to be alone (with you)

Steve’s looking for a particular sweater. 

It’s a cream-tinged white; thick and heavy and cable knit. Even through years of wear and tear it remains in good condition, and he finds himself gravitating towards it often, especially during the colder seasons. It gets washed with the rest of the light clothes; gets hung out on radiators around the house, and then folded messily and/or shoved into his drawers.

So why, he wonders, staring into one of said drawers, is it not here?

It's not that big of a deal. He has other sweaters, and he's never been particularly picky about his clothes or how he looks, but it was hand-knitted and warm and should you ever need something more bulky, he wants to be prepared.

It’s not like it could be lost to mess — because if there’s one thing Steve’s incorporated since your time with him, it’s routine, and Sundays are always for chores. Today’s Monday. The house is spick and span; floors brushed and mopped, tabletops scrubbed, clutter thrown out or sorted away. He’s checked his drawers three times over, at this point, pulling out old shirts and sweaters and pairs of socks he hasn’t used in weeks, frowning in confusion. There’s only so many places it could be, and he turns to ask you if you happened to see it at all—

Oh. Well. Steve’s ears are red-hot. That makes sense.

Curled up in the centre of Steve’s bed is you and Cap — but that’s not all. Two knitted blankets (one carefully tucked around the dog, the other tucked around you) and the highly sought-after sweater half-stuffed in your face. Sound asleep. 

You’ve been doing this more and more lately — sleeping, he means, not stealing his sweaters. Ever since you started taking actual shifts at The Blue Jester (shifts that could start as early as 5 PM and end as late as 11 PM), naps were becoming more frequent, and Cap was all too happy to join you for them. It wasn’t strange to see you both curled up somewhere sound asleep — it was strange to see you stealing his clothes, though. 

Steve clears his throat — hopes it’ll do something about the flustered blush across his cheeks — and turns away. 

He can wear something else.

The next day, though, it's something else that's missing — a shirt he swears he washed and folded and put away. He finds it at the bottom of the mattress, rolled up and shoved underneath the duvet.

The day after that — a pair of his jeans found underneath the pillows. Another day, two clean pairs of socks bundled up and tucked neatly, precisely, beside each other.

Steve frowns curiously. Stares at them for a moment. And then, like he did with every article before, simply picks it up and tidies it away. Maybe Cap has picked up a new habit — maybe you just keep forgetting to put them away. It's a small oddity that sits in the back of his head, but apart from that, it's forgotten. 

Or, at least, he tries to forget it. Sam and Bucky, on the other hand—

"Under the pillows? Stuffed in there?" Bucky asks, incredulous. “Now I know you don’t smell good enough for that, Steve—”

“Y’never know,” inserts Sam, shrugging through his gulp of beer. “Omegas like their comfort. Probably helps her sleep—”

“No amount of comfort would persuade me to shove Steve’s pants under my pillow, clean or not—”

“C’mon,” interrupts Steve, rolling his eyes. Beads of condensation roll down the sides of his pint, and smears one with his thumb instinctively. He can’t stop the amused smile that sits itself on his lips — ‘specially when you pop out from behind the bar once more, bowls in hand and smile on your face. “That’s enough.”

One of the benefits of having you work actual open hours at the Blue Jester is that he’s found himself staying over more. There’s usually more than a few familiar faces around — faces he used to know better, used to talk to more — and sometimes, Sam will end up having the time to stop by, too. Bucky, from his place behind the bar, spends more time lingering beside them (fruitlessly wiping down the counter to appear as if he’s working harder than he is) than he does fulfilling orders. 

It’s… nice, this new normal. Talking more, laughing more. It almost feels like how it all was before Peggy left — but better, somehow. His time with Peggy was great, don’t get him wrong, but looking back, well… he supposes that, knowing what he knows now, it always felt like some sort of rug was set to be pulled from underneath him. In reality — if he’d removed his rose-tinted lenses and thought free from the influence of his emotions — he would’ve realised that Peggy would never stay in this town. She had bigger plans for herself, a bigger destiny than could ever be achieved here.

He watches from the corner of his eye as you beam at a couple of old folks — the ones always in the corner with their cards and chewing tobacco — and set their beers in front of them. 

Steve’s fingers stutter on the glass in his hands.

Steve doesn’t think any more than usual about leaving to complete a delivery. Suddenly-acquired strange quirks and habits aside, you’re completely fine; you’re at work, you’re hardly being left in the middle of nowhere with no way of contacting him, and he’s gonna be back before either of you know it. It’s fine, he knows it’ll be fine, not just because of all the safeguards put in place but because he’s done it before. You were fine then, too. If he was late you’d get a ride home from Bucky, Sam, or Nat; usually you curled up on the couch or started dinner, and that was that.

Still. Something rumbles in his stomach as he gets further and further away from home; further and further away from you. He’s not sure whether it’s just a passing wave of anxiety, or his body is picking up on something he’s not, but—

But Steve’s not even halfway home when his phone starts ringing where it lays in the passenger seat. Buzzes, buzzes, buzzes — trembles so strongly on the seat that it starts to hop back and forth. With one hand on the wheel and an eye on the road, he carefully reaches for it, and throws the illuminated screen a cursory glance; Nat. 

Immediately he’s frowning — why would Nat be calling him now? You’re at work — did something happen? Are you okay? Are you—

A harried beep from the car behind him wrangles him from his thoughts, and it’s with a start that he realises he’d been wavering on the road, tires crunching back and forth — and with the phone screen lighting up again, vibrating again, he knows that he needs to pull over. 

So he does. Pulls over — not bothering to shut off the engine —, fumbling with his phone when he picks it up in his hurry to unlock it. 6 missed calls, all from Natasha, and his heart is in his throat. This can’t be good. This can’t be good.

“Nat?” He says. “Nat, what’s wrong—?”
“She’s in heat.” 

There’s background noise — crackling, crunching, like the sound of tires on gravel, and it echoes in his ears as he tries to regain some semblance of straight thinking. 

Heat? Heat? Now? Out of nowhere? His mouth opens, but nothing comes out. His mind is blank.

"I've given her some suppressants," Nat says hurriedly, as if trying to shove as much information into as few seconds as possible, and there's more rustling around her. "Picked some up from the drug store on my way over. This far in, though, I can't imagine they'll do much good. She shoulda been takin’ them for a few days before for them to have the full effect…"

It hadn’t been out of nowhere, though, had it? You’d been sleeping more, taking naps as soon as you got home from work and before it, too. And the socks — God, the socks, and the pants, and the sweater — you must’ve been trying to nest. Fuck, you’d been trying to nest, and he’d ruined it, messed with the placements and tidied it away — and now you’re — you’re—

“Where — where is she?” The next few minutes pass in a blur; he’s throwing his phone onto the seat on speaker, pulling back onto the freeway — accelerating far past the speed limit. If he pushes it (read: breaks a few road laws), he can be there in 20. “How is she — are you with her?”

“She started getting dizzy at work,” Natasha murmurs, “Felt sick, like she was overheating, and then… I mean, I could smell it. It was only starting, so I drove her back home — she’s inside now. I think she’s trying to build her nest; didn’t want me inside, so I’m… I’m waiting in the car. 

“I’m just glad she was working before opening, Steve…” She trails off, and Steve’s stomach turns. It’s too close of a call; just a few hours, and you would’ve been surrounded by drunk, rowdy alphas, their inhibitions lowered with alcohol and tempers high. It would’ve been like dropping a lit match into a lightless, moth-filled cave. 

“I’ll be there soon,” he says, determined. “I’ll — if you can, tell her I’ll be there soon.”

Natasha leaves him with an affirmative and a “get here soon” and then he’s left in the wake of the call; silent save for the grumble and hum of his truck underneath him and the buzz of his anxiety in his ears. In his head, he’s already thinking forward, thinking of what you’ll need to get through your heat comfortably; lots of fruit and vegetables, but comfort food, too; blankets — scented by him, if you prefer it; ice water for when you get too hot and hot teas for when your stomach is too unsettled. Those suppressants Nat bought you will help keep the symptoms down, hopefully, but—

He’s out of his depth. He’s pathetically, and utterly out of his depth. 

He’s never… he’s never been so involved in heats. Of course, he helped Peggy through hers just as she helped him through his ruts, but more often than not she was on top of everything. She had a schedule for taking her suppressants, pre-made meals and snacks to have during it, made sure to drink 8 bottles of water per day so that she wasn’t dehydrated. 

He’s sure you’d do that, too — be prepared, he means. He knows Peggy’s routine was a bit much for the average person, but the fact that your heat had completely snuck up on you had prevented you from planning anything in the slightest. You’d probably lost track of it when you were running away, and the stress would’ve messed up the cycle, anyways. And with everything happening since then, it had most likely slipped your mind. Slipped his mind, too. 

Steve finds himself speeding up as the roads become more and more familiar; curving around snake-shaped turns and pushing past the steep incline that leads up the mountain; tires crushing gravel underfoot, the canopy of trees dimming the sunlight’s reach until the cabin comes into view. Natasha’s car is there, as expected.

The truck is barely parked before he's out of it, slamming the door behind him carelessly — Nat’s rolling down the window of her own, already poised to leave. 

“Take care of her,” she says, nodding towards the door. “Suppressants are on the island. If you need anything—”

“I’ll call,” Steve promises. The engine rumbles in preparation, and Steve’s about to turn and head to his real destination when— “Hey, Nat—”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks,” he says. “‘M sure she’ll want to tell you that after, too. Drive safe.”

