From intel retrieved at the leader’s residence, a small team immediately dispatches to a warehouse within ten kilometers where explosives are suspected. Steve and Bucky sweep the facility first since they could also escape the fastest were anything triggered. They split up. Bucky takes the large spaces while Steve clears a short labyrinth of offices and storage closets.
Bucky gives the all-clear to the team outside. Steve confirms “no explosives” over the channel before catching his friend’s eye and waving for him to follow. Steve doesn’t say a word until the door is shut to the windowless room. He even takes out his comms.
From Bucky’s wide eyes, Steve was right to bring him in immediately.
Bucky removes his earpiece, too, then flips the volume up on his walkie and orders, “I want the warehouse handled but then await further instruction. No other rooms. Got it?”
“Acknowledged, Sarge.”
Steve holds up several papers from a makeshift desk littered with files. His skin crawls in panic. “Tell me this isn’t what I think it is, Buck.”
Among the papers are photos, dozens of photos of just one person: you, including a picture of you out celebrating your promotion months ago, one of your friend Gracie’s birthday party from just last week, and one of a particularly disturbing nature inside a dressing room. He can’t tell when that’s from; he doesn’t recognize the clothes or the walls. The papers detail all kinds of things, thorough tracking your movements and records of your preferences of everything from food and drink to skincare and feminine hygiene products. Steve’s gut knots itself entirely when he comes across a file containing medical records and an accurate calendar of your menstrual cycle. He’s gonna be sick.
Bucky doesn’t have to say anything. The intent is obvious enough.
“Looks like kidnapping,” Buck mutters anyway. “You don’t do this level of recon just to poison or kill. My guess is leverage over you.”
The papers are like heavy knives in his hands. His tact suit feels excruciatingly tight, and Steve’s brain is on fire with rage.
“Down to her fucking period,” he blurts, low and violent. Bucky’s eyebrows shoot up at the language but an air of holding his tongue has Steve more nervous. “What?”
“A pregnant woman would be even more valuab—“
Steve punches the table so hard the plastic buckles, toppling to one side, stacks of surveillance intel sliding to the floor. His jaw locks. The thing is that there is nothing for his rage to stand on because Steve doesn’t understand how this could be happening.
“But we caught them all, right?”
His voice is tight, Steve admits, weaker than he hoped. There’s no confidence in it. There’s less than none when Bucky speaks.
“Today was one of the leaders, yeah…” His friend rubs the back of his neck.
Steve’s hands sink deep into his hair as he weighs options. “How many more?”
Bucky slides his walkie back up to his mouth, eyes fixed on Steve’s barely contained meltdown. “Torres, come in.”
After a beat, “yeah, Sarge?”
“I’m gonna need a crate brought to the back hall here. Just leave it there and we’ll pack it up.”
“You got it. Looks like we’ll be finished here in twenty.”
“Okay. Crate now, and we’ll be ready by the time you guys are done.”
A minute later, a hollow thump from beyond the door signals the drop-off.
With an armful of files, Bucky turns back to Steve. “I’ll handle the box myself. No one will see these,” he assures, opening the door and dragging the solid-sided, black bin inside. He drops in his armful, and just as he straightens, he sighs, “but we need to think of something, pal. This investment? The time they’ve spent? They won’t let her go.”
Steve worried Buck would say that, but then he never answered the question.
“How many?” Steve throws the force of a punch behind each word, and by the unblinking look on his friend’s face, Steve is already unprepared.
“Compiled list is thirty-five members—” Bucky puts his finger up before Steve tries to ask “—and that’s the ones not crossed off yet.”
Steve takes his rage and frustration out on the files until Bucky stops him from destroying evidence. Steve uses every ounce of his training, focus, and serum-laced enhancement to not show any agitation outside of the room.
On the return flight to HQ, he settles into a stoic—but very edgy—version of his normal self. His mind races at the speed of light. One of his first decisions is to not tell you because he doesn’t actually know anything yet. With so many enemy operatives still unaccounted for, he has to proceed under the assumption that some of that mountain of intel was fed through sources inside the Initiative. To allow Bucky time and distraction to haul the crate to his own quarters, Steve oversees unloading and takes point at the debrief.
He only becomes more paranoid when he gets back home. As you speak about your day, you mention at least two names he doesn’t recognize, so he pries, harder than he ever would before. You tease him about being jealous and swear that Tom the Barista only has eyes for Jake Hudson from your lab. Tom even came as Jake’s date to Gracie’s birthday party. You tell Steve he’s met him.
Steve shifts leaning forward on the couch while you casually lounge in his rocking chair. “Who? Thomas?”
“Yes,Steven,” you sass, twirling a finger through the chain of your necklace, a gift from your lab group given for your promotion (that dozens of nefarious scumbags have a picture from), “that’s generally what ‘Toms’ also go by.”
Steve considers how long that means you’ve been watched. He considers it for too long.
“Are you feeling okay? You’re very twitchy.”
“Tired.” Steve isn’t lying about that, and since he knows he’s a crappy liar, Steve has to be more careful.
“Go have a shower, love.” You kiss his forehead, running your fingers lazily through his hair. It makes his skin crawl again, painfully exhilarating and terrifying all at once. “I can bring dinner back here if you want.”
His grunt and sigh suffice as an answer.
Steve never was a stealth operative (well, not for anything longer than sneaking into a building), so he only stops obsessively over every product you kept in the bathroom—on the counter, in the drawers, and in the cabinet—when you peek in to ask if he wants sweet or savory sauce for his egg rolls.
Your curious look turns into a smirk. “What? Not liking the way I smell now?”
“Uh…” He blanks.
You pluck the jar of cream out of his hands and replace it with a tube of balm.
“Better for your dry elbows,” you hum with a smile and pat the meat of his bicep. “I’ll put out all the sauces. Just take your time, Sketch.” You shut the door behind you.
Steve knows he will throw up if he forces himself to eat his normal amount of food, and since he’s a super soldier and doesn’t get stomach bugs or food poisoning (or lose his appetite for any other reason), he is forced to do something he has never, ever done before. Steve fakes getting a call from a team member and leaves the apartment for a while. He walks the whole tree line around the complex in the dark and then returns to say not to worry, they had food upstairs. He gets away with this because there is food up in the lounge right by the main conference room; he just doesn’t fill in the part where he didn’t go anywhere near it.
