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incorrectmarvelquotesss · 1 year

Text

— night’s kisses —

Warnings: strong language, slight mentions of bullying / rape / death / car crash / suicide / pregnancy (nothing graphic), talks of PTSD (Bucky's mostly), fluff, angst, sexual themes/innuendos

Summary: Steve and you are working on a project together: Project Restore.

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Word Count: ~9.2k

A/N: SECOND ONESHOT IN A WEEK AND THE LONGEST ONESHOT I’VE EVER WRITTEN. Honestly, I don’t know when I started this (oops) and where I was supposed to go with it. Halfway through I decided to become like Shakespeare or something and it ended up a lot longer than it should’ve been. Anyway, I hope you guys like this! ( Also I feel like a genius for coming up with a good title and then the ending <3 )

You knew how the world worked and how people treated each other from a young age. Your parents had told you everything from the beginning, not believing in sugarcoating anything. You knew that people could pass a crime scene with zero emotion and spread rumours that could end in serious consequences. You knew that people lurked in the dark, waiting to prey on innocent souls. You weren’t stupid and knew how the world worked.

You saw everything unfold in front of you as you got older. The way students would gossip about the younger and more vulnerable kids while their friends laughed with them. You heard the whispers pass among the halls about the boy who peed his bed in grade four. You saw him leave the school in tears, trying and failing to stop the rumours from spreading in the school. You heard the whispers in high school about the girl who slept with the jock and ended up pregnant. You saw her casket lower to the ground and the police announced it was suicide.

You left your home to live in Manhattan, hoping to make the world a better place by working with Stark Industries and the Avengers. Your parents always told you that you had an eye on everything good in the world. They told you it was what made you a good person. But you always kept an eye on the bad, thinking of what could be done to make it disappear. It wasn’t that you didn’t see the bad, you just saw everything more clearly than others.

The boy who peed his pants had been in a car accident, resulting in a concussion in his brain. That concussion deprived him of doing regular, day-to-day activities. You knew because you had talked to him after everything that had happened and he was glad that someone was listening. He moved, but you were happy to get his side of the story.

The girl who committed suicide was raped and that ended in her getting pregnant. Her parents had told you everything about her; her excellent grade, her hobbies, her friends and family. They were glad that you listened to them and trusted them. When you asked about what the police did to the jock, they told you that they didn’t have the proof. The jock was arrested a few days later and the parents were glad their daughter got justice. They didn’t need to know that it was you who got evidence against him.

“Miss Y/S?” FRIDAY spoke into the room. You hummed, burning two wires together and turning to face the computer again. “Captain Rogers is waiting for you in the lounge to discuss Project Restore.”

“Tell him I’m a bit busy right now,” you said absentmindedly, the response almost automatic now. You and Steve were trying to restore Bucky’s memories—Shuri got rid of the trigger words and Steve had told her that that was enough. In an attempt to restore Bucky’s past memories, you had told Steve you had to recreate the chair.

There was no other way the conversation was going to end. Steve argued and argued, throwing everything right at your face while you listened with a stoic face. You knew Bucky would be petrified of the chair, but you were hoping he would associate it with something better. Something like getting his past life back. Maybe Bucky would look back at the chair and smile slightly because it gave him the old memories back. But Steve was having none of it, even if Bucky had given the green.

“Captain Rogers insists that you come up now,” FRIDAY said after a few seconds. You shook your head, typing in codes and glancing at the robot you were working on. It was supposed to help with young children’s mental health by listening and analyzing their behaviour and giving the reports to doctors.

“Tell him I insist I’m busy.” You started retyping the code, seeing that the robot had knocked a few things down.

“Captain Rogers is persistent.” FRIDAY seemed tired of passing messages among messages between the two of you. You shrugged and didn’t reply back, focusing on the codes rather than the captain. He had to get his head out of his ass if he wanted to talk to you. “Captain Rogers has requested access to Project Restore files.”

“Access denied,” you deadpanned, hearing the loud swearing and footsteps coming down to your lab. You held back the smirk as you turned your chair around and watched Steve punch in the code you had given him all those months back, stalking in with a scowl on his face. “Need something, Rogers?”

“You know exactly why I’m here,” he hissed, pulling out a chair and taking a seat at a table full of prototypes. You hummed and crossed your arms, leaning back in your chair as you studied his posture. He sighed and ran a hand down his face, sinking down in the chair more. “I wanna say sorry for how I acted. I just—I really want to protect him and giving him back to the chair…” Steve shook his head and sunk further down, making himself look smaller. Something tugged in your heart.

“I know,” you whispered, getting up and starting to organize some things. You looked at him again, patting his head as you moved past him to put some files on the shelf. You saw him glance at you in surprise at the gesture, but you ignored it because you did that to almost everyone in the compound. He just wasn’t ever at the receiving end.

“If you knew, why did you suggest it?” Steve asked when you sat back down at the computer and started to save and delete things.

“I want him to remember just as much as you do, Rogers,” you replied, swinging your legs so that the chair faced him again. “He’s a friend. And a human, like the rest of us. I know he’s been through a lot and that includes the chair. I’ve seen him here with cuts and bruises, telling me that the medical wing reminds him too much of that time. He hates the white coats, the needles, the tubes, and the smell of medications. I know what you know, Rogers. Maybe, just maybe, a bit more.”