He doesn’t wait until Nat’s car turns around the corner; doesn’t wait to see it disappear from his field of view, because he’s already moving. He’s through the front door, pulling his hat off and striding purposefully towards the bedroom. Cap — who’d obviously been sulking to himself on the couch — follows along with him, whining low in his throat as he darts around Steve's legs — and then the handle of the bedroom door is in Steve's hands, and the door is tugged open sharp and swift.

Your scent hits him like a truck. 

No, that's not accurate. A truck couldn't even hope to exert the same force as this does — a truck couldn't possibly describe the way his throat closes up and his entire body freezes and his knees weaken, so much so that he has to reach out and grip the nearest surface to steady himself — the doorframe.

There… isn't a possible description for it. None at all. Nothing to describe how all-encompassing it is, how detrimental and necessary it becomes for him in the first few seconds of being exposed to it. It's like having a constant flow of water directed to your mouth and never being quenched — like having every grain of sugar in the world at your disposal and still, an incessant, never-ending ache for more. Having too much and not enough at the same time, and Steve's breath comes shaky—

A loud warble cuts through the fog — mostly. He blinks. Breathes through his mouth instead of his nose, and blinks some more, so that the fog over his eyes can clear and he can focus on you, damn it—

Oh, God. You've settled into what Steve belatedly realizes was your nest, finished haphazardly in the few hours he'd been gone; his clothes and blankets and pillows all strewn and lain particularly over the bed, folded and lumped together to hollow out a large enough circle in the centre for you to lay in — and laying in it you are. Sobbing with it, the heat, muffling cries in his duvet and clutching the fabric in two tight fists. 

All this time — the socks and the pants under the pillow and the bundled up blankets — all this time, you’d been trying to nest. And him, dense as he is, hadn’t even realised. Hell, he doesn’t think you even realised.

There’s not one single word in any language he knows that can describe the way his heart just lurches at the sight of you  — the way his stomach squeezes and his throat tightens and his palms sweat. If there is, by God he’d like to know, because he needs some way of explaining how he stills in the doorway, a hand twitching towards you, and the other digging its nails into the doorframe.

He swallows. Tries to, anyway, but his tongue feels too heavy in his mouth. When he breathes (attempts to), your scent clogs up his nose and his mouth, thick as smoke — the type that crawls down your throat and into your lungs no matter how hard you try to breathe steady, renders you all dizzy and disoriented… He’s not ashamed to admit that it takes him more than a few seconds to regain his composure. 

He takes a step into the room. Your breath hitches, catches in your chest and snags against your lungs — and above the rumpled, folded sheets, your eyes inch open just the tiniest bit. A small, pitiful sniffle follows. “S—Steve?”

“Hey, bub,” he says, quiet as his voice can go. Your senses must be going haywire; touch, taste, smell, hearing, sight all dialed up as far as possible, and maybe even beyond. The suppressants should’ve calmed them a good bit, but he imagines it’s still far from comfortable; each step he takes, then, and every word he says is as hushed and placid as his body and voice can allow for. “Thought I’d check in. See if you’re doin’ good. Nat told me you got into a — uh, a bit of a pickle at work.”

(A massive understatement.)

Your chest heaves with the effort of taking three deep, slow breaths — long inhales in through your nose, long exhales out through your lips, attempting to be steady, but inevitably shaking and trembling. 

“‘M — ‘m just…” Another shaky breath— “S—sore. ‘Nd… my head hurts, and I’m too hot, and too cold, and—'' This time, a strangled, whiny sob is wrangled from your throat, and he realises he’s holding his breath, eyebrows pulled taut and tight over his eyes— “And you… you smell so good.”

His heart swells, crumples, shatters, remends itself; as does his air supply. Steve knows, then — somewhere in him, he knows that if he doesn’t help you in some way, now, it’ll wear on him. The pain in your face and the sweat on your hairline and the big, teary eyes that are flitting between his face and the ceiling and—

“Tell me what you need,” he says, fiercely determined. “Tell me, and I’ll do it for you.”

He knows you well enough to know that you wouldn’t ask for anything outlandish — nothing… inappropriate, even half out of your mind with heat and stuttering over your words. And even if you did, he knows it’d be exactly that — blissed out, heat-dizzy pleads. He’d promised you months ago that he’d never do that; never take advantage of you in any way, including that.

“Just—” There’s a flash of something hopeless on your face, the look of a girl who has no clue how to say what it is she wants, needs; not through the fog over your mind, the pain wreaking havoc on your body — but then it… doesn’t quite clear, but fades. “Could you — could you just… lay here? Beside me?”

Steve’s mind blanks. 

You want him beside you, in your nest, in the throes of your heat — not even to satiate you, but to comfort you, take care of you. That’s… that’s just as (if not more) intimate as fulfilling your other needs, and the fact that you trust him to—

He needs to get his head on straight. Now’s not the time to be turning everything over in his mind, not when you need him. He can mull over the insinuations of it all later, when you’re back to normal.

Still, when he answers — “Course, pup.” — his voice is hoarse.

He tugs off his thick boots, his flannel; he’s left in soft, worn sweatpants and a white t-shirt that he can’t remember buying. He’s all too aware of your eyes, those damned, big, teary eyes, somehow simultaneously cloudy and sharp, watching his every movement. Something like honey clings to the back of his throat.

Steve steps closer, closer to your precious pile of blankets and sheets and clothing, his clothing, your nest that you had meticulously gathered and placed and perfected. Your nest that you’re allowing him into.

When his knee first sinks into the mattress, you give a shaky sort of breath; your fingers curl into your palms, arms lifting just the tiniest bit like you want to reach for him — but you’re too weak, or too scared, or too indecisive, and they drop once more. It doesn’t matter, though, because—

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” you’re mumbling, feverish and hurried when he settles in beside you — and with a jolt of energy that he’s shocked you still have, you press yourself forward, barrelling right into him with your nose caught in the crook of his neck. Steve can feel sweat beading at his forehead, his heart jumping to his throat; he hesitantly winds his arms around your waist, and it’s like he’s simultaneously cooled down and heated up from the inside.

(God, how long has he thought about this? Having you so close, scenting him, purring all happy and safe in his arms? How long has he shamefully tucked away every desire involving you? This doesn’t feel... real.)

“‘M sorry,” you’re muttering now, sniffling, but you don’t pull away. You’re embarrassed, poor thing, over something you can’t control. “‘M — ‘m so sorry, Steve—”

“That’s alright, pup,” he assures you — swallowing right after, because his throat is ‘bout as dry as the fuckin’ Sahara and all he can smell is sickly, enticing sweetness. Because that’s what it is, isn’t it? Overpowering and cloying, almost too much, and yet it’s got his head spinning in the most pleasant way possible. He can’t even imagine what you must be feeling — if his mind is at capacity, yours must be in turmoil. “Take what y’ need. I got you. I’m here.”

Another indistinguishable whimper — he thinks it might be another thank you, but he can’t be sure. Instead, he readjusts his back against the pile of cushions and blankets and sweaters at his back; reaches his arms further around you, one hand on the back of your head and the other between your shoulders, and—

And takes care of you.

Heats have always been unpleasant, to say the least. It goes without saying, really — every omega, even with their differences, could recount at least one particularly nasty heat. Suppressants were a luxury, of course, and helped ease some of the symptoms, but they were very often a luxury few could afford. Especially in the circles your parents ran in; dynamic purists, who believe the use of chemicals goes against the natural way of things and firmly repudiate anyone who does. 

You were unlucky enough to have consistently terrible heats; migraines, nausea, cramps, oversensitivity to touch, taste, smells, light, sounds — the entirety of it all, really — but with the recommended two suppressant tablets Nat had given you before she ducked out, it wasn’t all that bad, all things considered. Your nest was the most comforting you’ve ever made; blankets and pillows all tucked, folded, squashed and handled into just the right formation to be comfortable; articles of clothing piled and maneuvered in a way that might not make sense to others, but to you—

To you — God, it’s heaven. Others might not get it — the concept of nesting isn’t quite as strong or detrimental in other designations as it is in omegas. It’s the safest place for you to be; the very essence of home and comfort and… warmth. Happiness. A place surrounded by things you like, by scents that console and relieve you, soft and homely. If you turn your head and bury your nose into it and inhale deeply, it’s like — it’s like the soreness dims, flutters away, even for a short second. Your head clouds and your heart calms and your stomach twists with pleasure instead of pain.

Your thighs are sticky with slick, you can feel it. The throbbing between your legs is more irritating than anything, though — there’s always been this idea that heats could drive an omega out of their mind with lust, that all inhibitions were lowered until they were a mindless, brainless toy — but in all honesty, it’s more of an annoying prickle of arousal, if anything. The pain is often too intense to feel anything—

(But sometimes — sometimes — when Steve walks in, when you catch a strong whiff of his scent, you can feel it, bubbling and simmering underneath your skin, clenching between your legs.)

—and so you resign yourself to desperately trying to stay afloat in the tides of it; fisting the sheets until your knuckles ache and your muscles twinge, snuggling deep into your nest, cuddling close to Steve when he’s available. 

And he makes himself available — and you can’t even formulate how grateful you are properly — can’t, for one moment, express just how indebted you are to him for taking care of you with little notice, with little warning, with all the care and tenderness he can muster. Distantly, you realise that you’re the first omega he’s taken care of since his Peggy; the first person to nest in his bed and sink into his arms since the woman he thought he’d spend the rest of his life with.