The only thing that settles his stomach is to be near you, as near as humanly possible, so that night when you two make love, Steve holds onto you a lot tighter, his face never more than an inch away from yours. He pushes your hips against him and grips the back of your neck. You respond to his intensity with extra affection, which leads to a second-round where Steve was nothing shy of overbearing and possessive. He knows you sense a change, but you didn’t ask. You never ask for details after missions, and he usually likes that you help keep those things separate. You always wait for him to be ready to talk. He will never be ready to admit what kind of danger you were in.
So he spirals for hours. Each time he closes his eyes, he sees the photos. He sees you going about your everyday life not knowing you’re being watched. He sees you, twirling and biting at your necklace, deep in thought. He wishes he never scolded you for that nervous habit. He wishes he’d been nicer about the bear on it (even though he’s right and it is actually the same as the California state flag), but you love it anyway. He can’t take any of it back now. All he does is stare at the metal chain laying against your softly rising chest, pendant settled just between your breasts, and he feels helpless.
The next day, when he gets a chance to speak with Bucky far away from HQ on their run, it only gets worse.
The reason someone would want to kidnap you is to control him. It doesn’t take the brain power of anyone over the age of five to notice Steve will do anything for his wife, and the biggest problem boils down to the time it takes to tick off all the names on that list. Of the listedthirty-nine, four are already captured or killed as of yesterday’s mission. However, the Team only started acting on intel for this group a week and a half ago. They currently have leads on seven more, but the info ranges from “we know he lives right here” to “I heard someone talk about seeing him in this other country a year ago.” Tracking, verification, and takedown of thirty-five targets could take…well, it’s impossible to estimate.
Keeping you in hiding is an option, but you’d be out of work for who knows how long (and pissed about it). Bucky is fairly certain Steve would not be able to join you in hiding either, so you’d be alone and pissed and he’d still be afraid. You could have a heavy security detail, but that’s no good because some of that research came from HQ; at the very least there’s a data leak, but there could also be an operative working amongst them. Even if Steve up and quits, retiring from the Avengers, he’s still capable of being wielded as a physical or political weapon, and just because he isn’t fighting on the Team, doesn’t mean he can’t influence the Avengers (and several world governments) anyway. There is no clean path forward. All options require coordination and too many resources.
Eventually, it’s Bucky’s suggestion that offers the quickest and most efficient solution. If Steve dies, no one has use of you as leverage. Steve now wants to throw up. He doesn’t like the idea of being stuck away from you indefinitely, but he soothes himself by comparing this to any other mission. In fact, he wills himself to calm down since this mission is entirely for your safety, but he can’t fully accept it. He just keeps feeling sick.
A vague semblance of a plan is discussed. Bucky has a safe house from his time on the run (left unfound because of how useless the location is for fieldwork), but it is remote—can’t find it on a map even when it’s marked with an x remote—and in a wilderness surrounded by tundra. No electricity, no running water, no satellite signal. Nothing.
A new leader will take over the terrorist cell. That could take some time, but not much, and Steve and Bucky can’t coordinate an elaborate rouse on their own. With each person they’d bring into the fold, or each prepared part of the deception, they risk whoever is feeding information from inside knowing Steve is still alive. Worse yet, their plan to take you might be moved up if the group knows that he suspects. Steve and Bucky agree to tell absolutely no one. They have to go by opportunity with knee-jerk reactions as their guide.
Steve spends half of each night watching you sleep, memorizing your body, stroking your hair and hip. He reminds himself not to behave differently. He can’t savor your touch more or convince you not to spend a day with your sibling at port that week. He catches you watching him sadly a few times. You sense something still, but he convinces himself over and over that it’s for the best. Nothing helps him sleep.
Ten days later, Bucky, Natasha, and Steve are all sent to dismantle an Inhuman fight club that acts as a rendezvous for two names on the list, theoretically. Steve never gets to see their faces. One of the Inhumans can explode and then reintegrate, so there’s basically a bomb moving around the place that can go off as many times as it wants. It only takes one shared look between Steve and Bucky to know: this is it.
Steve tosses the shield at the man as he’s triggering, drops his comms where he stands, then sneaks back to the jet, hiding, while part of the building collapses. After the Inhuman and his associates are captured, Bucky behaves like he’s looking for Steve in the rubble. Nat finds the shield, scorched so badly the color’s gone off, and her distraught announcement to send a cleanup crew, one that should expect human and superhuman remains, sounds genuine because it is. Nat thinks Bucky is being quiet and brooding because he’s in the field and she wouldn’t expect him to slip into an emotional scene no matter how epic the Brooklyn boys’ bond. Steve hides for almost two and a half hours until Bucky and Nat finally return to the jet. Once in the air, Steve hears muffled voices, then yelling, and then Buck calls his name. If Steve didn’t know Nat so well, he’d swear she barely blinks as he steps out of his expansive cargo locker onboard, but she’s upset.
All Steve has to say, though, is that you’re being targeted, and Nat springs into action, finding any supplies that can be overlooked as missing or a regular inventory discrepancy. A certain number of rations. Some first aid supplies. Ammunition. Two of Bucky’s (many) knives and one of her own guns. Steve notices Bucky smiling at his gal fondly several times and feels a stab in his own gut for how much he already misses you. Bucky packed his own go-bag with several helpful additions (including clothes and an extra duffel to carry it all in) and wrote down extremely thorough directions to the cabin, directions which Steve is to destroy as soon as he gets there.
Natasha raids every locker and storage area onboard for liquor (which covers up the evidence of removed supplies) and splashes some vodka on her chest after a few swigs. She insists Steve and Bucky drain every bottle, too. Finally, she explains that any extra time the jet is in the air and doesn’t return to HQ will be chalked up to her and Bucky wallowing in their own unique way. Steve adores Nat’s genius at that moment, but he half-wishes for Thor’s refilling container of Asgardian ale—the only thing he and Bucky can really get drunk on—because Steve already hates what’s about to happen.
