so wildly your ribcage just might set it free. You gulped, shifting so you could look at him, the world slowly coming back to focus as your mind kept echoing the same words, over and over.
Corpus delicti of love. Corpus delicti of LOVE, c’est vrai-
You found Steve with his head bowed, observing you with patient and nervous anticipation, still holding you close to his body, something softly hopeful shimmering in his irises. Shadows of the evening had fallen over the living room but you could still see his perfect face so clearly, the depth of his blue eyes, the two beauty marks on his cheek, the pink lips looking so soft even as they were lightly pressed in a line – expectant of your response.
Your response to him indirectly confessing to---
Was he in love in you too?
The flicker of something you’d never dare to truly believe was real, because it appeared dangerously like adoration, lit up his eyes at your barely audible ‘really?’, a shadow of anxiety building behind the brilliant speckles of green in his irises when he nodded and waited.
As you processed, Steve never took his gaze off you in a display of bravery you were sure you would never have been capable of.
He had nodded. He had nodded.
Unless you were reading it completely wrong, unless--- unless this was just your fever actually taking over, Steve loved you, or at least was on his way to do so.
The overwhelming euphoric feeling rushed through ever nerve ending like a livewire, lighting your body up, your breathing hitching and expanding in your chest, something prickling in your eyes.
Steve’s Adam’s apple bobbed, gaze flickering over your face, appearing almost desperate to read your reaction since you couldn’t seem to verbalize how you felt.
But how could you let out a single word? He had romantic feelings for you too.
“We… we can talk later, if you’d like. You need your rest too…” he argued in a reluctant whisper.
There was no universe in which you were going to fall asleep, ever again and frankly you admired his self-restraint and willingness to wait after having just confessed he was interested in more than friendship and roommate-ship.
Steve Rogers, your Steve, was holding you in his arms, your bodies aligned, and he had feelings for you.
The soft expression – and the nervous energy radiation off him – whispered urgently of you not having read too much into his gestures, of your naïve hopes not being all that naïve, of all of this being true even as it left like a dream.
Maybe it was. But if it was, you’d cling to it and never let go.
And if it was by some miracle true, you sure as hell would never ever let sleep take you, because then… well.
The corners of your lips twitched minutely in an incredulous self-deprecating smile.
You were thoroughly warmed up, all shivers having subdued a long time ago, but something inside you trembled more than your voice.
“I can’t sleep now... I’ll think I’d dreamed all this up. That it wasn’t real,” you whispered hastily, “I… I want it to be real.”
Tension melted from Steve’s body at last, muscles having been tight as a bowstring easing into their mere usual firmness. His lips, those inviting lips, curled up in a smile, an echo of his eyes twinkling with something soft and exciting.
“Sounds like a dream to me too, yeah,” he admitted, your pulse nearing the speed that would sooner or later surely lead to cardiac arrest, your mind screaming with dozen of swirling thoughts.
He liked you. Steve like-liked you, perhaps maybe, just a little, on his way to love you, shared sleep, trust and love, he had dreamed of this too, he-
“How about…” he hummed, hand slowly cupping your cheek, tilting your head up and guiding you to lift it off his chest, causing your head to spin sweetly.
You could have easily escaped the tender touch; but you didn’t want to, not in a million years. You leaned into it instead, a pleasant twist deep within your belly, a shaky exhale leaving your parted lips, air swiftly drawn back as Steve leaned down, eyes roaming your face for any sign of protest. Finding none, his eyes earned a new kind of glow that warmed you up like no blanket or shower could, his lips neared dangerously, a silent wishful sigh as your fingertips stroked lightly over his chest.
“…we share a moment so real there’s no doubt left?”
There was no doubt left; and not a second of hesitation.
It occurred to you how absurd the reasoning was, to have a real moment, what a feeble excuse; as if you hadn’t dreamed of this before, as if the images of kissing Steve hadn’t haunted your nights, so vivid and so tangible morning had felt like razor tearing the masterpiece of a canvas apart; but that thought was but a silent voice in the very back of your mind and you did not care for it in the slightest.
On the other hand, Steve was right here and you’d do just about anything he’d suggest.
“Yes.”
The second the breathless sound left you, Steve’s lips were pressed to yours, soft and warm and real, an electrifying sensation of right rushing through your very being, proving Steve’s damn point; your dreams could have never done justice to this.
Not to the way his lips moulded against yours, the tentative touch turning eager the very moment you pressed against him.
Not to the way he felt so perfectly solid and soft under your palm, against your side, against your thigh.
Not to the way his hand on your arm curled around your bicep and squeezed when your lips parted for him with a choked whimper.
Not to the way his fingertips caressed along your jaw to your chin, tipping your head back further to truly kiss you.
Not to the way you couldn’t get enough of it, of his touch, of his taste, chocolate and sugar and home, of his scent, invading your senses in the most wonderful attack you’d yield to with delight.
When your lips parted with a gasp, your name like the sweetest endearment on his lips, his forehead rested against yours, sharing your breath, your space, the wild beats of your hearts.
It seemed that some of those beats of his heart truly might be for you; just like quite a few of yours were for him.
And it was beautiful.
An unwitting chuckle spilled from your lips, the euphoria coursing your veins spilling over, rewarded by a soft stroke of Steve’s thumb over your cheek, a deep inhale, your eyes fluttering open to his soft but blinding smile you couldn’t but mirror.
God, he was the most stunning man you had ever seen in your life.
Had you not been rendered speechless by the kiss, his beauty would have done the job.
And if that hadn’t been enough, the way he was looking at you, as if you had hung the moon and the stars and he would have hung them for you if you had just asked – how had you never noticed it before? – now that would have done you for.
You had no words; but it seemed that for the moment, neither did he.
And so your gaze flickered down to his lips, now more tempting than ever, and you let action speak louder than words.
Cupping his face in return, you kissed him again, and let the coincidence or perhaps fate, that had led you to spill your secrets at the precipice of sleep, take reigns again, not at all protesting when Steve’s hands roamed to your waist, a silent invitation for you to move closer in any way you wished.