The thought is equal parts comforting, exciting, and sickening — and in truth, you’d be embarrassed about the entire ordeal if you could think straight. As it stands, your mind is perpetually focused between not overheating and trying to breathe through the cramps ripping through your abdomen. There’ll be time to internalise it all later, when you’re better. If you get better. God knows it feels like this pain is ever-present, never-fading; like it’s been nestled between your ribs and ovaries since before a time you could perceive.

Between deep inhalations, a wave of clarity washes over you — a moment free of pain and irritation and grumpiness, where you can actually feel the coolness of your tears on your cheeks and the ache of your knuckles from grasping the sheets too hard; where you can feel each refreshing breath through your lungs and the slight draught coming from under the door. In those few sweet seconds, you think to yourself:

You’ll be okay. This too will pass.

And what do you know? You believe yourself.

The fever comes and goes over the course of three, four days; hot flushes and cramps in your stomach and limbs, waves of nausea and sudden chills. You curl into yourself, for the most part; ask him with a feeble voice and sniffle to bring you more things for your nest — sheets and blankets and his clothing, lots of his clothing. You shove a scarf of his beneath your neck and cuddle two of his old sweaters close, especially when he has to leave the bed. 

It’s only for a few minutes at a time — to cook something or to use the toilet or to clean up — and you never complain; just burrow yourself deeper into the things you’d surrounded yourself with and try to rest. He’s tired, between constantly pumping out comforting pheromones and forcing himself to stay awake for longer (just in case), but there’s no doubt in his mind that you are eternally more so.

Ruts are hard, sure. Tiring as all hell and just as irritating, but they were hardly as physically taxing as heats seemed to be. He can never recall experiencing the same ailments as you are, no matter how bad they got — even his very first rut, the one he could hardly remember because he was delirious and dizzy out of his mind, was not as intensely painful as this is.

The one thing that has to be talked about after all this is most definitely suppressants. He doubts you were ever allowed to use ‘em back home, and he hadn’t even thought about them since you started staying with him — he himself had gone off suppressants as he got older and his ruts spaced out. He barely got one every two, three years.

Should’ve gotten her on some as soon as she decided to stay, he chides himself, pushing open the door to the bedroom with a cup of tea in one hand and a glass of water in the other.

“Hey, pup,” he greets softly, watching as your eyes blink open, tired and watery. “Brought you a drink.”

“Thanks, Steve.” Voice raspy and reedy, it’s no surprise that you reach eagerly for the cup of warm peppermint. Your breaths have stopped completely rattling in your chest, so that’s an improvement. “‘M feeling a bit better.”

“I can tell,” Steve says, smiling. He takes a seat by your side instead of the space that you’d carved out for him, and reaches out, placing a hand against your damp forehead. Getting cooler, that’s good. “Must be the tail end of it.”

"Thank God." 

For a moment, Steve simply listens to the flow of air through your chest, through your lungs, in and out of your nose. A bit heavier than usual, but that's to be expected — he's just glad that it's back to some semblance of normal. Lord knows there's not a single word in any language that could describe the tightness of his chest at every rattling, whistling breath you took. There was a good few seconds where he wanted to just cart you off to the nearest hospital — just in case.

(Peggy's heats came far and few between, and even then, with the suppressants she so diligently took, they tended to be weak. Steve was out of his depth to say the least.)

You settle the mug flat on your chest and blink tiredly at the ceiling. His hand has moved from your forehead to your hair; and there it stays, a comforting reminder, a tether to the present.

"You do so much for me, Steve."

"Hm?" Because half of him didn't hear you and the half that did doesn't quite understand what you're saying. 

“Just…” You unconsciously press your head into his touch. “Everything. You didn’t sign up for this — back when you first found me. I don’t… I — I’m sorry.”

Steve finds himself at a loss for words.

It is mind-boggling that after everything — after all these months — you still think that he’s done any of this out of obligation. That you were forcing him, in some way. Duty hadn’t pushed him to take you in; kindness had. He’d seen somebody in need of help and had given it — after that, as he got to know you, it was concern, protectiveness, fondness that had made him want to provide for you. Not some… contract that he felt bound to fulfill.

“I want you to listen to me,” he says slowly, frowning. “And listen to me good, pup. You are not a burden — in any way, shape, or form—” You open your mouth to interrupt, but he quickly shushes you— “I do what I do for you because I care about you. D’you hear me? ‘Cause you’re family, now.”

Your bottom lip trembles — and when you speak next, your voice does, too. “F-family?” 

He nudges your cheek with a knuckle, gentle and careful. “Course. Y’think Cap lets just anyone rub his stomach?”

That makes you giggle — even if it’s watery and you end it with a sniffle, it’s a laugh. No more bitterness curling over his tongue; soft, smooth vanilla takes its place, mottling his senses with sunshine-yellow happiness. It’s the most clear-headed you’ve been for the past few days, and the thought makes him perk up — the sooner the heat clears, the sooner you can be back to normal. The sooner he can talk to you about starting on some suppressants, the sooner he can… he can…

You’re falling asleep again. Eyes shut, mouth open, head tilted into his hand. Body rising and falling with each soft, whistling breath. With a fond snort and a laugh of his own, Steve moves the mug that’d been precariously balancing on your chest, places it on the bedside table; removes his hand from between your head and the pillow and tucks the blanket scrunched up by your face closer to you, just in case. 

And then — like some weary, old guard, dutiful and devoted to his post — he sits by your bedside, and waits for you to wake.

“Well, there she is!” Natasha cheers when you step through the door, beaming wide and bright. “Y’ look well, _____.”

“I feel it,” you reply, sniffling away the last of the frost that had been nipping at your nose — Steve tugs off your gloves as you do so, tucking them back into your pockets as you move towards Nat’s open arms. “Thanks for driving me home that day, Natasha.”

The older woman takes you in her arms tightly, rocking you back and forth. It occurs to Steve that the amount of time you spend working here has brought you closer to Natasha than he’d thought. “Oh, don’t mention it. I’m just glad you’re okay — had me worried for a second. Came out of the blue, didn’t it?”

“Completely…” You throw a glance over your shoulder, then, to where Steve’s still unravelling the thick scarf from around his neck. “I — Steve took care of it all, though. I don’t know what I would’ve done without him.”

“Did he, now?” says a new voice — or, new to the conversation, rather. Bucky’s hair is wet and tied up onto the crown of his head when he bustles in from behind the bar. Freshly showered, by the look of him. 

Your cheeks suddenly feel all too hot, and you have to brace yourself from the flood of embarrassment that seeps through you — you get a quick handle on your scent, too, though from the grin on Bucky’s face, you hadn’t been fast enough to hide it from him. “Not like that—” 

“We know,” Nat says, aiming a light swat at her husband’s arm. “He’s just foolin’ around. Which he shouldn’t be doing, actually, because he’s got inventory t’ take and opening’s in thirty — ain’t that right?”
“Yeah, yeah — let me say hello to Steve before you put me to work, darlin’.” 

“Speaking of work,” inserts Natasha, gently tugging you by the arm and behind the bar, “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

Instantly, your interest is piqued — and not in the best way. All you do is serve tables and pour whatever’s on tap — sometimes you work before opening, helping clean up and prepare for the coming night. Surely there’s nothing of importance that can be said about your job — unless it’s about terminating it. Oh, God. Are you about to get fired? 

No, you think. Natasha and Bucky wouldn’t do that. Still, your heart thunders in your chest as you’re led into the kitchen; the kettle is put on, then, and as it begins to grumble and boil, you realise that oh — you think the remnants of your heat are still clouding your head. Making you panic over what you’re sure is nothing. You already knew that some of the symptoms from your heat — namely, the increase in hormones and the lingering remnants of your sickly sweet scent — would last a few more days. You just hadn’t expected the effects to be so prevalent.

“Something about work?” You echo, already slipping into the seat that had gradually come to be known as yours. “Is… is something wrong?” 

“Not at all,” she replies, sending you a knowing look over the island. “Don’t worry yourself — it’s just a little proposition. Y’ can say no if you want to — but, y’know, Bucky and I have been runnin’ things for a long time here. Now that we’re gettin’ a bit older, we thought it’d be better to lighten the load a little…

“Not too much, now. We're not skeletons just yet, so just some of the more technical stuff. Bucky was thinking of maybe teachin’ you how to do the books.”

She sets a mug of your favourite tea in front of you and you realise you’ve been gaping at her all throughout her proposition.

You? Doing the books? Taking on more responsibility than you could’ve ever hoped to be given just a few months ago? Having people trust you enough to put most of their business (if not their entire business) in your hands? 

This time, you don’t think it’s the leftovers of your heat that make your eyes burn or your hands shake.

“You can think about it,” Natasha reminds you, as if reading your mind. Her characteristically friendly smile drags about her lips. “We’ve got time.”

“D—definitely,” you say, clearing your throat. “I — I’ll think about it. Thank you, so much.”

(And it doesn’t seem enough to just say thank you — to anyone, really. To Steve, to Sam, to Natasha and Bucky — thank you will never be enough, really.)

“Ah, don’t mention it. Could hardly ask Steve, could we? I think lookin’ at the ledger would put him into an early grave!”

You snort, shaking your head. Steve does prefer doing over… calculating, you suppose. He was better than you with his hands, that’s for sure — cutting wood, driving, even the little repairs he does around the house. It’s stuff you wouldn’t even know where to begin with, but he does it like it’s second nature. 

(You balance each other out in that way, you think.)

“C’mon,” Nat says, then. “We're opening soon. Is Steve staying?”