They fly the jet in stealth mode as low and as close as possible without wavering from a reasonable flight plan. It’s the one time Natasha doesn’t mind Steve jumping out of her jet; she’s a pragmatist and knows it’s necessary. It still takes Steve about twenty-seven hours to find the damn cabin, a needle among needles in a needle factory, but that’s why Bucky’s the best.
And then all Steve can do is wait.
(Next part coming this Friday!) Don’t hurt me, dearies /o\
Summary: Steve once revealed a bit of a fetish to you. Tonight, you test it out.
Warnings:uh…you and Steve being cheeky weirdosandsmutty smut (graphic but loving), lightly edited because I is tired. (Minors DNI)
It’s not the perfect day or time for this, but if there’s one thing you’ve learned being with Steve Rogers it’s that it’s never the perfect time for anything. You two would never have had a real conversation. You’d never have made it to a first date. You’d never have gotten engaged. Perfect isn’t what you two are, but you do love each other, you are devoted to each other, and that is enough.
This story of soft!Steve experiencing his fantasy come to life is fucking AMAZING! Do yourself a favor and read all chapters of the series she’s written of the (painfully!) slow-burn of their relationship up to this point. I can’t recommend it enough!
Hilariously, I keep thinking to myself “I could have made that slower,” but I’m pretty sure I’d have been hunted down and punched in the face. ><
What’s started out as a single one-shot now reminds me of that moment in the theater where–
–flashed before my eyes, and my idea for 5k became 100k (and counting, woof).
Summary: You are helped through Steve Rogers’ funeral.
Warnings: it sucks because it’s a funeral (?) and some language (Minors DNI)
The phone rings in your hotel room. Loudly. Louder than a fucking bomb going off, and you want to scream. It didn’t wake you. You’ve been staring at the wall, tucked under the covers for who knows how long.
Exasperated, you roll over to pick up the receiver, but say nothing.
“Hey,” Tony’s voice clips from the other end, “don’t hang up.”
After a long sigh, you wait, still saying nothing.
“Ok,” he sighs, too, “thank you. I just have a few things to say, and I’ll leave you alone.”
You sit up and place your feet on the rough carpet. Fancy hotels remind you of Steve. You made it all the way into a room at one place before freaking out, leaving, and finding close to, but not quite, the cheapest option you could find. You never thought you’d miss your mediocre apartment off of the HQ campus.
Tony finally accepts that you won’t be speaking to him. He’s used to having one-sided conversations. He’ll get over it.
“Romanoff will be over there in the morning with everything you need. Starts at 11. I’m hosting the reception after. It’s not here—” back on campus, you presume, since he clearly knows which room you are in within a building he doesn’t own and wouldn’t be caught dead in “—and if you wanted to speak, the priest is ready for that.”
Steve’s funeral. Tony Stark is talking to you about your husband’s fucking funeral. The fucking nightmare hasn’t fucking ended, and you can’t tell anyone how hollow you feel for not believing. You’re grieving but you’re not. It isn’t real. This cannot be real.
If the funeral is tomorrow then…you have been in this room for four days.
“Ok, so I don’t trust the menu of the room service there, and I’m ordering you some delivery. All I ask is that you open the door.”
He pauses, taking a few breaths to see if you’ll crack. “Fine, they’ll leave it at the door, but I think you should know that I can see if you bring it in. If you love and respect me, which is obviously extremely difficult to do—“ he fumbles and maybe puts his hand over whatever he’s speaking into “—Pep, I’m trying. Can you just—ok, yes—FINE. I am not threatening you to eat, but…”
His voice goes soft, paper-thin and wispy with a faint tinge of wetness. “Please eat. Cap will come back to haunt me if you don’t. Just please be ok.”
Your blood boils instantly. “Okay?! OKAY,Tony?!”
“Shit,” he yelps just before you slam the phone back down.
Tony just can’t help but poke the bear. He just is not capable of shutting the hell up. He’ll make decisions for you all day long. He’ll run circles around you and tell you you’re both exercising. He just can’t stop.
The loud ring explodes in the silence again. You could hang up on him a second time, since the first was remarkably satisfying in a way that only slapping Bucky has been recently, but you let it ring. You let the noise go and go until your eardrums ache like your heart.
Then it stops, and no one calls back.
* * *
Natasha arrives early. Really early. She seems to have guessed what state you’d be in when she arrived (and she didn’t need you to open the door, just walked right in before slipping some device down the side of her shoe). She drops a bag of uneaten food that was outside your door all night into the trash and places some boxes on the little desk in the corner.
This is the second time Nat has brought you a black dress. This is the second time you will wear said black dress in a hotel at some point. That is where the similarities end.
She coaxes you into the shower, talks you through the steps of shampooing, conditioning, washing your body, washing your face, drying off, and putting lotion on. She’s babying you from the other side of the bathroom door, but it’s also to keep you on pace. You’d be lost in memories of him and lose another four days if she didn’t.
She hands you panties and a bra, neither of which are yours, but they are clean and fit. You shouldn’t be surprised that a super spy would be able to find out your size, but you are.
Nat helps you into the dress, not because it’s tricky to put on, but because it’s the form of help she can offer. She zips you up, tugs at pieces here and there to get the garment seated just so, and then pulls out your necklace from beneath the neckline, smoothing the little, circular pendant with a bear down the bodice. Her smile is noticeably less convincing than Nat is capable of, but that seems…deliberate.
She moves a chair for you to sit. She dries your hair carefully before pinning it back. The style is classic and clean but reminds you of old-fashioned glamour. It reminds you of photos of Peggy Carter, though the comparison is a stretch, and you have to look away from the mirror.
Finally, Nat reallysmiles and opens the only remaining box.
She’s brought you donuts. She’s knows you love sweets. It’s maybe one of the very first things Steve ever knew about you, and they are fancy, covered in thick icing in cool designs. They smell warm even after all this primping.
It’s the strangest thing. The outrageous comfort this indulgence brings to you while it also breaks you into a million pieces. You’ve said a total of ten words to her this whole time, and then you eat donuts quietly with the Black Widow while tears stream down your face. Together, you kill a half-dozen easily, and Nat politely offers to have more brought up if you want.
You shake your head. She goes to refill your water and returns with two white pills in the other hand. You shake your head again. You hate taking pills. Steve would know not to offer them.