You let the moment take you wherever it would lead, quite happy if the half-wit you had called yourself earlier that day lost all her wits to Steve’s softly demanding mouth.
Maybe next time you’d get caught in the rain, he’d be there soaking with you; and maybe just like he hadn’t cared for getting his clothes wet earlier either, you’d both stand there in the downpour in an embrace of lovers, caring little for the water dripping all over you.
As long as he’d keep kissing you.
Complete masterlist
Steve Rogers masterlist
Happy autumn, everyone 💕 I know I should be working on my longfic but my brain seems distracted by various short-fic ideas, often fullfilling writing challenges...
I really enjoyed this one 🥰 and I hope that so did you!
Have a lovely autumn!🍂
P.S. - For those interested, the quote comes from Milan Kundera's novel Unbearable Lightness of Being (L'insoutenable légèreté de l'être or Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí).
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Type: one-shot, medieval/fantasy, angst with a sweet ending
Pairining: King!Steve Rogers x reader Word count: 9100
Summary:
Steve Rogers is a kind, just ruler in the true service of his kingdom; the King of the People, they call him. But heavy is the sense of duty and heavy is the crown.
And yet, none is heavier than his heart without you by his side; none is louder than the screaming silence of your absence, turning him into barely half the man he is meant to be.
Warnings: angsty angst, mentions of blood, injuries and death (childbed), grieving for a spouse, less than healthy coping mechanisms, mention of growing up without a parent, vague medieval setting... and did I mentioned angst-- but a happy ending
A/N: inspired by Karliene's song A Conjuring - highly recommended and came recommended to me by lovely @stellar-solar-flare who is absolutely blamed for my muse latching onto this song; lyrics are through the text in verses, any poetry is my own; divider by @firefly-graphics
The first sunrays of a new dawn are warm on his cheeks, the breeze of the brisk, foggy morning, wrapping him kindly in its arms as he enters the space hidden among the castle walls.
The dew is soaking his boots with every slow step he takes, the cold biting softly into his toes, but he cares little for it; it is his sense of smell and sight which are tuned in the most, the small private gardens welcoming him with aching familiarity. Like a garden of Eden; a peaceful solace breathing of love.
It rained last night. The heady scent of wet soil and roses fills his head and closes up his throat, but he continues walking, much like every single morning without fail.
Steve loves the garden; and he knows that so do you. It isn’t rich in many types of exotic precious flowers; in fact, many would call it simple. A few trees, one of which Steve had planted himself; a few soft-coloured flowerbeds; the pink roses climbing up the artistic constructions you had asked the smith to make. A few blooming bushes.
It’s the roses you brought to life yourself and cared for them with your own hands; with soft hands of the queen, letting dirt under your nails, skin scraped by thorns and bleeding to give birth to beauty, just like the hands of a commoner would.
The Queen of the People, they call you.
The King of the People is what they call Steve; and you both carry that title with pride.
Steve’s mother, the late queen, was the first one of that moniker, having learned how to treat wounded so she could follow her husband to the war camp and lend a helping hand to those in pain, to nurse them back to health.
In the time of peace, with the same care, you and Steve learned to grow and nurture flowers, the way you nurture your kingdom.
The time of wars seem eons away now, even as Steve himself wielded his sword alongside his men in its very battles; life has turned much quieter since then. Steve is glad for it. While fighting for the kingdom brought him sense of pride and brotherhood, he has been longing for sense of life instead. For love.
And he’s been blessed enough to have found it.
As he approaches the roses weaving up the metal construction, he breathes in deeply, his senses drowning in the overwhelming scent; a wistful smile forms on his lips, the memory of the smile you graced him with upon your first meeting wrapping around his heart.
He wrote a letter to your brother.
After King Howard’s death, the word was that the kingdom of Starkenburg had changed, progressive both in technology and social structing. The tales of King Anthony’s sister – a princess of wit quick enough to advise the king himself – intrigued Steve; and upon seeing your portrait, something in his very soul seemed to shift. Whoever the artist was, they had captured you admirably vividly; Steve almost felt as if you were looking straight into his soul and smiled.
He wrote to your brother of his intentions, but he wrote to you as well, to ask your opinion before he’d arrive to your home and attempt to court you. He had had a sense that excessive amount of gold sent with the letter would not impress you; he sent a single pair of earrings he had had commissioned instead, a well-loved book of poetry, and a vial of precious rose oil from his latest travels to the allied kingdom of the East.
And he had been right to do so.
In your response, while thanking for the jewellery, you seemed genuinely appreciative of the gifts of more personal nature, sending a book of fables in return.
You had exchanged two more letters before he made the journey, waiting only upon your request not to intrude on your brother’s wedding festivities; but as soon as Steve could arrive, he brought another three vials of rose oil among other riches to honour the royal family with.
Walking down the steps of the courtyard to greet him, your polite smile widened upon seeing his gift, a vivid spark – reminding him of your portrait so much – appearing in your eye as he brushed his lips over your knuckles, the scent of the very oil he had gifted you filling his head.
“A mind’s a maze, my wiseness sees me through… important truths lie beyond what eyes can see,” you whispered and Steve’s heart thundered in his ribcage upon recognizing those words – perhaps out of place, but all the more familiar. A little test, it seemed, you set upon him; and the spark in your eye might have been the mischief your brother was known for, but was all the more mesmerizing on you.
Warmth spread through Steve’s veins as he stood back to his full height, even as there was faint weakness in his knees already.
“‘tis through my heart I may appreciate true beauty,” he continued the poem softly, your smile turning most sincere in an instant, “’tis through your heart you reveal yourself to me… but I must say, Your Highness, you are an exquisite a sight for my eyes all the same.”
You accepted the compliment graciously, as well as the gifts – but more importantly, you accepted his courtship, warmly so.
Whatever longing Steve had felt in his chest for many years now, wearing your face since the moment he had set his eyes on your portrait, it was this very first encounter that ignited something beautiful and fierce in his heart.