"Uh, yeah," you say, abandoning your barely-touched drink. "Sam is coming around, too—"

"And that'll mean Bucky will be lazin' off," she finishes, rolling her eyes. “Looks like we’ll have to shoulder the brunt of it, kid.”

She acts like she’s annoyed, but you’ve seen the way she looks at him when he’s slacking off — when she thinks no-one’s looking, she’ll glance over at him with the softest, most tender smile you’ve ever seen. She’ll roll her eyes, sure; shake her head to herself and scoff a little laugh, but when her eyes fall on Bucky it’s as if she can’t bring herself to do anything but grin. It’s a sweet little thing you’ve noticed — though it’s always been clear and obvious how much Natasha and Bucky love each other, the reminder is heartwarming to see.

It’s so different to the relationships you’d been exposed to for most — if not all — of your life. Your parents were much colder, much more subdued. You’re sure they love each other in whatever capacity they’re capable of loving, but it’s nothing like the warmth that Natasha and Bucky give off. Nothing like the small, secret smiles and fond, exasperated laughs when the other isn’t looking. You think you’d like that kind of love for yourself, too.

“If we’re lucky,” Nat finishes, passing into the main bar, “it’ll be a light night.”

It is not, in fact, a light night.

It had managed to slip everyone’s mind that tonight was game night — meaning that every alpha over 30 (and even some under) decided they wanted to slug beers and watch the gritty, pixelated TVs that hung around the room, shoot pool and eat bar peanuts and chicken wings and fries. Each table is packed and then some — some of the guys even had to break out Nat’s outdoor seats used for summer; some brought their own foldable chairs. 

The stuffiness of it all would’ve made you wildly uncomfortable had you been at any other point in your life — the hotness of the air, the way you have to shimmy through tightly-packed tables to deliver orders, the yelling when somebody makes a goal or, alternatively, loses one. For a moment (at the start of the night) it had felt like it was all crowding in on you — you’d stood there, a tray of beers in your hands, and you’d very nearly frozen.

But Nat passed you with a pat on the shoulder and a “Keep the good work up,” and you’d snapped out of it. 

Most of the alphas here are regulars — harmless old men who like cigars and beers — and you know they wouldn’t hurt you. They tip you extra and always make sure to say hello and goodbye. The few that you don’t know are peppered here and there, almost inconsequential; and then there’s your favourite table in the back by the pool table. Sam and Steve — and Bucky, who’s pretending to wipe the table down every few seconds. Who he’s fooling, you’ll never know.

Your anxiety eases after that. It’s just another shift, you tell yourself — and although the worry over the remnants of your heat linger in the back of your mind, you pull up your metaphorical socks and set a round of drinks on one table, and go back for another order. Some stares linger, some gazes trail, but nobody says anything. Around you, the crowd thumps and exclaims and cheers and roars. 

And so time passes — three hours that zoom by with crystal glasses and Bucky’s top-shelf liquor and refilling bowls of peanuts again and again and again; checking in with the one cook in the back of the kitchen who’s rotating out trays of chicken wings and fries and mac & cheese. Other times, it’s wiping down the bar that somehow — despite mostly just being a stopping point for people to order — grows stickier and sticker as the night progresses; sometimes, it’s mopping up spills.

And from time to time, you feel the warmth of eyes on you; making sure you’re okay as you’re stopped by someone who wants another pint, or checking in when you’ve disappeared into the back for too long. Steve always smiles when you catch him — and Sam looks over his shoulder to check who he’s looking at, and then Bucky’s next, too, and you have to stop your cheeks from flushing with heat because the attention is a bit much, really, when—

“Ay, waitress!”

It’s a bit of a relief, you think, to turn your head away from them and focus on the man who’d called your name; pressing your empty serving tray flat against your hip and bowing slightly down to hear him over the noise. A table of seven, eight people — alphas and betas among them, one omega plastered to the side of his alpha. 

“What can I get you?” You manage. You remember that the table he’s sitting at has only asked for whatever’s on tap for the entirety of their stay, some food, too, so it’s likely that—

“Another round of these, thank you,” the man says, raising his pint glass. He opens his mouth again, and you wait — wait for him to order something else, to ask someone around him what they want, but the hand that had been inquisitively stroking at his chin stills, suddenly. His thumb prods against his lower lip, and his eyes begin to drift down from your face to the curve of your neck. “Y’all got a secret menu or somethin’?”

Your hands fumble along the tray — and the only thing that’s in your brain at the sight of him — him, with his greasy-looking smirk and tilted head — is please don’t lead to what I think this is leading to. Please. “S—sorry?” 

Someone at the table huffs a laugh — turns to someone else and begins a conversation. 

“Cause there’s no way Nat and Bucky are lettin’ a sweet thing like you walk ‘round here by yourself for nothin’,” he continues. “You’ll tempt people like that, omega.”

For a moment, you can’t believe what you’re hearing. It’s the first time in months that somebody’s spoken to you like this — you’d gotten too comfortable, it seems. Your anxiety rattles in your chest with your next breath, and you try to organize your thoughts, try to form some sentence that will get you out of whatever it is you’ve gotten into.

“Um — what else is it you want to order?”

The man doesn’t answer for a moment — just keeps staring at you as if you want him to, eyes drifting up and down your body. You want to curl into yourself, want to back away, but you feel glued to the spot. Steve’s only metres away across the room — Sam’s just metres away, Bucky, Nat. But the air is loud and thick and warm and you don’t think anybody knows how unsettled you are. “I can smell you, ‘mega. Sweet like honey. Y’ got an alpha?”

He smells like cigarette smoke. His scent smells like cigarette smoke — bitter and acrid and headache-inducing, almost enough to make you gag. Your stomach turns — or, more accurately, curdles and rises and lodges itself in your throat, impairing all semblances of rational, calm thought.

You try to think back to your therapy group. The things people would say about how they gathered courage — listening to certain music, reminding themselves of certain things, positive affirmations. Raise your chin. Straighten your shoulders. Remind yourself that you have a right to own and occupy the space you’re in.

You feel all too much like a fraud when you do so — but still, you attempt to clear your throat of all lumps, stutters, and warbles, and say: “No. I don’t need one. What else would you like?”

“Oho?” He grins. “‘I don’t need one’. I like a strong omega, y’know that? One with a little bit of bite.”

“C’mon,” says one of his friends, only half-listening in and only half-trying to dissuade him. “Leave the poor girl alone.”

Yes, you agree to yourself, leave the poor girl alone and order your drink. Or, even better: leave.

“I’m just talkin’ to her!” Argues the man. “C’mon, what’s a fella to do when—”

“Hey,” a familiar voice says from behind you. “Nat says your shift’s over. We’re okay t’ go home.”

Steve. Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, your Steve. It’s Steve.

The relief that fills you is clear and palpable — from the way your shoulders slump to the sigh you try to hide, the step you take back towards him — and you can’t find it in yourself to feel guilty. You want that man to know that you’re disgusted by him; you want him to know that he’d made you feel unsafe — somehow, though, you don’t think that would bother him. 

A glance over your shoulder at Steve’s stormy visage tells you that you’d been wrong, earlier — someone had known how unsettled you were. With the amount of time you were spending at the table, your infamous inability to control your facial expressions, and Steve’s tendency to check in on you regularly, it’s almost a wonder that you’d thought nobody would be able to sense your unease. That he wouldn’t notice is perhaps more unrealistic.

Steve doesn’t look happy. At all. And if you’re being honest, the thought comforts you. Seeing someone else be angry at what you’re experiencing makes you feel like you’re valid in your feelings — like you’re not crazy, like you have a right to be angry. 

“Okay,” you reply, peering up at him. “I’ll — I’ll go get my things, they’re out back—”

Steve’s eyes — steely and hard — don’t move from the table’s inhabitants. “Go on, pup.”

You risk a hesitant look behind you, passing the tray in between your hands. As much as you don’t want to stay, you think leaving Steve here will do more bad than good — as it stands, he looks like he’s about two seconds from seizing the man that’d been bothering you by the scruff of the neck. And your taunter doesn’t seem to have a problem with fighting, either — puffing out his chest and cocking his jaw. 

Steve could take him, no problem. But there’s no need for it. 

You reach out and clasp Steve’s wrist, tugging him towards you. “C’mon.”

And you hadn’t expected him to argue, but you’re still taken aback by how easily he follows you — tall, lumbering Steve, letting you pull him along as you please. His skin is warm in your hand; warm, almost pulsing with heat, like you can feel the blood rushing beneath it all. You’d be lying if you said it wasn’t a consolation of sorts, feeling him. Something to anchor yourself to.

“Hey,” calls the man at the table. “You still need to get our drinks, by the way.”

“She doesn’t need to get you shit,” replies Steve lowly. “Order again with somebody else. She’s off the clock.”

You speed up; walking quickly in the hopes that the man won’t say anything else in retaliation, pacing until you can slide behind the bar and into the hallways. It’s only then that you let go of Steve’s wrist — maybe a little too briskly, as if just realising how tightly you’d been holding him. 

It’s quiet as you set your tray down on the dining table. Even as you collect your jacket and scarf from the back of one of the chairs, it’s quiet — even as you pull them on, avoiding Steve’s eyes, it’s quiet. Neither of you make any effort to speak up. You bid the cook goodbye — wave a hand to a concerned-looking Sam, Bucky, and Natasha, before you follow Steve outside and into the cold.

