#enhanced reader

Addiction and overdoses are not specific to Hell’s Kitchen, or even New York City. Matt knows that, he owns a small law firm in an urban area, and he’s well versed in the crime underbelly of said urban area. 

But recently, he’s noticed a spike in unconventional overdoses; He goes out at night and comes across one too many bodies on the ground, usually with blood running down their face from their nose, eyes and mouth. Sometimes they don’t die from the drug, they die from choking on their own blood. 

Whatever this new mystery drug is, it’s horrible; Intravenous, he guesses, and from what he can find on his own, the effects include a buzzy, rushing high for a few hours, like Adderall, maybe, and then an intense crash, usually leading to a long, deep sleep. 

Matt spends two nights trying to find an origin, a source, anything that would help him figure out how and why these people are overdosing at such a high rate, other than this being a new street drug that is taking a lot of lives, one which has not breached the public eye just yet. So, when he gets to work on Monday, he uses his resources—

He divulges everything he knows to Karen and Foggy and asks them for help. It takes another day or so, but eventually, he has a lead, a friend of a friend of an old client who had been in and out of rehabs. 

Which lead him to this complex, the most complicated apartment layout he could imagine, a few miles away from his cozy Hell’s Kitchen apartment. This place is making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, he feels like a cat.

He just hates everything about this place. He can tell there are bright lights on too, he can hear the LED buzzing above him. It’s definitely lab-like, he found a room earlier down this long hallway with large vats—one of the drug he’s looking for, and one of blood. Whose blood, he doesn’t know. 

That’s where the copper is coming from—above the large vat of blood is a thin tube that’s currently depositing blood into it. The tube goes up into the ceiling, and that’s what Matt’s been following for the past few minutes. He’s not sure what he’s expecting to find, but whatever it is, he’s sure he won’t like it. 

He gets to the end of the hallway and stops in front of the door, taking a second to listen—there are sounds he’s not familiar with, he’s sure that there’s too much liquid sloshing around. And there’s something else—a heartbeat. A very faint one. The door is locked when he tries, but he busts the lock open easily and steps inside. 

And there you are. 

You’re not awake, or maybe you are, just barely. He’s not sure. But your breathing is shallow, and your heartbeat indicates to him that you’re quite drugged up yourself. You’re on a standing table, strapped in but tilted back enough where you don’t have to keep yourself standing on two feet; not that you could, even if you wanted to. 

There’s an IV coming from your arm. Maybe fluids to keep you alive, but he’s sure there must be some kind of drugs in there to keep you loopy. Around your face, he notes another tube—a nose cannula provides oxygen to you, and Matt has to assume you desperately need it; especially when he notices the needles sticking out of your skin. 

They’re large things with a glass tube on top of them, connecting to smaller, plastic tubes that all converge into the tube Matt had been following to get here. There are seven of them—three on each arm, and one right into your abdomen. From what he can tell, you’re wearing a sports bra and sweatpants, no socks, no shoes. 

You barely move, barely breathe, and your skin is drained of any flushness, your hands lightly shaking. He peels off his gloves before taking hold of one with both of his hands and feeling the cold, clamminess of them. 

Someone is working awfully hard to keep you alive. 

In an instant, he’s working to try and get the needles off you. You barely stir as he eases the needles out of you, careful not to hurt you. He’s sure he won’t have much time once he gets the needles out, so he works quickly. When the needles are out, he takes the IV out next, and then takes off the nose cannula, before working at your shackles. 

When those are off, you almost fall off the table—but he catches you, your body limp in his arms. He holds you close, cradling you like you’re precious. You’re just some kid, he reasons, and you need to be saved from whoever is harvesting the life from you, literally. 

You squirm a bit in his arms, and he winces. 

“It’s alright, you’re going to be okay.” He says gently, and you must believe him, since you curl into him. 

He thinks about taking you to the hospital, but he’s sure that whoever had you here will look there first. So, he does the only thing he can think to and begins to carry you back to his apartment. You’re still asleep, but he keeps his focus on your heartbeat, making sure that as he makes his way through the shadows, you don’t die. 

You make it back and since it’s been about an hour by the time he makes it there, and you’re still alive, Matt is semi confident that you won’t die just yet. But he lays you on his bed very gently, and before he can even think about taking his own suit off, he’s reaching to bandage your arms. The needles were big, so he’s sure they’ll scar. You have three bandages wrapped around different parts of each of your arms, and then he tenderly places a bandage on your side. 

He checks for other injuries, but he’s sure you’re just weak from the drugs and the blood draining. Or at least, he really fucking hopes so. He gets you a small washcloth, wetting it and squeezing to make sure it’s not dripping, before going back to you.

He listens for your heartbeat again and finds it still thumping. 

“Brave girl,” he whispers softly as he brushes some hair from your face, before placing the cold cloth on your forehead. He’s sure you can’t hear him, but he speaks anyways, “What happened to you?” He wonders quietly. 

That’s about all he can do for you until you wake up. So, reluctantly, he pulls himself from your side, and begins to strip, needing desperately to wash the smell of that place off of him—he wishes you’d be free of the scent too. After scrubbing every inch of his skin with a body wash that only barely smells like vanilla, Matt dresses in a pair of sweats, similar to yours, and an old ratty henley tee shirt. He brushes his teeth, washes his face, and slips his crucifix on, wondering what saints were looking after you while you were being.. tortured? Experimented on? 

Saint Jude, he thinks, Patron saint of desperate and lost causes, or Saint Dismas, patron saint of prisoners. Or maybe, he thinks more bitterly, Saint Januarius, patron saint of blood banks.

He stands in between his bedroom and the kitchen, scratching the back of his neck.

Then, he moves to go make you a sandwich. You’ll be hungry when you wake up, won’t you? Who knows when the last time you ate was—then, he’s reaching for a glass, too. You’ll be thirsty. He can’t fix whatever’s happened to you, but he can absolutely make sure you aren’t wanting for food or water when you wake up. 

He places the plate, complete with some chips he found, on his nightstand near the bed, along with the water.  Then, he realizes you might be cold or want to change when you wake up. He goes to find old clothes that might fit you. 

It’s a real ‘if you give a mouse a cookie’ situation with him. 

Eventually, when he’s sure he’s accounted for everything that you could possibly need or want when you wake up, he grabs the pillow your head is not resting on and stands next to the bed, trying to convince himself to go sleep on the couch. 

He can’t help it. He leans down, kisses your head, and then, turns to make his way out of the room. He stops at the doorway, turning his head back in your direction, just to make sure your heart is still beating, before making his way to the couch, making sure to leave the door cracked open. 

He doesn’t sleep particularly well, what with the mysterious prisoner in his bed, but he does manage to get some sleep. In the morning, when he goes to check on you, you’re still dead asleep. But your heartbeat is stronger than it was, and that’s encouraging, at least.

He replaces the cloth on your head with a fresh one, using it to wipe sweat off your face and neck, as well. He goes back and forth with it for about an hour, trying to decide if he should go to work or not. What if you’re not here when he gets back? 

But, he reasons with himself—even if you do wake up before he gets home, which, he doubts you will, he’s sure you won’t be strong enough to get very far. Besides, maybe you’d appreciate being saved, being left in a warm bed with a plate of food and a change of clothes not too far from you. The office isn’t too far, either, he can keep an ear out for you.

Besides, he knows that if Karen and Foggy don’t hear from him, they’ll only worry. So, reluctantly, he gets ready for work. 

And the day drags, of course. Fridays always do. He almost stays three separate times and then goes when he remembers he doesn’t have any other substantial food in the apartment. You’ll definitely be hungry when you wake up, he remembers, so you need more than a ham and cheese sandwich. He does tell Foggy and Karen about you, who immediately start looking through missing persons files. He doesn’t see the point—he really doesn’t know what you look like, only that you’re weak and scarred. Besides, maybe when you wake up, he’ll learn exactly who you are. 

It takes him a couple of minutes at the Chinese place to decide what you’d like. He doesn’t know you, he reminds himself, but he’s tired, and he’s finding it hard to be focused on anything except the girl in his bed, like he’s known you for years. 

He settles on sweet and sour chicken and some fried rice. Carbs, sodium, and sugars will be good for you, he’s sure. He gets himself beef and broccoli, always preferring this place for how they clean they kept it, how their food never tasted like chemicals or soap. Besides, it was good food. The meal comes with two egg rolls. 

He trudges his way up the apartment stairs, noting the way the day both dragged on and passed with a snap of his fingers, but he’s about to have a much bigger problem on his hands. At the door, he listens for your heartbeat and finds it much faster than when he left. Are you scared? Well, you did wake up in an unfamiliar place. 

He comes inside, before placing the takeout on the coffee table near the door. He takes off his jacket, places his cane to the side, and rolls up the sleeves of his button up before following the sound of your heartbeat into his bedroom. The sandwich is half eaten, the chips demolished and the water gone. 

He listens for a minute, before locating you in his closet—Wait, his closet? You’re sitting in his armoire, curled up on top of the trunk he keeps his suit in. Why are you in there, he wonders? 

He makes his way towards the closet, and then stops, hesitating. Just opening the door might spook you, so he knocks. When he doesn’t hear any reaction, he slowly opens the door. When the light hits your eyes, you squint, taking in the site of this new captor you’ve found yourself next to. He wears dark glasses, and you’re trying to recall what that might mean. You’re sure you would’ve known once upon a time. 

Matt crouches down in front of you, so you’re more eye level. You haven’t changed clothes, he notes. Before Matt can say anything, you pull your knees closer to your chest and start to growl, like a frightened animal. He frowns, then sits on his butt and takes a scootch back so you don’t feel so threatened. He crosses his legs. 

“Hi.” He says softly, “I didn’t mean to scare you, I’m sorry.” He starts. You don’t respond. “But I’m not going to hurt you.” He promises. 

You don’t believe him. But you do stop growling. He exhales softly, not sure why he’s so relieved. 

“I found you in a lab, there was.. well, I guess I don’t need to tell you what state I found you in. But you’ll be safe here.” He says, and then, when you still don’t respond, “I’m Matt.” He says next. 

A long beat of silence. 

And Matt finds himself talking again. 

“It’s okay if you don’t remember your name, but I’d like to know it if you do.” He offers, “Maybe I could help you, find someone who cares about you, who’s worried for you.”

You know two things: Your name, and that you are completely alone. No one is coming to save you. They never were. But this Matthew (How do you know Matt is short for Matthew, you wonder, how do you know anything?) is sitting in front of you and, while you know what men are capable of, you don’t detect any signs of aggression. You don’t trust him, but you know he’s brought you away from that terrible place. 

So, you whisper your name. Matthew echoes it, and it’s weird to hear your name fall from the lips of another person after so long. Then, Matthew does something you find strange. He smiles. 

It’s an awfully pretty smile, and you attempt to bare your teeth back at him, but it doesn’t feel like smiling, it just feels like showing off your canines and molars. He stands, then, and you’re almost dizzy with how much larger than you, curled up in this dark corner, he is.  He offers you his hand. 

“C’mon, it can’t be very comfortable in there. Besides, I got dinner. Or you could shower, change, whatever you want to do.” And despite your instinct, despite every inch of you screaming to run far far away from his kindness, you take his hand. 

Without another word, Matthew leads you out of the closet, and to the main room where he has the food. 

“You can, uh.. sit down. Do you want something to drink?” he asks, as you stand by the couch, quiet and staring at the door. You could leave. You could run. Why aren’t you running? Isn’t this what you’ve wanted for years, to run? He tilts his head at you. “Kid? You okay?” he wonders, and you look at him. He holds up two cans of soda. “Coke or Dr. Pepper?” He asks, not wanting to push on whatever that moment was. 

You reach forward and take the coke can, the idea of sugar making your mouth watery. Food is a luxury for you, and the scent of the food coming from the takeout bag Matt is reaching for is intoxicating. He pulls the containers out much too slowly for your liking, and then, you’re sitting on his couch in front of his coffee table as he reveals the spread of greasy, delicious New York City American Chinese food that you’ll be able to devour. 

“The chicken is for you, help yourself to the rice.” He puts the container of sicky sweet red sauce in front of you too, and then he’s sitting down to eat his beef with broccoli, his fork picking up a scoopful as you—

As you start pulling pieces of chicken out of the container with your hands, shoveling it into your mouth like you haven’t eaten in days. It’s so good, you cannot help yourself. You could cry, it’s so good—you won’t, you hate crying in front of anyone, but you could—and then you’re reaching for the sauce container, ripping off the lid to start drinking it, and that’s when Matt decides he needs to step in. 

“Okay, hey—” he leans forward to grab your hands, and you flinch, looking at him with wide, horrified eyes. He stops and sighs, noticing your tension. “It’s alright. It’s okay, I’m not upset. But if you eat like that, you’ll make yourself sick.” He promises and then hands you a fresh fork. “Here, use this.” 

You stare at the fork. You remember forks, you’re sure. You can identify the name of it, but you can’t remember quite how to use it. Your hand wraps around the stem, and you begin to stab at your chicken like it’s a knife. Matt doesn’t mind. He doesn’t say anything, just keeps eating. He gets the sense you don’t want to talk about whatever it is you’ve been through, and he won’t push. 

You eat in silence, and then, you manage the words out, after a long, disgusting slurp of cold soda. 

“Thank you.” You say quietly, and Matt smiles at you again. You look down at your food. 

He helps you when your stabbing method doesn’t work on the rice, showing you how to hold the fork properly. In the back of his mind, Matt keeps wondering what happened to you, and more than that, he’s wondering how long you had been isolated. 

But, he decides, when you finally are full, and you lean back, stretching your limbs, your bandages still around the wounds of those horrible needles, that for now all he needs to do is let you heal. Let you rest. Everything else can come after he makes sure you know he won’t let anything else hurt you. 

You find the shower when you’re done eating and after showing you how to use it and offering a fresh set of clothes, Matt leaves you alone as he cleans up dinner, but the sound of your sobs coming from the bathroom makes him pause. But you’ve been through so much, he reasons, you’re more than allowed to cry.

When you come out of the shower, clean and no longer smelling like blood and antiseptic, Matt rewraps your wounds with fresh bandages, and asks, 

“Do you need anything else? Are you tired, would you like to go to bed?” He asks, and you are tired, you won’t deny that... but, your eyes drift to the two egg rolls that sit on the table still. Matt smiles a little. “Just so you know, I can’t see. Not with my eyes anyways.” Your head tilts at this. “But I can tell you’re eyeing those egg rolls.” He reaches over and picks up the container, offering them to you. “Go on, take one.” And you do. 

You take a large, crunchy bite, and remember that you like egg rolls. They’re delicious, you’re quickly recalling.

Matt must sense this, although you’re not sure if that’s part of his ‘seeing but not with his eyes’ thing, so he tells you that you can have his, too. 