And then, with every glance, word or touch exchanged, no matter how innocent, he found the fire kindled gently until it consumed him whole, the late afternoon sunrays following your steps in the royal garden having nothing on the genuine warmth of your smile, little shy, little cheeky, or the shine of your beauty.
Enchanted; that was what you made him with your presence and absence all the more. The scent of your skin with the notes of the roses haunted his dreams, day and night, and made him long and crave for more.
The day you agreed to the marriage, Steve realised he was at true peace for the first time in his life.
And the memory of that joyful day, too, was linked to the sweet scent of white roses, decorating the wedding feast.
I drew your shape in crystal shapes every single night
I weaved a dream of fire for you under stormy skies
In every life I've loved you so
The only home I've ever known
The magic part of me
The scent fills his nostrils now too. It wraps all around him with every breath as he instinctively moves closer, not worried he might step on and crush a single blossom. After all, he knows the garden like the back of his hand and could navigate it blind; he prefers it that way, in fact. With eyes closed, he can see you, your tender fingers caressing the petals, the fruit of your love and care. It is no wonder the garden used to bloom so wild upon your touch; Steve knows its effect, the way it awakes life in one’s veins, the way it fills his lungs with light and makes the very essence of him hum with the sense of rightness.
With well-practiced ease, he follows the way your fingers would run over the blossoms blindly; dew dampens his fingers, cold, but the rose itself feels almost warm, as if it holds your very soul. And soft. So beautifully soft it makes Steve’s ribcage ache with the next generous breath he takes.
He remembers the softness and the warmth of your body too well.
The line of your jaw he caressed before finally cradling your face, before leaning to kiss your lips on your wedding day, to commit your features to memory beyond what eyes could see; he thought of his fingertips like the extension of his heart that allowed him to appreciate your beauty properly. The exquisite happiness humming in his chest that day settled in your expression as well, in that vivid sparkle in your eyes, fluttering shut when his lips finally met yours after long weeks of dreaming of it.
The moment he did kiss you was written into his mind as revelation; for all the poetry he had ever read, for all the longing, for all the mad swirls of feelings and sensation haunting his days and nights ever since he had the fortune to meet you, it all made sense then; even the past bloodshed and pain. It all made sense for it had all led right into the blessed moment.
“My husband… my king,” you whispered to his lips breathlessly, your smile tasting like sunshine against his own and he could not but respond in kind before kissing you once more:
“My wife… my beautiful queen.”
And your lips were just as soft the night he took you to his bed for the first time; and if kissing you was revelation, to be able to touch your body and hold you close was what he imagined ascension felt like. The welcoming heat of your skin was a taste of heaven as he carefully stripped your chemise, breath wavering under his burning gaze, the silver of shyness soothed by his mouth exploring every exposed inch of you.
“Steve-“
You had been so careful to address him properly when in company he thought he could die right there, hearing the breathless sound of his name, a shuddering plea. He remembers the way your own touch turned him into a man possessed, your careful but burning fingertips appreciatively mapping out his body. He took you with a tremble in his very core and with an overwhelming sense of being right where the two of you were supposed to be. He loved on you for half the night, the air full of heady scent of your lovemaking and rose oil oozing off your thoroughly warmed-up skin.
“I love you more than the stars could ever know,” he whispered into your hair that night, as you laid on his chest, thoroughly exhausted, but with a serene smile on your face. As if you heard him, you pressed to him closer, and with your proximity, you brought love and peace into his soul.
Time changed none of it. The softness of your body against his, every night, so beautifully alive and warm under his greedy tender hands, the sensation never failing to fill his head and roar in his veins with need to claim, to mark, to love; always. Body as soft and warm as your belly was when you placed his hand over it one day, tears pearling in your eyes, telling him you were with a child before you even spoke a single word.
That day, Steve kneeled in front of you, pressing his forehead against your belly, and thanked the gods for all the blessings he received; and he thanked you all the same, silent words spilling from his lips before he looked up at you, your fingers having carded through his hair in appreciation of his joy and gratitude. With sudden burst of emotion, he jumped to his feet and picked up and spun and spun and spun with you, your joined laughter filling your chambers and probably raising quite a few questioning eyebrows Steve could not care less for at any moment, let alone at a moment like that.
The entirety of his world had been blessed; and he thanked the gods and you alike for it diligently every single day.
The day after he’d found out, he planted a tree, as common people said a father-to-be should; and he did so without care for whether his child – your child – would be a son or a daughter. He’d love and raise the child with tender care and dedication either way, the same way he would care for the symbol of his love for a new life planted.
You, in turn, planted roses into the very same garden, taking care of them ever since, come sunshine or rain, a new life growing under your hands as well as under your heart.
Steve never had the heart to scold you when you kneeled in the dirt, with barely any strength remaining to stand up with how you belly had grown; instead, he observed you with a smile, kissing your temple and helping you stand on the rare days when he didn’t feel like simply scooping you up in his arms and carrying you to your chambers to rest properly, like the Queen and a future mother should.
It never failed to make for a gentle laugh when moments later, cleaned up and in bed, he’d find you falling asleep as soon as your head laid down on the pillow.
He’d kiss your forehead, brushing your untidy hair from your face with a smile, and went to kiss your belly, before covering you properly and thanking for all his blessing once more.
Will I always find you
Neath every moon
Singing from the cold gloom
My spells for you
Are you just a conjuring
Or my dream come true
For my heart was calling
calling, calling for you
Are you just a conjuring
Or can I keep you?
Steve loves the garden and so do you; you love it still. He knows. He knows it with agonizing certainty because even now, this is where he feels you. This is where your warmth lingers, years after your passing. This is where he hears you whisper his name, in the rustle of leaves, feels your gentle touch in the breeze caressing his face, carding through his hair like your hands used to, especially on days when the weight of the crown became too heavy. This is where he feels your lips on his ear, whispering of your love, the softness of your kiss on his forehead, on his own lips when they brush the petals.
Here, he can hear you the clearest, tender; his chest tightens every time, a sharp memory of your screams behind the closed doors and the calming words of his friends that the cries he only knew from battlefields and sick tents, torn from your lungs, were but a part of the process of giving birth.