Nearing midnight, it’s pitch-black — it usually is by time you end your shift. Your boots trudge through the slush and sleet of the car park, hands buried deep into your pockets and nose shoved into your scarf. Steve unlocks the truck and is already starting it up when you yourself get in — the second your door is closed, the truck is rolling out of the car park and onto the main road, and not for the first time, you wonder if you’d upset him. Or, rather, if the situation had upset him.

You hadn’t caused it. You’d tried to stop it, in fact — despite it all, your guilt manages to get the best of you. Maybe if you’d walked away, or… or told him outright to leave you alone. 

No, you tell yourself — and it’s hard to tell yourself, to remember to remind yourself, but you do it anyway because you know it’s what’s best for you. This isn’t your fault. He shouldn’t have been talking to you like that in the first place. End of story.

In reality, you know Steve probably isn’t angry at you; he’s steaming in the disgust and fury of seeing that man talk to you the way he did. Inconspicuously scenting the air reveals the same truth — the sour smokiness hidden under his regular warmth doesn’t tell of a present, burning vexation, but of a simmering irritation. 

Still. It takes ten minutes of tense silence and fidgeting until you build up the courage to finally speak.

“Thank you,” you say, “For — uhm, whatever that was. I thought I could just ignore it and he’d give up.”

The road grows thinner; the trees on either side grow taller. Soon, the only light on the road is the beam from the truck’s headlights, and the odd street lamp that glows bright and orange. It’s a familiar stretch; a long, straight carpet of road, before the path twists itself over and over before it leads to the tiny, dirt road that brings you home. You wait for the car to reach the first bend in the same way you wait for him to answer — to say something, anything. 

“People like that don’t take no for an answer,” is Steve’s only reply. The frown of his brows still hasn’t eased up. His hands readjust themselves on the wheel.

“I think it was whatever’s left from my heat,” you continue, swallowing. “I — I should’ve given it a few more days, or…”

“Don’t make excuses for him,” he replies, low and scowling. “He woulda done it regardless of when your heat was.”

The car turns to the left on a gentle, sloping turn; around and around, your unspoken words building in your throat — and then there’s the sharp right, into the hidden little dirt road that will bring you home. 

“I — I know,” you backtrack. “I just… I’m sorry that—”

“Stop doin’ that.”

You almost jump at the sharpness of his voice — no, you think you do jump. Sink into your seat as if it could swallow you up and watch carefully, unsurely, as Steve’s face contorts in — in something. Not quite anger, not quite annoyance, not quite irritation — you don’t know what it is, and that unnerves you. Ever since you’ve been with Steve, you’ve always been able to tell what he’s thinking in some capacity; able to sense whether he’s deep in thought or too tired, always knowing whether or not his silence was calm and peaceful or stilted. 

The truck rumbles and jumps underneath you both as you grow closer and closer to the cabin; still, there’s something left unsaid, something that needs to be aired out, and you’d rather it wasn’t brought into the house — it should be left out here, not taint the safest space you’ve ever known.

“Doing what?” You prompt, so. “Tell me. Don’t just snap at me.”

The cabin drags itself into sight — a speck, at first, before it comes to fruition, illuminated only by the headlights. The curtains are still open; the mailbox is untouched. You’re sure that if you made a sound Cap would be peeking his head up to peer out the windows. 

Steve heaves a heavy sigh as he parks the truck — tired. Not so sharp anymore, just… lethargic. In the periphery of your vision, his hand cups his jaw; smooths over the steadily-growing hair there, as if in deep thought.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. ‘S not you I’m angry at — that piece of shit cornered you like that ‘nd I saw red. ‘M sorry.

“Every time somebody treats you like shit, you apologise for it,” he continues. “I know it’s probably habit, pup, but it’s not gonna do nothin’ to help you in the long run. Y’ keep takin’ all the blame for the shitty things shitty people do to you.”

Oh. 

Well. It’s a habit you’ve known you tend to slip into.. It’s not on purpose; just a product of your upbringing, and you do try to remind yourself that you’re mostly blameless when things like this happen — but at the same time, you’re trying to see it from another point of view. Maybe you’re cursed with a need to understand, to empathise, you don’t know. All you know is that shame is blooming across your cheeks and you don’t know why — why are you suddenly embarrassed, suddenly ashamed, suddenly feeling like a scolded child despite the patience Steve’s operating with?

“I… understand,” you say slowly, chewing on your lip, frowning as you attempt to formulate a comprehensible sentence, “And I’m not trying to shift the blame, but — but I really should’ve waited a few more days. Working in such a stuffy place filled with alphas — I should’ve known better.”

“You shouldn’t have to!” Steve stresses — and he’s pushing open the door, and slamming it even more quickly behind him. You follow him out, hands trembling with argument-borne anxiety — but as nervous as the conversation makes you, you’re averse to leaving it unresolved. He seems to have the same idea, too, because he doesn’t move towards the cabin; he stands and puffs out cold clouds of white air, letting it cool his flustered cheeks and the heat in his veins. 

“Y’know, smellin’ an omega’s heat isn’t as out of control as alphas make it out to be. I stayed in this damn house for three, four days with you, and I didn’t even think to touch you like that, pup. These people act like y’ need to have an alpha’s marks all over your neck to leave you the fuck alone, and it’s—”

You don’t know what goes through your mind to say what you say next — maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s restlessness and irritation and humiliation and months of feeling what you’ve been feeling, pining after a man who you could only ever hope to love freely, yearning for something you’re not at all sure he wants to give. All you know is that in a split second, the tension in your chest grows to immeasurable heights, and your mouth opens and you say the first thing that comes to mind:

“Maybe you should’ve,” you blurt out. The wrinkles bunched between your eyebrows shake and quiver with the force of your frown. “Maybe you should’ve marked me, then!”

It’s… silent. Silent, and still, but somehow not still and silent at all. His blood rushes through his ears and his heart pounds from somewhere in his throat and for a moment — for just a moment — it's as if he can hear the forest and the cabin moving, breathing, living. The loud-silence clamors together, building and building and building, until—

“I just — I meant—” You’re spluttering, wide-eyed, scent sizzling and curling, smokey and heavy between you. “I — I’m—”

There's this feeling of dread in his gut, oddly reminiscent of how he’d felt when Peggy had left. Like something inevitable is about to happen; something he won’t be able to avoid or stop no matter how much he wills it. Maybe it’s his fault that the unavoidable was set on its track; maybe if he’d shut up and simply comforted you, not let his anger get the best of him, you’d be inside and warm like always. Not standing out in the cold and airing out things that shouldn’t be aired out.

"I — I told you when y'first came here. I wasn't gonna take advantage of you like that." He scents his own frustration, embarrassment, shame, static and buzzing in the air. "You got your whole life ahead of you. Can't waste it on some old alpha, you hear?"

"You're not just some old alpha!" You reply, voice suddenly shrill. Your hands tighten into fists, your body tensing like a coiled spring — defensive, oddly reminiscent of the first time he'd seen you. "You're — you're you!" 

“That don’t make a difference,” he says. He’s scowling, he knows he is, and he tries to make an effort to tamper it down but he can’t. He can’t because this has been building and building and he’s exercised most of his restraint with keeping how he feels to himself and you don’t deserve to deal with his shit but here you are.

“Yes it does.” Souring fruit — that’s what your scent begins to smell like. Sour, bitter fruit, too soft and mushy and completely inedible. It stings his nose. You scent it at the same time as he does — and your bottom lip wobbles, hands hesitating in their balled fists. Embarrassed. You’re embarrassed. He should be the embarrassed one. “Because — ‘cause—”

“Cause what?”

Maybe he’s being cruel, now. Demanding an answer that he’s not sure you can give. Staring you down with his jaw hard and his brows furrowed, arms crossed — clearly displeased. He wouldn’t… he wouldn’t usually press it, wouldn’t usually press you, but he has to make you see sense. 

Truth hurts. And the truth is that, no matter how much you want it, no matter how much he wants it, it’s not fair on you.

"'Cause I — I'm—" This time, it's a high-pitched squeak that cuts you off; visibly festers in your throat, your jaw unhinging to hang open uncertainly. Your eyes steadily grow glassier and glassier, and — there it is. You blink, just once, and a fat droplet glides right out of your eye and down one bonny cheek. "I'm… I think I'm in love with you, Steve."

It's like a bucket of ice cold water has been unceremoniously dumped on his head — and anybody would wonder why, why, when he’d wanted so badly to hear those exact words. That’s just the thing, though; it was meant to stay a want. To never come to fruition, to linger in the back of his mind and the tip of his fingers and the curve of his mouth forever — those damned words weren’t supposed to see the light of day, not ever. He wasn’t supposed to feel his chest tighten and constrict with hope, wasn’t supposed to feel relieved — happy, even — that you’d confessed—

Confessed to loving him. Him.

“Don’t — don’t be saying things like that.” But even he can tell that his voice, his conviction, is weak, on the verge of breaking and shattering past repair.

(You love him. You love him.) 

If he’s being candid, some part of him had already known. The part of him that didn’t believe it overshadowed the other greatly, and so the reality had sat in the back of his brain, gathering dust. But it had shown in the bright, bashful smiles; the butterscotch sweetness of your scent when you noticed he was around; the flustered embarrassment that fluttered over your face when you did something extra affectionate. 

He’d known, in some way. He’d… entertained it. He’d let it happen. And now he’d have to be the one to tell you what you didn’t want to hear.

