#teaming up

Tobirama pushes his glasses up his nose, hoping to stave off the headache that he can feel blooming in his temples.

There's something wrong with these numbers, he's sure of it despite not having found it yet, and he doesn't like what that says about one of his subordinates. Kakashi has always been trustworthy, but there's something about this that just smells off.

Or maybe that's dinner.

“I am.”

“Trying to get me back in the world?”

“I think one of us has already achieved that one,” you stepped in, a smirking glance sideways to see Steve’s face. He didn’t spare you the same glance, instead locked on Fury. You sighed. You might have cleared him for duty and he might have accompanied you in eliminating a few low level threats, but that didn’t mean he wanted a mission from Director Fury.

There was a part of you that wanted to kick Fury out of the room and keep Steve completely cushioned and safe, to tell him he never had to hold another shield again, to tell him he’d seen enough war and he never had to see any more.

But Steve wouldn’t want you to do that, and the world probably wouldn’t thank you either.

“Trying to save it,” Fury said gravely, and you realised you’d been so focused on Steve and his well-being that you’d missed the little gravel in Fury’s voice that meant this was something serious. That this was something big.

He handed Steve a file and you moved closer to him to read it with him. The Tesseract. HYDRA. Having spoken to Steve about his past in some late nights past, some of the words sounded bone chillingly familiar. One look at his face told you that you were right.

“Hydra’s secret weapon…”

“Howard Stark fished that out of the ocean when he was looking for you. He thought what we think, the Tesseract could be the key to unlimited sustainable energy. That's something the world sorely needs.”

“Someone took it?” You chimed in and Fury nodded.

“He's called Loki. He's not from around here. The world has gotten even stranger than you already know.”

Steve finally looks to you, but there’s none of the usual playful glint in his eye that you’ve come to know so well in the last six months of being assigned to him. Or in the last three months of him being your closest friend. His slight smile is resigned and painful and it makes your face contort into a pity he probably doesn’t want.

“At this point, I doubt anything would surprise me,” he directs his comment at you even though he should be talking to Fury. You place your hand on his bicep. An understanding.

“Ten bucks says you’re wrong,” Fury counters and the tender moment is gone as you drop your hand to fold your arms across your chest again, “There’s two debriefing packages waiting at your apartment, Captain. Y/N will go over everything with you.”

Fury spares you a glance and you give him an almost imperceptible nod. Steve’s already beginning to leave and you know he wants nothing to do with this, not really. But you also know he wouldn’t even think about not accepting. You pick up your bag and his bag, slinging one over each shoulder as Steve picks up a punching bag on his own. You know he’ll want a private anger release tomorrow morning in the comfort of his apartment.

Before he can get away, Fury speaks again.

“Is there anything you can tell us about the Tesseract that we ought to know now?”

You’re wincing, because you just want to get Steve the hell out of there and be able to talk to him properly and Fury just can’t take a hint. Steve doesn’t even turn around, just turns his head and he looks at Fury and then right at you. You inhale sharply.

“You should have left it in the ocean.”

And with that, he walks out of the gym and you’re left with the two bags and an eerily silent Nick Fury. Without much second thought, you offer a half smile Fury’s way but ignore the fact that he looks like he wants to say something and instead follow Steve out of the door.

He’s waiting for you out on the street. It’s clear he needed the fresh air. He’s gulping it in, chest heaving and eyes narrow. You arrive at his side and he starts walking, letting you fall into step beside him and taking his own bag from you with a mumbled thank you. You take the ten minute walk back to his apartment in silence, the darkness only cut into by occasional headlights and the orange glow of street lamps illuminating your footsteps.

A couple of steps and an elevator ride later, you’re dropping your bag near the door of his apartment, tucking your copy of his keys into your pocket again and dropping down onto the sofa with a grumble. Steve’s disappeared into his bedroom and you give him a minute or two to put his bag away and position the new punching bag, picking up the debriefing package on the table and flicking through it.

You’re surprised that he walks back into the living area and that you don’t have to go fetch him. You sit up and pat the sofa cushion beside you and it doesn’t take him long to collapse down onto it next to you and pick up his own copy of the debrief.