“So,” Steve started, taking a bit of a calculated breath, “you mean that you did that on purpose?” You nodded, biting the inside of your cheek.

“Sometimes the best way to get rid of your fears is to be exposed to them,” you said, intertwining your hands and placing them on your lap. “It might not always work, but Barnes wants to try. So who are we to say no?”

“He’s stubborn, Y/N,” Steve sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “He’s so stubborn that he’ll have a panic attack instead of asking you to stop.”

“I never said we need to tell him everything about the procedure.” You shrugged innocently, a glint in your eyes. Steve raised an eyebrow. “It’s unethical, but it’ll keep him safe.”

Steve thought about it for a second before he said, “Fine. What’re you thinking?”

“We’ll monitor his heart rate and anytime it seems like he’s going to have a panic attack, we stop.”

“Won’t he figure it out? He’s not stupid.”

“Not if we tell him it could overpower and fry his brain.” Steve started laughing at your mischievous tone. You bit your lip to stop yourself from laughing as well.

“Thought you were a doctor.”

“Unethical, but practical. At least I think so. After all, I am a human first.”

“I’d hope so.” Your eyes narrowed at the response, making him chuckle and shake his head. “I didn’t mean it like that, doc.” You only hummed in response, shrugging and turning around to continue working on the robot. You cut a few wires apart and connected them with one another and then checked your coding, trying to figure out why it was swinging its arms. You felt Steve’s warm breath on your neck, a tickling sensation making you want to sigh.

“What’s this?” He pointed at the robot, an amused tone coming into your hearing. You turned to look at him, feigning an offended look.

“It’s you! Doesn’t it look like you?” You started pointing at the bug-like cameras for eyes and the O-shaped speaker for a mouth. “Look, it has your eyes and mouth. And the rectangle-shaped face too!” You turned your head to look at him with an innocent expression etched on your face.

“Ha, ha. Very funny,” he said sarcastically, an unamused face that would make anyone think that he didn’t find it funny. But the glint in his eyes told you that he absolutely loved your sense of humour.

“It’s for all the kids' hospitals. Designed to keep an eye on their vitals and performance so if there’s even the slightest change in anything, the doctors will be notified right away with an app or this watch.” You picked up the watch, waving it slightly, and shrugged. “Hopefully it’ll save some lives.”

“It will.” He said that statement as if it was a fact. It wasn’t. Logically speaking, the robot prototype would take another year or so to be finished and then another year or so to manufacture more if this one worked properly. But you decided to keep his hope up by nodding.

“It’ll work eventually, but until I figure this out,” you started, closing the window and opening up Project Restore, “we can work on this.” You grinned when a groaned fuck escaped his lips.

“I mean, this is crazy,” his voice came out breathy and a hint of something like pride was intertwined with it. You ignored your heart for the moment being.

“If it gets you to swear, Cap,” you teased, flicking through the blueprints and mechanism that you still needed to get. Hopefully, you could call in a favour with Okoye. She owed you from the one time you upgraded her spear—Shuri seemed like she was about to kill you for giving Okoye a reason to poke fun at her.

“I swear,�� he said, licking his lips when you turned your head to look at him with a raised eyebrow. “Okay, fine, I swear sometimes only. But, jeez, can ya blame me? You’ve really got an eye for these types of things.” He shrugged, a pink tinge blossoming on his cheeks as he averted his eyes from you.

“If that’s what—” you opened up a file with the power source blueprints— “floats your boat, Cap.”

“Please,” Steve started, “call me Steve. I’m not technically a captain if you really think about it.”

“What d’you mean?” You opened up a software and started on the 3-D model of the chair. You honestly didn’t think that Steve would agree to throw Bucky back on the chair, even if it meant that his memories would be restored. The tragedy of James Buchanan Barnes wasn’t unknown in your world, you knew exactly what had happened on the chair from the beginning. Because of that, you hadn’t made a model yet.

“I just went around punching things until they called me captain because of the dumb mascot I was before that.”

“And now that dumb mascot symbolizes America,” you added nonchalantly, earning you a funny look from him. You shrugged again. “I say things the way they are, Steve.”

“Sometimes I wonder if you’re real, y’know?”

“I’m a ghost,” you deadpanned, head-butting him lightly, almost affectionately, when he scoffed at your statement and rolled his eyes.

“You might be a vampire,” he retorted, yawning as he checked the time on the corner of your computer screen. It was nearly three in the morning and he wondered if you ever got a full night’s rest in the last couple of days. By the looks of you, you didn’t. The way dark circles were forming around your eyes and the way your shoulders slumped, he knew you didn’t. He was determined to get you to sleep before sunrise.

“You saying I suck the life outta you?” You didn’t falter with your quips and he found delight in it, but his mind didn’t sway. Not when it came to your health.

“I think you might be suckin’ the life outta yourself, darlin’.” Your hands stopped ever so slightly before going on to the coding you were working on. “Get some sleep.”

“How about no?” You kept going.