-

You like Matthew’s friends. In the small bit of your brain where you can access memories from before the lab, memories you can only reach on the brink of falling asleep or right when you wake up, you’re sure you’d be good friends with them if you were normal. 

You’re not sure if they like you. 

Matt had asked Karen and Foggy to come over to meet you yesterday, when he was sure you were settled in enough to not freak out on him. 

“Dude.” Is all Foggy has said for the past half hour. You look normal, besides for the big tee shirts you’ve stolen from Matt. You’re wearing pants that are a size too big for you, and socks that are thick and soft. They feel like cuffs after years of being barefoot, but you’re managing. 

“Dude.” You chirp back, smiling up at them from your place on the couch. Karen sits on the other end of the couch, looking at you.

“This is insane, you must see that!” Foggy demands and you shake your head, tapping the space between your eyes. 

“Can’t see.” You offer. Matt sighs, hands on his hips. It’s your favorite thing to say, anytime anyone makes an indication that Matt might be able to see, figuratively or not, whether it’s Matt himself or someone else. 

His one hand leaves his hip and rests on your head for a second. 

“Yes, Kid, we know, I can’t see.” Then, he’s turning back to Foggy to continue their conversation. 

“She hasn’t told you anything except her name? She doesn’t remember anything about who took her, or—” You bring your knees to your chest, curling into yourself. Karen cuts herself off, tilting her head when she notices your change in body language. “You don’t want to talk about it, do you?” She wonders, and you shake your head. She watches as you get this far away look in your eyes. 

She shares a look with Foggy, and Matt steps away from you, closer to them. In a low voice, he begins to talk, 

“Listen, whatever happened to her, I know it’s bad. I know it kind of..” he sighs. “Broke her brain, I guess. I don’t even know how long she was in there for, and you guys know that even a few weeks of torture and isolation can destroy someone, let alone..” his head tilts back to where you sit, as you begin to rock a bit, before your hands move to play with the blanket that drapes over the couch, picking at stray bits of fiber. You hum a tune none of them recognize, and Matt has noticed you do this when you’re stressed. You make sounds, instead of words. 

Humming, purring, growling, cooing. 

Foggy sighs. 

“I’ll call my sister, see if she has any old clothes she’s not using. They’re about the same size. Then, I’ll see if I can get my hands on some missing persons reports that match her description.” He offers, unable to deny his bleeding heart. 

“I’ll talk to Ellis,” Karen offers, “See if he has any leads on the manufacturers who had her.” 

“Thank you,” Matt smiles, and your eyes drift up to watch the three of them, talking at the other end of the couch. You feel the familiar bitter swirl of jealousy in your stomach. Would anyone ever love you as much as Matt loves his friends, and his friends love him? Had anyone, before you knew nothing, except pain and blood? 

You feel the familiar urge to run, to get as far away as possible, but you can’t move. You also want to cry, but you force yourself not to, as you stare at the glass of water Matt had poured for Karen when she came in, forcing yourself to stare at it instead of one of them. 

Their chatter becomes dull noise in a roar of dissociation, static filling your brain as you relish in all the terrible things floating around in your brain. 

You’ve always been alone, you’re sure. You don’t know exactly how long you’d been in the lab, but you’re sure it was a long time, long enough that it’s strange that no one ever came for you. Maybe you went willingly. Maybe you went by your own accord, and that would mean that this is all your fault. That you did this to yourself, that you deserve the scars from those needles, since no one forced you to be experimented on, you did this all to yourself. 

You sink deeper into the darkness. Into the blood that sloshes around your brain, blurring your memories. 

Why do you even let Matt help you? You don’t deserve it. You’re only putting him in more danger, more than you’re worth. You’re not worth anything, you’re a blood bank, remember? Matt, maybe he made a mistake, when he saved you. He’s good, he helps people, he’s so kind, and you’re horrible. You’re angry, and bitter, and sad, and selfish. Maybe you should’ve just died in that lab. 

The water starts to bubble like it’s being boiled on the table. 

You’re just not worth all of this effort, not when you’ve done so many horrible things, not when your blood has been used for things you can’t even begin to describe, not when you did this to yourself. Maybe there’s still time to fix it, you reason—maybe you should just end it. Maybe you should just kill—

The glass of water shatters, glass and water spilling everywhere. All three heads turn to it as Karen gasps, obviously surprised. Your eyes are wide with surprise too. You’re trembling now, and you can smell blood, but you’re not sure why. You’re dizzy. Your chest heaves up and down, and Matt notices your frenzied state. 

He frowns, and grabs a rag from his kitchen, going over to the coffee table. His head tilts towards yours with a gentle smile as he begins to clean it up, 

“It’s okay. No harm done, it was an old glass, anyways.” He assures, scooping glass into the wet rag. He goes to dump it out in the trash, and as he passes Karen and Foggy, he mumbles, “Oh, yeah. There’s that too.” 

You put your head between your knees and try to breathe. You only flinch when you feel a warm hand on your head, gently petting your hair.

-

One night, Matt wakes up to the sound of you crying. Your gentle sobs wrack your body from the other room, as you try and control your breathing. And although every bone in Matt’s body is aching for sleep, he pulls himself up off the couch, rubs his eyes and makes his way to his bedroom. 

He’s been sleeping on the couch since you got here, and he can’t deny that he misses his bed. But he’s happy to give you your privacy, sure that you aren’t used to that luxury. Besides, he feels bad that he falls asleep to the thought of you every night. Not because he’s worried for you, but because he longs to be close to you. 

He’s definitely going to hell. This alone is enough to damn him. 

He wears dark sweatpants and an old Columbia tee shirt, and the sound of your crying is making his heart ache. He can’t help himself as his feet begin to move towards the bedroom door. He stops there, listening for a long moment. You’re crying, but your movements are subtle. You’re twitching, and Matt’s face softens when he realizes you’re having a nightmare. 

He opens the door as quietly as he can, and makes his way over to his bed, where you’re sobbing in your sleep, flinching like you’re hurting, your leg moving like you’re trying to run. He goes over to the bed and sits near your head, his hand gently resting on your arm. 

“Hey,” he begins, “Hey, kid, c’mon, wake up.” He tries, gently shaking you, and when you keep crying he sighs, “C’mon, brave girl, wake up for me, I promise, you’re okay. I wouldn’t let anything hurt you.” He leans down to press a kiss to your forehead, and you choose that exact moment to wake up, and move your head right up—your forehead hitting Matt’s nose with a light crunch!, as you panic, gasping for air as you move away from him. 

Matt whimpers and scrunches his face, his hand coming up to hold his nose. But you didn’t hit hard enough to break his nose or draw blood, so he’s not super worried about it. However, you know he’s hurting, and you feel horrible, because all Matt has done is save you, feed you, try to make you feel safe, and you hurt him. 

God, what a waste of space you are. 

You keep crying, and you hate yourself for it. For all of it, but especially this. You swore of crying in front of anyone a long time ago, so long you can’t remember when you did, back when you still had some sort of resolve, when you didn’t want to show whoever was hurting you how vulnerable you really were.

Matt reaches for you instinctively. 

“Hey, it’s alright,” he says it softly, like he’s talking to a skittish animal, which, you’re not too far off from, “You’re safe, I’ve got you, baby,” he says, and neither of you are in the state to address that slip. “Can I hold you?” He requests, and you only sob, wishing to go home. 

Where even is home? Did you ever have one? Do you have parents out there, somewhere? Folks who raised you, who made you soup when you were sick, who knew when your birthday was, and never missed it? 

Matt takes your crying as a yes, scooting over a bit and wrapping his arms around you, pulling you close. He cradles you close, your head tucked under his chin. Your nose rubs against his Adam’s apple, against the bottom of his scruff, as his hand gently pets your hair. You clutch his other arm with both of your hands, afraid he’ll disappear. You don’t stop crying. 

“It was just a nightmare. You’re safe here, I’ve got you.” He whispers it over and over again, like a prayer, just barely rocking you. “Just a nightmare.” 

A nightmare you can barely remember now, but it felt so real. 

Your tears slow, simply because you have nothing left to give. You’re still trembling. Matt hates it when you shake. Just tell me how to fix it, he wants to say, but that would be a load of shit—he can’t fix what you’ve been through. He can’t even fix how you’re feeling right now. 

But even if you’re not crying, you’re still hyperventilating, so he starts to rub slow circles into your back with his hand. 

“Kid, you have to breathe. Just breathe with me, okay? In,” He inhales, listening for you to follow suite, and then exhales, “Out.” The two of you sit like this for a long moment as you match his breathing, no longer breathing in a way that deprives your brain or your lungs of the necessary oxygen. Matt thinks of the nose cannula you had on when he first met you. “Do you want me to go get you a glass of water? Or I can go—” But you start shaking again at the idea of him leaving. 

Your hands cling to him, gripping his arm tighter. 

“Stay.” You request, and Matt nods, pulling you closer. 

He presses a kiss to your head. 

“Okay, I’ll stay. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.” He says softly. 

And true to his word, Matt holds you until the sun rises, and you’re completely sure you’re not in any danger. Although, in the back of your mind, you are worried for the way you melt into him, the way you trust him, the way you wish you could stay in his arms forever. 

-

You haven’t eaten in days and Matt’s beginning to get worried. He knows you, or at least, he likes to pretend that he does. Aren’t you hungry? 

You haven’t had much of an appetite lately, anyways, but you usually can stomach some soup or something light. 

But for the past three days, you haven’t had an appetite at all; Matt knows it’s hard, he’s had a hard time taking care of himself before, but he can’t help but wonder what he could do to help you eat something. You were so fucking hungry when you first met, where did that go? Where is his girl that would shovel handfuls of takeout into her mouth? 

As a compromise with himself, he decides to tuck you into bed and tells you he’ll be back in a few hours, that Daredevil must make an appearance for the night. It’s been a few days since he’s really let himself get into it. 

He spends hours throwing punches, swinging kicks and getting punched right back. He crawls into the apartment at around three in the morning, sweaty and smelling as he tries to make his way through a rattled brain and into the shower. But he hears you in the kitchen, rummaging through the fridge. So, he heads towards you. 

“Hey, kid,” He says as he limps towards the kitchen, pulling off his helmet. His hair is drenched in sweat, sticking to his forehead despite the short length, “What’re you doing up?” he asks, and you stop, not realizing he was there. 

You slowly turn towards him, a mouth full of raw ground beef as your hands dig into the package you have taken the raw meat from. You don’t say much, you tend not to, and Matt really doesn’t mind. Except, maybe, for the fact that you’re the lovely girl he’s been developing feelings for, and he wishes he could hear more of your voice. 

You let out something resembling a coo, and then clear your throat,

“Hungry.” You tell him, scooping a big handful of ground beef into your mouth letting out a hum as you enjoy the texture. Matt frowns softly and goes over to you. He has no idea what’s wrong with you, why the first thing you’ve eaten in days is raw meat. 

“I know, I mean,” He pulls off thick gloves and sighs, “I bet you are. This is the first time I’ve seen you eat in days.” He reminds, approaching you. You don’t flinch, you just reach for another bite, and Matt lets you have it. 

Then, you shake your head. 

“Can’t see.” Your pointer finger comes up to run along the bridge of Matt’s nose, right between his eyes. He tenses a bit, a small smile on his face as you rub small grains of raw beef on his forehead. 

“Yeah, you’re right. I meant I know you haven’t eaten in days. I’ve been worried about you.” He confesses. You tilt your head. 

“Not worried.” You assure, with a small shake of your head. Matt smiles a bit. 

‘Yeah, I know you’re not worried. You’re never worried about you. That’s why I am.” He reminds, and when he senses you going for another bite of the raw beef, he gently wraps his fingers around your wrist. “You can’t keep eating raw meat. You’ll get sick.” You let out a whine and try to pull your wrist back, and Matt lets you but he also pulls the raw beef from your hands, and then you whine louder. “I know, I’m sure it tastes good, but you’ll get sick, and you’ll feel awful, honey.” 

You pause. 

“Honey?” 

Matt sighs, feeling bad about the slip up. He shouldn’t be using pet names for you, he has no idea how much you do or do not understand about the world around you. It’s why he feels so bad that he likes you so much. He tosses and turns, goes back and forth, is it even okay, morally, to fall for someone if you don’t know that they understand what love is? Does it make him even more of a sinner than he thought? 

“It’s just a nickname. For friends, I guess.” Matt sighs. 

“We are friends?” You ask, and Matt nods. 

“We are. We take care of each other, right?” He wonders, and if you had the words, you’d tell him that he takes care of you far more than you take care of him. You look from your hands, covered in specs of meat, then to Matt, sweaty, tired and a little bit beaten up. You frown softly when you notice a cut on his head. 

“Matthew Hurt,” You chirp, and you go to touch his forehead, but again, his hand wraps around your wrist, oh, so gently, 

“I’ll live. It’s okay. Can you wash your hands, please?” He really does not need your ground beef hands on him. Again. And you oblige, washing your hands as he sticks the raw meat in the fridge again, and when you turn back to him, you reach past him to try and get into the fridge, but he’s blocking your reach. 

“Hungry.” You echo, and Matt sighs. 

“I know,” He promises, “I’ll get you whatever you want.. but raw meat isn’t good for you. I could cook it for you, if you want.” And to that, you make a face, with a disgusted ‘ick’, sticking your tongue out. “Okay, I won’t cook it for you. How about..” Matt turns, goes back into the fridge and finds edible cookie dough. He hands you the tub, and you take it begrudgingly. 

“Fine.” You grumble, and you open the tub of cookie dough, taking a scoop. The sweetness makes you hum, licking the dough off your fingers. “Thank you, honey.” You hum, and Matt smiles. 

“You’re welcome. How about you eat, while I shower?” He wonders. You know this is the routine, even if you’re usually asleep for it. 

“Then we cuddle?” You wonder, and Matt smiles. Sure, he shouldn’t be falling for you, but how could he deny such a request? 

“If that’s what you want, then sure.” He promises, “But no more eating raw meat, okay?” He confirms and you take a second. Then, you nod. 

“Okay.” 

-

Matt doesn’t really care about bookstores, especially the big ones, mostly because they’re usually too loud for a store with a limited number of books he can actually read. But you’ve made your way through the two or three books that had been left at his place from old flings at least twice. 

So, of course, he stands a foot away as your fingers graze against the spines of various books. You’re examining all of the titles, trying to find something familiar. You know, from the few books you’ve been able to get your hands on since meeting Matt, that you really like reading—

You’re sure you did. You miss feeling normal, even though you cannot remember what that was really like. Matt keeps assuring you that it’ll get easier, that you won’t feel this way forever. You don’t respond when he says this, but you want to tell him that maybe this is it; this is as normal as you’ll ever be. 

You find yourself in the young adult section—why, you do not know. Then, you pluck a book from the stands, finding a.. familiar title. The Hunger Games. You blink, startled. You know this book. 

You love this book. 

Although, you cannot for the life of you remember why, or what the story is about.