“One of the reasons I was at peace about going into the ice,” he begins, quite suddenly and you let the debrief fall into your lap to show you’re listening, “was because I knew I was taking that...that thing with me. That it would never corrupt anyone again. I was so naive.”

You shake your head.

“You weren’t naive, you had hope. I don’t often have much of that. I admire your penchant for it.”

“And I admire your realism,” he retorts and you smile, picking up your debriefing again to read it, speaking with your focus on the pages.

“Well that’s why we’re partners, right? We complement each other, bring out the best in each other,” you say it as cheerily as you can, even though this mission makes your stomach twist with nausea, “We’re better together and we’ll stop this ‘Lowkey’ guy, or whatever the fuck his name is, together too. Okay?”

He stares at you with eyes just beginning to spark again. Lets the corners of his mouth turn up in a quiet and unassuming smile.

“Okay,” he concedes, with an overwhelming need to place a hand on your elbow, or to tug you into his arms or even, and the thought makes him blush, pull you onto his lap and just hold you for a little while.

He continues reading instead.

---

Watching Agent Phil Coulson go full on fangirl over Steve was one of the only things keeping you happily preoccupied on the quinjet. For a while, he managed to make normal conversation about Dr Banner based on the video Steve was watching, but it didn’t take him long to begin complimenting his idol and explaining his input in the new uniform. You watched on from a few seats away, smirk firmly planted on your face.

“I could’ve made an excellent Adjustment Officer, you know,” Phil says wistfully as he finally leaves Steve alone and wanders over to you and you stand from your seat with a fond smile.

“I have no doubt,” you agree, even though you actually have many, many doubts about that one. Steve wouldn’t enjoy having someone gushing about his prowess on the daily, certainly not someone they had to actually see on the daily, “But you have other things to take care of. And speaking of, I haven’t managed to do this yet.”

You pull him in for a quick hug and then pull back and continue holding on, eyes scanning his face and body.

“What are you doing?”

“Checking you’re okay, of course. Nobody else does that for you, Phil, least of all yourself,” you roll your eyes and finish your check with a curt nod and he looks relatively touched by the sentiment, “Once my mentor, always my mentor.”

He knows what you mean. You mean a lot to him too, after all, and you know this even if he’s never told you directly.

“Missed you too, kiddo,” he says sincerely, ruffling your hair and finding glee in the scowl it gains him. He seems to remember something and suddenly glances behind him at Steve and lowers his voice to a volume only you will hear, “You think he’s ready?”

“Oh, he’s ready,” you say without hesitation, “Even if he doesn’t know it yet. We’re ready.”

---

Descending the ramp and spotting none other than Natasha Romanoff waiting for you at the bottom of it did nothing to calm the fast beating heart in your chest.

“Agent Romanoff,” you call as you near her and she looks up at you with a smirk that you’re pretty sure she’s wearing in every photo you’ve ever seen of her, “I can’t quite believe that two of the most powerful women in SHIELD haven’t had the pleasure of meeting until now.”

You shake hands firmly and Steve arrives beside you.

“Ma’am,” he nods politely and she raises her eyebrows slightly at you but says nothing of the formality.

“Hi,” she directs this at Steve, a subtle way of dismantling whatever formal ideas have gotten into Steve’s head, “And I think they kept us apart on purpose. Can’t have too much power in one place.”

Oh, you like her.

“Something like that,” you agree, following her as she begins walking.

“There was quite the buzz around here, finding you in the ice, Cap,” Natasha continues as you walk, “I thought Coulson was gonna swoon. Did he ask you to sign his Captain America trading cards yet?”

“Trading cards?” Steve asks, clearly confused and you have to bite your lip to stop your laugh from spilling out.

“They’re vintage. He’s very proud,” she says it matter of factly, but your attention is caught by an anxious figure making his way through the crowds, gripping the satchel bag on his shoulder for dear life. He looks up and- it’s him. Seeing him like this makes you feel guilty for the tiny sliver of fear that creeps up your spine upon recognising him.