After finishing the water, Nat asks you to brush your teeth before she puts a touch of makeup on you. At least you don’t look like death warmed over when she’s finished. The best part, the part that will keep you separated from all this horror by the tiniest fraction, is the veil. It’s gossamer and reaches to your collarbone. It lays over and hides some of your perfectly styled hair, but you don’t care. It’s your shield today. Nat knows. You can tell that Nat understands what that means to you by just one shared look through the mirror.
Your mood makes it feel like torrential rain dampens the world around you, but it’s actually a partly cloudy day. It’s beautiful out. Steve would want to take a hike, to go sketch something pretty. Instead, you’re sitting in a folding chair with one leg sinking into soft grass, wobbling like Steve when he proposed.
The priest is just talking. You don’t care whether the words are comforting or dignified or even fucking English.
Natasha is seated beside you while your parents flank the other. She has not left your side since the hotel. Your mother puts her hand on your knee and squeezed who knows how many times while you compare every tiny detail to something about your life with Steve.
He comforted you at a funeral once, the same way, with a warm hand on your knee.
The wind flutters the veil, making the fabric stick to your wet cheek.
Bucky stands in military dress behind you. It’s not lost on you that the last time he wore such a uniform was you and Steve’s wedding, but he hands you a handkerchief from over your shoulder then sets his hand on you to steady the wobbling chair. Your staring at the photos they’ve printed and framed, propped on stands next to the prominently displayed shield. Steve would have appreciated that one of the photos is of him smiling. You think maybe Bucky or Tony had something to do with that. The other is a stalwart propaganda image of Cap with the cowl covering most of his head and face. That isn’t your husband; that man belonged to the nation, the world, the universe even. He was not yours. Somehow you feel a deep bitterness that the two images are side by side.
It’s the gun salute that jostles you back. You’re handed a flag that’s folded as neatly as Steve folded fitted bed sheets. The precision is pointless and stings to remember because you’ll never know how he did that now. Your hands are clasped so tightly in your lap that several fingers are numb, but you know they will shake if you try to relax them.
Bucky steps around from behind your chair to drop some dirt onto the lowered casket. You’re not even sure he’s in there since you refused to know anything about this whole charade. Because that’s what it feels like: a bad farse.
Time is lost on you.
Tony’s voice behind you asks the other mourners to leave without trying to speak to you. Bucky offers to take the flag from your lap, and you push it towards him without looking away from the hole in the ground. Nat doesn’t move from the chair beside you.
Just as the priest steps forward to say some more words of condolence you don’t care about, you’re up on your feet, heading straight for Cap’s shield mounted on a stand beside Cap’s photo, not Steve’s. Because they were different. Because Steve and Captain America may have been the same person, but only Steve Rogers could die. Cap cannot. The whole nation still has their symbol while you lose the only part of this whole damn thing that mattered to you.
One violently shaking hand reaches out to touch the cool, smooth metal. It’s so…thin. The whole façade is hollow, a vibranium illusion of strength and endurance. What good was the illusion? Who fucking cares about a symbol?
You move too quick to tell if the shaking continues. In one fluid motion, you grab one leg of the stand and topple the whole thing.
There’s a ruckus of shock behind you, where perhaps several people scramble to secure the shield that slides across the smooth blades of grass down a short slope, and why that small annoyance to others brings you a flicker of joy, you don’t know. It’s a drop of water in the magma of your anger.
So you walk away because that’s what you do when you’re upset. You walk. You can’t walk as fast as you would without these modest black heels Natasha stuck you in, but at least you’re moving. That’s what they all want, right? You’re supposed to move forward, to move on. Just the thought makes you furious. Your skin crawls with resistance to ever, ever forgetting because you will never forgive yourself if you do.
He’s gone. Steve’s gone. You can still hear the words as clearly as if Bucky repeated them now. The same kicking fury that pushed you to slap the bearer of bad news seizes your lungs and pulls.
For the first time, you scream, a crack of thunder so tortured that life halts around you. The birds stop. The bugs quiet. The mourners not yet gone freeze. Every single one. The second scream is wetter, hoarse, and full of devotion to your misery. The pain ripping through your throat starts the tears, but they don’t end with the physical pain.
Steve comforted you once at a funeral. You’d cried anyway. It’s only fair you fail to control yourself now. It’s only fair that if the world took the man you love that the world sees what it’s done. They don’t get composed. They don’t get serene. They don’t get poised. The world deserves the same turbulent destruction wracking your existence right now, but unlike your husband, you are not strong enough to force that on even one other soul.
When you open your eyes, Natasha and Bucky are there again, and your hands are already knotted tightly to their proffered arms. Nat soothingly repeats your name between simple statements.
“You don’t have to get up.”
“Take as long as you need.”
“We’re right here.”
There’s another uncontrollable surge that grips your lungs. The scream is broken up by shot-gun blast sobs and deep, choking breaths. There’s only one thought that comes to mind when Nat speaks to you.
“I can’t leave him,” you manage in a quiet, rough voice. “I can’t leave him.”
Your grip becomes hard and punishing, enough to make Natasha wince. Bucky’s metal forearm barely registers the pressure. He hands the folded flag over to Nat and slips the fingers of his now free hand between yours to release Nat.
“Never,” Bucky whispers.
He looks too flat. You want him to be wrecked. You want to see that you’re not alone in this pain, but the well-trained soldier remains inscrutable.
Some of them, these superheroes and experts within the Avengers, have the power to crack worlds and raise cities. They can force their will onto others. They can make people see what they want. You can’t do any of that. All you can do is lash out with your pain, and by god, you will wield your only weapon with a sharp a blade.
“You did this,” you spit in Bucky’s face. “This is your fault.”
His face turns stony, brow locked in a guilty v-shape, and that bastard nods at you. Bucky Barnes nods like it fixes something. He nods like acknowledging his failure after-the-fact helps you at all.
Your anger flairs, hurling fiery tentacles around like a kracken in your sea of sorrow, and your hands release him.
“Get away from me,” you hiss, steadying yourself to stand alone, because you are. You are alone. “I never want to see your face again.”
He’s just Barnes now, and as you turn, she’s just Romanoff. Your tie to the Avengers has been severed. You’re just as you were years ago, an employee on the fringes of their world, and it’s time to get back to work.