“How ‘bout I just lift ya up ‘n carry ya to your room, huh?” He twisted your chair so that you had no choice but to stop and look at him. “‘S nearing three in the morning.”

“So?” You crossed your arms and moved back, leaning against the chair as your eyes drooped shut for a moment too long now that your eyes weren’t focused on the computer screen. He smirked. “Seriously, I’m fine.”

“Nah, darlin’.” Something about the way darling was rolling off of his tongue made you look at the man in front of you, trying to force you to go rest for your own good. Surely he wasn’t really looking out for you, he was just making sure your mind was in the best place when figuring out the chair for his best friend. It had nothing to do with your health. It was just coming in the way of his best friend’s progress so he had to care for you. Right?

“I’m fine,” you seethed, a gut-churning feeling making you want to scream at Steve, but it wasn’t his fault you didn’t know how to accept help. Especially when it was staring right back at you in the face with baby blues that could melt your heart in mere seconds.

“No, you’re not,” he whispered gently, placing his hands on the armrests and trapping you between his body and the chair. “You need to rest, Y/N. Your body is literally begging for you to sleep and rest, but you keep working. I get that you’re doing amazing things for others, the robot design is awesome, but you need to look after yourself. And, like I said before, I’m ready to carry ya, darlin’.”

“I don’t think so—” You squealed when Steve effortlessly picked you up bridal style. You instinctively wrapped your hands around his arms before swatting at his chest when he grinned smugly. Then you yawned and he stifled his laughter. “You’re not getting away with this, Rogers.”

“Thought you were gonna call me Steve.” Now if you knew better, which you did, you would say he downright pouted at hearing his last name escape your lips.

“You’ve lost the privilege,” you huffed as he started for the stairs. He grinned boyishly and you ignored the slight skip of your heart. Emphasis on the slight. He looked down at you once more, giving you just enough time to fall into his eyes. Maybe it was the green army jacket you were wearing, but his eyes never looked this green to you. Maybe you just never noticed it. You had never noticed the flecks of green that littered the inside of his irises, making his eyes look a light shade of green when there was more green around.

“Do you always stay up so late?” His eyes were back in front of him as he reached the top of the stairs, walking down the hall to get to your rooms. You cleared your throat and mind before you spoke again.

“Maybe. Maybe I just wanted a ride,” you replied easily, the remarks being the only reason you survived through high school and university. “And what’s a better ride than Captain America himself?” Your unintended innuendo slipped past him and you were glad for that for once. You hadn’t thought about it fast enough to catch your slip-up until you said it out loud. Even if Steve caught onto it—which you kind of doubted since he was a man from the 40s—he didn’t let on.

“You’re a menace.” He shook his head, corners of his lips curling to form a soft smile. He knew you were lying. Sort of. You hadn’t answered him completely, but your maybe meant that you hadn’t been getting too much sleep and your little joke there meant you wanted to avoid the conversation. Steve was happy to oblige, leaving the topic and moving on to the other.

“The chair might be ready in a week or two,” you started, eyes darting down to his neck where your hands were. He could feel them moving nervously, a tick that he had noticed before this moment, back when you were new to the facility. “We need a few things. I’ll order them tomorrow since you insist I sleep before working. I’ll also need to talk to Barnes about the machinery, see what he’s comfortable with and not. I think that the chair doesn’t need to look exactly the same, but the similarity between the sketches I’ve made and the sketches of Hydra’s chair are too similar. I need him to be sure that he could handle it.

“Then I might need to get Shuri’s opinion on the amplifier on the power source and check some routing issues that might occur. She also has this AI that allows her to create artificial trails and using that we’ll find out if the machine would work or not. And if so, what the percentage rate of this working is. Then I also need Stark’s to help with the technical building part of it. Not that I’d mess up that badly, but it’s good to have a second pair of eyes. Plus, he’d get a kick out of it. And he’s good at what he does.”

Abrupt silence made his stomach drop slightly, missing the sound of your voice and the vibrations running down his arms at each syllable you spoke.

“Anything else I should know?” Steve asked once you went quiet. You almost looked sheepish when you glanced back up at him, earning a raised eyebrow from him.

“No, I’ve blabbered too much already,” you whispered, your bedroom door and his coming into view. His eyebrows furrowed and a slight frown appeared on his lips as he slowed his pace a few metres away from your bedrooms. You raised an eyebrow at his sudden gestures.

“There’s probably more I need to know,” he said, shaking his head in what seemed like dismay. “I know there’s more, Y/N. Tell me what I’m missin’. Please.”

“You don’t wanna hear me rambling about the boring technical stuff,” you mumbled, tapping your thumb against the hollow of his throat. The gesture made tighten his grip on you, one you could feel through the rough material of the jacket.

“Darlin’, nothing about it was boring,” he reassured you, coming to a stop in front of your bedroom. He didn’t let you down just yet, even when you squirmed as a hint. “I’m serious, Y/N. You do amazing things, and helping Bucky is just one of many, so if I get the chance to hear you talk about it, I’ll hear it. I hear you.”