Steve is better, knows this better, the alienation, because he’s the first to approach him with a handshake and a quick reassurance when it’s clear that Dr Banner is a little apprehensive of what people will think of him. It only makes you feel more guilty.

“Y/N,” you introduce yourself then, stepping forward to shake his hand too and offering what you hoped was a kind and not a pitying smile. Much like Steve, he did not seem the kind for pity. You see the opportunity for a joke to lighten the tension and you take it, “I’m the muscle and he’s the comic relief.”

You nudge Steve with a smile and he rolls his eyes even though he’s smiling too and Dr Banner looks just ever so slightly more relaxed.

That is, until the helicarrier begins to lift into air. You and Nat share a look and quickly hurry the men inside, Steve looking more than shocked and Bruce looking much the same for an entirely different reason.

---

With Loki locked up, a joke that only Tony laughed at when you told it, you had a distinctly uneasy feeling that everything had been too easy. Steve had it too, it seemed, even though Tony and Thor seemed relatively unfazed by the whole thing.

You sat around the table, watching the feed of Loki’s imprisonment and frowned at his total lack of worry in this situation. He had a plan. You just knew it.

Having captured him in Stuttgart, meeting Iron Maiden himself and none other than the God of Thunder along the way, you and Steve seemed the most uncomfortable with the whole thing. Tony was talking, it seemed he was always doing that, joking about something or other while you sat there silently, staring at the screen, deep in thought.

Steve was still joining in, asking all the right questions and getting less than conclusive answers. When Tony and Banner walked off to their lab to do...whatever the hell it was they did, Steve finally turned to you.

“I don’t like this,” he said simply and you nodded your agreement, looking between him and the live feed of Loki. It was as if you thought looking away from him was dangerous, “And I don’t like him.”

“Who? Stark?”

“Yeah. He’s not taking this seriously.”

“I think he is, Steve,” you reasoned carefully, finally looking away from Loki properly and deciding it wouldn’t hurt, “This is how he deals with things. His coping mechanism.”

Steve opened his mouth to argue but clearly thought better of it. He stood instead, rolled his neck and placed a hand on your shoulder.

“I’m going to find somewhere to train in this place. You’ll call for me if anything happens?” he said it sincerely and you merely nodded in response, knowing that the two of you were on the precipice of an argument and wanting to avoid that at all costs.

You could understand where Tony was coming from. You, too, sometimes used jokes as cover for an underlying fear and though training as an agent forced a lot of that out of you in mission situations, it was still a default reaction. To hide everything with humour. As someone who was good at reading people, you were almost certain that was the case with Stark.

You were also almost certain that it wasn’t a point of view Steve would understand just yet.

---

You were sat, still watching Loki on the screen but now with the added Agent Romanoff, talking to him. One calm, the other irate. At one point, when Loki banged on the glass, you flinched right along with Natasha.

“Y/N?” Steve entered the room you’d been in alone and you spun to face him, hand at your holster before you could realise who it was. You relaxed and Steve’s brow furrowed at your jumpy nature but he didn’t say anything of it, “A word?”

He sounded pissed off and you agreed reluctantly, following him down the corridor and into the hull of the ship. You asked three times where you were going, what exactly you were doing, but were met with silence each time. It was only when he began heaving a heavy door open that you placed a hand on his forearm to stop him.

“Steve, you’ve gotta give me something here.”

He sighed, like he really didn’t want to do this, but knew he had no other choice.

“Fury’s hiding something,” he said it matter of factly and a look of confusion overtook you, “Stark’s looking into some encrypted files as we speak and Banner agrees that something’s off. I want to check it out.”

The look on face showed you that he desperately didn’t want to have to check this out and your heart sank. But there was a bad feeling in your gut about this one and despite your loyalty to Fury, there was a certain other loyalty that may have taken precedence nowadays.

“Okay, we’ll check it out,” you conceded, then with a playful wink, “Old school style.”

Steve shook his head at you, before you stepped back and allowed him to open the door, not bothering to help when you knew you weren’t needed. He only opened it just enough and the two of you slipped through and into a dark warehouse area.