“Why?” And you sound heartbroken. Because of him. He’d never wanted to — never meant to, never intended to—

“I know that I’m not—” You say then, and — Steve looks at you. You, with your stubbornness suddenly coming out to play — you, with your teeth gritted and your fingers curled inwards and your cheeks lined with shiny, wet streams. The simmering, shuddering hurt twisting underneath your skin. He can feel it. “I know I’m not — I don’t — I’m—” 

A noise of frustration makes its way past your throat, and you heave a great, shaking sigh — but then it’s gone. You bow your head to the ground and your shoulders deflate and your eyes are red and shiny and he wants to say something, anything, but he’s not sure how he can without incriminating himself in the process and maybe the damage done is already too great—

“It’s fine,” you say at last. Your voice is terribly, painfully thin. Dreadfully, awfully near dissolving into tears. “It’s fine. I’m tired. I’m going to go to bed.”

A second passes — a second you grace him with to redeem himself, to explain, to talk it through…

He nearly takes it. He should tell you. He should. How it’s not your fault — it never has been, it never will be, but he can’t.

And it’s stupid, really, because Steve knows he’s not like Brock, or the man in the bar, or whatever shitty alpha that thinks they’re owed something — he knows he cares about you, about your wellbeing and your best interests, knows it with his entire fucking heart and more. But that’s the bare minimum, isn’t it? What does Steve give you past a place to stay and a few laughs and a shoulder to cry on? What is he doing for you that some younger, more suitable alpha can’t?

The second passes. Your eyes find the floor once more, and when you shuffle past him — when you unlock the front door and trudge into the cabin — it’s not the bedroom where you’ve been spending your nights that you end up in; it’s the couch. 

(What is he doing for you that some younger, more suitable alpha can’t?)

Steve swallows the lump in his throat. Nods. Says, “Alright. Sleep well.” and crowds off to his bed like it’s any other night when he’s painfully aware that it’s not. When he knows you’re probably weeping to yourself just metres away. When he himself has this pain in his chest and this stone in his stomach and the daunting feeling that maybe he’s ruined everything — and, even worse, that it may be for the better.

(...You love him.)

You don’t sleep much that night, if at all. 

The second the words had left his lips — “Don’t be saying things like that.” — it felt like you’d lost all semblance of strength in your body. Somewhere in the mind-numbing panic that had followed after you’d said those faithful words, you’d tried to remind yourself of something you’d heard, once; something about doing things that frighten you: what’s the worst that could happen? You’ll come out alive either way. That’s all that matters.

Steve knows that you love him. You’ll come out alive either way.

Steve rejected you. You’ll come out alive either way.

Steve doesn’t want you. You’ll — you’ll come out alive either way. 

It had allowed you to hold off the sickness welling up in your chest at his words, at least until he’d stepped away, withdrew to his room — and then it’s like it all comes rushing down in one fell swoop, the reality of it all, the mind-numbing pain that comes with baring your heart and having it crushed—

The entire cabin has never felt so cold, so alien; even when Steve retreats to his room, the air is heavy, and encroaching, and damn near suffocating. You feel, for the first time in months, like a stranger in somebody else’s space — and it hurts. Sick to your stomach, eyes stinging and lungs short of breath, you tip-toe outside and shut the door behind you. It’s too much in there — in his house, on his couch, surrounded by his things, his scent, him, him, him—

You’re sobbing before you realise it; sitting on the wooden, snow-covered porch with little regard for your clothing or yourself, clutching tightly at your skin like it will ground you, fill your lungs with air, fix what you’d ruined. Because that’s the truth of it, isn’t it? In the end, who can you blame but yourself? You, who hadn’t thought twice; you, who couldn’t keep your mouth closed and your thoughts to yourself—

“God,” you whimper, pressing your nose into your knees, “It hurts — it hurts, it hurts—”

You’d ruined it. The one good thing you’d had, you’d ruined it. It’s in your blood, isn’t it? Somehow it’s in your blood, your genetic code, your brain — you get something good and bright and you feel too much and you push it on everyone, everyone around you, and you make everything uncomfortable and you can’t stop—

Why can’t you stop? Your head thumps back against the door, teeth chattering, head and nose thumping with cotton-thick pain.

Why can’t you stop? Your fingers dig deep into your thighs — skin numb and turning blue with the cold, and you can’t feel it when your nails begin to press bloody idents into the flesh, can’t feel when you scrape against it all — the pain in your chest is far more than you can ever hope to feel anywhere else — and you’d do anything to stop it—

“Stop—” Shuddering, shaking, you can’t breathe— “Stop, stop, stop—”

(You’ll come out alive either way.)

“Hey, hey, hey, hey—” A voice — Steve’s voice — when did Steve get here? Something warm plants itself on your side — searing hot, too hot, but you don’t have the energy to wiggle away. All you can do is sit there and take it. “C’mon, c’mon, pup — hey, look at me — fuck, gotta get you inside — hold on, okay? Hold on, I’ve got you—”

Another beacon of heat — this time, pressed against your back — and then the world tilts and sways and you’re in the air, floating save for the two hands keeping you suspended; but then there’s a… a wall of sorts, and you realise belatedly that Steve must be carrying you. Idly, you also remember that you should be upset by his presence — it’s hard to care when your head is clouded and the only thing on your mind is your incredible penchant for ruining everything you touch.

"—were you thinking, being out there alone? And with no coat or scarf or shoes? I swear to God, pup, when you get outta this you're gonna get a good tongue-hiding, I'll tell you that—"

His words bubble and warble, contorted as if spoken through water. Eyes fluttering closed, you wonder in the back of your mind if you're going to pass out. You'd never done that before—

Steve's still in the process of hurriedly carrying you to bed when you pass out — eyes blinking up at him, unseeing, before they roll to the back of your head and your eyelids flutter shut and his stomach drops even lower, if possible. The shuddering and gasping breaths had been worrying, but at least you’d been awake—

"No, no, no," he mutters to himself. "Wake up, c'mon, fuck—”

He shoves the door to the bedroom open with his shoulder and has you on the mattress in seconds — it’s only then that he realises that his hands are shaking. Strong and true as he begins to frantically tuck blankets around your body, but shaking, yes, because your skin is cold to the touch and your lips are turning purple and there’s blood on your legs and he doesn’t know where to start — where does he start—?

A long, drawn out whine reverberates through Cap’s chest — and, almost as if the hound knows exactly what to do, he hops onto the bed and sits himself over your lap, bowing his head low. 

“Good boy, Cap,” Steve mutters, hurrying back to the living room for the blankets on the couch. “Good boy.”

You weren’t out for too long, that much he knows. It’s not cold enough for you to contract hypothermia in such little time, so that should be fine — he should have some band-aids or ointment or disinfectant for the marks on your thighs — fuck, did you give those to yourself?

You’re cold. So cold, and so still, and his stomach is turning and his throat is closing, but still, he pushes on — lays the bundles of blankets collected atop you, pressing them underneath your arms and around your shoulders. 

Still, he notes as he straightens up, the cabin itself is coated in a wintery chill. The central heating in the place is dismal — always has been — and so, cursing to himself, he storms out into the cold and towards the shed that holds the firewood. Snow in his eyes and wind biting at his cheeks, he holds an arm up to shield his face. It doesn’t do much good, but it’s only a few seconds before he tugs open the door to the shed and piles his arms high with firewood — only a few seconds more before he gets back into the cabin and slams the door shut behind him, shaking snow from his shoulders and his hastily put on shoes.

“Stay with her, Cap,” he calls — although the dog has shown no signs of moving. Steve knows that he’s only speaking to calm himself down — filling the air with something that isn’t silence or whistling winds or his own breathing, because he knows that if he starts thinking about it — really thinking about it — he’ll begin to flounder. Already, his fingers fumble on his matches as he lights the fireplace; but once the fire is roaring and sufficiently tended to, he’s back to waiting on you. 

He checks the bathroom for band-aids but only finds rubbing alcohol and ointment. He tries to make sense of what you were doing outside on the porch in the dead of night with nothing but your pyjamas on. He thinks about the strong, terror-inducing wave of bitterness he’d smelled — he hadn’t been sleeping, but scenting so much fear and sadness had him jumping up, argument and confessions forgotten. And then, and then, and then…

You’d been having a panic attack. That much was obvious. When he picked you up you barely seemed lucid — stared through him rather than at him, breathing quick and heavy, fingers trembling and dotted with specks of your own blood. 

Steve’s shoulders slump with the weight of his sigh, head bowing low. There… had probably been a better way to go about what he said. Something that wasn’t so harsh. He hadn’t been thinking. If he’s being honest with himself, he knows that a part of him had wanted to accept what you’d been saying — a part of him that wanted to be what you wanted him to be. Maybe the harshness of his answer was to reject both you and himself.

Look where it had gotten you both. You, unconscious. Steve, scared out of his mind and heart racing with adrenaline. 

Mindlessly, he opens up the ointment, and gently swabs the cuts on your legs with a disinfectant-soaked cloth; his thoughts are miles and miles away, whirring with possibility, fully and wholly attempting to salvage what is left of your relationship — but truly, he has no idea of what to do. And it worries him greatly. He’s always needed to have some measure of control — even when Peggy left, he felt as if he had some sort of power; instead of staggering and stumbling around like the image of sadness, he retreated away to deal with it himself. He always had a plan, or at the very least, an inkling of a feeling of how to proceed… 

“I think I’m in love with you, Steve.”

Fuck. How was he ever supposed to respond to that? How was he ever supposed to come back from taking your confession and practically tearing it to pieces? How was he ever going to decide between happiness and the greater good — or, even, if the greater good was the greater good? 