You clutch the book in your hands and immediately open it, starting to read the first page, and although you don’t remember the contents of the story now, you are hooked on every single word. 

In the middle of the aisle, you sit down, your eyes still following the sentences, only getting to the end of the page when you hear Matthew’s voice—

“Honey, you can’t just sit in the middle of the aisle and start reading. We’re here to shop, remember?”

“Can’t. Your favorite word.” You’re getting better at full sentences, and Matt is hoping that through reading, you’ll only get better.

“I’m sorry,” He sits down next to you in the aisle, and you find yourself not minding his closeness. “Was that sass?” he wonders, and you glare at him, although there’s no anger in it. Not yet. You know he’s teasing. You hate it when he teases, your face always gets too red. But you hate the silence more.

“I want to read.” You grumble, looking down at the page. You squirm when you feel Matt’s hand on the back of your neck. 

“I know,” he promises, and he’s honestly on the verge of pissing you off. You really like him, he’s the only person you feel safe with, and yet, you can feel yourself grow frustrated. He’s cooing at you, like you’re stupid, but you’re not stupid, you just don’t have the words to express yourself, not like everyone else does. “But we should find you more books, that way we can—”

“No.” You say firmly, turning the page of your book. You want to know more, you want to understand why you feel so drawn to this book, why it was so important to you once upon a long fucking time ago, and Matt doesn’t understand. Does he understand what it’s like to lose everything, to feel so disconnected from who you once were? 

“Kid, I know, you want to read, but—”

Oh, my god, you hate this. Why isn’t he listening to you? He’s supposed to be on your side, and you can feel your heart beating faster with frustration, your head rushing—you can hear the blood rushing through your skull, and you hate it more than you hate this frustration--

“No!” You snap, and when you do, a nearby light overhead goes out with a dramatic snap!, causing numerous gasps to erupt form nearby patrons, and you close your eyes, trying to get control of your breathing. You can’t think about Matt right now, can’t think about how horrible you feel. Why are you like this? Once you’re sure you won’t do it again, you open your eyes to look at Matt. “I did not…” you shake your head, and his face is tilted up towards the light, face twisted in confusion, as if he’s trying to figure the light out. 

“I know,” he repeats, and you exhale, trying to not get more upset. “I’m not mad—"

“Say something else.” You demand, and his shoulders deflate. He nods, before continuing, 

“Maybe you could read some of your book to me.” He offers, and your lips tilt up a bit, the tension melting from your shoulders. 

“Okay.” You say softly, and then Matt gently rubs your arm up, and down. 

“Would you like to pick out a few more books? Maybe we could stop by the CD section, too.” He offers, and you smile more. You glance down to your book, and you know you can’t keep being so stubborn, that you need to agree to going with him, because he’s assuming you can’t understand as much as he does. 

“No money.” You sigh. 

Matt shakes his head and waves his hand, like it doesn’t even matter. 

“My treat.” He says, and then he stands up, and offers you his hand. “C’mon. I’m getting hungry, anyways.” You know he’s not, but he always says that when your stomach rumbles, and you’re wondering if he’ll always have the upper hand on reading you, on knowing your cues. 

Then, you think it’s nice to be known so well, and you can’t find it in yourself to be angry about it. 

-

You find that you really love the sun. You love the way the warmth feels on your skin and you love the brightness of it—closing your eyes and tilting your head right up to see all these different dull oranges behind your eyelids. 

Maybe Summer was your favorite season, before. Maybe you had days like these, before. 

Karen hates that you’re always so cooped up in Matt’s apartment. He’s your only friend, and when he’s at work, Karen wonders what you do to keep yourself entertained all day. Matt says you have books and music, but how fulfilling can that really be? 

So, Karen asked you if you wanted to go to the farmer’s market they were having by the docks. When the sun shines and it’s warm, the people of New York tend to come out of hibernation, so Matt was a little worried about you being suddenly around so many people. 

But he didn’t save you from that lab just for you to stay cooped up in his apartment all day when he’s not around. He told you that you should go. 

You wore one of Matt’s button ups and a pair of shorts he had gotten for you, your shirt only half tucked in, sleeves rolled up to your elbows. Your arm hooks around Karen’s, mostly because it’s what you’re so used to doing with Matt. She smells different than him, though, more like lavender and clean laundry than his coffee-cologne, hint of vanilla scent. You don’t mind, it’s a good different. Ten minutes into your exploration of the farmers market, you bought a small bouquet of roses, before picking the petals and popping them in your mouth. You tried Karen’s strawberry matcha from one of the booths, and you thought it was fine. You sipped a lemonade as she perused some pretty crochet creations that a young woman with many piercings was selling—you were amazed by her piercings.

Overall, you were having a nice day. 

You’ve been happily humming for a few minutes now, letting yourself be guided by Karen, only occasionally pulling her towards something that catches your eye. 

Your eyes scan the crowd, back and forth, just looking. Maybe you’re watching for danger, although, you aren’t sure what danger there would be in this place like this, where younger kids wander far from their parents who don’t want to stop their wine tasting to look at blind boxes. 

Your eyes land on a man—he’s staring at Karen. He’s staring at her like he wants something, and it makes your nose twitch. You don’t like it. Your humming ceases as you stare the man down, your gaze hardening as Karen finishes buying some tea she knows Foggy wanted to try. She turns back to you when she hears you start to growl, the type of low, back of the throat growl a pitbull might do when they sense danger. 

You’re not sure why, but as you glare at him, your ears start to ring, and you hear the rushing of blood—but not your blood. His.

You’re weird. She knows that. She doesn’t really mind it, all things considered. But, she’s trying to learn your cues. 

“What’s wrong?” She asks, then follows your gaze to the man who’s staring at her. She scoffs and then rolls her eyes. “Weirdo. Don’t worry about him, okay?” You can’t stop worrying about him even if you wanted to, but you’re pulled back to reality when Karen hooks her arm with yours again, before smiling. “Don’t worry,” She taps her bag with her hand, and you listen to the faintest click of metal, “Mine’s bigger than his.” 

You don’t fully know what the joke is here, but she says it with the same cadence as Matt does when he’s joking, so you know she’s not worried or upset. So, you laugh, and it makes Karen laugh—and the two of you walk away from the staring man to go get lunch at one from one of the vendors on the other side of the farmer’s market. 

When you find something yummy, you and Karen sit next to each other on a bench, people watching as you eat and sip, like nothing about either of you is anything except completely normal. 

And then, your mouth starts to water when you notice a pig being set up to be roasted, still raw, and the illusion of normalcy is broken.  

-

You have good days and bad days. 

Today is a bad day. 

You wake up restless. You wake up unable to find words, unable to talk. You’re looking over your shoulder all through breakfast. You’re watching Matt get ready for work. You’re tapping your foot anxiously, as if you’re trying to outrun your fears, all while sitting in the same place. 

You know there’s uncooked steaks in the fridge, and you have this desire to sink your teeth into them, lick the drops blood out of the container. Everything is wrong. You can hear Matt’s blood swirling through his veins. You’re dizzy. 

“Doin’ okay over there?” He asks, a small smile on his face. He really tries to keep a sense of normalcy when you have these bad days, but it’s not easy. He’s worried about you, he’s so fucking worried, and you won’t talk to him. 

You let out a whine, and the smile drops from his face.

“I’m sorry, honey,” he starts gently. “Is it the food? Can I get you something else?” 

Of course it’s the food, but It’s also everything else. 

You whine again, burying your face in your hands. Matt’s frown deepens, and he steps closer to you. 

“I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me,” He reminds, and you want to kill him. You’ve never had that thought about Matt before, it scares you, but you’re mad. You’re mad that he doesn’t understand that you can’t, that the words aren’t even available for you to use. You want to cry, but something in you insists that you don’t, that you cannot show vulnerability, even to this man that you lo—really enjoy the company of. 

Matt sighs at your silence, as his shoulders fall. 

“Okay.” He nods, “Okay. Then, I have to go to work.” He moves away from you and goes to the door to get his jacket. You’re up in an instant, following him. The only thing worse than him being so close is him not being here at all. Your breathing becomes uneven as you struggle with the thought of being without him. You need him, you think, you cannot live without him, you won’t—you’re not safe here without him, you’re not safe anywhere without him. 

Matt is also dealing with an internal conflict. He wants to hold you, cradle you close. But you need to work through your emotions, you need to be able to not shut down every time you have a bad day, you need to heal. And if he babies you, if he keeps running to your aid whenever you whine, you never will. 

And then you’ll spend the rest of your days in this apartment, where he’ll fall deeper and deeper in love with you. 

Besides, Matt never claimed to be a perfect man. 

You grab at his arm, pulling him away from the door. It doesn’t do much, instead leaving Matt more annoyed than before. 

“No, C’mon, you know I have to go.” But this isn’t good enough for you. You tug harder, willing yourself to communicate without words that you need him, that you’re sorry, that you’ll never ever do anything bad ever again. Matt sighs, before putting his free hand on his hip like a disappointed mother. “Tell me. Use your words and tell me you want me to stay, and I will.”

You try. You open your mouth to tell him, but the words die in your throat. In your captivity, you had forgotten how to speak. Now, the effects of what you have gone through render you speechless once more. 

Matt tries not to let his frustration show on his face. 

He moves his hand from yours and brings it up to your face, cupping your cheek. 

“I’m sorry. I gotta go. But I’ll bring home food, we’ll have a nice meal, and I’ll hold you for as long as you want. I promise, Honey, it’ll all be okay—”

But you’re not listening to a word he says. Your eyes are glued onto his arm, static and the sound of rushing blood filling your ears again. Your mouth starts to water, and whatever primal instinct that has aided your survival up until this point wins when he retracts his hand. 

In a flash, Your teeth sink into the skin of his forearm. Not the light, teasing nibble of a lover, but the crazed, blood thirsty gnaw of an animal, one that has been tortured for too long. You draw blood, tear skin, and then, Matt pulls his arm away with a cry. 

For a moment, you don’t even feel bad. You relish in the taste of him, in the way his blood overwhelms your tastebuds, at the way his skin tastes. You don’t tear off a lot of flesh, but it’s enough, and he’s bleeding. It’s not pretty. 

Then, Matt loses it. 

“Are you.. fucking kidding me?!” He doesn’t mean to raise his voice, but you just tore a chunk out of his arm, after weeks and months of gentle care. “Did you just bite me?! I cannot believe you,” he huffs, and he doesn’t process your shaking or the way you flinch away from him. He’s just so angry. 

You back away from him, before turning and walking towards the bedroom. That makes him even angrier. 

“Hey! Don’t walk away from me!” He snaps, “You bit me like a damn animal, you do not get to walk away from me—” He follows you, but you can’t hear him. You can’t breathe, everything about this is nauseating. You walk into the bedroom, and Matt sighs. He takes a deep breath, not realizing how uneven his breathing had become. “Honey, I’m sorry, I—” 

You slam the door behind you, and Matt blinks, flabbergasted. He holds his bleeding arm with one hand but quickly drops it. 

“Fine! You want to be like that? Like a fucking stray dog that I picked up? Fine!” His hand forms a fist and he slams it against his—your bedroom door. It rattles the entire wall, and he can hear you wailing on the other side, but he’s so angry—he does have the devil in him, after all, as much as you have a deep-rooted bloodthirstiness in you. 

You cover your ears with your hands, as the lights in Matt’s room flicker, a glass mirror he had bought for you, when he realized he didn’t have one in the apartment, when he realized you probably had no idea what your reflection even looked like, cracks, and then shatters. 

Matt, too angry at himself, and honestly, at you, simply grabs a dishtowel from his kitchen, pressing it into the fresh wound in his arm. God, he’s filled with a rage he hasn’t been in months. You calm him, as strange as you are, but this is other worldly. It seems, just as much as you can calm him, you fuel the fire of rage that settles in the pit of his stomach. 

He slips on his jacket and leaves, slamming the door behind him. He forgets his cane. 

Of course, he’s angry the entire walk to the office and when he gets there. He stews, and then rants, angrily, to Karen and Foggy about it as Foggy fishes his through the first aid kit that he keeps, specifically for when Matt gets his shit rocked during the day instead of late at night. 

And then, of course, he feels horrible. 

He knows he’s allowed to feel frustrated, that he’s allowed to be upset, that even anger has it’s place. But, you’re not just a girlfriend he’s had a rough fight with. You’re the poor girl he saved from a lab, where your blood was being extracted out of you. And you’re some kind of freak of nature (Although, Matt would put it much more delicately than that), desperate for any sense of normalcy. 

And he failed you. Yes, you absolutely did bite him, and he’d have a whole conversation about that with you, but when you were vulnerable, when you really needed him, he let his emotions get the best of him and yelled at you. 

He feels awful about it all day. He barely gets any work done, but he assumes you need space. By the end of the day, his wound has clotted, and he’s called in to the Chinese place you both like to get you dinner. You were crying so much, you must be hungry. He thinks about the bitemark on his arm. 

He’s home by ten to five, but you’re not there to greet him. He places the takeout on the table near his doorway, takes off his jacket, and then his glasses. He sighs, and then he listens for where you are. 

You’re in the closet, on top of the trunk, just like the first day he really met you. He makes his way to the bedroom, and then, to the closet. He notes the broken mirror, and the pillow stained with tears. 

He knocks gently on the armoire door. 

“Honey?” he asks gently. You give no response. Matt’s heart aches in his chest. “I’m gonna open the door now.” He sighs, and then he does. You cower into the corner, like the frightened animal you are. And he can’t deny the way he missed you today. You’re whimpering, and dry heaving like you want to cry more, but you can’t. And of course, you’re trembling. Matt hates it when you shake.

He sits down in front of the closet like he did that first day. 

“My arm is fine. And I’m not mad at you.” Then, he pauses. “Well.. I am, but.. we can talk about that later. I shouldn’t have reacted like that. I should’ve stayed home.” He sighs. You still don’t respond, so he offers, “Can you please come out here, so I can hold you and apologize?” He wonders, and you, being just as devoted to him as he is to you, and having had hours to make yourself sick with guilt, completely dissipating your frustration, crawl right out of the armoire and into his lap.. like a cat. He sighs, wraps his arms around you, and just like he does when you have a nightmare, rests his chin on the top of your head as it curls into his neck.

“There she is, there’s my girl.” He mumbles, and the tiniest part of you, you’ll admit, wants to bite him again. Not out of anger, but out of a need to taste the love he has for you. You overcome that instinct. 

The two of you sit in silence for a long, long while, before he talks again. 

“I’m so sorry. I never should’ve yelled at you. You’re just.. scared, and alone..” And doesn’t he remember how that felt? How horrible it felt to have nothing, and no one? “I’m sorry.” And he presses a kiss to your head to prove it. You purr in response. He can’t help but smile. 

You trace patterns on his arms, before finding your first words since you woke up this morning,

“I’m sorry.” It’s a gentle whisper, but Matt hears it all the same. 