He slowly lowered you down when you evidently had nothing to say to him. You, for the first time, didn’t know what to say and he was okay with that. A bit surprised, but okay. He realized that his words might have meant nothing to you or maybe, just maybe, meant more than he knew.

With your feet on the ground, you had no reason to have your arms slung around his shoulders. There was no reason his hands should have stayed around your waist to keep you close enough to smell each other’s scent. There was absolutely no reason for you both to stare at each other as his last words lingered in the air and echoed in your head over and over and over again. There was no reason for your hearts to be beating this fast and no reason for your head to spin as you both drew in a deep breath.

But it all happened, all at once in that one moment of time. Everything felt like a fever dream and you both could pretend that it was normal. Normal for you both to be holding onto each other, this close, and having your head spinning and heart beating fast. You both let it happen for that moment.

“Goodnight, Steve,” you breathed out, breaking the second’s silence and letting your hands slide down, lingering slightly as they came down to your sides. His hands lifted off as soon as yours did, but he leaned down to press a kiss to your cheek.

“Goodnight, Y/N,” he whispered against your skin, his breath warm on your cheek. You shivered ever so slightly and watched him move back, a slight smirk on his face as he nodded at you, walking backwards to lean against his door. You blindly reached for your doorknob and twisted it before turning and swiftly entering, breaking your eye contact with the blond who had left you this flustered. You locked the door out of habit and lifted a hand to your chest, taking deep breaths to calm your racing heart.

It wasn’t like you were the only one with a heart threatening to beat straight out of your chest.

Steve was still out in the hallway, watching your door close with a click and another click following, indicating that your door was now locked. His eyes dropped to the ground, staring at the scruff on his left shoe and wondering about how he had the confidence to go ahead and kiss you goodnight. Sure it wasn’t on the lips, but it was still a kiss and, back in his time, it meant a whole lot more. You did look surprised or shocked, but you didn’t look like you hated him for it or didn’t want him to do it again.

He didn’t plan on doing it anytime soon again, confidence having left him immediately after the unintended kiss on the cheek. He was sure that the confidence wasn’t coming back for a while.

———

A few days passed after that impromptu kiss and your dynamic with Steve was the same as always. It had changed, but not enough for you two to notice. It was tiny changes that led to the noticeable ones—to the team at least; you two were basically in your world.

It started with the excuse of Project Restore. Steve would bring up that anywhere he didn’t want to be. Usually, it was at those meetings that Tony called for the team for team building exercises, which consist of regular activities like Jenga and Monopoly. Those games were intense and, more likely than not, were the reason the team fought. Steve absolutely loathed Monopoly with a burning passion. Anytime Tony brought up the meetings, Steve would run off to meet you in your lab with the excuse of the project. Needless to say, Tony tried to get you involved, but you beat him at Monopoly so he stopped.

Then he would start spending more time with you in your lab than at training with the excuse of lifting heavy parts that you couldn’t. You couldn’t deny the extra help and he could use the lifting as his training. He started teasing you when you couldn’t lift something and he could. You would roll your eyes at him, say something snarky with a glint in your eyes, and smirk as he fumbled with his retort. The glint in your eyes always had him fumbling and flustered. Some days Bucky would drop in to help with the parts and Steve would have to put his teasing on a halt.

The one time he teased you with Bucky around, you pouted and it just about knocked the breath out of him. He knew he was falling for you then, but knew that you couldn’t feel the same. Not with the way you shook your head at him when he did something wrong and told him he was an idiot. Sure, there was a smile on your face, but there was no way you liked him back. You were way out of his league and he was sure that you knew that. That’s why you swatted his hand when he touched your shoulder when you seemed frustrated or gave him a look when he placed a hand on your back while walking upstairs.

Despite all that, he still wanted to be at least your friend. So he started spending even more time around your lab as the process of building the chair came to. He made up the excuse of wanting to be around in case something went wrong or still helping with the larger parts. He had the excuses built up and he was spouting them off whenever someone asked why. He noticed the little ticks that he hadn’t already noticed while you were working. The way you pressed your tongue to your cheek when you wanted your hands to be steady. Or the way you wrinkled your nose when something went wrong or when you laughed too hard.

Your laugh was one of his top three noises. Along with your giggles and voice. You liked to ramble when you didn’t know what to do. Sometimes the answer would be hidden inside your rambles and you would light up when you found the solution. Sometimes you smacked your head with your palm and giggled at your own stupidity, still mumbling about whatever. He always smiled and shook his head, assuring you that you aren’t stupid, far from stupid.

When Shuri gave you back the results, you beamed so brightly and giggled when you flipped the page and showed Steve, starting to ramble about the percentage being 96.87% and way higher than what you thought it would be.

“I knew you could do it, darlin’,” he said, watching you grin widely at him and pull the paper down from his face. He knew he would never get used to the way his heart skipped a beat at your smile. Happiness was literally bursting out of you, seeing the way you glowed at his compliments. You were taking his compliments better now too.

The first time he had complimented you on your work, you had shrugged and said something along the lines of it could’ve been better if it were someone else, maybe at least. He shook his head and insisted that you were amazing at what you were doing, gesturing to the robot and blueprints of the chair along with the new AI you had started. You had merely shrugged again and went back to sketching another model of the chair. You had made three models of the chair before, each carrying the same sort of foundation and structure. You had shown Steve each model, but you wanted him to be the one to show Bucky them.