Your wounds taken care of, the bed crowded with warm things — he realises he’d unconsciously gathered the same ones you’d been fond of during your heat — Steve takes a step out of the bedroom. Whatever adrenaline had been forcing him forward has begun to trickle away, now, leaving him only with trembling fingers, more questions than answers, and the repeating image of you in the snow — ice-cold and shaking, breaths so loud they’d panicked him within a single second.

He’s dialling a number before he knows what he’s doing. 

A number he hasn’t called in years.

A number he’s not even sure is still in use, anymore — a number that’s been left imprinted on his fingertips, no matter how much he’s tried to burn it off.

There’s the sound of the call going through; a long, continuous beeping, before a light buzz signifies that it’s gone through — and he’s holding his breath, he realises, pressure building in his lungs just as—

“Hello?”

The breath leaves his lungs, and suddenly he feels as if he's made a hasty, terrible decision. He’s imagined this moment countless times — imagined the anger that would burn up inside him, the sadness, the sting of tears. He can't bring himself to hang up, though. His hands feel glued to where they are.

“...Hey, Peg.”

There’s rustling. The hurried sound of a door opening and closing. “Steve? Oh, my. H—hello. It’s… good lord, it's been quite a while.”

The gentle, tilting cadence of her voice; the ebb and flow of her accent. Surprisingly, the sound of her voice isn't as painful as he'd imagined — the idea of Peggy, halfway across the country or, hell, halfway across the world, in a house of her own surrounded by people not wrought from their shared lives but cultivated alone — it doesn't hurt. Not like it used to. It’s just a little… strange.

"Yeah, since…"

"...Since I left."

“...Yeah.”

There’s a pause. The wind whistles. Cap snorts from the bedroom. You lay, unmoving, in his bed. 

“Truth is,” Steve finally speaks, scratching across his beard, “I… I don’t know why I called. I just — somethin’ happened, an’ the phone was in my hand, and…”

A laugh that’s more breath than humour. “Yeah. I know the feeling. I always managed to put the phone down before it dialled.”

The thought gives him pause. How many nights had he wanted Peggy to call him? How many times had he wished that the phone would ring and he’d hear her voice? All those sleepless, lonely nights; all those tireless, lonely days. It’s strange to think that if she had, he wouldn’t be here right now. You wouldn’t be here right now. So... maybe it’s for the best that she didn’t.

“I guess I… need someone to tell me I’m not crazy,” he finally says, exhaling. “Not… bad. And you always say what you’re thinkin’ regardless of what anybody else wants to hear, so…”

Peggy makes a sound like she’s halfway between sighing and laughing. “Nice to know that’s how I’m remembered.” As opposed to how she’d left: a spectre, vanished from his home with nothing but a note of apology. Steve’s mind lingers on how he’s speaking to her after almost 4 years of nothing — and yet, how well they’d settled back into a mimicry of their old dynamic. “Well, go on, then. Tell me what’s happened, Steve.”

So he does. Stumbling over his words, at first, going back and forth between past and present — explaining how you’d arrived, how he’d taken you in, the problems with your parents and Rumlow and how he felt that he was taking advantage of your vulnerability. How you’d been going to the therapy groups and working at the Blue Jester (“Nat and Bucky are doin’ good, by the way. ‘M sure they’d like to hear from you.” Peggy had snorted, “I hardly think they miss me. Not after what I did.” Steve hadn’t argued with her.), and how you’d told him you’d loved him, and how you were tucked into his bed, out cold.

Peggy is silent for a moment. Steve’s heart thuds in his chest — somewhere in his mind he still wishes for her approval. Or, rather, he wishes to show her that, regardless of her leaving, he’s still a good man. And this story he’s telling doesn’t exactly paint the picture of a good man, does it? At least, not to him. 

Then: a low, tired whistle. “You’ve gotten up to a lot, haven’t you, Steve?”

“Didn’t exactly seek it out.”

“You never did,” she muses. “She sounds like a lovely girl.”

“She is.”

“You sound like you love her, Steve.”

“I—” He’s never said it out loud before, never admitted it to himself, nevermind someone else — nevermind Peggy— “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I… I guess I do.”

(What a relief. A complete weight off his shoulders. But it’s terrifying in a way, too, because he knows that admitting it is the point of no return. There’s no going back, now, because he’s opened himself to the possibility of it — to the thought of it.)

“Have you considered,” Peggy says, “that she’s capable of making her own decisions?”

“What?”

“All this time,” she continues, “you’ve been trying to shield her —  from you — because you thought she’d only care about you because you helped her. That you’d... tricked her, in a way. Have you thought that maybe she would’ve fallen in love with you regardless of what you did?” 

What? 

“...”

“I’ll take that as a hard no,” says Peggy, and he can hear the roll of her eyes in her voice. “You’ve always done that. Always so quick to make yourself the bad guy. To make everything your fault, when—” She cuts herself off; her next inhale is deep and shaky. “It rarely is.”

Steve’s throat tightens. He has a feeling she’s not just talking about his current situation. 

“If this girl is telling you that she loves you, don’t first assume that you’ve manipulated her,” Peggy says firmly. “You love her, Steve. You treat her well. You take care of her — and you’ve always been that way. The fact that your first thought was to make sure you hadn’t taken advantage of anything… You’ve always… you’re a good man, Steve.”

This time, the stinging of tears does come; fizzles at the back of his eyes and his nose, gathers in his throat and presses against the roof of his mouth. He’d — that was something he’d always needed to hear, he thinks. Not because it’s Peggy, but because he’d never believed it. For so long he’d put everything on his shoulders — Peggy leaving at the top of that list — and there everything had stayed. It had been lighter, at times; since meeting you, he’s felt more at ease in general, but the weight had still been there in the back of his mind. 

He knows his voice sounds as congested as he feels when he says: “Thanks, Peg.”

And he can hear that she’s just as bad when she says: “You don’t need to thank me, Steve.”

You’ve seen the way people wake up from unconsciousness in movies — usually with someone calling their name, or a bright light, or a sudden gasp into reality. They shoot up from bed, panting, disoriented and borderline amnestic. 

It doesn't happen like that for you. There's no specific point where you're consciously waking up — rather, you're asleep one moment and awake the next. Your eyes are closed and your mouth is agape, mid-snore, and suddenly you're aware of yourself. Of the smell of Steve's fabric comforter and his scent, of a weight and warmth on your legs, of the pain in your head and a slight, throbbing sting on your thighs. The dryness of your throat, the weight of light on your eyelids.

And then you remember the night before — and in all honesty, you wish you didn't. What you wouldn't give to forget it all happened — or better yet, go back in time and stop it from happening altogether. Embarrassment nips at your fingertips, and you screw your eyes closed tighter. 

You don't want to face him. You don't want to face anything. To not only confess your love to somebody but then have to be taken care of by them because of your own thoughtfulness and immaturity — humiliating doesn't even begin to describe how you feel. Childish. Immature. Clearly unworthy of the love you’d confessed to wanting.

But it's Steve, a part of you tries to supply. Just because he doesn't love you romantically doesn't mean he doesn't love you. And he's always been understanding…

That makes it even worse, somehow.

At some point, the imprint of light burning through your eyelids becomes too much to bear; squinting, whining, you open your eyes with the grace of a newborn elephant. Your eyelids are sticky and swollen, heavy as all hell, and the moment they crack open — the minute the light shines unhindered into your eyes — you wince, turning your head away. Maybe you should've kept them closed—

“Hey, how’re you feeling?”

You should’ve known he would’ve been waiting for you to wake up. He’s sweet like that — attentive like that. Your awkward confession hadn’t changed it at all, and you’re not sure whether you’re glad for it or not. On one hand, the normality is soothing. On the other hand… well, it’s Steve’s normal that endeared him to you.

You open your eyes. Luckily, the door is opposite the window, and so you don’t have to strain yourself to look at him — there he stands. Steve leans against the doorway, his favoured tin mug in hand. You guess it’s filled with coffee (it’s always coffee) — guilt strikes you when you realise that he probably didn’t get much sleep last night. 

What had happened? You… you went outside. You didn’t want to wake him up with your crying, so you went outside. It was cold… You forgot your shoes and your coat and — well, everything. And then, and then, and then… you were… you had been panicking. You couldn’t breathe, you couldn’t…

“‘M fine,” you croak, clearing your throat uncomfortably. Bracing your arms — terribly weak as they are when you first wake — you attempt to push yourself up, limbs trembling and lethargic by the time you’ve reached an upright position. “D’you — um — water?”

“Oh, yeah. Here.” 

He had already set a cup on the bedside table in wait for you, and he picks it up now — sets his own mug to the side to pick yours up, steadying it with a hand underneath as your own shaking grip guides it to your mouth. 

The water is sweet and cold — which shocks you momentarily, because you’re so warm that you’d half expected it to at least be room temperature. Most of your warmth probably comes from the chunky dog laying on your lap, though — a fact you realise belatedly when the fuzz of sleep over your mind begins to dissipate with every sip of water. 

Grinning tiredly — humorlessly — you pet over his fluffy head. “Hey, Cap.”

“He’s sat there all night,” Steve says, watching carefully. He’s returned to his perch by the door; arms folded, fingers gripping the handle of his mug so tightly that you’re almost certain that his nonchalant facade is just that — a facade. “Was worried. Kept, uh, cryin’ and whatnot.”

“...Right.” You’re not sure what you’re supposed to say to that. Your chest clenches — tightens, makes your heart thud against your ribcage and your throat sink deeper into itself. It’s on the tip of your tongue, the apology, the explanation, but it feels as if you’ve caged yourself in — tied your shoulders to the headboard and forced your gaze into your lap. No way to move. No way to escape. Just your shame and your fear and your problems, all of them, piled high and teetering above your head. Out of your control. 