“I know,” He sighs. “We’re both awful, and we’re both sorry.” He decides, before shaking his head. “No, You’re not awful. I’m sorry, you’re wonderful.” He presses another kiss to your head.

But you are awful, you want to tell him, but it hurts to think, let alone talk. 

Matt holds you for a long moment, before asking, 

“Can you tilt your head up for me?” He wonders, “I want to see your face.” 

And although talking feels like a herculean task, you cannot help but offer him an olive branch. Your hand leaves his arm, and a finger traces the space between Matt’s eyes, down the bridge of his nose. 

“Can’t see.” You whisper, and Matt smiles. What a pretty smile, you think for the millionth time. 

“I know,” he says softly, “Just let me..” his hands move now, coming up to your face. Even with his senses, he needs this right now. He places his hands on your cheeks and begins to map out the details of your face with the pads of his fingertips. “Oh my god, You’re beautiful.” He says softly, and it almost comes out as a whine. 

Then, because Matt really never claimed to be a perfect man, his lips are on yours. It’s perfect. You taste of salty tears, a vague mint toothpaste and.. a copper taste he doesn’t care to think about. But you’re perfect. You’re beautiful, and you’re perfect. He’s kissing you, cradling your face with his hands, and then, he comes to his senses and pulls back.

“I’m so sorry,” he gasps, “I never should’ve—I should’ve asked you before I did that, please don’t—” But then, you’re kissing him. And he likes that even more. He responds with a hum and he continues to kiss you, your hand gently rubbing small, comforting circles around where you bit him. 

You pull away and bring his arm to your lips. He inhales sharply, and you kiss where you’ve torn his flesh with your teeth over the bandage.

“I’m sorry.” You mumble softly, and Matt shakes his head. 

“I told you, we can talk about it later.” He offers, and then he kisses you again, but he pulls away after a moment. “But maybe you should wash the taste of it out of your mouth. Just so I can keep kissing you. Then, we can have dinner.” He offers, and this seems reasonable enough, besides, you need to wipe the crust and exhaustion from your meltdown away with a warm washcloth. 

But, you can’t help yourself.

“Kiss?” You wonder, the word coming out as a chirp more than anything else. 

And of course, Matt obliges you. Even if he thinks, maybe, he can taste his own flesh on your lips. It’s not exactly a turn on, but you’re his beautiful, perfect, freak of a girl. So, he kisses you again. 

-

Well, tonight sucks. It didn’t start out so bad, not really, and then it started to rain. It always made it harder for him to be Daredevil in the rain, the extra noise always distracting him or hiding sounds. As he made his way home, it really started to pour, just as Matt was really processing the growing ache in his side from when someone landed a particularly powerful punch.

Then, as he made his way home, back to his beloved apartment, his apartment where you wait for him, where you sleep soundly in his bed, completely oblivious to the bad night he’s having, he hears a woman cry for help, the click of a gun, and a whisper for her to stay quiet. 

She got away as soon as Matt dropped down, as soon as the man who deserves much worse than Matt will ever give him turns his attention towards the devil. But a loud clap of thunder caught Matt off guard, and suddenly, he’s the one who’s getting the shit beaten out of him.

If he can survive tonight, tomorrow is going to be just as bad, he’ll be in pain and you’ll be so sad, and the idea of that is somehow worse than when the man hits Matt right in the nose and he hears a devastating crack!

Then, the man finds his gun that Matt had kicked out of his hand. 

Matt’s thankful he can only hear so much since he’s so concussed. 

He was stupid, letting his guard down like that.

Now, he’ll die the same way his father died, with someone waiting for him to come home, depending on him. He feels the end of the gun on his forehead, ribs aching every time he inhales or exhales. Will you ever know how much he loves you? Will you ever know what happened to him, how he was really on his way back to you, to your arms, to your lips, when he died? 

Will you ever know that he would do anything for you, that the very love you’ve been craving is just two blocks away, head throbbing? 

He thinks about the sounds you make when you cry, and it makes his heart ache. He’s saved you just to tear you right back down, devastating you by rehabilitating you, making you fall in love with him, and then, leaving you. 

His weird, perfect girl with scars from needles, with an affinity for blood, a craving for flesh, and an ability you probably don’t quite understand yourself. His perfect, strange girl who he could drink up like lemonade on a sunny day, who snuck up on him, and yet, he feels like his life lead right to your side. 

Silly, silly him for thinking he could be happy. For thinking that things could work out for poor, tortured Matthew. 

He closes his eyes behind his mask and waits to die.

But the shot never comes. 

Instead, the man drops his gun from Matt’s head, as he starts to cough, and then, Matt can smell his blood. 

From what he can tell, it’s dripping down the man’s face from his nose, then, he’s gurgling on his own blood as it pours out of his mouth, and then, blood is coming from his eye sockets, and the balls of his eyes roll back— complete with a subtle snap, coming from somewhere in the man’s skull. He falls to the ground then, lifeless. 

Matt feels like he can’t breathe, and that’s when he processes you, at the end of the alleyway, blood running down yourface from your nose. Your hand comes up to wipe it away, and then you’re kneeling in front of him, your hands on his cheeks, cradling him softly.

He’s shaking now, and you hate the man you just killed with everything you have for making him so scared. 

“You are hurt,” you tell him, studying his features. Matt shakes his head, even though that makes it worse,

“I’m okay...” He mumbles, which is true, he will live but he does feel shell shocked, not to mention his numerous injuries. “I’m alright.” He comforts, and then he pulls you in close, wrapping his arms around you, still shaking, still freezing from the rain, still concussed and still terrified, of dying, of the man lying on the ground— and you wrap your arms around him, gently stroking his head like he has done to you so many times— 

“It’s okay, Honey.” You echo a familiar comfort, and then, your lips are on his, kissing him. Matt can’t help himself. He didn’t think he’d be able to kiss you again, so he relishes it. The idea that any kiss with you could be the last one freaks him out, maybe even more than the thought of dying. 

Matt has exactly one thought as he inhales the smell of so much blood—

But for now, you had decided to try and stay away from the superhero lifestyle. But when the itch came, peter lent you his suit so you could scratch it.

You had helped him refine his web-fluid and had your own web shooters as well as one of his old suits just in case. May knew about you and peter after finding out a while ago. However, peter and you had kept everything about your existence from the avengers so you could live a semi-normal life. At least for now.

But the day the avengers were fighting off the aliens, New York had taken some heavy damage. You had been running a small illustration business out of your apartment in queens. Your apartment … which was now levelled in the fight was gone. Along with your business.

Since you had moved out young, May only had one spare bedroom in her apartment which peter was occupying. Leaving the Parker’s with one option.

As peter had a room in the avenger's tower, you could stay there or with aunt may. Peter being Peter didn’t want to ask tony if he could stay in the tower for the unforeseeable future without arousing questions. So, you had been secretly living in the tower for about three days now.

Peter brought you food and had bribed Jarvis to keep your existence a secret. You had his old suit if you wanted to leave the tower, you could swing away instead of walking through the building and getting caught.

It was a pretty solid plan and it had been working pretty well. Until the day you got sick.

Peters' bedroom in the tower was on the floor with the other avengers, meaning you had to be somewhat quiet so Natasha, clint or the others didn’t find you. But it had begun to get colder out, and Peters old suit didn’t have a heater. It had been made before tony had found out spiders, including peter and yourself, can't thermoregulate. And swinging around New York without a heater in the nippy winter air had left you with a pretty nasty cold.

Unlike peter your powers didn’t give you super healing. In fact, your powers differed from peters in more ways than one. For one thing you had small fangs which you could retract, they didn’t do much, but they were cool, and peter was mildly jealous. Another thing was you had taken on aspects of jumping spiders as you could jump higher due to your super strength and some weird spider quality peter lacked.

Like peter the bit had given your excellent eyesight, increased metabolism, a lack of thermoregulation, the weird sticky thing, the spider sense and super strength and the allergy to peppermint. But due to sharing the suit anytime you went out as “Spider-Man” you had to refrain from using your own unique powers, so you didn’t give anything away.

The thermoregulating thing may have finally come back to bite you now that you were in peters old suit. After taking one of his patrols for him so he could finish his assignment and you could get out of his room in the tower, the cold had made you sick. Heres the thing about having a high metabolism when you don’t have an increased healing factor. It went one of two ways. Either you had flash colds which were taken care of quickly and at a much faster rate than the average human, or if it was stronger than your immune system, it was quickly made into a bigger problem than it should have been due to your body processing things faster and speeding up its strength.

Anytime this had happened in the past, due to not being able to go to a regular hospital, you had thanked the gods for May choosing a career in nursing. Though she had been able to treat you superficially with regular medicine and not anything made for super soldiers or spiders as that was a Bruce banner specialty that was unique to the tower's med bay. So, you often just had to ride it out and if things got really bad, peter would try and smuggle you some of his medicine out of the tower for you.

So, this is where you ended up. Curled up in Peters bed in the tower, stifling rough sounding coughs into his pillow and making a mental note to wash his sheets soon. You were doing your best to remain quiet and not alert either of the super spies to your presence or any of the other avengers. You thanked Thor that only you and peter had super hearing which meant you could usually tell if someone was in the halls.

Feeling miserable you buried yourself further into the sheets and shivered, it was so cold but in reality, you probably had a high fever. Your lungs let out a wheezing noise whenever you exhaled, and you were beginning to think maybe your asthma was back. Unlike peter you had not been so lucky as to have had it cured by the bite.

Your asthma puffer was one of the few things that survived your apartment being destroyed. As you laid in bed feeling awful you thought back to that day.

You thanked the gods you had been out at the time. You had gone to a coffee shop downtown with your sketchbook, laptop and usual things you took out, including a range of art supplies and of course your emergency puffer which peter had managed to smuggle out which had doses that worked with your metabolism.

You were broken from your daydreams as another harsh coughing fit wracked your body. From what you could hear nobody was in the halls, but you did your best to keep quiet regardless. The wheezing that trailed after each breath was getting worse and your lungs were feeling tight.

You had been trying to use the puffer sparingly so it didn’t run out because you didn’t know if and or when peter could get you another. But as drawing breath grew harder you made the executive call to use it. You rolled over in the bed and threw an arm down to fish around for your red backpack. Finding it you fiddled with the zip before your fingers wrapped around the cool plastic of the device. Tony being tony had insisted it have a Spiderman case thinking it was peters which ended up being rather ironic as it was fitting for you too.

You tried fruitlessly one last time to draw breath before achieving nothing but a crackling wheeze. Screw it. You uncapped the red lid and held it to your lips, propping yourself up on an elbow in an attempt to sit u straight to take it.

You exhaled and inhaled repeating it once more before drawing in a lungful of the super-medicine. Almost straight away you began to feel better. Your fast metabolism speeding up the medicines process.

Feeling like you could breathe again you replaced the cap and put it on the nightstand before curling up in the sheets again feeling cold still but also slightly damp from the thin layer of sweat that had been forming all morning.

You were dressed in spider-man pjs which had a thin t-shirt and long pants. You had considered getting up to grab one of peters hoodies to get warm or another blanket but the idea of standing up made your head spin.

You nestled back into the sheets and let your eyes fall shut despite it being almost midday. The curtains were drawn and so it didn’t bother you too much. You began to drift off into a semi-peaceful sleep broken by harsh coughing fits which were becoming harder to stifle in your half asleep and fevered state.

Meanwhile the avengers had just finished their morning training session, one which Peter had joined for once. Peter being Peter had barely broken a sweat and as a result had opted to hang out on the communal floor while everyone went o freshen up.

Stark had designed the tower well. With Peter’s bedroom being on the same floor as Natasha’s who was rather protective of her younger spider counterpart as well as Wanda’s, Yelena’s, Kate’s and a few spares. The rest of the avengers were a floor above.

At first peter had been a bit miffed about being on a floor of just girls but he ended up liking it a lot. And he had a second bedroom in the master suite with tony and Pepper which he proffered anyway. The one on the avenger's floor was more for if Tony and Pepper were away, and he wanted to be around the others.

Natasha was headed for her room after waving goodbye to peter who had settled down to watch more star-wars, when she paused in the hallway.

Retracing her steps she found herself stood outside peters bedroom door. Frowning she pressed an ear to the door and froze. Someone was inside and coughing. Knowing it wasn’t peter, nat carefully twisted the door handle.

Peter being peter had prepared for almost anything. As soon as Natasha had set foot inside peters room Jarvis had alerted peter of her presence.

Meanwhile Natasha peered into the dimly lit room. The lump in the bed was wriggling around and coughing. Nat was on high alert by now. She realised this person was ill but how had they managed to get in without Jarvis knowing? And why were they in peters bed?

She crossed the threshold and walked over to the bed. Taking note of the backpack on the floor and puffer on the bedside table as well as your spider-man pjs which had been a gag gift from Peter last Christmas.

Nat stood and observed for a second. Looking down at your flushed face which was burning with fever and the harsh coughs that were wracking your weak form.

Nat watched helplessly for a second unsure of how to deal with a sick intruder.

She hesitated before extending a hand to your forehead and feeling a very high fever. She sucked a breath. Despite being an intruder she had some ideas as to why you may have been here. Your likeness to peter wasn’t hard to spot. Yet. She was unsure.

Peeling of the blankets to get a better look at you, as she did you made a small noise of discontent and curled into a shaking ball still fever addled and half asleep.

Before she could continue the door opened and peter looked in.

“Uhh M-Ms Romanoff…” Peter said looking guilty as he stepped in and closed the door again.

“Peter, do you know who this is?” Natasha asked getting straight to the point. Peter hesitated and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Y-yes.” He said looking at your sick form with a frown.

“Peter.” She said crossing her arms. “Care to share whats going on?” Nat said as she headed for Peter’s bathroom.

“Um… She … she’s,, my sister.” Peter said unsurely. Natasha returned after a second and nodded. Now holding the first aid kit from peters bathroom in her arms.

“Anything else i should know?” She asked walking over to the bed and sitting down to rifle through the first aid kit.

“Petey?” You mumbled hearing his voice.

Peter seemed to break out of his trance and came to your side. “I’m here Y/n.” He said.

“‘S cold.” You mumbled making peter frown.

“Actually, I think she has a fever.” Nat said as she found what she was looking for, pulling out a thermometer from the kit.

Nat gently placed the thermometer under your tongue and turned to look at peter.

“Pete, you’re not in trouble but i need some more information.” Natasha said.

“This is Y/n. She’s, my sister. Her apartment was levelled in the last attack and so she’s been staying here ever since. She’s not a threat I promise.” Peter said almost tripping over his words in order to explain.

Before Nat could respond the thermometer beeped and she removed it to look at the small screen, drawing another round of coughs from you. Natasha rubbed your back with one hand while frowning at the screen.