You glance around, but there’s nothing of note, no markings that stick out or capture your attention. After a few moments, Steve nudges you and points upwards and you follow his finger to gaze at an upper level you hadn’t noticed and one that couldn’t be reached.

At least, that looked like it couldn’t be reached, until Steve leaped up there, grabbing the railing and hauling himself over. He leans down and holds out a hand.

“Jump, I’ve got you,” he says quietly. There’s a moment of hesitation but then you come to your senses and you take a few paces back before jumping just as he says, your hand clutched in his own and him pulling you up with relative ease.

“Thanks.”

You continue on in relative silence until you see a crate with markings that don’t feel familiar and a serial code too high for what should be stored in this warehouse. You stop Steve with a hand across his chest and crouch down, running your fingers over the lettering.

“Open this one,” you say briskly and he frowns but does as you say, hauling the lid from the crate.

You gulp. Close your eyes for a second as your heart rate spikes. You hear Steve’s heavy exhale beside you and see him look away and back again, clearly more angry than you had ever seen him. These were Hydra weapons. A strange guilt began gnawing its way through your stomach.

“I promise you, I had no idea,” it’s a gut reaction to the sight of the weapons, a desperation for him to know where you stand, that you stand with him, that you have done for months and you will do for as long as you can possibly do so.

“I know,” he murmurs under his breath, and you can hear the icy anger in his tone but it’s not directed at you. He picks up one of the weapons, not that you can understand what it is, “Let’s go.”

You follow him back along the walkways to the place where you ascended and he jumps down, placing the weapon on the ground then turning back to you.

“You’re sure you can handle this?” you ask playfully and you’re worried you sound a bit like Tony but Steve smiles at you and insists, only holding his arms out closer.

You vault the railings and carefully lower yourself into his arms, letting them encircle your waist and then he lowers you down until your feet are almost touching the ground. Almost. He stops just before, just when your faces are level and your breathing becomes the most laboured. He stops and holds you there, noses almost touching and breath mingling together, before his ulterior motives seem to slip away and you’re back on the floor without a word.

Your heart is racing as you slip back through the door and make your way to the lab, but it has nothing to do with the Hydra weapon in Steve’s hand.

---

“Phase 2 is SHIELD uses the cube to make weapons.”

All eyes are on the two of you as you interrupt the conversation in the lab, standing beside the table. You look at Fury and see a flash of guilt behind his eyes as he glances to you and you look away, shaking your head in disgust, arms coming up to fold across your chest.

“Sorry, the computer was moving a little slow,” Steve says to Tony and there’s almost a little pride in the way Stark changes his stance. Under other circumstances, you might have smiled at this back and forth. These two were more similar than they’d probably ever care to admit.

“Director, you mind telling me what the hell is going on here?” you butt in, fixing him with an apathetic stare that you hoped would be as unnerving as possible.

“We gathered everything relating to the Tesseract, that does not mean we’re…”

“I’m sorry Nick,” Tony slides the screen across to where you can clearly see plans for weapons powered by the cube, “What were you lying?”

You roll your eyes and hear a small scoff from the figure next to you.

“I was wrong, director. The world hasn’t changed a bit,” he sounds furious, yes, but there’s also a resignation there that forms a lump in your throat. The life that he’d had these past six months brought him into a new and changed world, one that was finally becoming a home, one that you had introduced him to. All that had changed again now.

It’s then when Natasha and Thor enter the room and you find it hard to listen to the argument that ensues, wishing you could simply storm out of the room as you would have when you were a child, found a nice quiet corner to slink down into and cry, knees bundled up to your chest. There was also an unfamiliar irritation that felt almost outside of yourself settling as a weight on your chest, and made it increasingly hard to bite your tongue.

It’s only when Tony and Steve start squaring up to each other that you step in, a hand on each chest pushing both backwards until they’re at a safe distance. It doesn’t stop the biting remarks between them though, the insults hurled and points of weakness pressed. You see Steve’s mouth in a hard, thin line and Tony’s contorted into a cruel smirk.

“Stop it,” you say firmly between them, “Just stop it the both of you.”