When Steve had asked why, you simply told him that he was basically Bucky’s brother. He would trust him a bit more than you. Just a tad bit more, but more you had added with a quirky smirk and the same mischievous glint in your eyes. Steve almost leaned down to kiss your smirk away, but caught himself when you turned away with a shake of your head. There was no way you wanted him, not with the way you acted.

“I wonder if I can recalibrate—” You went ahead and started telling him of what you could do to one of your abandoned projects for it to be recycled. That’s something else that he liked about you. You always tried to give something that was thrown away another chance at working for something else. It could be some wires, some boards, or even a giant metal piece, but you always looked through those bins to find something. He liked that a lot about you.

“And can you ask Barnes if this model seems fine?” You finished ranting and turned to look at him with slight disarray and a bit breathless. You licked your dry lips like you always did after talking for a while and shoved a rolled-up blueprint towards him. “It seems the most different out of all the ones we designed.”

We? he wanted to ask. You were the one who did all the work. He merely listened to your carefully instructed orders and made sure to complete them with the highest amount of efficiency he could achieve, which wasn’t as high as he expected you would be able to achieve. He really wanted to stop you from putting yourself down, reaching for what seemed to be the littlest and least important and trivial things and picking them apart for your own negativity. He suspected it was so that you didn’t get too high over your head and stayed more humble than not. Even when you said you were the best in the world or universe at this stuff, anyone could catch onto the joking tone you reserved for statements like those.

Before he could protest against your self-depreciation or even reply to your question, you had moved on to another topic. A topic he didn’t know about really, something to do with your coding and wires and electricity watts. He could have helped you if he was Tony or Shuri, but he was a man out of this time and information. His knowledge of electricity and technology only had advanced so far. You kept going on your little ramble, lips moving at a rapid speed and hands gesturing in the air, emphasizing on a few things on the computer screen. Even though he heard everything you said, and appreciated your voice, it didn’t necessarily mean he understood it. But he made sure to listen and try.

“What do you think?” You asked, looking up at him with eager eyes. He gave you a look because you had asked him this exact question before and it had ended in him red in the face and you falling off your chair in hysterics. You smirked and turned back to the screen, seemingly knowing exactly what he was giving you the look for.

He sighed and nodded, replying, “I actually think you’re the smartest person I know.” And that was true. You had corrected Tony over twenty times while he was working, evidently getting on his nerves when he gave you a glare the twenty-first time you decided to chime in and correct him. Even Shuri seemed to be duller next to you, having declared you extreme success with Bucky’s new chair and obsessively discussing gadgets together before you helped her finetune her new electromagnetic claws with some of your own ideas. She told Steve that he had to bring you to Wakanda the next time he came to visit.

“Oh, I know I’m smart,” you quipped, the teasing tone in your voice not going unnoticed by the blond.

“You’re also the nicest, kindest, and most genuine person I know,” he added, making you whip around and smack a hand over his lips, effectively sealing his mouth. His lips grazed the inside of your palm and he felt his neck heat up, no doubt a red hue had seeped into his cheeks.

“Hey! The walls have ears and I have a reputation to maintain,” you scolded playfully, looking around as if someone would pop out of the wall—Vision was the most likely to do that. Steve rolled his eyes overdramatically so that anyone in a mile radius could see the action as it happened. You giggled and pulled your hand away, only to pinch his cheek so that it would turn a brighter shade of red. He happened to find out you showed physical affection to anyone you really liked, and learned it after that night in the lab, and now wondered how he lived without having your hand graze his arm and pat his head while walking by.

“Seriously?” He deadpanned, watching you light up as he grinned when your hand dropped from his face. He unconsciously leaned towards you, something he became aware of when your eyes flickered around his face. He cleared his throat and moved back subtly, watching you carefully so that he could decipher some sort of emotion or reaction to his closeness, but you were a hard one to read. Your face was almost always stoic, save for when someone talked to you or caught you off-guard.

“I think that you should go show those to Barnes—” You stopped, eyes trailing over his shoulder and watching some movement. Steve looked over his shoulder too, seeing Bucky punch in the code and walk into the lab, holding a bag of take-out. “Speak of the devil.” You gave Bucky a smile, but showed more interest in the take-out bag when you held out your hand for it. Bucky rolled his eyes, smirking and handing it over to you.

“There’s enough for the two of you,” Bucky said, giving Steve a friendly pat on the shoulder as a greeting. You had taken out some burgers—one for you and three for Steve, mumbling about his metabolism and super-soldier serum—and a basket of large fries—you didn’t eat too many as Steve had noted.

“How much do you two even spend on groceries? With both your metabolisms and appetites, you guys have to spend at least a thousand a week just on groceries.” Steve knew you weren’t looking for a response, but Bucky answered before Steve could give you a proper sass-filled comeback.