Summary: You’re a writer, too, but Steve has never pushed for you to share. It’s nerve-wracking as all hell, but you’re gonna show him. You’ve *got* to show him what you’ve been working on now. It’s time.
(This is gonna be split between two posts because I wasn’t expecting a few very small ideas to weave together into 5k+, but this half is basically all lovey fluff before a tooouch of smooooot in the next.)
Your hands are so clammy they stick to the pages still warm from the printer. The manuscript is sloppily bound; you didn’t feel this warranted a fancy seal. It could all go in the bin at any moment. If Steve for one tiny second doesn’t seem to approve, it’s game over. You’ll delete the whole file and burn all the copies…although currently, this is the only hard copy on the planet.
Gosh, you need to find a better phrase since you are now set to marry into an intergalactic band of heroes.
Only hard copy in existence. There. That’s more accurate.
You’ve chosen the day you and Steve officially move in together, into a new, bigger apartment on AvIn campus, to hopefully take some of the pressure off of this moment, this…present. Steve’s so over-the-moon about your new space—since you now have an extra bedroom that is the agreed ‘studio’ space for you both—plus a second bathroom and its own laundry. He’s gone off on several little shpeels about hating that someone else washes all of his clothes. Dry-cleaning and the tact suits, he understands, but his boxers? Steve doesn’t like handing that task off. It’s always made him uncomfortable. It makes him feel high and mighty. It makes him feel like Tony, though he’ll never be caught dead admitting that. So your fiance self-corrects to the point of hauling his own army duffel down to the laundry and chats up some staff while he uses a machine for himself wheneverhe possibly can. Once or twice he even brought his laundry over to your apartment, your old apartment now, to hang out with you during the cycles. It took a lot of effort to convince the man you’re gonna marry that he should maybelet you wash both of your things together when he isn’t around to do it himself.
Logic was a mighty weapon that day, but from Steve’s face, hell likely froze over in the process. He’s a stubborn git when he wants to be, and you love it. He loves you because you won’t let him be a stubborn git for too long. He gets to throw his ‘back in my day’ tantrum. He’s heard…and then you immediately offer him the logical option which was your choice in the first place. Everyone’s happy. When it doesn’t really matter, you let Steve win. Compromise is the name of the game.
You even compromised on what you consider is not pulling your weight when it comes to moving. Steve insisted he carry all the boxes himself, two by two, across the entire compound. His logic: it will be about the equivalent of his dozens of mile runs or the hours-long training he does regularly. It’s not as big of a deal as you’re making it out to be. He kissed your forehead as a warning. This was just one of those things he wasn’t going to budge on. You weren’t ever going to win this argument.
And so you took the time to print out this and hope for the best. Two hundred and seventy-eight pages weigh a fuckton, say nothing of the weight of their meaning. Your palms are sweating full-stop now.
Since your desk had to be driven from your off-campus apartment to the compound, it was one of the first things moved in. You set the beast of pulp down with a thud, leaving it to rest and cool off—or maybe just you need to rest and cool down—because Steve’s not back from his latest pickup from downstairs. Shame, but oh well, you’ll do it later.
The manuscript fits in the second drawer. You even put it face down, so it looks just like a stack of paper, not even Steve’s good drawing paper. He has no reason to look or to want it. It’s only going to be until you next see him, which might be seconds away. That thought makes your stomach swirl harshly.
Now to grab some lunch. He’ll be so proud you remembered to feed yourself without his prodding, especially because you aren’t sitting at work with a whole group of people who walk out to do just that every day. Compromise and growth. It’s a beautiful thing.
* * *
“D’ya’know, one of the perks of billionaire life is paying someone to do this for you,” Tony drawls with a click of his tongue slapped on the end for good measure. He doesn’t help, of course; he just leans against the door frame.
“Yeah, well, I’m not a billionaire, Tony.” Steve lifts the third-to-last box of books and papers (plus one surprise), the heaviest by far because you efficiently stuffed it full, a Tetris of bricks. Good thing he’s a super-soldier, or you would’ve had to unpack it and carry the same contents in four smaller bins.
“You and the misses are so cheap,” Stark chides.
Steve doesn’t even correct him. Tony has offered so many bad ideas for the wedding that Steve needs a single day without giving him ammunition. “We aren’t cheap. We’re thrifty. It’s a good quality to have. Maybe you could even try it sometime.”
“Ew—“ Tony wrinkles his nose as if he too saw what the empty fridge looked like this morning “—why.”
Steve snorts and pushes past the loving idiot in his way.
“When’s the housewarming party?” Tony calls after him.
If Steve could roll his eyes hard enough to shake the ground beneath Stark’s feet, he would, but alas, that kind of power eludes him. You two are only moving to a different floor, one with larger (and thus fewer) residentially suites. Instead of Steve’s original and perfectly adequate one-bedroom apartment, you’ll have three rooms and two and a half baths. You and Steve agree that it’s a bit excessive, even though you’ve been giddily chatting on how to use all the space several nights in a row, legs tangled together in bed as Steve called dibs on the smallest room to use as a studio.
You’d crossed your arms in a huff of fake irritation, shoving your naked breasts together in a ploy to distract him (in the dark because you know he can see that and it will get you what you want). “Fine, but then the other is an office or work storage. And that includes—“ you emphasized your point with a finger to his chest “—your suit, shield, and weapons. I don’t want them in the closet anymore.”
“Hmm,” Steve acted perplexed, using his Cap voice for a minute, “what if I say ‘no?’”
You cocked an eyebrow and shimmied your feet behind his calves. “That’s the hill you wanna die on?”
“No.“ He leaned forward and pushed your arm out of the way, hand sliding over your ribcage so his thumb could caress the soft swell of you. It’s his favorite. “But you’re very cute when you’re annoyed.”
“Oh, welcome, Captain Critical to my bedroom,” you teased.
“Our bedroom.” Steve’s arm wrapped around your back to pull you closer. He’d kissed you with a smile on his lips because he knows it makes you giggle. “Must be true love if I move the suits for ya, huh?”
Steve fondly recalls all of this while he waits for the elevator. These books are actually heavy enough that he doesn’t take the stairs.