But then Banner is holding the scepter and you’re holding your gun and there’s an explosion and the floor is gone from under your feet and you’re down in a lower section of the ship, looking upwards at the room you had just been in.

“Y/N?” Steve’s voice echoes into the chamber even though your vision is just blurry enough that you can’t see him. You look to your left and see Banner, all bundled up and clutching the floor.

“Go!” you shout back up at him, seeing the figure looking through at you hesitate before moving away, then you lower your voice to a soothing volume, “We’re good, Bruce, we’re good.”

You sit up with a small groan and finally manoeuvre yourself to be able to see Banner’s face. You balk. He’s struggling with something, something you don’t want to name, his eyes wild and face showing just the beginning signs of changing. There’s a couple of Agents running towards you, to check on you, and you wonder if Steve has insisted on that, but you quickly wave them away as Banner only writhes further.

“Come on, Bruce, we’re okay. This is just what the bastard wants. Don’t let him win, don’t give in to it,” you know that you’re pleading but you can’t help it, especially when Bruce lifts his head suddenly and the look he gives you is completely alien to the man you’ve known over the past few hours.

“Give in to it?” he asks, but its cruel and its ugly and its threatening. You press your lips together, moving slowly as you try to stand, but another explosion sends you off your feet again and takes out the lights this time too.

There’s something heavy pinning your right leg and you struggle to get it free, trying to keep your movements as measured as possible as your eyes dart around, trying to adjust to the new low lighting. You can hear his thundering footsteps as he stumbles around and you know right then that its happened. That Bruce has gone. A few blinks later and the metal having fallen onto the floor with a clang, you can make it out, the huge shape just a few feet away, shoulders rising and falling with laboured breaths. You take a couple of tentative steps away from him, from that thing, but his head turns to the side and you freeze.

“Please,” you whisper, mostly to yourself, but he turns fully and you’ve turned away before you can comprehend it, taking the stairs two and a time and running through the maze of pipes in the upper level of the room, ducking and weaving as best you can, banging your elbows every few seconds and only being carried forward by a fear-induced adrenaline coursing through your veins.

He’s ripping floor right from your feet, forcing to you to jump and swing, but you see an opening and jump down from the catwalk, pulling your gun from your waist, readying it and trying to steady your breathing and the slight shake in your hands. You look upwards, checking for any signs of him, but there’s nothing.

You’re just turning to find a way to the others when there’s a footstep. You turn. His face is right there, roaring at you and then he’s ripping away the pipes in between you and you’re running again, through a series of some kind of electrics, you can’t stop to think about it, but there are sparks that you have to shield yourself from as you run. As you reach the end of whatever server room you were running through, you feel the footsteps closer and though you strive to run faster, there’s a solid force on your side and you’re knocked sideways, bashing into a stack of crates and crumpling to the floor.

You sit up with difficulty, wincing as you clutch your side and look up at him, your eyes wide, your chest heaving. He’s walking towards you, mouth half open and you brace yourself, unable to look away, until there’s an almighty crash through the wall as Thor flies in and tackles him into the next room. Suddenly ‘The Hulk’ has gone. You’re alone.

You take a couple of shaky breaths, eyes still fixed on the spot they had been previously, willing the tears that were biting at the back of eyes to go the hell away, back to where they came from, not to rear their ugly head. You didn’t need to cry. You didn’t want to cry.

With a wipe of your face, you stand up and rush off in the direction of the stairs to return to the upper levels and help the others, knowing there’s nothing you can do to help Thor now.

---

Barton is here somewhere apparently, leading the attack against you. He’s an agent you happen to have met a couple of times and worked with once and it baffles you that someone could have their mind so warped by a mere object.

It’s a thought you end up preoccupied with even as you aid the Director in defending the helicarrier’s bridge. There are men coming left, right and center and you take them out one by one, a combination of precise gunshots and a couple of throwing knives to the chest. If you had it your way, it would only be the knives, but apparently using a gun was more ‘cost efficient’.

At least that was what Director Dick Fury had told you. That name, however childish, made you feel a little better.