“Peter… she should be dead. This says 106. There’s more isn’t there.” Nat said with some urgency as she began peeling the rest of the blankets off you in an attempt to cool you down.

“Ahh … yes. She had powers. Like mine. She … she wears the suit sometimes.” Peter said standing nearby and watching with a worried expression.

“Ok. So, she has spider powers? High metabolism, super strength, etc.” Nat said and Peter nodded. “Why hasn’t her healing fixed this?” Nat said feeling your forehead again.

“She doesn’t have it. Her powers differ slightly.” Peter explained as Nat cursed softly in Russian.

“Her fever’s still rising.” Nat said making a decision. “We need to cool her down fast before she gets too hot for her own good. Jarvis?” Natasha said and peter looked panicked for a second worried about more people finding out about you.

“Ms Romanoff-“ he started.

“Pete, we need to cool her down stat. I need some help.” She said and peter nodded still looking nervous. “Jarvis call wanda to Peter’s bedroom.” Nat said and peter relaxed slightly. Wanda was ok. She would be good for the situation.

“What are you going to do?” Peter asked.

“She needs a bath and I doubt you want to do that.” She said with a small smirk and Peter flushed for a second.

“Defiantly not.” He said shaking his head.

“Is there someone we can call? Someone who she’d be ok with dressing her once we cool her down. She may be sick but i don’t want to invade her privacy.” Nat said as she scooped you up from the bed and into her lap while they waited for wanda to arrive. You cough harshly again and wheezed making nat frown and look to peter.

“Asthma.” He said.

“Runs in the family huh?” She joked reaching over for the puffer on the bedside table.

“Uh… about that.” Peter said looking guilty. “Mine was cured by the bite. I need the puffers for her.” He said looking sheepish. Expecting Nat to be mad she grinned.

“You’re a good brother.” She said as she uncapped the device and pressed it to your lips.

“Exhale.” She instructed and by some small miracle you complied. When you went to inhale, she administered the medicine and told you to hold.

Recapping the device, she rubbed a hand up and down your arm. “Good job sweetie.” She said and felt you relax into her arms some more as you let out a breath.

The two sat in silence for another second before the door opened again and wanda slipped inside.

She was freshly showered, her hair damp and she smelt like jasmine and honey. She was dressed in a simple faded black t-shirt and grey track pants.

“Whats-“ she began before pausing, her eyes caught on you laid in Natashas lap half asleep.

“Wanda,” Nat said. “Meet Y/n. Peter’s older sister.” She said.

“Okay…” Wanda said looking lost before her expression morphed to concern as you coughed. “Is she ok?” Wanda asked.

“No. That’s why you’re here. Long story short, peter smuggled her into the tower, and she has spider powers and her fever is really high. We need to cool her down.” Nat said and wanda swallowed and nodded. “Peter?” Nat said turning to the younger parker.

“Yes?” He said looking up from where he had been studying his shoes closely.

“You never answered my question. Is there someone we can call to come and get her dressed after wanda and i bathe her?” Nat asked and peter blushed again and nodded.

“I can call May. It’s her day off.” He said and Nat nodded.

“You do that. Wanda and I will look after Y/n. We promise not to go further than her outer clothes.” She said and scooped you up into her arms. She headed for Peter’s bathroom with wanda trailing behind. You remained limp in her arms snuggled into her chest in an unconscious need for companionship.

Once the two redheads had you in the bathroom wanda looked at nat. “Now what?” She asked and Natasha smirked.

“Now we take her clothes off.” She said and gently she lifted your arms from where you were laid on the floor in her lap and pulled the spider-man t-shirt off over your head. Wanda blushed slightly at the sight of your red sports bra despite having seen Nat and herself train in about the same if not less clothes.

“You wanna help?” Nat asked with a grin that only served to make Wanda’s blush deepen. You squirmed slighting in Nat’s lap but stopped when she gently rubbed your arm after you buried your warm face into her stomach.

Wanda rolled her eyes in an attempt to feign nonchalance despite being way past that point.

She lifted her hands, and the familiar red glow of magic surrounded her hands. Her magic lifted your hips so Nat could slide off your pants. Wanda blushed again at the sight of your Black Widow boxers. Natasha however grinned at them finding it both adorable and very cute.

After a beat Wanda met Nat’s eyes again. “Now what?”

“We get her in the bath. She needs to be cooled down Asap.” Nat said hoisting you into her arms again as you wriggled, turning and grumbling into her chest.

“Not gonna lie she’s pretty cute.” Nat said and Wanda avoided her eyes as she used her magic to fill the bath with tepid water.

Natasha gently lowered you into the tub ignoring your whining protests and running her hands through your hair which seemed to calm you down as you relaxed again.

“So … now we wait?” Wanda guessed and Natasha nodded.

“Yep. Unless you really want to steal May’s job of getting her dressed again.” Nat teased making Wanda splutter slightly. “Im kidding.” Nat said. “I know what hot women do to your brain.” She winked and wanda slouched slightly.

After a second you grumbled and blearily opened your eyes, squinting at the two women.

“Peter is so dead.” You mumbled before letting your eyes drift shut again. There was a pause before wanda and nat both started laughing.

You groaned. “Peter!” You yelled before coughing again making Wanda and Nat frown. But before they could do anything the door opened to show a beat red peter with his hands covering his eyes.

“Yes?” He said in a small voice.

“When I get out of here, you’re dead.” You mumbled with a foggy glare sent in his direction.

“Hey. Peter did the right thing.” Another voice said from behind Peter.

“May?” You called. “Oh, wtf is going on right now.” You mumbled.

“Whats going on kiddo is that, once again, you failed to ask for help which landed you here.” May said entering the bathroom with a change of clothes.

“Nice to see you Ms Parker.” Nat said and wanda echoed.

“Please. Call me May. And thank you for looking after her.” May said and you groaned.

“I hate all of you.” You said hiding your face in your hands.

“Uh huh. Sure, you do.” May teased.

“It was no problem. Ms- May.” Wanda said. “We’ll wait in peters bedroom while you… yeah.” Wanda said before making a hasty retreat. Nat laughed and followed her out.

May gave you a disappointed frown once she had shut the door and turned back to you with a sigh.

“Honey.” She said.

“I know… I know.” You said still feeling like death but slightly less so. “Did the black widow and scarlet witch just really see me in my underpants?” You asked.

“Yes, and I serves you right for hiding illness … again!” She said as she came over, rolling up her sleeves and helping you out, practically holding all your weight for you as your head spun.

May frowned and guided you over to the covered toilet seat to dress you again.

Gently she began to towel you off and change you into fresh clothes.

“I can do it myself.” You whined but May shot you a look and you knew better than to challenge the angry Parker and you and peter had called her as kids when she was upset at you for something.

“Now, once you’re dressed you are going to thank those two for their kindness and your coming home with me.” May said.

“But-“ you began.

“No buts.” She said and helped you up, now fully dressed.

She helped you over to the door opening it despite still holding you up. The two of you shuffled into the room where Peter, Nat and Wanda were sat on Peter’s bed talking in hushed voices.

“Pete. I love you but I can hear everything you’re saying dumbass.” You said rolling your eyes and May lightly hit your arm.

“Right.” He said rubbing his neck. “Super hearing.” He nodded.

“I’ll add it to the list.” Nat grinned and you groaned before May jabbed you in the side and looked at the two girls.

You coughed at her actions making her frown but quickly got it under control for the sake of your already fragile image.

“Thank you, Wanda and Natasha, for helping me.” You said still leaning heavily on May. Now you had been standing for a bit the room began to spin. Your face went a shade paler making Natasha frown and stand. It was a split second before you stumbled, almost bringing May down with you in the process. Luckily strong arms wrapped around you, and you looked up into Nat’s pale green and worried eyes.

“Y/n?” You finally registered she was talking to you. “Y/n?” She asked again a little louder.

You let out a soft groan and she huffed. “Right. Up we go.” She said hoisting you into your arms and making the room spin again as you buried your face in her arm.

You felt her gently set you down on the bed and feel your forehead.

Distantly you heard May saying something along the lines of taking you home and the sound of Natasha arguing they were better equipped to help with your powers and sickness. May relented and you went back to dozing.

“What happened?” Peter asked from where he was stood by the door.

“Probably got too dizzy from standing up. Her body’s already trying to fight off sickness.” Natasha said and Wanda nodded.

“Peter? Don’t you have a super high metabolism?” Wanda asked.

“Yeah?” He said looking lost as May seemed to catch on.

“Y/n when did you last eat?” May asked and you groaned and buried your face in the pillow. “Well, that answers that.” May said rolling her eyes.

“Peter, do you have any of those energy bars that steve uses?” Wanda asked and peter nodded and headed for his bedside drawer.

He fished around and pulled out one of them and passed it to nat. She unwrapped it and shoved it into your hands.

“Eat.” She said and you made a groan of protest. “It’ll help.” She said in a softer tone.

“Fine.” You said sitting up against the headboard and nibbling on it slowly.

“Better.” Nat said and you frowned.

“You know you’re cute when you’re mad.” Wanda said looking surprised by her own words and blushing at Natasha’s knowing gaze.

“Get some rest маленький паук” Nat said once you had finished eating, and she begun to shepherd everyone out of the room.

○ you and Bucky get married almost as soon as he comes back from the blip. Neither of you want to chance missing the opportunity again in some tragedy. To his surprise, he also returns to a set of twins: Grant and Rebecca, who are nearing five years old at the time.

○ post marriage pre congressional candidacy, you and Bucky welcome a son: George.

○ Bucky then later would take a step away from the fight and run for a position in congress. You found it a bit of a strange choice at first, but continually supported him. "Mom, Dad's campaign ad is on!" One of the twins would call from their seats in the living room of the house, now tweens.

○ handling two tweens and a toddler was no easy feat. The twins could get a bit rowdy, and George was in constant need of some sort of attentious care. "Give it back!" was how any argument started over any material item. "Rebecca James, Grant Samuel!" You'd scold. They knew they were in trouble when they heard you use their middle names. However, that wouldn't keep them from continuing. Most times, you had to physically pull them away from each other with your powers, since their natually enhanced strength kept you from just stepping between them.

○Bucky knew how hard it was for you to balance mom life and mission life, even if you had managed to do so in his absence. Once he is elected as a congress official, he had more time at home with the kids when he wasn't in a meeting or doing press. That's when Sam was a trusted sitter.

○ you'd walk into the house to find Bucky cooking, a sauce stain sticking out like a sore thumb on his white button down and George giggling in his high chair with a fistful of spaghetti-o's. He was so focused on following the recipe perfectly. "And this, my dear husband, is why i take care of dinner." You say half-jokingly as you walk in after having a long mission debrief. "Just look at your shirt. And I just finished laundry. Hand it over. I'll have to pretreat it so that doesn't stain it forever." Bucky gives you his shirt. "You're on ref duty while I take care of this."

○ yeah, the twins are absolute menaces even for Bucky. And it doesn't get any easier when it's found out that Grant inherited your powers. "Hey, no powers in the house!" Bucky would tell them.

○ you had not an ounce of trust when you saw Valentina stop by with the files. "You're doing this again?" You ask.

Despite the whole team being gathered in the room, it was silent.

An unusual, heavy silence, caused by the gravity of the situation, and that left no room for the jokes and teasing that would usually be exchanged between the heroes.

None of them knew what was going on, but the minutes seemed like an eternity while they were waiting for the director to eventually arrive. None of them needed to know the details to feel the urgency of this meeting. Fury was a wise man, despite what some may say, and he knew better than to pull the ringer for nothing. Crisis meetings were rarely held, and it had never been for anything less than a threat to the very existence of humanity.

If no one was talking, it is because they were busy remembering the events that had followed the last meeting of this kind — A catastrophe. Something that had happened many years ago, but the memories were still imprinted in the minds of those that were already a part of the team at that time. It was impossible to forget the chaos and destruction that had ensued. They may have won, but at what price? The lives they lost, and those that were destroyed, still weighed on their minds, and they had spent the following years hoping that they would never find themselves around this table again.

But here they are, several years later, with the same fear that knotted their insides.

If no one spoke, it is because they were all trying to guess what lay ahead. Yet, the possibilities were endless, often surprising, and none of them could have guessed the words spoken by Fury when he entered the meeting room.

The job was exhausting, and the heroes could never rest. Their victories were never more than temporary, each threat being quickly replaced by a far more dangerous one. The Avengers, despite their title of saviors of the earth, were playing a game they couldn’t win. As the years went by, and the battles followed on another, it became harder for the heroes to convince themselves that it was all worth it. The dead were numbered in the thousands, and it seemed that they were only delaying the inevitable destruction of humanity.

This possibility was even more difficult for the former spy to accept.

This job was supposed to be her redemption, a way of eventually wiping the red off her ledger, but if the woman wanted to use her skills to do some good, it seemed that only destruction followed her every step. Every threat was immediately replaced by another, and every victory inevitably stained by deaths and destroyed lives, a cost she no longer wanted to pay. 

And then, somewhere in that infinite loop, the redhead eventually lost her hopes.

If she hadn’t yet resigned herself to leave the team, it is because her fears were holding her back. After all, the woman knew nothing else in the world except this job which, despite its difficulties, offered her the comfort of familiarity. But recently it has become harder to accept that being a heroine, and saving the world, was nothing more than a pipe dream.

The world can’t be saved, and neither could she.

The redhead had eventually learned that it was pointless to hope, because it is nothing more than a way of putting off the inevitable, and so, as she watches the man entering the room, she prepares herself for the worst — The destruction, pain, and deaths. 

Maybe hers this time, if she is lucky enough.

She hasn’t told anyone about the thoughts that sometimes arise in her mind, and she won’t even admit it to herself, because it is definitely easier to pretend that everything is fine. She doesn’t want to think about how the job that saved her life, by giving her a second chance, is the one that is now tearing her away from that same life.

When Fury, the man that they were all waiting for, eventually enters the room, Natasha tries to read his next words in his features, but it gives her no clue. He looks serious, and tense — He looks the exact same as he always does.

“So, are you finally going to tell us what this is all about?” Steve asked. It is rare to see the man lose his patience, but the situation was beginning to weigh on the minds of even the wisest members of the team.

“I am going to do better than that,” the man said, pausing for a moment before continuing, “I am going to show you,” and as he says these words, the lights go out. 

And there, projected large on the wall they were facing, the Avengers could all contemplate the reasons for their presence here, the great danger that was threatening humanity, captured by one of the city’s video surveillance cameras.

The former spy’s sharp eyes immediately searched the poor-quality image they were shown for any clues. At first sight, it was nothing more than an ordinary moment of a day that was like any other, just a view of a street of New-York that looked exactly like any other street would. Despite the early hour, a never-ending parade of cars and pedestrians was already taking place, bringing the street to life — The city that never goes out. It was not a myth, and the city was just like its heroes; it knew no rest.