When the new voice cut the air and your screams turned into sobs and the softest murmur, no one could hold him back anymore, rules of propriety be damned; throwing the doors open, his eyes filled with tears upon the sight of the little miracle crying in your arms – your baby, your son. A little prince letting the world know there he was at last, loudly so; until you held him close enough for his cries to ease into sniffles and content hums.
That day too, Steve kneeled before you; by your bed, a few tears of undiluted joy rolled down his face as he welcomed James Samuel Anthony into his world and promised to love him for the rest of his days. To you, he thanked like he thanked to the gods, kissed your hands, your sternum, your lips. He could not imagine what pain you had endured, not even with the screams having echoed through the castle; but your smile and your tears, so warm on your soft skin, told him enough of how worthy of the struggle the result was.
“I love both of you, so much. You must never forget,” you whispered in a hoarse voice, tears rolling down your cheeks as you didn’t seem to know where to look – at your son, at Steve and back and forth, smiling through your tears.
Steve should have known then. He should have known the gods themselves had touched your soul and perhaps told you in their riddles what was to come to force you say those words. Perhaps they had told you what was to follow the most joyful night of Steve’s life; what the moments just before the dawn would bring.
But Steve was blind and deaf to it; all his senses and his heart alike caught in the precious moment, a cherished memory in making. The sensation of being touched by the divine in the most beautiful blessings of all; seeing you cradle the child to your chest, damp hair stuck to your forehead, skin glistening with sweat, eyes glazed over with tears and exhaustion… an intimate voice whispering to your child like you had been to your bump since the day it had become visible: you are so, so loved, our sweet child, our little starlight. Humming a lullaby until you could not keep your own eyes open, passing the child to Steve for a longer while.
The child never returned to the arms of his mother, never felt her warmth or loving touch ever again.
And neither did Steve.
All he was given was a new memory, made out of the worst nightmares he had never dared to speak of out loud even as they had been haunting him from time to time: your motionless, cold body, cleaned of the blood but terrifying all the same.
Steve had seen men bleed out on the battlefield before, enough terror for a lifetime; but to have that happen to you, at the threshold of the happiest day of your life, broke his very spirit. For the second time in the course of mere hours in which his world had been turned upside down as easily as if someone had turned an hourglass, he fell to his knees by your bed; your deathbed. Forehead pressed to your icy hand, his heart comprehended something the rest of his body could not yet. Unlike when he had welcomed the new life, he did not shed a single tear upon saying goodbye to yours. His sobs were dry, even as his chest was heaving so violently his whole frame shook, a part of him still praying so your hand would move, fingers card through his hair to comfort him, his grip on you growing harder by the moment despite the numbing weakness in his muscles.
You didn’t move. You had left the earthly realm long moments ago, ripped suddenly and violently from the centre of Steve’s whole world, creating an unrepairable tear in his soul.
He loved; he still does. Both the life given and the life taken that night. But the scar of having half of his heart torn out never healed. It never would; he did not think he’d want it too. He kept his wound wide and open so the love could pour out, for your memory, for his son. Your son. The only living thing left of you.
Your son and your roses.
He had your ashes dispersed into the soil under the roses, to nurture them like you had been in life; and he has your thoughts, shared only in whispers of your bed chamber, and he has all your love nurture your child.
He takes care of, raises and loves his son for you and himself alike; he keeps the roses alive with the most tender and careful care for you only. To keep your love and spirit alive and present.
You loved the garden and you still do; Steve knows.
Here, in the garden, he can feel you the best. Hear you in the wind, feel you in the warmth of the sun and blossoms alike, wrapped in your scent and the ghost of your touch, soft and clawing deep into the gaping wound in his ribcage all at once.
Here, his memories of the most joyful moments with you feel vivid. The dew sings your whispers of affection and the rain carries your tears spilled for the grief of leaving your son and your husband all too soon.
I know your face in fractured time, and I know our kiss
A thousand lives, our love remains, pulling me back in
Through all the dark, I've searched for light
And found you waiting every night
But are you even real?
The garden is where he feels you most tangible; but your spirit hovers around him at all times.
Sometimes the memories creep at him gently; a colour you liked catching his eye out of instinct, your words echoing in his head, your favourite book still lying on the table in your shared room. Sometimes they slam into him with violence that knocks air out of his lungs, having been filled with the sweet scent of roses; a royal celebration with a dance overflowing with emptiness without you in his arms, without you following his steps with elegance, utter faith in his lead, your wide sparkling eyes full of affection and fond memory of your first dance shared. His bed, a wailing void, swallowing him every night. And of course, the soft and so beautifully violent reminder of your absence, ever-present in the face of your son, in his questions about mama.
Steve talks about you. James cannot quite understand yet, he’s too young, his heart too pure and his mind too full of magic this world offers; but his little hand on Steve’s damp cheek when he fails to keep his tears at bay, his son’s worry about his father being sad, breaks his heart and mends it all the same. Steve answers James’s questions; he speaks of you out of turn too. Your son knows your face from your portraits, ones painted by artists, ones drawn by Steve himself, and knows all about your and Steve’s love for him. They prayed for you together. He knows your garden and the significance of the roses and he looks at them with the strangest affectionate expression in his soft, carefree features.
James has your smile, your eyes, and your wit.
In the grey of Steve’s days, he is his light. James and the garden, where he can feel you and the echo of your love.
Steve’s hand slips from the blossoms, the missing weight setting the flowers in motion, sending a small shower of droplets down his hand, on his face, nature’s blessing bleeding into his burning tears, his eyes fluttering open, the pink and rich green and grey of the stone swimming in his tear-filled vision. His lips are unsteady, trembling under the crushing weight of your absence; and yet, your voice is so clear in his mind as if you stood right next to him.
Don’t cry, my love, whispers the breeze, a warm breath as if tickling his ear. I miss you too.
“There is no day I do not miss you,” he whispers back soundlessly, blinking away his tears as a ghost of your touch caresses down his spine, “my wife, my precious, my heart.”