You had then playfully smacked his arm.
“No, Sketch. Separate bathrooms is true love.”
He just smiled wider, hugged you a little closer, and ticked his nose up to nuzzle at your neck.
“That’s the saying, huh? Separate bathrooms make the heart grow fonder?”
He would have laughed if he weren’t thoroughly distracted by the pulse of your heartbeat against his lips. Suddenly, you didn’t have any more quips for him either.
The elevator dings, and there you are, smiling brightly as you see it’s him.
“I’m gonna get us some food. You’ve earned it, big buy,” you say with a wink, but Steve hears a nervous edge to it. Maybe you’re still concerned with how heavy the boxes are or how many trips back and forth he’s been taking, but since he’s almost finished before lunchtime, he doesn’t see the big deal.
So all he replies with is “sounds good.”
It does sound good. It sounds perfect because you’ll be out for a bit and he’s got that surprise to hang in the new place. Since he knows he can grab it now, he hurriedly drops off the heavy box and races to the stairs. He saved the surprise for last, but two boxes ahead of schedule will do just fine.
Only one other thing, he wants to write a little note, but everything is packed away. There might be paper floating around in your desk still. He’ll take a look when he gets back up.
* * *
It takes way longer than it should to drive out and pick up Indian. There’s traffic, a line, a substitution they needed to make when something suddenly ran out, but it’s fine. You are nowhere near as put out as the staff rushing around the packed restaurant (and you got a refill on mango lassi, so you can’t complain).
You ask Friday to swing open the door since your hands are full. It still smells like new apartment when you step in, and you passingly wonder if your first meal will christen the whole place with a homey aroma. If that’s the case, your mouth is going to water every time you come home, an impulse Steve will wildly approve of since it’s just another reminder he won’t have to give.
Steve isn’t visible from the entrance or the kitchen. You put the food on the counter and check to see if anything will need heating a little more before digging in, and then you see it.
A long rectangle wrapped in brown paper sits across the coffee table. It’s not a shape you recognize as one of the paintings you packed from downstairs, but it sits with the taped side up. Maybe Tony dropped it off? He loves to collect art. Well, Pepper loves to collect art, and Tony loves to ownart.
Your finger slices beneath a corner fold. Steve’s not really one for surprises—another reason you’re so worried about your little project—so he won’t mind if he’s not here for an unveiling of a gift. Where is he anyway? Only one of the huge book boxes is there sitting by the door, so he might still be—
Oh my god.
It’s…it’s…
It’s you. The whole thing is you, or you two rather. Nearly two feet tall and one foot wide, it’s a close-up of your favorite photo of you and Steve.
But this isn’t a photo. Steve has drawn you in painstaking detail, with vivid colors, and soft edges. His arms are wrapped around you from behind as he curls forward to kiss your cheek. Your head is lifted with a huge, toothy smile, open and laughing. Natasha took the original. You and Steve don’t really remember to take photos much, and there was one time, just one time, you joked that “it’s no big deal, he can sketch us anyway” in front of everyone. You’ve never seen him draw you, but you don’t ask because he wants things private until he shares them, like everything about you two and your relationship so far.
Butoh my god. You loved the original photo. You didn’t care that you didn’t have makeup on or that you wore one of his oversized sweaters. You didn’t care that your flesh rolled just a smidge between his tight arms across your middle. You didn’t care that your hair looked a bit lost because it was pulled back and out of frame. That was the photo.
This. This is you and Steve absolutely perfect. The tone of your hair is noticeably portrayed in a style you love, your skin is flawless, and he’s changed the sweater he wears to your favorite color. He hasn’t made it hyper-realistic. He didn’t simply copy over what he saw in the photograph. He interpreted what you adored about it with a few added bonuses. You look amazing. You look joyous. Most importantly, he’s captured how in love he looks by your side, enveloping you, feeding your body his heat on that brisk cold day.
You can feel that heat in your cheeks now.
“Steve,” you call out, unable to take your eyes off the art. His art. It’s already framed and everything. It’s like he knew you would want it up right here in the living room. “Steve!”
It’s odd he’d take so long to come back up—shit.
On your way to the door, you see him. He’s leaning on your desk because there’s no chair. You’ve ordered a new one, and it hasn’t arrived yet. In his hands, Steve is flipping through a document about three hundred pages thick. Your brain can’t even make up any option but the worst.
He found it. He found it with no explanation, no lead-in, no excuse.
“Sweetheart,” you huff in a rush to get over and take it back before too much damage is done. It’s not as perfect as his drawing of you; you know now that it’s not ready. Your sinuses seize and threaten to flood your vision while you beg to have it back, but Steve just holds out a long arm and easily keeps you at bay while he continues to read…
…about himself, about his life.
You’re not even sure what gibberish comes out of your mouth before he finally lifts a crystal clear gaze to you.
“What is this?”
“It’s nothing. It’s stupid. Please just put it down. I promise I’ll get rid of it if you—“
“Keeps,what is this?”
“Um, it’s,” and then you mumble a bit. His stern look tells you to try again. “It’s a…biography. Kinda. I wrote down every story you’ve ever told me. And then I…put in commentary about why it’s all important. How it all—“ a shaky breath ravages your tense system “—made you the man you are today.”
“Honey,” Steve starts with an inscrutable tone. You’re not sure what’s coming but your mind is on fire. “When did you start this?”
You giggle nervously, afraid to admit the truth, but he’ll know. Steve Rogers will know if you lie to him.
“The day…” you say quietly, “the same day you…when I sat on your couch for the first time. The day my hand was injured, again, well, the second time. I wrote down little descriptions of how you looked sketching, real you, not Captain you. I didn’t know what I’d do with it, but I knew even then that most people don’t get to see that. It just…snowballed from there.”
From where his finger sits in the stack, Steve’s already forty to fifty pages in. How long has he been in here? Jeez! He looks down at the manuscript and then back out toward the hall. He runs a broad hand over his face.
“So like a year,” he questions.
You nod and bite your lip.
“Dang, I—“ The sharp, slapping thud of paper on your desk startles you until you’re pulled into a huge hug. “I only spent three weeks on the picture.”