“Around there, yeah.” Bucky proceeded to shrug and pull out a chair so that he could level with the two of you. “Lucky for us, Tony’s fucking loaded.” You let out a snort, unwrapping your burger and fixing some of the strands of lettuce that had fallen out. Steve grabbed one and unwrapped it a bit at the top before biting into it. You let out a moan at your first bite and Steve found himself choking on his bite, making Bucky hit his back a few times and you to hold out a can of soda. He took the soda with a mumbled thanks, still coughing and clearing his throat as he tried to get that moan echoing through his head to leave him alone. It seemed impossible when the echo grew louder.

“You good?” You asked, gently rubbing his bicep and leaning towards him just as he had done before. You had leaned closer though, face mere inches away from his when you scooted your stool closer to his, a leg between his.

“Yeah,” he whispered out, taking a large gulp of his soda and cringing when it burned his throat slightly. “What the fuck is this?”

“Root Beer, punk,” Bucky replied with a shake of his head, looking between him and you. He was trying to figure out what was happening and Steve had never despised the fact that his best friend was a trained spy and assassin more than in that moment. “That shit was worth like two or three bucks back in the 40s.”

“That’s about seventy bucks now,” you mumbled, calculations already finished in your head. Steve had once complained about some costages and you had quickly searched up how much one dollar back in the 40s was worth now. He reckoned that you remembered the numbers from that quick search just so you could convert the numbers to understand him. He pondered on the fact that he could do some searching of his own to understand you.

“Shit.” Bucky raked a hand through his hair, looking down at the blueprint that Steve had placed down when taking his burger. It had opened up, revealing the white lines that made up the chair’s outlining. Bucky winced at the sight of the chair and your face fell ever so slightly. Steve knew you were hoping that you wouldn’t have to let Bucky deal with a chair that looked exactly like the other one.

“Is—is this one okay?” You looked at Bucky with expectant eyes, flitting over to glance at Steve. He would have been surprised to see the worry building in your eyes if your stutter hadn’t outed you to him. Every little tick of yours was known to him now, even the way you drummed your fingers on your thigh when you were nervous.

“Yeah,” Bucky choked out, getting up suddenly, startling you. “I’m gonna—I’ve got to get to bed. I’ll see you two later.” You and Steve watched him leave the lab, stiff shoulders and posture too straight giving everything he thought about the chair away.

“On that happy note,” you started, turning to him with a smile on your face that looked more like a grimace, “we need to construct another model.” Steve finished his last burger as you opened up another file, not bothering to look at the time. Steve, nevertheless, caught the time and he shook his head. It was nearing nine at night—no wonder Bucky had brought them food—and you had been up before him, before five in the morning.

He didn’t know how you managed to get up earlier than him and he wasn’t going to question it either. You would probably reply with something like mad I beat you, old man?. He didn’t want to test his theory either, not wanting to be wrong and get another smartass comment from you instead. One that would make him hold back a proud grin and maybe even a fit of laughter. He leaned over you, grabbing the garbage and pouring it into the take-out bag before dumping that into the bin near the entrance.

“Come on, darling,” Steve said, the endearment becoming something like a habit now. Not a forced habit, not one bit, but a habit, nonetheless. When you refused to turn to at least acknowledge him, he strode over and put his hands on your shoulders, making you groan and throw your head back to look at him. He stifled his chuckles.

“No,” was your only retaliation to his pointed look. He smirked and let his hands trail down, earning a harsh glare from you before you shivered when his fingers brushed a speck of skin between your shirt and sweatpants.

“I’ll just carry you again, Y/N,” he stated with a shrug. You seemed to glare at him harder then, eyes narrowing slightly and bottom lip jutting out slightly. God, you were pouting at him. Although he would do anything if you asked with that pout on your face, your health wasn’t something he was going to negotiate, even with that adorable pout on your face. “It’s up to you: you walk or I carry.”

You sighed and leaned into his chest, making his heart flutter in a way that it hadn’t in a long time and it was all because you leaned back into his chest. You pressed your back into his chest and rested your head on his shoulder, groaning softly when you stretched your arms and legs in front of you. Your elbows and knees cracked and Steve let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. You giggled slightly, poking Steve’s cheek as he looked down at you to see you grinning mischievously.

“Carry me, peasant,” you teased, arms flying backwards to hold onto his neck as your body shook with fits of laughter. Steve couldn’t help but laugh along with you, a voice deep inside of him telling him that you didn’t laugh as much as he wanted you to. He liked it when you laughed, nose scrunching up and eyes crinkling at the sides. He had to admit though, he didn’t laugh as much as he should either, except when he was with you. Even the smallest jokes or quips from you sent him into fits of laughter that took almost always an hour to reduce to snickers. His record, as you liked to call it, was three hours, falling into this loop of chuckles and full belly laughs because of a stupid joke you had muttered under your breath.

Coming back to the present, Steve realized that you were absolutely exhausted as he gripped your hip to help you stabilize yourself when you almost toppled over on the stool. Your eyes were trying to close on their own, shutting for a few moments too long for his liking. He knew that everyone on the team had trouble sleeping, but he didn’t expect you to have trouble too. It wasn’t nightmares that plagued you in the middle of the night; it was your own thoughts, the ones that would never leave your head. You had told him so with a shrug and dark circles forming under your eyes. It was why you kept working through the night.