The woman observed the people that were walking in a hurry, and she had no trouble imagining the car horns that must have sounded as soon as someone took a bit too long to start up at the green light — Where did these people go, to be so impatient?

And, as the scene drags on for several seconds without anything happening, she allows her thoughts to wander a little from the reason for her presence here, joining the ballet of these strangers for the span of a few minutes. No one noticed that, behind her sharp gaze, her attention was absent. Instead of watching the video, Natasha was thinking about where she would go if she got a chance to walk alongside these strangers. 

It is a question she had asked herself many times before, one that had kept her awake at night, enveloping her soul in an oppressive feeling as she was thinking about all the possible answers. She could have been so many things if she had been nothing more than just a name, a face among so many others, one that people wouldn’t even be able to recognize in the streets. She would have settled for little. She would have accepted even the most mundane life, the most boring to those who had it, if it meant that her life would have the normality she craved. She would not be a heroine that they would admire, nor a spy that they would hate, but nothing more than a little girl that could have followed her dreams. Yet, life can be cruel, and it had taken away all choice from her before she had even taken her first steps in this world — Who would she have been? That is a question she will never find the answer to.

A sudden change in the monotonous scene they were being shown drew her attention back to the screen. It was a sudden agitation that, by breaking the routine, had managed to capture her attention once again, chasing away the thoughts that had preoccupied her a few moments earlier. No one had noticed her absence, and it was almost as if she had never wandered off, the woman now observing the scene with rapt attention.

Events unfolded with such rapidity that she would have missed them if she had blinked at the wrong moment. A young woman had entered the camera’s frame, and she would easily have blended in with the rest of the crowd if she hadn’t been acting weirdly. Although she seemed to be in a hurry, her quick steps were nothing like the ones of someone hurrying to work, and they were far from the calm pace of a sportswoman. Her run was frantic, and erratic.

Natasha could not see her facial features, but she didn’t need it to guess the fear that this young woman was feeling. All she had to do was to observe her body language, and the way she was constantly looking at her surroundings was enough of a clue. It was as if she was scared of someone, or something, but she was the only one to see the threat. Indeed, the crowd remained relatively calm, and new-yorkers only stopped their relentless march when she jostled them.

Everyone expected the reason for her panic to appear on the screen at any moment, but it never did, and the ‘monster’ never showed up, the threat to humanity remaining faceless and formless for time being, much to their disappointment. Yet, in concentrating on that, the heroes almost missed the really important events.

A few seconds later, the young woman’s run came to an abrupt, and tragic, halt. As she tried to cross the road, without looking left or right, without using a crosswalk, the inevitable happened. She was lucky enough that the first two cars in her path managed to avoid her, but it had its limits, and the truck that came after didn’t have time to brake, or divert, that it had already hit her head-on. The impact had been so violent that the girl had been propelled several meters. 

The shock is so swift that it left everyone blissfully surprised, even the spy. The video may have no sound, but she can easily make out the screams of the passers-by. They finally stopped for a moment — Perhaps they were in a hurry, but their business could wait if it meant meddling with others’. The video stops as some people start moving towards the truck, which had ended up in a storefront, and all the heroes’ eyes are now on Fury.

They were hoping for answers, but they only found more questions.

“So, you bothered us for… a crazy woman?” Tony spoke, and he is the first one to do so — Probably because he is the only one who is never at a loss for words, the others being too surprised to say anything. “Damn it, Fury! We are the Avengers, not a hospice,” he added in response to the other man’s silence.  

However, the director remains calm and impassive in the face of the billionaire’s impatience. Yet, Natasha is certain that there was a lot more to this video than just a ‘crazy woman’, why would he have shown it to them otherwise? She knew Fury, and he is not the kind that does things at random, let alone waste resources — S.H.I.E.L.D.’s time and money are too precious to him. There must have been something else, some detail they had missed and that would explain everything they couldn’t understand until now.

The man proves her right when he plays the video again. However, while they could all recognize the scene of the accident, the angle of view was a bit different, being zoomed in on a silhouette that was in the background, one they could barely see in the original video. Despite the poor quality, they can distinguish the young woman who is lying on the ground. For several seconds, nothing happens, and everything seems to stand still — Until she stands up, resuming her run as if nothing had happened, as if she hadn’t been hit by the truck less than a minute before. As the scene unfolds in front of their eyes, the heroes realize that the threat has been there all along, hiding under the guise of a ‘crazy’ looking woman.

“And what do we know about her?” Natasha immediately asked. She was slumped back in her seat, arms crossed as she glared at the director. Yet, despite appearances, she was taking the mission very seriously; if the man had a hunch about this girl, the woman knew it was best to trust him and act accordingly.

“That’s for you to find out, Romanoff,” he replied with a wry smile. As he talked, he waved a folder at her, the one he would hand over to her later, when the meeting was over and the questions had been answered — Or at least some of them, because the heroes soon realized that the information available was meager.

And indeed, when she opened the file several hours later, she realized just how complicated this mission would be. The night had fallen on the city, and she had settled into one of the common areas. A fire crackled in the fireplace, and she made herself comfortable with a blanket and some hot drink. Some people liked to read to relax, but what she really enjoyed was immersing herself in a new mission, reading files and trying to make connections between the different pieces of evidence. It was a familiar and easy activity. 

However, she didn’t have much to read in this one. There were only a few wills collected from passers-by who happened to be near the scene of the accident, but nothing they said was interesting, and most of them hadn’t even laid eyes on the victim long enough to be able to describe her. There were also screenshots of the surveillance video that they watched, but also of others that attest to her presence in different parts of the city. 

But that was all. There was no name, no story, just a pixelated face that seemed to belong to no one — Almost as if the woman appeared from nowhere.

| SERIES MASTERLIST - MAIN MASTERLIST - REQUEST GUIDELINES. previous part. - next part.

You were not counting your days of recovery. You weren’t.

You fully understood healing was a process, even if sped up by Steve’s accelerated healing ability still gracing your body and stitching up your cells in the speed of considerably delayed light.

The determination to not count days was most certainly not at all connected to the fact that every day of your enhanced healing meant keeping a stolen miracle from its rightful owner and as a consequence, keeping a hero with capital H from ordinary people, keeping him from saving lives due to his own slowed recovery. However, the delay was not on you only – it had been a mutual decision to which you had come to together.

Healing simply took time; you got that. On a rational level, you understood it all perfectly.

Thus, you weren’t counting days.

You were counting hours instead. And there were too many to your liking.

You wished you had felt better when the switch finally happened, after your tissue had completely healed and you had started physical therapy, but it was not that simple. You did feel better in a way, of course, but you exchanged one little hell for another.

As much as you had tried to prepare for the moment, even talking to Steve about how much of a shock it had been for him to wake up after the first switch, no amount of readiness made you truly ready and it wasn’t just the fear of the Kree artifact possibly having another surprise in stock for you.

It wasn’t just the healing factor either; it was the senses.

You hadn’t had a single doubt you’d feel relieved and grateful later on – and you did now – but suddenly losing the beyond-perfect vision and hearing might have as well render you completely blind and deaf. Even after days, you caught yourself squinting, listening to music that appeared to always play too low even when on max, eating food with enough spice to send Clint – Clint, of all people – running away with tears, because to you it tasted completely bland otherwise. You physically had to stop yourself from spraying yourself with perfume once more because you didn’t seem to smell it at all.

Steve was no better. He was good at rolling with the punches and he did have an experience with suddenly gaining enhanced senses already; but he did admit, with reluctance, that he had thrown up directly after the switch, the assault on his senses too overwhelming; mumbling something about a hangover and Asgardian liquor. Not that you heard him at the time; because you had practically turned deaf.

Yay Kree! said no one, ever.

There were positives too, however; even with dampened senses, the moment you were able to project for the first time again, you were taken by relief so intense you felt tears sting in your eyes, your chest so tight and yet so light you could fly. You were far from a perfect person, from a perfect Inhuman; but god, had you never been happier to be yourself than at that moment.

Steve reached the peak of his recovery not two days after, his range of motion and strength returning as if he had never been injured at all.

And by some karmic blessing, the switch did have one miraculous effect defying one of the most fundamental law of physics; the conservation of energy.

The pain ceased to exist.

 Steve swore to you while looking – squinting still, really, the lights too bright for his enhanced sight – directly into your eyes that there was not a single trace of his spectral wound in his chest. It didn’t hurt. And the pain didn’t transfer to you either. It was just… gone.

You didn’t investigate why, even as you could feel the wheels in Steve’s head turning, his neurons once again firing like mad as he considered using the Leviathan for switches more often, wanting to try if together, you could rid you of the pain completely whenever your Spectre suffered an injury. You didn’t want to know if that was an option; because it was not an option for you, the risks you had listed earlier remaining.

Nevertheless, you were grateful that this one and only time you’d used the artifact, Steve was free of the consequences of your abilities.

And you were beyond grateful that exchanging powers back did not catapult you back into times where you and Steve fought all too often.

In fact, it was the exact opposite.

You did begin to build the foundation Steve had talked about. An invite for a run, for a workout, for a lunch. Sitting next to each other when watching a movie with other Avengers or during the AI movie nights. Lingering when running into each other, exchanging at least a few sincere words or mere small talk. A literal walk in a park, a little hike upstate, a coffee with no expectations beyond a good, safe time with someone whose company you enjoyed very much.

When you granted yourself the permission to let go, you gravitated towards each other, every time, the alluring warmth of his, figurative and literal, always pulling you in, tingles in your belly reaching into your chest and untying the knots of anxiety and doubt and setting you free of their barbaric cage.

You did take it slow. There were no labels, no pressure – at least not from Steve’s side – no deadlines. No official dates, no purely romantic displays of affection.

You did work on building that trust and you were fully aware it was mostly for your own benefit. Even as Steve was clearly putting a lot of effort into making it seem like he didn’t mind, you added the guilt over making him wait and complicating things to the nice pile you had managed to gather all by yourself; but that was not on Steve. Steve was… incredible.

With all this, the feeling you had always felt humming in your chest and which you had been so desperate to fight just to remain a little safer, grew louder. You had always trusted Steve; the trust was now turning steel-solid with every precious minute in his presence.

It was you whom you still didn’t quite trust.

But when you allowed yourself to let go just a tiny bit, to feel Steve’s sincerity in just about anything, when you consciously pushed at least some of your fears to the backburner, you were falling for Steve fast. And hard.

Steve Rogers was a man as close to perfection as you thought it possible. There were almost too many things to admire and appreciate about him. His bravery, sincerity an all-in approach when it came to feeling, were but a few of them.

One of the ways which conveyed his kindness and dare to say affection, was his touch.

There were few fundamental facts about touching and being touched by Steve.

The first one was that before your unfortunate Hydra incident, you two had never touched outside of strictly work-related reasons; and even those, at least to your knowledge, had been very limited. One, Steve fixed some of your moves or stance in training, or assisted you if it was completely necessary. Two, Steve carried you when you inevitably passed out during a mission; being high-up in his arms, pressed to his front as he had easily carried you bridal style, was a memory which you recalled with surprising sharpness and yet maddening haziness that prevented you from fully benefiting from those moments.

The second fact was that even if the touch was limited to work-related occasions, there was a hierarchy in it: you had never initiated the physical contact. You wouldn’t for a while, in the course of work or outside of it.

Third, when it did come to physical contact outside of work, there was something incredibly fragile and beautiful about Steve and touch.

It wasn’t like you had never had another person touch you outside of work before, obviously. That wasn’t it. You had done plenty of gymnastics training, ballet lessons, work-out, martial arts, sparring – all these included a lot of correction by your trainers. You had once had friends too, you had hugged; and god knew Daisy could give, at least by your estimate, among the warmest hugs on Earth and in Space.

When it came to a different kind of touch, when it came to sex, you sure had your fair share of experience of being touched. In fact, there had been a period of your life that included a very high number of sexual encounters, which naturally tended to involve a lot of touching; so much that you’d confidently say the rule at the time was quantity over quality. The habit was objectification over affection. The reality was heated desire to fuck and be fucked over intimacy.

And that was exactly where the overwhelming contrast lied: there was something empoweringly and disarmingly intimate about Steve’s touch, even outside of romance.

It had started back at the Hydra cell, with him tenderly cradling your head, fingertips lingering on your thigh after he had finished taking care of your wound; the very study in intimate, warm touch, that lingered in your mind fondly despite the dreadful circumstance.

And from there, the physical contact came surprisingly easy and frequent to you two.

A tentative brush of a hand on your arm, an offered elbow if the situation called for it, a half-sided hug. Many if not all of these touches were nothing but friendly in their nature, no different from those Steve would give to Natasha or Bucky or Sam – and yet they whispered of tender intimacy. And they lit you on fire; and while on occasion that fire was burning you from inside out, driving you to the point of madness, most of the time, it was a fire that felt gentle and safe.

And while touching seemed easy as it was with Steve, at least where he initiated it, you felt there were two defining moments where the remaining barriers between you cracked with deafening and soothing noise.

One of them was the first true touch you had initiated since being in a hospital bed after the Hydra mess. It was back when you had found Stevefalling apart, a flashback catching him unexpectedly when the fireworks for his own birthday had gone off – or that much had been your guess at the time.

The memory haunted you with heartache and fondness at once; his ass in those nicely fitting slacks planted on the floor in an abandoned remote Tower corridor, back pressed against the wall, fingers in his hair gripping and making sure his palms were covering his ears.

You had approached him slowly that evening – tentative for multiple reasons – making as heavy steps as you could so he could feel you coming. You seated your ass – in a blue summer dress reaching above your knees – next to him, close, but not touching at first. Then, when you could tell he registered your presence – somehow slightly more relaxed and more strung up at once – you scooted over, just resting your bare shoulder against his, your heart having leapt to your throat at the contact.

And that was it. You just sat there next to him, silently asking Friday for not letting anyone else into this section of the Tower for the moment.

You sat there, breathing, feeling the warmth radiating off Steve’s bicep and in return you let him feel yours, until the grip on his hair loosened; until part of his weight rested against your shoulder and his hands fell slack on the floor. Only then you spoke to him quietly, laying your hand next to his, a tentative offer he accepted after a while. Moments, long, quiet but not torturous ticked by; and after, he rasped a thank you, rising to his feet, using the hold on your hand to help you up, a shy smile – a little, broken thing –painted his lips before he returned to the party, probably feeling as hungover from the experience as you did.  

The second of the breaking points was your embarrassing breakdown at the animal shelter; that day, Steve’s arms enveloped you fully and firmly against his chest for the first time, a protective embrace trying to shield you from the hurt that was echoing from within you, coaxing you to release that pain as if he could take it and add its weight to his world-wielding shoulders. And in a way, he did.

Accepting the offer of today’s sparring session felt like breaking the third seal.

Steve had corrected your stance or grip or technique before; but sparring with any of the Avengers had been of a short supply, one that started to fill up after the Hydra incident. Yet, sparring with Steve seemed to apply to other Avengers, Bucky most of all, because they were equal in strength and enhanced reflexes.