I know, love. I know. I wish I could take your pain away.
He grants himself another deep breath, all that used to be you – including the kindness and worry you probably did have for him even in afterlife – washing over him.
The sudden ruckus by the gates startles him, his heart skipping a beat; the bubble of his own world he still gets to share with you bursts as the rustle of cloth and quick little steps instantly followed by a sniffle push through the veils of solace the garden offers.
The only person who can be forgiven to do so bursts into the garden, red blotches on his damp cheeks, eyes finding Steve with relief and bottomless trust Steve will never fail to appreciate even as it squeezes his heart in a vice.
He’s crouching on instinct before the scene is even complete, James’s governess’ rushed steps and her scolding surprisingly far away.
Little James lands in Steve’s arms and clutches him with an awful vigour for a three-year-old, his choked cry of fa-eh muffled by the fabric of Steve’s attire.
“James-" he whispers gently, arms coming around him like thousands times before, one hand laid over the back of his head as he rises to his feet, encouraged by the grip of the little fingers on him tightening.
“James--! Your Majesty, I am-“
Steve shakes his head at the poor woman, an understanding smile on his lips before he turns his attention back to the toddler in his arms, careful to keep his voice soft despite the flash of fear in his chest – his son truly was getting stronger and faster by the day, able to run away quick and get into all sorts of trouble.
James Buchannan Bucky Barnes, his namesake, would always say Steve’s son was the payback from the gods. Steve does not disagree and swallows his pride and worry at that very fact every time little James is up to something Steve is sure he himself could have never come up with at his age. Bucky would probably argue about that and Steve might believe him, because Bucky knows him as well if not better than Steve knows himself; that was why Bucky is the only person who has not nagged him about a new queen, has not pushed him about a motherly figure needed in James’s life.
For now, and perhaps for ever, it is enough for Steve to know about his own mother and you.
His mother had the patience of the gods and their strictness all the same; Steve believes you would have been the same and he tries his best to live up to such standard of parenthood.
“Jamie, little starlight, what is wrong?" he inquires, the child wiggling in his arms to hold on tighter, face still hidden in Steve’s chest.
“Miss momma. Bad sweep.”
The unrepairable crack in Steve’s heart gapes open, his lips pressed tight as he runs his hand down James’s back, barely holding back a sigh. He knows the feeling all too well, even if in his world, your absence, however painful, translates differently.
“Did you not sleep well? Had bad dreams?”
James nods in confirmation, repeating his words. “Miss momma.”
“I see,” Steve hums, breathing in deeply, pondering. It is not the first time this has happened; Steve knows he’s partly to blame and guilt pangs in his gut, the familiar dilemma of honouring your memory and loving you, keeping you in your son’s memory, and reminding the child of your glaring absence in the process setting heavy in his ribcage. “I sleep badly too, when I miss her.”
Which is every night.
James pushes away from Steves chest a fraction, looking up at his face with tear-filled eyes and a pout that feels like a whiplash to Steve’s soul; he’s your mirror image painted with sincerity and innocence, his whole generous heart on display.
“Ya? Ugwy dweams?”
“Yes,” Steve says gently, even as his voice cracks with emotion. “That is why I come here every morning.”
James’s expression turns serious – and way too intelligent for a boy his age, Steve thinks, even as his heart flutters at his son’s words.
“Tawk to momma. Is why I wun heew.”
“Oh. Do you… want to say something to your mum too?” Again, James nods; and again, Steve’s ribcage constricts, the burn of tears in his eyes as familiar as the gentle warmth kindled in his veins. “I see. But first – you must not run away from Lady Brigitte like that, alright? She would be upset and get worried. Me too.”
Little James nods quickly, his pupils growing bigger.
“Sowy…. Sowy Wady Bwigitt.”
“Your Highness,” she smiles benevolently at the child, nodding at Steve, already stepping back, understanding her services are not needed at the moment, “Your Majesty.”
“Thank you, Brigitte.”
With one last brief smile, she is gone; not too far for she might be needed soon, but far enough to grant privacy to the grieving family.
It is not the first time Steve explains what he is doing here to his son; that is how James knows in the first place to come here. It is, however, the first time the child has run here and Steve is not blind to the importance of the moment, his heartbeat rushing past his ears, his touch a little shaky with nerves as his son observes him with curious, sad eyes.
“Tawk now?”
“Yes, little starlight, talk now,” Steve assures his son with a smile with a heartbroken edge, crouching again by the bunch of flowers. “You don’t have to, but what I do, is that I stroke the roses first. Carefully. And then I tell her what I need to say.”
He licks his lips, a lump in his throat growing, voice cracking as he continues.
“And I tell her how much I love her and miss her.”
James nods, a single step from his father’s embrace, petting one of the blossoms with his fingertips with clumsiness but undeniable care, sending a few droplets falling.
“Miss you, momma. Wove you.”
Something digs its claws into Steve’s heart and lungs and yanks violently, tears springing from his eyes at the sincerity of James’s words, all the more touching as they are slurred through his wobbly lips. Steve smiles encouragingly when little James seeks his approval. He’s crying too; fat tears are rolling down his cheeks, but as he continues to caress the flower, the corners of his lips turned up tensely.
“She say she wove too.”
Steve clears his throat, swallowing the pitiful sound born there – profoundly proud and happy as only James could make him.
“Yes, she does that. She loved--- she loves you very much, little starlight. More than anything in this whole wide world.”
“Wike you wove me. Wike she wove you.”
“Yes, exactly that, son,” Steve says, breathing in shakily, slightly startled when James’s fingers slip to the stem.
Steve is too slow, his hand unable to catch James’s before blood pearls on the child’s index finger, a surprised yelp of pain torn from the his lips.
Steve opens his mouth, words of comfort ready as much as the comfort of his embrace; but to his awe, James frowns and moves back to the blossom, murmuring he loves you still.
Steve is not sure whether his chest is too heavy from bursting with pride, affection or grief.
Finally, his son smiles, abandoning the flower and showing off his little injury.