“Turn around, brainiac,” Steve ordered softly, making you drop your arms from his neck and twist around so that he could see your face clearly. Lifeless skin and pale lips were just about tearing his heart into pieces as he cleared his throat. “Let’s get some sleep.”

You hummed, tapping a finger on your chin as you pretended to think over it for a second before nodding and saying, “‘Kay.” Steve grinned, pleased by your little fuss and helped you tidy up a bit before extending a hand for you to take. You ignored it and opened the door for the two of you, letting him go through first, even though all his instincts were telling him that it was just wrong to not be holding the door for the lady. His gentlemanly manners were screaming at him as the two of you ascended the stairs, telling him that he was wrong for not holding the door for you.

Before he could dive more further into it, you swayed and stumbled backwards right into his chest. His reflexes were fast enough to wrap an arm around your waist and make sure you weren’t going tumbling down the stairs. When you twisted around and gave him a slightly sheepish smile, he realized that his heart had dropped to his stomach and stayed there as you started mumbling an apology to him for crashing into him.

“No, it’s okay,” he started, hands still gripping your waist. “I’m just glad I was here to break your fall.” He glanced down the stairs, trying so hard not to imagine you laying at the bottom with your limbs sprawled around at odd angles like he had seen one too many times. You seemed to notice his panic and placed your hands on his chest, smiling up at him with a mischievous glint back in your eyes—something Steve was not expecting.

“I think that’s interference, Rogers,” you slurred, not really your best retort, but he could see the drowsiness on your face and your whole body was basically sagging against him the longer you both stood there on the stairs.

“I’m gonna carry you now, darlin’,” he said eventually. He had felt your hands slide down his chest slowly, stopping on his stomach when he finally spoke up and snapped your attention back to reality. Before you could protest—he knew you were going to—he bent down and slipped an arm behind your knees and across the middle of your back to pick you up. You seemed to decide not to argue with him, squirming just a tad bit and then relaxing as he started to walk.

At some point during the pathway from your lab to your rooms, your head lolled to the side and rested against his shoulder, deep and regulated breaths making your chest rise and fall. He tried not to stare at your peaceful face for too long, feeling like he could probably get lost in your beauty and lose his focus on his surroundings and crash into the wall or something. That would be embarrassing and he would probably hear it for the rest of his life from you, non-relenting from teasing him for it. He could hear your voice in his head, poking fun at him for running into a wall.

He chuckled underneath his breath as he rounded the corner into the hallway where both of your rooms were situated. When he reached your room, he debated on waking you up and leaving you to find your way in and get set for bed, but something didn’t let him do that. He carefully opened the door with the hand under your knees and went in, leaving it slightly open behind him. You hadn’t stirred so Steve whispered your name.

“Y/N? Hey, darlin’. Wake up.” Your head left his shoulder, letting cool air hit the warm spot as you blinked and recognized your room. His hands tightened on you as he lowered you down and let you keep an arm on him to steady yourself when you swayed in fatigue.

“You should’ve woken me up the second I fell asleep, Rogers,” you mumbled, eyes trained on the unmade bed and rumpled papers on it. He hadn’t had the chance to look around properly, taking a quick glance around. The room was neat and tidy, omitting your bed. Everything seemed to be in their respective places and you seemed to have a place for every little thing, from the tiniest eraser to the biggest 3-D model. The layout of the room was similar to his, with slight differences in the placement of the furniture.

“You could use all the rest you can get,” he replied with a shrug, walking backwards to the door. “Goodnight, Y/N.”

“No kiss tonight?” You teased quietly, eyes still on the bed as if you had never seen it before. The question made him pause and ponder on your actions from the last few weeks. You had shrugged him off each time he tried to come close to you, ignoring his hand or shoving it off every single time, so why did you want a kiss from him? Sure, you had that teasing tone in your voice, but he had heard the slightest frustration behind it. As if you couldn’t understand why he hadn’t made another move for another kiss on you.

And it irked him. Not because you had withdrawn yourself from him—he knew how to take a hint—but because it was getting confusing.

He scoffed and said, “Feels like you don’t want anything to do with me, to be honest, Y/N.”

“What?” You turned around to face him clearly, eyes telling him that you were just as confused as him. You crossed your arms over your torso and tilted your head in that cute way of yours, eyes trailing over his figure to examine his body language. It wasn’t the first time you had tried to figure his emotions out with his body gesture. You had done it multiple times with his reactions to models and drawings of the chair, along with some inappropriate jokes you had dared to pull off in front of him.

“I mean you hate when I touch you—”

“I don’t hate it when you touch me,” you whispered, not even caring to hear the rest of the sentence. His eyes darted to yours, trying to catch a trace of a lie in them and seeing if you were telling him the truth. Even if you didn’t hate it, you had to dislike it, right? There was no other reason for you to pull away as if he had burned you every time he found the courage to graze your hand with his.

“Then why—”

“Because I don’t need the help,” you huffed, letting your arms drop to your sides and fist your hands when they shook a bit. Steve knew that little tick of yours; your hands would shake when you were trying to find the right words. Maybe you just needed the right question for the right answer.