“Why are these guys still trying to get in here?” he shouts across at you and you ignore him, dodging a swing from an oncoming attacker and shooting him in the back, kicking the back of his knee and watching him crumple to the ground. You saw the arrow fly past and onto the control panel before you saw who shot it.

But you knew who shot it.

Nick gets Natasha to follow up on that one, chasing after Barton with purpose, as you rush over to assess the damage. It’s clearly hacking the systems but what the endgame is, you don’t know y-

The other engine on the same side as the one you’d just lost cuts out too and there’s a lurch as you lose all thrust on one side.

“Fuck,” you mutter, typing in a few override codes but only receiving more error messages in return.

“Y/N,” Nick tried to get your attention but you were locked on the monitor, “Y/N!”

You turn then and he shows you his monitor, your heart sinking right through your stomach, through the bottom of the helicarrier and freefalling in the sky below. Because the hatch had been opened.

“Phil’s there,” you murmur with a look to Fury that would have looked a lot like terror even though the emotion looked foreign in your features.

Maria gestures for the two of you to go and you waste no time, running through the door and to the prison area in record time, boots pounding against metal grate flooring and hearts pounding in your chests.

The sight that greeted you in the detention section had you gasping and not just for breath. Fury reached the door and stopped, resignedly, almost like he froze in the doorway. You, on the other hand, were by Coulson’s side in seconds, his hand in yours, other hand holding his head up as best you could.

“No, no, no, no,” you mumbled, words more and more angry, eyes frantic as you flit from all the bleeding to his face. He was smiling. The man was infuriating and it brought tears to your eyes.

Nick is calling for backup, for a medical team in the background.

“Y/N, I’m clocked out here,” Coulson says, because he knows and because you know too, even if it’s the last thing you’d ever admit to anyone. You clutch his hand tighter.

“You are not,” you say firmly, despite the wobble that tells him all he needs to know, “You are staying. Who else is gonna look after me, eh? Who else will fight my corner no matter what?”

“You have...Steve now. You don’t need a mentor. You-you are a...mentor.”

He can hardly get his words out.

“Phil-” your voice cracks now, large and noticeable as you choke on a sob, “-please.”

“This was never going to work…if you didn’t have something...to…”

He looks away from you and you can hardly bear it as he stutters a breath and then stops. No more stuttering. No more breathing. His face limp in the palm of your hand and his grip on you loosened.

“No, Phil, come back,” you say frantically, using both hands to prop his head up now, shaking it only slightly as you rest your forehead against his shoulder. The tears come fast and thick. Unchained, “Come back, please!”

Eventually, Fury has to pry you from his body and guide you away from the scene with physical force.

---

The table is surrounded by people and yet the room feels empty. Cold. Your wrap your arms a little tighter around your still-shaking frame.

Steve is looking at you, you can feel his eyes but you don’t meet them, knowing one look will send you sobbing into his arms. He’s holding the bloody trading cards, refusing to let them go and it’s a testament to Phil Coulson himself that such a short meeting with these people could have had such profound impact. With years of his guidance, the impact on you was immeasurably more significant.

Nick is talking, has been for a while, but it’s not as if you can be bothered to listen.

When Tony stands and walks off a little way, the room falls silent. You speak, even though you don’t know what you’re saying, what you’re going to say.

“I don’t give a shit,” it’s blunt and it’s raw and you’re not meeting anyone’s eye, “I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about you trying to use Phil to inspire us. Phil Coulson was a good man. More than anything, a good man and a good friend. Stop spouting bullshit to get us to-“

You trail off, partly because you don’t know where you’re going anyway and partly because you don’t have the heart right now. Steve scoots his chair closer to yours and puts an arm around you, tugging you into his side without question and letting you curl up into him. His warmth is comforting and his smell is heavenly.

Fury leaves, as does Tony and Natasha and Clint, one by one, without a word. Thor’s gone, dropped out of the sky and Bruce is gone too, although he jumped. You can’t help but be relieved about that one.

“He looked after me, Steve,” you say once it’s been quiet for a little too long, “When I had no one else, I always had Phil. In my corner.”