“Not cwy. Stwong wike dad,” he declares, arms rising in an universal gesture. “Up?”
Without a word of protest, Steve lifts him to his arms, suddenly acutely aware of the morning truly being rather brisk when he feels James’s cold hands on his neck and curses himself for not having thought of that.
“Of course you are. Let’s say bye to mum and go get some tea and breakfast, yes? If you want, I can tell you all about the most beautiful queen there ever was.”
James obediently whispers g’dbye, nuzzling into Steve’s neck, allowing him to shield James’s small body from the cold as he heads out of the garden, one last glance and a silent goodbye to his sanctuary and your spirit that seems to reside there.
Neither of them notices that the one flower little James has touched begins to wilt.
When morning comes
Will you fade away
Like all my dreams
I never, ever want to wake
This love we've made
Is like a spell upon my soul
I'm bound to you for now and evermore
Between playing with and trying his best to teach his son, between holding court and training with his brothers in arms and friends, Steve’s mind is occupied; too full to ponder and to feel.
The weight of the morning experience comes crushing him at night.
It had rained in the evening, but then the wind blew apart the clouds, moonlight streaming into Steve’s bedroom – his and yours – light and shadows playing wicked games on the walls. You are on Steve’s mind, memories haunting him with intensity he cannot remember since before James was taking his first steps and Steve wished you were there to witness it and celebrate it.
He hears your voice, a ghost of your touch stirring him awake every time he feels sleep might finally take him into its merciful arms; drifting between consciousness and dreamland, he sees things. He could swear the moonlight keeps taking your form by the window, taunting him to follow; but whenever he does, feet all but dragging from the lack of a shuteye, the mirage disperses, only to materialize in the armchair where you used to read to Jamie before he was even born, then in the bed where Steve held you for far too few nights, loved on you for too short of a time, the aroma of rose oil hovering in the air, an untouchable torment and bliss to his senses.
He ends up dozing off in the chair by the fireplace, shivering, and waking up too soon to the first crimson and fiery orange of a new dawn.
Dressing up, he refuses to take a look in the mirror to see the shell of the King of the People he must resemble. He knows it without looking; the red-rimmed glassy eyes, the dark circles under them, the pale skin, the numb lips he is not sure will be able to speak a single word today, let alone lead and inspire.
Should anyone come at him with a sword in the next few hours, he’d be dead before he could swing his own just once; and yet, he attaches the sword to his waist as a part of his attire, the weight comfortingly familiar. Today might be a battle where no sharp blade could help him win, but he had spent years with his trusted weapon. It was how he approached your court too; a man of riches and conquered lands, a soldier and a king, but also a simple man longing for love.
The castle is still and silent safe for the guards on duty, abandoning their proper stance only to pay him respect by shallow bows; the garden, as per usual, awaits him in its peaceful solitude.
The dew was still falling abundantly, Steve’s hair damp and sticking to his forehead by the time he walks through the gates, the first sunrays shining through the leaves of James’s tree, blinding Steve for just a moment, enough for him to have to shield his eyes before they adjust, drawn towards his destination.
He freezes mid-step so sharply it hurts; air is knocked from his lungs and it hurts more.
It was back at Harrigörn where an army skilled more any other they had encountered before massacred many of Steve’s own; where too many good men laid down their life for their kingdom, for their king. It was back at Harrigörn where Steve’s own blood soaked the lands, a lucky strike delivered after a significant part of his armour had been knocked off, exposing his left side, an opening his enemy eagerly took and pushed his sword right through under Steve’s ribcage the very moment Steve hesitated. That day, Bucky, striking the man and dragging Steve to safety, might have as well ripped Steve from the fingers of the gods themselves who were about to guide him into afterlife.
As a reminder, Steve has been carrying a nasty scar that sometimes aches still; and a piercingly sharp memory of blood on his tongue and brutal, numbing pain whose echo interrupted more than one of his nights.
He truly remembers the moment with shocking clarity; the way all the sensation came crashing down on him, stunning him motionless and speechless, mouth open, no sound coming out.
His body remembers.
He stands stunned just the same right now, a guttural no falling from his lips, pulse rushing past his ears; metallic taste of blood and tears and panic on his tongue.
Your smile flashes in front of his eyes and he can’t breathe; his stomach swings so violently he retches, his first coherent thought being a desperate prayer to all gods above to wake him up from the nightmare unfolded in front of his tired eyes.
He stands there stunned for a moment lasting an eternity.
And then he’s finally moving, frantic breaths fogging the cold air, dew soaking his boots and biting into his toes and he does not care; he does not even notice, a string of raspy no no no falling from his lips, desperation colouring his grey world black around the edges.
The roses.
Your roses.
Your precious roses, your flowery children, your memory: dead.
Every single one.
Dry and wilted and rotten, seemingly all three at once, the dew caught on them but a mocking, like a salve numbing pain on a dead body; beyond any salvation.
All of it gone, not a single blossom left. Just an image of utter devastation.
It strikes him harder and sharper than any sword, weighting his body down to the ground faster than armour made of lead.
He falls to his knees, hands landing in the soil, fingers digging in as if it could speak and tell him how to fix that – to tell him what and how and why has this happened in the first place, when he had studied and learned about how to enrich the soil and protect the flowers from disease, just how, over a single night, over the course of a few hours, could life be ripped away so suddenly and violently, a life that was blooming so fully and beautifully only a day ago-
A life ripped out just like yours.
A life that’s been a memory and a monument to yours.
The pain that rips through his chest has him digging his fingers deeper, his head falling between his shoulders with a cry that might not even be human, more akin to one of a dying animal.
He can’t let out more; he can’t let anything in. His chest feels too tight, air too heavy to breathe in, burning in his lungs as much as shame and self-loathing burns in his veins.
He failed. He failed to keep your memory alive, he failed you, a terrible letdown and it was just flowers, one would say, but they were not. The flowers are not the only thing gone.
Your spirit, usually so present, seems to have evaporated, having bled out from the sanctuary as if it had been tied to the roses; as if it has been keeping the roses alive or vice versa.