“What if I want to help you?” He asked, taking a step closer to you when you refused to look at him and instead stared at the wall behind him. His guts were telling him to abort the mission and run the other way as they had that day in Germany and the day in Wakanda, but those had turned out okay. He still had Bucky and half of the universe was safe.

“I wouldn’t want to be a burden on you, Steve.”

You called him Steve. That had to mean something since you outright ignored everyone’s first names and went straight for their last names. Maybe it was out of habit now, calling him Steve as he called you darling, but there was still a chance that you meant something by it and Steve was going for that chance. No matter how small or big it was, he was going to push luck like he had never before.

“You could never be a burden on me, Y/N,” he murmured gently, stepping closer until you were within arm’s length. He extended a hand to you and you hesitantly slipped yours into his, soft skin against a calloused palm. He tucked a stray hair behind your ear with his other hand, pulling on your hand to make you step a bit closer to him.

“You might not think so now, but later, when you get bored of this, of me, you’ll be running the other way,” you said, quietening down so much that he had to strain all of his focus on hearing you. He was going to hear you no matter what.

“I wouldn’t.” His heart was beating in his chest and just about had started to hurt his ribs. “I wouldn’t be able to, darlin’. I’m either all in or all out, you should know that by now.” That dragged an airy chuckle out of your pretty lips he had been eyeing without realizing it and his heart started to calm down before it broke his bones.

“You say that now—”

“I’d do anything to prove it.” And he was ready to get down on his knees to beg for you to hear him. You studied him for a few moments, silence ringing in the air as he squeezed your hand for his own grounding. The next few seconds were the longest seconds he had spent looking at you—though the view was as pretty as it could get. He let you take a step back, heart skipping a beat or two, and then two steps forward so that your bodies had mere inches left between them.

“Kiss me,” you whispered, “properly or I won’t believe you.” You already did believe him. He knew you believed him with the way you had stepped forward twice, the kiss was just a formality. You closed your eyes when his hand came to your chin to tip your face up slightly to relish the moment just as he wanted to, watching your body shiver when his hand slipped behind your neck and the other came to the small of your back to pull your body to press on his.

Then he slotted his lips against yours and let out a groan at the taste of you. Your hands moved on their own, sliding up his chest to entangle in his hair and thumb grazing the small hairs on the nape of his neck. His lips moved slowly and gently, not wanting to chase you away with a wrong move, but once you dragged your tongue on his bottom lip and nipped at it, he let you be the one to deepen the kiss. You had initiated it, but Steve had no problem taking over, both of you fighting for domination before you submitted and let Steve run the show. Once the breath in the two of you had run out, you both pulled away, panting and resting your foreheads against each other.

You let out a small giggle as Steve grinned and tugged you impossibly close to him.

“You’re, uh you’re good at that for an old man,” you teased, making him roll his eyes playfully and nip at your bottom lip as you had to his. You bit down on your lip when he dragged his face away to look at you clearly, preventing the smile that was trying to break out on your face. Steve let his thumb pull out from between your teeth and grinned when he noticed the flustered state that little action left you in.

“I’m a lot better at other things, too, darlin’,” he mumbled, feeling the adrenaline that was keeping you awake start to drain out quickly. You were holding yourself up with your hands on his shoulders now, leaning against him as your eyes darted to the door in front of yours. “But I don’t think now’s the right time to show you.” You snorted and flitted your eyes back to him.

“I’ve still got a few moves on you,” you retorted, putting your forehead on his chest and yawning. Steve rubbed your back and kissed your forehead, embracing you tightly.

“Get some sleep and we’ll argue about it tomorrow,” he suggested, a lightness to his tone that made you look up at him and smile sleepily.

“Sure.” You pressed your hands to his chest, pushing slightly to nudge yourself straight. “Then you can admit I’m the best.” Still, that teasing tone remained in your words as you glanced towards his door again and, this time, he caught the hidden message.

“Want me to come back?” He asked, making sure he had read everything right this time. He was wishing and praying to whatever god there was that he had read your eyes right this time, that he was hearing you right this time. When you looked at him, eyes shining a bit brighter and lips tugging a bit higher, he knew he had read you right.

“I can’t ask—”

“Ask me,” he cut in, raising an eyebrow and smirking softly. “Ask me to come back.” You observed him for a second, hesitancy was clear in your eyes, but he knew it wasn’t that you didn’t want him now. It was hesitancy to ask him for more than you usually received. You licked your lips and sucked in a breath.

“Come back to me,” you blurted, hands fisting the fabric stretched across his chest. “You make it quiet.” Steve was caught slightly off-guard by that statement, not realizing what you were referring to until a few seconds later. His hands tightened on your hip and he let a soft smile grace his face.

“You make it quiet for me, too.” He squeezed your hip once before adding, “I’ll come back tonight as long as I get woken up with kisses.”

“You’d be crazy to think I’m not kissing you again.”

There were murmured whispers that night again, but these ones lulled you both to sleep, having your fair share of the night’s kisses. It was safe to say that this wasn’t the last night this routine happened, but that’s a different story. A story for another night.

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