“I know, doll,” he says, an attempt to be comforting that might work given time, “I know. He was a good man.”

You nod and let Steve hold you through the fresh wave of tears that overcome you.

What could be minutes, hours or days later, you calm yourself down and breathe properly again, wiping your tears and making a feeble attempt to clear the small wet patch on Steve’s dirty suit. He waves you away.

“We have to stop him, Steve,” you croak out the words but the fire behind them remains. Steve pulls away from you then, making sure to look you in the eye as he replies:

“We’re going to stop him, Y/N. As a team. Together.”

A surge of warmth floods your bones and you lean in and kiss his cheek, an unstoppable reaction, one that arose from fear of loss and that which was best left unspoken. You linger, of course, what else was there to do, and when your lips leave his cheek his hand comes up, involuntarily of his brain and cups your face, keeps you close.

A glance upwards. His eyes are closed. You’re so close and yet, you realise, so close could never be close enough.

It’s tender as your lips meet, tentative and sweet. In a way, it’s tame, not the desperate crush of tongues and teeth you’d expected. Each time you’d dreamt of this moment, it was slightly different, but the most common interpretation was a heated argument, eyes flaring and words cutting, ending in heaving chests as you watched each other warily. But then Steve would take a few steps and pin you to a wall behind you and he’d be kissing you, dominating you, you a willing participant, lips parted and needy sighs escaping you. Then his hands would find the backs of your thighs, lift you up into his arms with such ease it made your-

It wasn't important.

This was so much better than the steamy hook up you’d pictured. This meant something. Meant something real, something tangible. Neither of you taking too much, taking it further. Just his hand sliding into your hair and yours resting uselessly against his chest. Loving.

He pulls away first. He can’t bear anymore without moving things on, without deepening the kiss and lifting you onto the table in this room. That’s not how he wants this to happen, however much he really, really wants this to happen.

“We should go,” he says, utterly and wonderfully breathless. There’s the faintest sheen of lipgloss on his upper lip and you can’t help but use your thumb to wipe it away and certainly can’t help the tiny gasp when he kisses the pad of it, “Go help.”

You gulp. Sit back. Away.

“Yeah,” you say, nodding and now standing up, anything to quell your heart and remove that unbearable warmth that’s taken over you, “We should.”

He starts to walk away, and you begin to follow, even though your legs are trembling and you feel overwhelmingly lightheaded. Your timing couldn’t have been worse. That didn’t really matter though. If you and Steve needed to wait for a good time, then you might have to wait forever.

You’re thinking about this when he stops and turns back to you and you’re so preoccupied that you gently bump into his chest. You blink as you step back and see his slight smirk as he tries not to laugh at you. You press your lips together.

“Sorry,” you mumble and he shakes his head, the smirk he’d been trying to keep a lid on morphing into a full blown grin.

“Don’t be,” he says, still grinning. It’s infectious, “I just want to check that...that we’re not going to pretend that this never happened when we leave this room.”

“Steve-“

“Cause if that’s the case then I’m not leaving,” he cuts you off, folding his arms and staring you down, the grin slipping into a serious gaze that you just want to shake right out of him.

You can’t help yourself. You lean up on your tiptoes, your hand sliding around the side of the neck to hold the back of his head as you kiss him again, tears welling in your eyes. You were far too fragile for all of this right now. You only kiss him for a few seconds, just enough to make your point. There wasn’t time for anything beyond that, and regardless this wasn’t the place. You pull away, but leave your hand there and relish the feeling of one of his at your waist.

“If you think-” you pause as you choke on your words and his face softens as his grip becomes tighter. It’s enough for you to swallow the lump in your throat and kiss him again, fleeting, before pulling away with a small smile, “If you fucking think that I could pretend anything when it comes to you then you do not know me as well as I thought you did, Spangles.”

He’s gazing down at you then, his expression a mixture of what looks like awe and fascination and… something else. Something you probably can place, you know him as well as he knows you after all, but something you probably weren’t going to place right now. Again, the timing was all off.

So when he opens his mouth to say something, you cut him off before he can.

“Now we really need to go.”