He has lost you, for the second time; that is the feeling tearing his heart apart.
The garden usually filled with memories of you screams with emptiness; the breeze bushing his damp hair is cold and dull and harsh despite barely being there. The warmth of your affection; gone.
He swallows the scream clawing its way up his tight throat, a violent shudder cutting through his spine, his eyes squeezing shut.
He hears the light steps but he cannot make himself to react, to open his eyes, to move; he does not recognize them even as there is a grief-struck part of his mind he tends to keep locked that tells him that he does.
It’s not little James; it’s not Bucky nor Bucky’s wife. It’s not James’s governess either; and no one else has been permitted to enter here unless Steve would have had to leave the castle for days and a gardener had to be appointed.
If a stranger came to slash his throat, the numbness in Steve’s fingers whispered of him not caring at the moment; if anything, Steve might call it an unjustified mercy to him.
The steps stop behind him, the hand softly laid on his shoulder making for a burning sensation in his nose, tears prickling in his red-rimmed eyes.
“It’s not your fault,” the ghost of your voice reaches him, the scent of rose oil enveloping him, a lovechild of a sob and chuckle of relief exploding from his lips.
Gods, you were still here. Still, despite it all, he could feel you, more tangible than ever, hear you even, the clearest in the past three years.
“I am so---- so--rry I couldn’t-“ he chokes out, but the phantom touch seems to grow firmer, reassurance he does not deserve.
“It was never your fault, Steve,” the breeze whispers kindly, and yet, his breath hitches as thousands of icy shards stab his broken heart.
It might as well be his conscience speaking, and it does not relent.
“I know of the guilt you carry and you need to let it go. It was never your fault.”
It was never your fault that the child born out of our love, the life you had given seed to, took me away.
At those words, the very guilt consumes him more than ever, burning like midnight oil and ice. Of course he had thought that; it was one of the nightmares haunting his nights. If he had only… he loves little James with all his heart, and it’s such blasphemous thought he asks penance for and loves his child all the more in the days that follow, but if Steve had only never—would you have lived? Or would have the gods ripped his happiness from his hands still and gave him no solace at all?
“You’ve given me a son. I love you and always will.”
The echo of your voice shakes with emotion and another sob is torn from Steve’s lips, shaking his whole frame, his hand instinctively moving to his shoulder where the warm memory of your touch lingers.
Will I always find you
Neath every moon
Singing from the cold gloom
My spells for you
Are you just a conjuring
Or my dream come true
For my heart was calling
calling, calling for you
His heart stops in his chest when the tips of his fingers, still covered in dirt from where he has dug them into the soil, meet skin instead of the fabric of his own coat.
He turns so fast he lands on his backside, his head spinning with the unexpectedly fast movement; and his heart stands still for one moment longer, his throat suddenly dry unlike his cheeks.
Gods, he can see you.
Beautiful and ethereal, the sun shining from behind you and yet overshadowed by your presence.
Steve’s lost his mind for certain; another of his sleepless nights finally having pushed him into the realm of insanity.
But by gods he’d trade it all if he could look at the smile, no matter how sad, adorning your lips for jus a minute longer.
You are in all white; a nightdress Steve knows like the back of his hand, an attire he held you in during your nights together or stripped it with tenderness or vigour. The very nightdress you wore the night you left this world.
You crouch by him, the scent of rose oil filling his nostrils so intense a pitiful whine is born in his chest, even as his eyes adjust and he notices your hair ruffled rather messily, streaks of dirt on your skin, on your dress; you are barefoot.
You are the most gorgeous, divine mirage.
“It’s not your fault the roses died. You took care of them with as much precision as love, every single day. I know. I watched you.”
Steve only gulps, all coherent thought leaving him, his hands shaking; he must not touch you. He has never seen a mirage of you so vivid – he cannot afford to lose it, to have you dissipate into thin air if he tries to hold on too tight.
“It is my fault… the price to pay.”
Steve does not understand. Not your words, not the blessed image his mind has conjured, not even the wild swirl of suffocating joy and heartbreak upon seeing you; he only understands the terror of realisation that his own memory, until now, did not seem to do you justice. He has been forgetting your face despite the amount of time he has been spending looking at your portraits and reminiscing; he has almost forgot what your voice sounds like, a soothing caress to his soul.
But conjuring of you is kind and patient; it smiles warmly, tears gathering in its eyes Steve longs to kiss away.
“I was visiting town when she approached me, a blind fortune teller, a harmless youngling, beautiful beyond what my own eyes has ever seen… she told me she was bringing an important message from the gods,” you say, “but she told me she could only unveil it to me and no other living soul. Asked me to follow her.”
Steve’s breath hitches in fear; a fear that makes no sense. A story that has likely never happened and his broken mind had just dreamed up, and yet; the image of his wife, his precious heart, following a woman she had never encountered before without the trusted guards, shakes him. The Queen of the People they call you; visiting the commoners was no strange nor exceptional occurrence, but Steve would have never let you walk alone. Beloved as you are and were by most, there is always evil lurking and looking to hurt the crown; but you know as much. You always knew.
And Steve knows that because beauty has not been the only quality of yours he loved and loves; it is your wit too. For all your kindness, you are no fool and do not trust without evidence.
A spark – a heart-wrenchingly vivid spark of affection – flashes in your eye as you continue, as if you can hear his thoughts.
“I would have never followed her had it not been for her next words and her gentle touch. As innocent as she appeared despite the air of something divine, there was no telling who could be hiding in her hut, to whom she wished to lured me to under false pretences.”
“What did she say?” Steve hears himself rasp, in the very back of his mind well-aware he is entertaining a conversation with the result of his own fatigued mind.
The tears pearling in your eyes fall over, making Steve’s hand twitch with the need to gently wipe them away.
“The paths laid down by gods are full of twists and turns… to know them all I would surely have turned mad,” you recite softly and Steve has to force himself to keep his eyes open as your voice washes over him, like the times you whispered this very first poem of the booklet he had sent you along with his first letter in the sweet darkness of your shared bedroom, like he whispered them to you back. He can’t. If he closes his eyes, you might disappear again. “Fate in the stars written by lighting dust of souls… if I’d known how, I would have rather read.”