“Heh,” you cry-laugh. Your shoulders kick up to your ears even under the weight of Steve’s arms. “I’m an over-achiever.”
Now it’s his turn to laugh, but he’s more focused on tucking his arms beneath yours to lift you up. Your hands slide across his shoulders and bury your fingers in his hair. Steve hums between chuckles. You can feel his smile through your shirt at your collarbone.
His words are muffled in the fabric. “What’s it called?”
You quickly sweep away a few recklessly shedding tears and gasp in relief. “Ah, well, the working title—the one I’m leaning toward—is The Son of Joseph and Sarah.”
Steve stops laughing. He grips you tighter for a long moment.
It’s bright daylight. You both are fully clothed in a nearly furniture-less room. You aren’t even eye-to-eye, but neither of you has ever been so exposed to the other. From early on, Steve said he struggled to find the lines to capture you. You replied by saying you wanted the words to describe him. You’re both here now, at the finish line of your separate lives, at the start of your lives together, and you’ve done it: you’ve learned one another enough to show what you’ve seen. It’s beautiful. It’s flawed. It’s a long, long time in the making. It involves so many people and experiences you weren’t around for, but you understand.
You let Steve hold you as long as he wants, and after what feels like an eternity (which isn’t enough), he untucks his face and sniffs the air.
“Oh, wow, that smells good. I’m starving.”
You’d completely forgotten again. Good thing he’s around to remind you.
I can’t handle how sweet Steve would be in a relationship, guys. Like this literally haunts me at night–his cuteness, his support. Just dying, but really happy about it? Ugh, ok, happy Thursday everyone! Dignity get’s updated tomorrow…
Symbol, Part One (continued from Fools Rush In, see Masterlist)
Summary: You’re told your husband, Steve Rogers, has died while on a mission.
Warnings:aaaaaaangst, kinda violence, swearing? (sexual references, Minors DNI) [takes place approx. 2 yrs after you and Steve marry because it’s all out of order, sry, and I am purposefully playing with past/present tense here so hopefully it’s not distracting]
It’s odd, the complete fracture you feel in your mind, body, and soul when Bucky says it. He twitches but keeps eye contact.
“He’s gone,” Bucky croaks. “Steve’s gone.”
Your whole being turns to stone, and an atom bomb of effort goes into simply ticking your head back and forth a single millimeter. You almost laugh. Bucky can’t be serious. There’s no way.
Except his face is slack, not angry. Bucky would be fighting if there was even a chance Steve could be alive. He’d wage war on a galactic army. He wouldn’t be pitying you. He’d be promising you Steve’s safe return or justice. Instead, Bucky stands with wide, puppy dog eyes.
He’s sorry.
He’s fucking sorry?
Well, that’s not enough. That’s not fair.
And then Bucky tries to say it.
“I’m sor—“
CRACK!The force of your hand across his face ripples Bucky’s cheek, and the echo takes a long second to roll all the way down the otherwise empty lab. You worked late, not liking to go back home knowing Steve’s away. Because Steve is away. That’s all. Steve is just away.
Bucky looks less wounded than before you hit him. He looks resigned, like he deserved that (which he did), like he expects much more (which you might give), and finally, Bucky looks like it changes nothing. The only sense that slap knocked into anyone was the lasting sting across your palm.
You are screaming, but only on the inside because it is even harder to move now than it was to shift your head. Your soul is shaking as if an earthquake rattles the entire earth below you, but your body doesn’t even let you breathe. If you could still your heart, you just might because Steve is…
The fissure grows, a small chasm between two perfectly competing thoughts. Steve could be dead. Sure. No. Probably…not? There’s also Steve’s job. It’s a weird fucking job that includes all sorts of ridiculous dangers including faking death, but why would Bucky have to tell you the lie? Steve is your husband. Surely you can know? Then there’s the possibility that if Steve is really gone, and you behave like he’s totally alive and coming home any day, you will be considered insane, delusional, or irrational.
You are not irrational.
Yougasp because you stopped breathing.
The heaving inhale startles Bucky. He has a hand out toward you, hovering a few inches from your arm, but he pulls it back. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you realize he didn’t flinch at your violence; what shocked him was your sign of life. Bucky still looks guilty. He looks afraid of you or your reaction. He looks…devastated.
Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe it’s real. And if it’s real and you’re wrong and Steve is gone…
“What am I supposed to do?”
Your eyes lock onto a blank space on the wall behind Bucky. Your husband’s best friend shifts in your periphery, not knowing what to do either. There’s a faint noise, a whine, a distraughtwhine, and you turn again, staring right into his grey eyes surrounded by red and sorrow.
You once told Steve that hugging was your superpower. Bucky stands there, curled inward but on display, a wounded animal. If anyone needs a hug, it’s him. His best friend is gone, and he was right there to watch.
But your husband is gone, and you were not there. Only Bucky was. Only one of you had even a chance to save Steve Rogers, and it wasn’t you.
You walk out of the lab without another word, leaving Bucky alone with what you can only hope is as great a shame as your bubbling anger.
* * *
You forgot yourself that first night. You walked right back to your apartment in the compound and just stood there, holding the door open, looking around at all this familiar stuff that Steve touched days ago. His sketches were still out on the coffee table with his pencil tin open beside them, his way of reminding himself to sharpen a few before putting them away again.
You curled up onto the couch that still smelled of him and pulled the tartan throw over you, the one that you had never, ever seen Captain Keeps-A-Neat-House fold before tossing it over the back cushion, not even after it was laundered. You slept. You forgot the news when you woke up, and systematically got ready for work and down to the lab.
The lab triggered it. Only one person was already there, and they watched you freeze in the middle of the room, stare up at a random spot on the wall, and walk right back out.
The media had it by midday, and you immediately turn off your phone. You and Steve don’t keep a television in the apartment, considering there are a whopping five-hundred and twelve monitors in this building alone, and you would have to turn on the radio.
You found yourself doing that a lot in the first days: switching back and forth in tenses when you spoke or thought. Everything happens like the murky, slow churn of an old-fashioned riverboat.
Old-fashioned. It hurt how much you were reminded of him, but somehow you became more upset with yourself when things didn’t remind you of him. Forgetting for one second was tantamount to wiping your life clean of him and spitting on his grave.
Oh god, his grave.