As with just about anything, Steve gave you the chance to back out, to say no; but you recognized the very offer as one of the olive branches which he seemed to extent more and more frequently. He had arranged your training sessions with other Avengers – or at least nudged them to suggest it, you were nearly sure of it – seeing them as opportunities to bond with your teammates; but so far he had avoided inviting you himself. Not to work out but to actually spar with him.

There was something exhilarating about saying yes, terrifying and tempting at once, a cocktail you found yourself drinking bottoms-up more and more frequently when it came to opening up as well. Especially when it came to Steven Grant Rogers.

And while the first few advances during the session were reluctant, you gradually eased into it.

To ease into sparring with Steve was a thrill, a hum of adrenalin and fun in your very bones. You found yourself panting; you found yourself grinning, Steve’s praise fuelling your nearly successful attempts at taking him down.

The physical effort in trying to take down a supersoldier, even as you knew he wouldn’t purposely hurt you, was not the only reason why your heart was beating so fast; the sight of him grinning, sparkles in his eyes, arms in particular bulging since he had to keep his fists up, all that certainly played a role too.

The air in the gym was charged with something playful; and it crackled of something else too, something electric you wouldn’t dare to give a name to, but you’d gladly let it tickle your skin even if the act whispered of danger that had nothing to do with the size of Steve’s shoulders and body in general, nor his strength. Nor the scent of peak masculine that seemed to wrap around you in welcomed but suffocating manner.

Another of the exciting things – things that made your blood rush fast and heat settle in your belly deeper and hotter than you’d be willing to admit under the threat of death – was Steve’s incredibly varied style of fighting.

To someone who didn’t know better, it would seem that the fight would have had a clear choreography. To someone who would take one single look at Steve and then you, it would seem the fight was about to be about two very different forces of nature. Strength and size on Steve’s side; agility, flexibility and technique on yours. You had seen an advanced mock battle like that before, back when you were only with SHIELD – with Mack and Bobbi. These two were the embodiment of these two apparent opposites, even as they sampled from another. And Mack, the mountain of muscle he was, certainly was far from a slow hunk; but the sheer amount of his muscles did render him less agile than Bobbi.

But that could not be less true where your opponent was concerned – and the main difference between Mack and Steve, much like the reason for it, was clear as day.

Steve Rogers had not been a hunk when he had begun to learn how to fight. When he had begun, he was forced to learn how to use his smaller body with enough wit to try and beat someone almost twice his size.

He still remembered that; and seeing it in action was tantalizing and damn well distracting at times, leading your thoughts astray, down the sinful path of how well he might be able to control and execute his moves in a very different setting. Yet, a little fraction of your mind, one that wasn’t actively participating in guiding you to dodge Steve’s hits and kicks nor was busy with calming your hormones, admired that – and recognized moves from at least eight different martial arts Steve was effortlessly weaving into his advances and defence alike. And he was doing so with an exhilarated smile on his face.

It rang true to his words back in that Hydra base; he did enjoy hand-to-hand even before the serum, but only once he had learned that there were ways to outwit the enemy, a little like David had with Goliath. Except Steve was a bit of both right now and it made him not an easy opponent to beat.

You enjoyed it a little more than you’d be willing to admit, but you suspected Steve knew.

By the look he gave you when you flipped away from his kick aimed to your ribs last second, a look that made something deep within your core tremble with thrilling heat, you also suspected Steve liked it.

He teased you; he pretended to aim punch one way, only to change it last moment to keep you on your toes. He avoided your attacks, sometimes with ease, sometimes barely, because he was not the only one who had learned how to confuse their enemy to gain advantage. Still, sometimes punches and kicks landed – and you’d be bruised tomorrow even as Steve was obviously pulling his punches as not to cause fatal internal bleeding on you.

The thing was, you did no care for bruises; because more often than not, before the pain registered, it was a very different feeling that flickered to life at the point of contact and spread through your veins like a wildfire.

You had a fair amount of experience with sparring, sparring with attractive colleagues too; but never in your life you had found a hold on your fist, a forearm aligned to a forearm, a hold on your ankle, a touch to a thigh so damn intoxicating.

And intoxicating was the right word; because it was messing with your head in both welcomed and unwelcomed ways and it landed you in a trap; your heart and then your body, firmly in Steve’s hold.

You knew exactly how you found yourself in the headlock, but that was no help to you, especially since your first thought, despite the adrenalin coursing through your veins, was that Steve’s front pressed to your back was very warm, very firm and very much appreciated.

You had known you were in trouble a second before Steve’s arm closed around you. But it was too late. He already had you in his grip; and your mind had already steered into gutter, even if for a moment.

Focus.

While you could tell Steve was trying his damnest not to hurt you, his hold on you was unrelenting, not leaving an inch of space for movement besides you possibly tapping out. Which you would do about as soon as the hell would freeze over.

But there were others way of getting out and you would not give up without trying.

Judging by the firm resistance Steve put against your attempts to escape – and good god, how did he just walk around with biceps and forearms this size – he wasn’t completely shying away from his enhancement.

So neither should you.

Closing your eyes a moment, you allowed yourself, albeit with a pang of guilt, another precious moment of feeling Steve’s body enveloping you; then, another moment of indulging in the sight provided by your mind’s eye, of Steve’s large body curled around yours.

And then snapped your eyes open to that very image, your spectre materializing behind him.

There was no time to waste; Steve would soon recognize the change in tension of your actual body. And yet. You couldn’t help but simply feel for another beat of your heart. The heat of his body curled around your back as well as him nearly touching your front now, his t-shirt straining around his broad shoulders and his absurdly narrow waist that called for you to wrap your legs around it.

But you had no right to do that; and admiring his physique and indulging in his presence was not why your spectre was behind him.

Standing on your tiptoes, noticing the slight wince in his posture as he had indeed registered a change in your physical body, even if he clearly hadn’t identified its cause yet, you leaned as close to his left ear as you could, and whispered:

“On your left.”

Visibly startled, he snapped his head to the source of the sudden noise.

You’d swear you heard Bucky laugh at the other end of the gym – but you didn’t let it distract you beyond a ghost of a smile on your lips.

This was your moment; as soon as you felt was the slightest loosening of Steve’s hold, you seized the opportunity, snapping back. And for all Steve’s fast reflexes, he was not quick enough to stop you from escaping the previously perfect headlock when his first instinct was to grab after the new attacker – your spectre – his fingers only brushing air by the time he did so.

He was not quick enough to react to straighten his posture either, to catch you or his wits before you were curling under his empty arms and sweeping his legs from under him, and causing him to land with his back on the mat with a surprised huff and a thud so powerful it nearly shook the floor under your feet.

You knew he let you win when you managed to climb on top of him and pin him down; but it still felt pretty good to outwit him a little. And to straddle him, holding down his hands which he could with no doubt laughable ease free from your ordinary human grasp.

He huffed a chuckle as he let his head hit the mat, before his gaze found yours again.

“You’re playing dirty.”

For but a second, a tiny but loud voice in your head snapped at you to apologize this instant for cheating, to respond appropriately to your superior berating you; but he wasn’t. There was no malice in Steve’s voice. If anything, he seemed amused, lacing his words with the smallest hint of admiration and praise.

Who knew Captain America himself would approve of sneakiness?

You. You did. These days, you knew. But seeing, hearing and feeling was believing; and all your senses registered that it was all kinds of fine and it inflated your chest with a feeling unknown, of which you were beginning to believe equalled what people usually felt when coming home.

It was a feeling pumping up courage straight into your veins.

One corner of your lips lifted in a smirk mirroring Steve’s, even as your chest was rising and falling rapidly after the exertion needed to get him on his back. “Using what I have. What’s your excuse for holding back, Captain?”

He was holding back; despite the fun and valuable lectures you were gaining, you could see as much and feel it every time he landed a hit. Sure, the aim of sparring was not to beat each other senseless; but he was holding back a little too much. He seemed to be enjoying himself too; but he could do a lot better.

“What I have,” he retorted, a serious note lacing his voice, causing you to sober up a fraction. “It’s dangerous not to. You know it is, better than anyone. You felt it.”

You had felt and were feeling all sorts of things indeed; and you understood his point. But as your mind wandered several directions, some less decent than others, it occurred to you just how, professionally speaking, rare your chance to spar with Steve was.

“Well, one might argue about the opposite being true. The numbers of enhanced people and Inhumans keep rising. And if our biggest escapade yet told us anything, it’s that the serum will always be a hot issue,” you reasoned and despite your rather compromising position, you could tell Steve was genuinely considering your words. “It’s a matter of time before I run into someone with enhanced strength and reflexes in the field… they might not have your level of skills, but still. We’re wasting an opportunity for me to learn how to fight them better.”

The shift in atmosphere following your words was almost palpable, filling your lungs with regret; Steve gulped, all humour bleeding off from his face, dark thoughts gathering like clouds over the sunshine that had been in his smile.

It was obvious he saw your point; you just weren’t sure why you had made it, when it meant disrupting the previously perfect flow and playful atmosphere. A moodkiller, were you? You had been having such a good time earlier.

Then again, that was hardly a surprise, was it? Good times didn’t last; not for you. Sooner or later, you’d taint them with your presence, with your past, your lack of finesse and skill or doomsday mindset. Always.

Your felt your body turning rigid, cold despite the sweat running down your back, ribcage tightening, your gaze growing absent as you retreated into the maze of your mind and memories, every step taken backwards leading you deeper and deeper between the walls that knew no escape-

-and the tender touch to your hand pulled you right back, Steve’s face coming back to focus. It was but a brush on your forearm; on a hand you didn’t remember taking off Steve’s forearm.

While you were still on top of him, he was on top of the situation; and while you should be having a firm grip on him, your opponent, you had someone you trusted with your life gently holding you, if by nothing else but his fingertips barely caressing your skin. There was no doom on his face, no scolding, no insult, no mocking; just intent and focus written in his surprisingly softened features.

“I just don’t want to hurt you.”

The words came out quiet, yet you felt their power shake something within you, releasing the suffocating tension in your chest, something in the air shifting towards a wholly new direction.

You didn’t think Bucky and Sam were in the gym anymore; the large room was filled with nothing but faint sounds of your and Steve’s breathing, the space expanding and shrinking at once, a whole world concentrated in the sincerity of Steve’s blue eyes.

If the third seal of touching Steve had broken by accepting the sparring session, the fourth was being broken when you allowed yourself to feel the tenderness of his rough fingertips on your skin and the firmness and stability of his body under yours.

“You won’t,” you whispered back, your faith in those words steady as the foundation of Earth. So steady you mentally propped your hand on it and rose to bravery, reaching a decision that somehow felt like losing the ground under your feet and enjoying doing so. “I trust you, Steve.”

“With your life?” he questioned softly, gaze roaming your face, trapping you in a world of its own.

Distantly and vividly at once, you recalled the conversation you had led in the med bay almost a month back, a shiver running down your spine. And it was not at all unpleasant.

Knowing in your core that the decision you had reached was the right one, you released a shaky breath, throat tight with both anxiety and overwhelming relief.

“That too.”

Then, a beat of silence. You were fully aware of what you were saying; what you were hinting had.

And you knew that Steve, brilliant, brilliant Steve, was too, because even with his ability to appear stoic – ability you could proudly say you had penetrated more than once – his expression changed. A subtle shift in his features; a drastic one.

Transforming with something you were suddenly terrified to read.

For ten frantic beats of your heart, you observed him with dreadful anticipation, before the weight of your own words became too much, panic attempting to seize you as you fought with vigour not to show the crucial realization that had dawned on you.

You just made a mistake.

You had misread the situation, you had misread it all.

You basically told Steve you were ready for a shift in your relationship; but it was too late.

Steve wasn’t interested anymore, even if there was something in his eyes that appeared so damn soft after your admission and you’d swear you had seen a glimmer of want in those widened pupils during the sparring session. But you were wrong.

He had been content with the blooming friendship, the spark needed for romance already gone, rationality overtaking whatever feelings had possessed him earlier, the realization you were too much work, too much to handle and not enough of anything else overweighting his previous courage to try with you.

You had missed your shot; and you just exposed yourself to judgement.

Before the emptiness of losing something you had never actually had could swarm your body completely with pain you wished was only spectral, a loud thud from the other part of the gym – making you realize you were very much not alone – froze the sensation in its progress.

On autopilot, you climbed off Steve swiftly, offering him your hand even as the idea of you lifting the hunk of muscle Steve was was laughable at best.

You did not feel like laughing.

You cleared your throat, forcing a nonchalant smile, nonchalant tone, nonchalant everything.

“Two out of three?” you offered, thanking all gods you ever heard of that Steve accepted your hand with the same amount of nonchalance, his hand warm and firm around yours.

You tried to smile despite feeling like projecting your spectre to damn Australia just so you didn’t have to deal with the brutal confession you had so irresponsibly and stupidly gave out.

And yet. There was something shockingly warm in Steve’s expression as he nodded, giving you hope you hadn’t messed up as cardinally as you thought, his gaze a little absent as if he was just as lost in his own mind as you wanted to retreat into yours and never leave.

Not wanting to give into hope nor the despair, you did what you always had; you shoved the incident and possible consequences deep within where they couldn’t hurt you momentarily, desperately latching onto the workout itself. You tried to tell yourself you should cherish the blessing of spending time with Steve, even if it might be the last time before you’d go back into the shouting matches and two strangers living and working in close quarters mode.

“Sure. Have at it, Spectre.”

He made a little gesture with his hand and he raised his arms for defence, determination that somehow appeared to reach beyond besting you in combat appearing on his face and making your heart tremble with everything but fear.

“I will. But no holding back. Not that much, at least.”

The brief smile passing Steve’s lips felt somewhat meaningful, a warning sending your heart into frenzy; but whenever had it not.

“Don’t worry, Spectre. I won’t.”

If there was one thing Steve could do really well – among many others, because of course he did – it was delivering on his promises.

He was not holding back; or at least he was holding back on holding back, and the results were immediate.

His smile grew wider, his energy practically sparking, his movements faster and considerably more challenging than before. He allowed himself to let go; and he leaned fully into you doing the same, the stakes rising, as much as the fun. And tension.

A very palpable tension you couldn’t deny, air heavy and delicious in your lungs, your heart once again racing from more than the insanely intense workout.

Steve went – almost – all in. And damn, was that a challenge, like a steep hill to climb; quite a literal one, since Steve was a mountain of muscle.

What a sight.

A cheeky smile when you tried to trick him with projecting again; his grip a little firmer, growing even more difficult to escape it when you weren’t sure you wanted to; not when he spared a playful remark, his breath brushing your skin and sending shivers down your back. Huffs of laughter when you squinted at him after every unsuccessful attempt to get him on his back.

His attacks were much more successful; and it wasn’t just the speed and the strength.