Steve, having been mouthing the words along unwittingly, feels his lips moving almost soundlessly as he finishes:
“But I am but a man, I’m blood and heart and faith; Walking the one path that I believe to be true.
I follow the path to which my heart’s been calling… for I have faith t’will lead me back to you.”
“Yes,” you nod, warmth blooming around Steve’s heart despite it all. This is a kind memory, he decides. Whatever has brought you here, whatever has killed the roses, your image has been sent here to sooth him. It might hurt all the more later; but for now, he finds himself almost, almost at peace. “So I did follow her. She told me that in quarter of a moon, I will find myself with a child. And I did. She told me to plant the roses… and so I did.”
You take a wavering breath and Steve finds himself doing the same; you face twists in grief before you continue.
“She told me to nurture them and cherish them like the child itself, and so I did – because once my son was born, I would not have but short moments to hold him.”
With a wince, the outrage rushing through Steve has him straightening his spine, his hand instinctively moving to his sword. To protect his wife, to eliminate the person who dared to make such threat to his beloved.
But there is nothing to fight; it is all but the past that might have never even happened except for your painful passing. And yet, Steve’s mind is whirling, memories falling into place, of your thoughtful expression upon returning for the town one day, the abundance of tears upon your announcement you were with a child, your solid feeling it would be a boy, your words, spoken quietly but with conviction and finality Steve has wondered so many times about: “I love both of you, so much. You must never forget.”
“My love-“
“And I did,” you cut off his raspy voice. “And she told me that should my ashes nurture the roses, I would come back, once they’d meet the blood and tears of my love… and the blood of my blood.”
Steve watches, stunned, as you move to kneel next to him, the ghost of the warmth of your skin radiating and calling out for him, a temptation to catch the mirage and condemn it to disperse in this air smelling of freshly cut roses.
The image of little James, scratching his finger on the thorn yesterday, staining one of the pink blossoms with his blood is the last thing Steve thinks of – before your hand, much colder now, goosebumps having risen on your arms, settles tenderly on his cheek, damp with tears he cannot recall having cried.
It strikes him like a lightning, rushing through his soul, stunning him motionless.
You were touching him.
He felt your cold skin against his, your warm affection, your smile a thousand suns and your voice just as unsteady as his heart and as real as the dirt under his fingernails or the wet ground under him as you whisper, voice cracking with emotion:
“And I did.”
A single beat of his heart; and his hand is rising with a violent tremble, hesitating for just a moment before he dares to cover the back of your hand on his cheek.
You are still there.
Undeniably and completely true.
“Oh gods-“
He chokes on a sob so potent his whole ribcage vibrates, painfully so, but he does not care.
He is already moving.
He springs from the ground, dropping your hand only to throw his arms around your form and pull you against him, inhaling into his already tight chest when your solid warm body meets his, one arm around your waist, the other around your shoulder, gripping your nape, tangling in your hair and gripping with violent force just so if anyone tried to pull you away he’d never let them, because you-
You’re still here.
You press your face against his neck, the tip of your nose making him shudder not because it’s cold, but because it feels as cold as it used to on a brisk morning like this one when you’d press yourself to him and smile into the skin of his throat when he’d faux-chastise you for not dressing warm enough and thus forcing him to give you his own coat.
--which is something he will absolutely do in just a second or two of hundred once it settles that your tears soaking into his skin are real and his own tears are seeping into your hair as he buries his face there and inhales, the scent of wet soil and rose-oil so intense and overwhelmingly familiar with years of grief and blissful memories he feels his muscles give out, sending both your you toppling over into the tall wet grass, the complete opposite of keeping you warm as he should but you don’t seem to care and he cannot think, let alone move.
Your name is falling form his lips, over and over, a prayer, a plea, a thank you, ragged breaths held just to keep still, to remember this moment for the rest of his days.
You are here.
You are here, somehow alive, right in his arms.
And you are saying his name, over and over, sweet endearment and apologies for not telling him, for being scared, for perhaps being foolish, for all the grief your absence has condemned him to and Steve just laughs.
He laughs so hard he is crying and he is not sure which came first, but he rolls over with you to protect you from the cold ground at last, your weight the most soothing thing he could ever conjure, perhaps safe for your blinding smile broken on its edges or your I love you, or your hands cradling his face for a long silent moment before your lips descend to his, sending tremble through his body, his heart, his very soul.
“My husband… my king.”
“My wife… my beautiful queen, my precious, my heart,” he whispers in return, choking on the last word, because his heart truly has just returned, beating its way out of his chest, brought by the woman the stars themselves had conspired to lead him to, only to steal her and then give her back. The stars, the gods, the fairies, it does not matter as long as you’d get to stay.
And again, your wit, your impeccable ability to read him like the very book of poetry he had given you years ago, have you caress his face with your fingertips, one of his hands leaving your nape to keep your other hand warm, and whisper to him:
“And she told me I’d get to kiss my husband again… and to hold my son, after only watching him grow in the loving hands of the kindest man there ever was and I shall have the chance to do it all for a very, very long time.”
Steve brushes the unruly hair from your face and kisses you softly – all but a meagre reminder of the overwhelming love humming in his very being. He sits up, wrapping you around him, legs around his waist, arms around his shoulders, and stands up, rising full of life and strength as if he has not lied awake all night; he lifts you both, carrying you from the garden, to ensure you could do exactly as you said.
“You will, my love. You will.”
Of that – he vows to himself and to the gods above with gravity of the word of the king, a warrior, a father and a husband – I will make sure.
He will. For the rest of his days, he will.
Are you just a conjuring
…or can I keep you?
S.R. masterlist // Complete masterlist
There we go... I suppose that due to the magical elements here, this can be read as the fic for this year's Walpurgis Night. May yours mbe a good one, may you May be sweet 🌸
Thank you for reading 💕 thoughts, rants, yells and reblogs are always welcomed 🥰