They’ve set the funeral for a week and three days after.
Pepper comes to your door, and for a heated flash, you think she’s come with agents to strip-mine Steve’s quarters for government property and potential memorabilia. If they touch his sketches, more people than just Steve will be dead. You growl in preparation before opening the door.
But no, Pepper quietly makes you tea and talks about details. The woman—bless her—finds a way to ask the most indelicate questions about logistics and event details so that all you have to do is nod, shake your head, or look up at her. God, she is good at her job, except you now realize you are being managed. Pepper is too soothing for it to matter much, though in the back of your mind, you resent your status as a prop to move around.
Your brain also starts a joke it won’t finish: Mrs. Stark and Mrs. Rogers sit on a couch planning a funeral. Whose is it?
You rub at the etched surface of your necklace absently before pressing it between your lips, staring at Steve’s pencils which still stare back from the table.
Pepper might be efficient, but with you, she is anything but cold. She can interpret any body language. She takes notes. Half a mug of tepid tea sits in your bundled hands by the time she wraps up your checklist. She’s setting up prepared meals to be delivered and stored in your freezer. You get a passing mental image of Scott Lang showing up with a homemade tofu casserole and silently thank Pepper for saving you the extra grief of refusal. Somehow, you don’t have the energy to ask how, she knows you don’t mind leftovers in the least.
You told him that in a hotel room once when Steve chose to let food sit because he would rather touch you than eat. There used to be times when he would rather touch you than breathe, or so it seemed.
A week before he died, Steve clung to you during sex, held you so closely, different than other times. His big hands wrapped around your shoulders and pulled you towards powerful thrusts. There was something so distinctly feral about his need for you that night. You relished it then but are haunted now. You’ll never have that again. It still doesn’t feel real.
All you can think about after Pepper leaves is Steve’s touch. You try to sleep instead. You cry instead. Hours later, your mind takes pity on you and suspends its punishing cycle.
In a haze of exhaustion and heartache, you can picture him. He’s in bed with you, gently sweeping dirty hair away from your tear-stained face. He smiles, big and bright, scooting forward with a hand floating down to the small of your back as he chats. You can’t hear the words. You’re just watching, excited by his excitement, and he leans to kiss you. He pulls you to him and with a laugh rolls you over onto his chest. His kiss is gentle before it deepens, the pressure of his fingers in your hair mounts with each flick of his tongue against yours.
Your brain doesn’t lie to the point of making you say you miss him because Steve hasn’t returned. Steve is dead, but with a bit of imagination, your fingers feel like his fingers. They can do what his did. You can imagine his clear and intense blue eyes obsessively taking in the sight of you coming apart before he drops to your chest for his favored, lingering kisses and love bites all across your neck and breasts. Picturing his body helps. Thinking of his soft hair in your hands helps, too. What breaks you, the thing that tips you over the edge, is his hum. It’s just a memory, but you can hear the musical, happy sound so vividly that your body shakes with it as you climax.
The cruel joke is that your brain mimics his voice.
“Can I keep you?”
But he can’t. He can’t keep you, and you can’t keep him because Steve Rogers is gone.
* * *
It’s day who-the-fuck-cares now, and you’re back to your marathon walks in the gym. You used to do that. It’s one of the reasons you grew close to Steve in the first place. You’d had a trauma and walked an unhealthy amount of time around this very track years ago. From that concerning surveillance footage, someone assigned you to a therapy meeting led by Captain Rogers. Then you were shocked and concerned about your sibling, Ro, coming out as enby, so you walked some more. Steve had walked right through these doors you keep passing, probably having been alerted that the Weird Walking Lady was back on the security screens, but then he gave you his number and asked you on a date.
You screamed more in excitement then than you’ve screamed in pain now. The thought sinks into your sorrow-dense bones, but you just keep walking.
They clearly watch you on all the video feeds because even though this is the employee track (and the Avengers have their own personal training area), someone is always there. It starts with Sam Wilson. He plays off what he’s doing the best, running laps casually while you wear noise-canceling headphones that aren’t playing music since your phone is off and sitting on the coffee table with sketches you won’t move. Sam either gets tired or has to go back to real work, but within seconds of him leaving, Natasha walks in. That’s the dead giveaway; Nat isn’t a fucking walker. Punching bag? Yes. Intense sparring? Absolutely. Intimidatingly lifting more than her own bodyweight? Hell yeah. Walking?Not on your fucking life (or Steve’s).
You openly glare at her for a beat, not moving your headphones or stopping, but she does it. Natasha walks just behind you for nearly ninety minutes before Bucky joins with a couple of water bottles in hand. He offers one to Nat as you both move towards him in your separate lanes, and then he holds the other out to you.
You swat it out of his hand and traipse right out the door he just came in.
Tony Stark is in the hall leading to your apartment as you approach. His arms are already up asking for forgiveness, but you can’t hear him and don’t care what he has to say.
“No,” you yell with a finger pointed at him, pushing him to back off enough so you can get in the door. Your back stays facing him until after the door is shut.
When you finally take off the headphones, F.R.I.D.A.Y chirps over a speaker.
“Mrs. Rogers, you have thirty messages awaiting review.”
“Do any of them mention Steve being alive?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then delete all of them.”
The AI reminds you of how watched you are, even in your own home—or what used to feel like a home—so you make a knee-jerk decision to pack a bag, grab your wallet, and leave. It’s not until the door of the hotel room clicks shut that you realize how thirsty and hungry you are. You pour water into the small cup from the bathroom tap and drain the glass seven times before splashing your face and walking back to the bed. Now, you’re too tired to order food.
At the bottom of your bag sits the very first thing you packed. Not a toothbrush. Not deodorant. Not face wash. It’s Steve cologne. You can’t fall asleep without smelling him, without being surrounded in some way by air that reminds you of his existence. It used to be a joke, that ‘second-best’ to the man himself was his shirt and a spritz of cologne, but the joke is on you now. That’s all you have left.
The amount you spray stings your nostrils. The scent should choke you at this potency. It can’t. All the smell can do is become thick and corporeal while it radiates from the pillows you stack on his side of the bed and hold like your life depends on it.
That’s because it does. Your life now depends on the memory of Steve Rogers.