It was the stamina.

Which was a thought that sent your mind to the gutter more than once, but you could not let it. Not even when he got you on his back with an embarrassingly loud thud on the mattress.

He had tired you out; that was what had had you done. So much that you remained lying flat on your back for several seconds, blinking and catching your breath.

Steve’s panting form appeared in your field of vision, his cheekiness and thrill of a friendly and surprisingly challenging fight erased and quickly replaced by concern.

“Did I hurt you? Are you okay?”

It was sweet. Almost.

You huffed, unable to hold back the stink eye when the concern disappeared from his features, replaced by mischief.

“What do you think? … I’m fine. Completely fine.”

As he offered you a hand, one corner of his lips quirked up in painfully contagious amusement.

“Then stop napping. Come on.”

And you did.

By the third time he bested you, you felt like you were supposed to take that nap; because hadn’t it been for him, you might have sprained something, if not broken.

If there was one thing you were better at than Steve, even if it still was an annoyingly close call, it was gymnastics. You moved a little faster, was able to stretch a bit further, flip over to avoid hits more effectively.

Until you didn’t.

With your movements growing sluggish, the power behind your punches less explosive, your jumps reaching lower, you missed a step; you failed to put enough strength into your take-off. Like a lightning, the realization hit you mid-flip that the landing would not be pleasant, let alone graceful – and your body had no chance to react properly in time, not with how slow your motions had turned.

Squeezing your eyes shut, muscles strung for the impact you braced yourself for, you swore to yourself you would not cry out in pain, clenching your jaw for a good measure.

And then you were landing in something solid and warm and safe and the world was tumbling and spinning until it stood still except for the two sets of frantic heartbeats and laboured breaths, everything coming back to focus.

The everything being Steve securely holding you to his chest as you sat your ass on the ground, your legs bend over his outstretched thighs.

Snapping your eyes open, you met his worried blues roaming as he was already taking count of your possible injuries – which were zero thanks to his save. Ears ringing from the unexpected tumble, warm proximity and the intensity of Steve’s gaze, it flashed through your mind that had Steve ever decided to quit his job, he would probably make good money as a top spotter in gymnastic due to his reflexes and quick thinking like that.

And you’d love to return to professional gymnastics if he had, because landing in his arms did things to your heart that might not be healthy, but were certainly entirely pleasant, every single of your senses sinking into him. The heat radiating off his skin, the musk mixed with his cologne, the taste of his breath on your lips, his beauty still so startling from up close, and finally his voice, husky with worry.

“Are you alright?”

Very much so, you wanted to reply, lost in the deep sea of blue with sweet green speckles; lost until you realized he was asking because you might have nearly broken your neck with the awkward flip.

You cleared your throat, trying to blink away the haze.

“Uhm, yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Thanks to you,” you mumbled, licking your lips as your gaze flickered to Steve’s mouth, the heat surrounding your body suddenly unbearable with the improper thoughts it awoken.

He had caught you because he was your superior. He was responsible for you and he was your friend and he cared, and he would feel awful if you got hurt, because he had been the one to suggest the sparring. It would be completely unprofessional and low of you to use the position it had landed you in as an excuse to taste those lips for real-

You shifted in his embrace, a clear signal you wanted him to release you – even if you didn’t – his hold on you instantly easing, causing you to release the breath that caught in your chest when he had so sincerely asked you if you weren’t hurt.

He smiled at you as he let you to climb to your feet first, joining you swiftly once you weren’t in his way.

“Are you sure you’re-”

“I’m fine, Steve. Really… “ you reassured him, even as you felt your stance being a little shaky from exertion. “And thank you. Really.”

“Happy to help. Should we take a break?”

You looked at him incredulously, trying and failing to asses if he was being serious or teasing you; the way one corner of his lips quirked in a smile did not help your assessing process.

But for once, you were done. Any further sparring would probably ended up in you truly hurting yourself.

Not to mention it wouldn’t be fair.

“Steve if you haven’t caught me, I’d be on my back, probably with something broken. I think it’s safe to say this counts like the third point for you… and even if it didn’t, you’d get me on the ground within a minute. This,” you gestured vaguely on the mat where you had been sitting, in his arms, across his lap, FOCUS, “just proves I stand no chance anymore. You won. Fair and square. Congrats. And thanks for not letting me win just because.”

“Just because?” he questioned, the other corner of his lips turning higher too, his eyes sparkling with something that made your stomach flutter.

Just because I like you? his smile seemed to say, but that might be your fatigue and slight dehydration putting ideas in your head and it was not what you meant. Entirely. You weren’t that confident.

You cleared your throat as you reached for your water bottle. “Just because you’re a gentleman.”

You took a generous sip, eyeing Steve as he shrugged.

“I try. But I wouldn’t-“ You raised your eyebrow at him, making him chuckle self-deprecatingly. “Okay, that’s fair.”

You smiled too. “I’d say. Now, I made a fatal mistake – I didn’t agree on the wager before losing. So, what’s it gonna be, winner?”

Your own question, the admission of losing, took you by surprise; it felt so much lighter than you’d expect. Looking back at how you and Steve interacted in the past few weeks, it shouldn’t have. But it did.

Had this happened two months ago, you’d try to bury yourself six feet under for the humiliation alone. But a lot had changed since then; and you might still be learning, but you were trying your best to see things without actively assuming everyone thought low of you just because you weren’t perfect.

And right now, the thing was that Steve would not mock you for losing against him. He would not throw it to your face that you had asked him not to hold back and he wouldn’t automatically assume you had done so because you were being cocky and that led to him beating you; if anything, the look on Steve’s face whispered of respect. He might have won, but he had seemed almost impressed every time he got a point on you, as if he admired you for holding your own against him for so long. Whenever he had offered you a hand to get up, firm and gentle at once, a combination that you read in his actions in him more and more often, it wasn’t a superior offering a hand to a weak member of his team; as absurd as it sounded, it was almost as if an equal was offering a hand to an equal.

As if a friend was genuinely offering help to their friend.

And with something in his gaze speaking louder than words, the line of friendship was blurring with each passing moment.

But friends or not, you owed him; and unlike what you’d be two months ago, you weren’t afraid of being at his mercy. In fact, there were scenarios flowing in your mind where the idea of being at his mercy appeared more than appealing.

But this was not the time; as far as you knew, it might never be the time.

You shook off the thought for your own wellbeing and as not to be a downer, again.

“Come on, Steve. You’ve earned it. What’s the pay up? Publicly stepping up during training and declaring you’re a better fighter which everyone already knows, or wearing a ridiculous costume to a meeting?” you suggested, chuckling nervously under his intent gaze, not sure what to make of it. Had you been wrong and had he planned some diabolical task? Surely, he wouldn’t… right? “Or buying you coffee for a month, doing your laundry, vacuum cleaning and cleaning up, being stuck on rewriting mission logs duty-”

“Have dinner with me.”

You almost dropped your bottle at the soft offer, your heart skipping a startled and unfairly excited beat. His voice was so quiet and tender you were half-convinced you had suffered a blow to the head which you couldn’t remember and you were now hallucinating.

Except Steve continued, a little more firmly and steadily as he took a reluctant step closer, his gaze never leaving your face.

“Have dinner with me,” he repeated. “Not because I won, I don’t care for that. I’d never use that or anything else to force you, I hope you know that. But… have dinner with me… as a date. If you still want to.” He licked his lips, the motion drawing your gaze like a magnet, almost distracting you from how nervous his smile appeared all of sudden. “Earlier… you said you trusted me. Did I misread it?”

Of course.

Of course he had understood immediately and of course that his determination, one that had seemed to encompass more than met the eye, had been about more than winning. Now you knew what; and not for a second you’d think he was trying to force you into anything, had been plotting ever since you had told him not to hold back. You knew in your very core this was not something Steve did, because he had been so wonderfully patient and kind and maybe a little bit flirty and every single touch seemed to carry meaning and you had grown closer, you had learned things about him that kept revealing him as even more of a beautiful person that you had ever imagined, but if there was any doubt that all, it was that perhaps with his out-of-charts reading skills, you had forced him to act when you had suggested you might be ready for more.

You didn’t really believe Steve could be pushed into something he didn’t want to do, but the worm of insecurity was nestled deep. What if… what if?

“You’re not wrong, Steve. You’re… an attentive reader. I just…” You shook your head, an unsure smile playing on your lips, causing him to frown, an expression you were quick to avoid by casting your gaze downwards. “You don’t have to… you know, just because I said that, you don’t have to-“

His sneakers entered your field of vision, causing you to gulp, your eyes briefly flickering up; before you could escape the weight of his gaze again, his index finger slid under your chin and pushed up in a gentle touch that had you shiver, butterflies swarming your belly as you lost yourself in the blue of his eyes like many times before.

His damn touch; so soft and meaningful, barely there and yet leaving a brand you’d proudly wear any day-

“No, doll, I really do have to, because if I read it right and if you’re ready to try… I’m not letting this chance slip through my fingers. I think you are beautiful, brilliant, incredibly driven and strong. You make me laugh, you make me question everything I know, you keep me on my toes and I enjoy every single minute of getting to know you, of being with you, in any capacity, and… I’d like it to continue, preferably over a dinner,” he said, a little innocently teasing smile in the corner of his plush lips as if his thumb wasn’t mere inches from your mouth, as if his fingertips hadn’t brushed along your jaw while he had been talking, almost subconscious movement it seemed, as if your heart wasn’t beating its way out of your chest because he had easily weaved a year worth of compliments into asking you out on a date, as if something within you wasn’t trembling and he hadn’t laid something beautiful and terrifying and delightful at your fingertips, as if he wasn’t at your fingertips, the most breathtaking mirage that made your lips tingle with the need to meet his.

At your stunned silence, a shadow of self-doubt masked as the lightest chuckle, his hand dropped from your face. Much to your regret.

“It… it doesn’t have to be a dinner, it can definitely be different kind of meal. Or… not a meal, it can be something different, maybe a museum or a picnic in a park or… anything you’d like, I’d just… I’d like it to be something where I get to treat you right.”

Your urge to kiss him senseless and your body’s need to melt where you stood grew exponentially with every word, something acutely warm and suffocating and overwhelmingly good blooming in your chest, the nerves now lacing Steve’s voice only fuelling the sensation; because it seemed even Steve Rogers could be in a situation where he needed to gather a little courage and was willing to show it to you, because he trusted you and shared with you.

There was no saying no to this, especially since he was still standing so damn close to you, looking at you like he had meant every damn word he said, as if that truly was how he saw you despite everything.  

“Well… uhm, I’d really love that,” you choked out, his smile making its return with brightness, causing you to feel giddiness you didn’t know you could feel, your lips curling up in a smile before you could stop it. “But it hardly seems fair, does it?”

Steve’s eyebrows rose a bit, his expression telling you he understood you were only teasing him now. A little. The majority of you was just you trying to distract him while you processed the fact he seemed taken by you for some reason – the reasons he had listed to make his case – and just asked you out and you had basically already said yes and he was still so close and tall that you could just stand on your tiptoes and-

“Hm, what does?”

What had you been talking about? Oh.

“Well, I lost the match… and this makes me feel like a winner.”

The flicker of something tender was brief, but it was certainly there before a brilliant grin took over, his hand enveloping yours, thumb brushing over your inner wrist just above your sparring glove. The simple touch sent an outrageously intense electrifying feeling up through your body. You weren’t sure you could survive a date with Steve, but damn would you try; for all the touches you had exchanged before, this one was charged with something deliciously new and expectant, the air in the room almost crackling as Steve took your other wrist into a gentle hold as well.

“I don’t see the issue with that… and since I am the winner, I make the rules. So… that’s a yes, right?” he asked once more for confirmation, the thinnest thread of uncertainty among the delight making your body act before your brain caught up.

You simply couldn’t resist. Well-aware the room was already empty, feeling like million bucks despite losing – and truly, losing had never felt and would never again feel so good – you quickly stood on your tiptoes, using Steve’s hip as a support, and pressed a feather-light kiss to his cheek, retreating just as fast.

You didn’t miss the fact his gaze flickered down to your lips as you stepped back and unwittingly escaped his hold, your lips still burning from the brief touch to his skin.

“It’s a yes,” you assured him, voice a little shaky from the adrenalin coursing your veins. You couldn’t believe you just kissed him; on a cheek, yes, and it should not affect you like you were a blushing girl in a kindergarten, but the warmth in Steve’s eyes and the new hint of pink to his cheeks told you perhaps you were not alone in your giddiness and nerves. It felt empowering and silly all at once; and sweet and beautiful. Almost as beautiful as Steve’s smile shining with the power of thousands suns after receiving the simplest of affections. “Let me know when and where.”

“I will. …stretch with me?”

For the second time, you couldn’t quite help your reaction; but this time, your brain was much faster than it should have, the – given the environment innocent – suggestion somehow connecting with planning the date in your mind in the most inappropriate manner.

You sputtered, glad for not having taken another sip of water just yet, and burst out laughing despite there being nothing laughable about Steve helping you stretch or helping you stretch.

The tips of Steve’s ears turned bright red with fascinating speed, his face a hilarious image of pure horror.

“Oh no, I did not mean-“

“Sure you didn’t, Steve,” you choked out between laughter, his embarrassment turning into exasperation at your childishness. And you’d believe it if the laughter wasn’t already glimmering in his eyes. “Sorry, sorry, yeah. Sure, let’s… stretch.”

“Great, let’s-”

“I could use a partner for stretching, haven’t had one for a while,” you hummed nonchalantly, a smirk threatening to break as something exhilarating flashed in Steve’s irises at your – given the environment innocent – confession. Whether his pupils dilated from surprise or something dangerously resembling desire, you weren’t sure – but it made you want to giggle and laugh and cry, your cheeks beginning to hurt as well as the rest of your body.

Your grin only widened when Steve opened his mouth without a sound coming out, before resigning to reaching for his own bottle, using it as a pointer.

“…I didn’t mean that. You know that I didn’t--- of course, you do,” he stumbled over his words a bit, sighing when he could see your amusement only growing, shaking his head with a lopsided and slightly incredulous smile. “You’re trouble… I think I like it.”

He only thinks? He isn’t sure? echoed in your head, but you didn’t let the flicker of insecurity get to you. Not now. Not after this lovely incident that shot up your confidence all the way to the high ceiling of the gym.

“Maybe I should cause trouble more often then, Captain.”

Identifying the spark in Steve’s eyes as want, you smiled to yourself, not quite sure what to do with yourself, but knowing this must have been what being happy and in love felt like.

“Yeah. Maybe you should.”

Epilogue pt.2

Series masterlist // S.R. masterlist

Thank you for your patience and for reading 💕

The second part of the fluffy epilogue should come soon enough, since it's already written (...it's how I found out this one hasn't been posted 🥲)

May the endless January begone, welcome February - may it be kind to you 💕