“Course, it wasn’t all too serious,” says Steve; and you watch him from the corner of your eye, trying to gauge his mood. He doesn’t seem too angry — or, at all, really; it appears more like he’s trying to dim it all down, actually. He tilts the mug towards you — his gestures normal, but the movements are stilted and awkward. His face, too, looks to be caught in between a wince and a grimace; not negatively so, but… yes, awkward is the word for it. It’s a bit of a relief to know he feels even half as clueless as you do. “Didn’t have bandages for your thigh — thought it’d be best left to the air anyhow.” 

Yes. You can’t see it underneath the piles of blankets strewn over your lap, but you can feel it; the bare skin of your thigh rubbing against the soft fur, the dull, throbbing ache across the very top. The smell of something medicinal and sharp… he must’ve found a — a cream, or something, but other than that, your thigh has been left to heal naturally.

“Oh. Right.”

“Main problem was hypothermia,” Steve continues, as if he’s talking about the weather. As if you are not painfully and obviously out of your depth. “I mean, it’s not likely you woulda got it — you weren’t out long enough — but I covered you with blankets ‘nd tried to heat you back up and, uh… waited, I guess.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

It’s excruciatingly, unbearably awkward. You’re both tiptoeing around the reason you were outside in the first place — you’re not so sure about Steve, but you guess that both of you are averse to bringing it up when you’ve been given a chance to move past it so easily. No conversation, no discussion that could threaten the way of things — just a little talk about how you luckily didn’t contract hypothermia, and you could both try and move past it.

Still. He looks like he’s waiting for you to say something. And you think that… well, maybe this is your chance to fix things. To mend them, to try and salvage what’s left of the relationship you’d taken a boot to. If you say nothing — if you leave it all up in the air — things are sure to be stilted, no matter what you do. 

But if you swallow your nerves — if you nip it in the bud...

“How did you know I was out there?” You ask, swallowing. “I didn’t want to wake you, that’s why I… I went outside…”

A huff of a laugh leaves his lips, though it hardly sounds humorous. “I wasn’t sleeping regardless. Couldn’t sleep, rather. And then, I…” His eyes narrow; his nose crinkles momentarily, and his lips turn down at the corners as he remembers back. “I smelled it. Your distress. I wanted t’—”

He cuts himself off, but you know what he was going to say: I wanted to check up on you. Because that’s what he normally does, isn’t it? Maybe not anymore, though. Not after what you said. Not after what you did.

“I didn’t want to bother you,” you repeat. You stare forward, eyes tracing the intricacies of the chest at the end of his bed; beautifully carved, probably handmade. Anything to stop yourself from having to look at him. Anything to distract you from the dull pain in your chest, still all too raw and sensitive to deal with directly. “I thought going outside would help me calm down. It… didn’t. I’m sorry you had to deal with me like that. I should’ve known better.”

“Pup—” And he sounds upset, so upset, and you know it’s because he cares about you — not in the way you want him to, but he cares for you nonetheless. You can’t look at him. Maybe it’s your own indignity that prevents you from doing so; maybe it’s the knowledge that if you see tears in his eyes you’ll start crying, too, and that’ll make it harder for both of you. “I don’t give a fuck about what I had to deal with. I was scared. You… y’ were so cold, so frail. Shaking. I thought—”

He cuts himself off, then. Takes a hurried gulp of coffee that he doesn’t need, and you take the given moment to try and steady yourself, too; grasping the sheets tightly and out of sight, hoping to anchor yourself, hoping to clear your nose and throat of the bobbing, stinging lumps that have taken residence there. 

“I thought there was somethin’ seriously wrong with you,'' Steve finishes. “I don’t — I hated seein’ you like that, but not because you should’ve known better, pup, it’s because I care about you and seein’ you like that hurt.”

You imagine you look frightfully like the image of a scolded child. Head bowed and fists tight and bottom lip taut in a poor, pathetic attempt to stop it from trembling — you should've known you'd break so easily. You've got a terrible proclivity for crying when upset.

"'m — I didn't mean to," you say — or, try to say, because as soon as you open your mouth you feel the press of tears against the roof of your mouth, and all that comes out is a squeak. 

Your grip tightens. Your limbs lock. You think that if you falter for even a moment, it'll all fall: not a gentle, twirling cascade — a torrential downpour, rather, that same panic gripping your lungs, that same heaviness clogging your eyes and your head and your mind—

"Pup," Steve says — and he's moving, now, surging forward — his mug set aside, you think, but you can't focus on anything but the breath in your chest and the lump in your throat. He's kneeling in front of you, cooing your name, and all you can think is don't call me that, please don't call me that— "C'mon, talk to me. You can talk to me, you know that—"

"I can't!" You cry out, pressing your palms into your eyes so hard you see stars — and his hands are on your shoulders, trying to comfort you, dizzying you with a mix of relief and sadness and in all honesty you’re not sure what to feel, you’re not sure what you should be feeling— “I'm — there's this  pain in my chest, and I'm trying to shove it down but it just keeps getting worse—"

"C'mon — c'mere, stop that, that's not helping you…" His hands grapple with yours — gentle, somehow, even though you're quite resolutely trying to shield your eyes. Steve manages to take your wrists in his big, warm hands and steadies them over your knees. “If y’ need to cry, cry. But don’t shut yourself in like that.”

So, you do. You have no choice, really. His hands keep yours on your knees — not pinning them down as such, but splayed over them, a reminder of his presence. With your head bowed and your face hidden, you cry — and for a moment you’re not quite sure what you’re crying about, because you were almost certain that you’d cried yourself dry yesterday. But maybe it’s everything piled atop each other — you’d never really taken a proper moment to process everything that had happened to you, and... Maybe…

Your eyes and head and nose are aching by time the tears begin to ease up — by time the sobs turn to sniffles, and the gasping breaths quieten down to shuddering inhalations. Still: Steve’s hands haven’t faltered. Haven’t moved. His scent remains a carefully cultivated blend of calmness and relaxation — and it’s only then that one of his hands moves; the knuckle of his pointer finger lifting to nudge the underneath of your chin. 

You imagine you look an image; red-eyed and snot-nosed, under eyes and cheeks shiny with tears. Not your proudest moment, you’ll admit. Extremely embarrassing, in fact, and if you were emotionally stable at present you’d be far more bothered about it. As it stands, your place in the world is shifting around you; you’re not sure where you are with Steve, or with your place in his home, or… anything, really.

You try to avert your eyes, but he gently guides your face back towards him.

"We're going to talk about this," Steve says firmly, keeping his eyes trained on yours. "We're gonna talk it out calmly and thoroughly, pup, and you'll thank me for it afterwards."

Will you? Thank him for it afterwards? Because right now it feels like rubbing salt in the wound, adding injury to insult. You already know what he wants to say — he said it last night. Maybe he wants to take the chance to let you down gently, instead of the harsh and quick rejection that he’d come out with yesterday.

“I don’t…” You feel like a child, bottom lip trembling, eyes teary — a child, so averse to processing her own emotions, admitting what she feels. A child. “I can’t.”

“You can. I didn’t want to either,” he admits. “But… Most times, the things we need to talk about are the hardest to talk about. And we can do it together.”

Together? 

“And you — you won’t get mad at me?” You whisper. “Like yesterday?”

Steve’s jaw clenches. His thumb smooths over the back of your hand, and for a moment, he casts his gaze down. Ashamed. If his actions didn’t say it, his scent surely did; sweet smokiness tinged with bitterness, enough to make your nose crease. “Yeah. I — I won’t get mad, pup. And I’m sorry I reacted the way I did. That wasn’t right on you, and — I was caught off guard. Said stuff I didn’t mean.”

Didn’t… mean? Does that — is he saying…? 

“We’ll talk about it,” Steve repeats, shaking his head. He looks back up at you, then; attempts a smile that looks more like a grimace, but you appreciate it nonetheless. “But first, uh… you can take a shower, warm yourself up a little more… I’ll make us breakfast, ‘nd we can talk then, okay?”

Something tells you that the little interlude is as much for him as it is for you — so, although you’re eager to talk, to understand, to… finally air out what’s been building for months, you nod. Swallow, though it’s dry and rough — probably a product of your tumultuous night — and nod once more. “Okay.”

He looks relieved. You almost feel guilty — well, you do feel guilty. You’d taken his answer and blown it out of proportion—

No. You didn’t do it on purpose. You didn’t want to have a panic attack. That wasn’t your fault. 

—still. You hardly think Steve expected this when he’d rejected you last night. You wonder if his tenderness this morning is the end result of a night of guilt, of nursing you to health; you wonder whether you’d inadvertently caused him to change his mind. Manipulated him, when in reality, he didn’t want you — you should’ve taken it at face value, kept it all down, not bothered him with it—

“Hey.” There’s a tap on the side of your face, and your eyes focus once more. Steve’s still kneeling in front of you; still inches away from you, but frowning, now. “I know it’s easy to get lost in your thoughts, but you can’t right now. You’re still hurt from last night — we don’t want another attack, okay? Y’ gotta promise me.”

You’re not sure you have that much control over your thoughts. But… you’ll try. “....Okay. I promise.”

“Yeah? Good girl,” he murmurs, quiet. “I’ll put the shower on, okay? And you know where to find the towels.”

“Yeah.”

“Right.” Steve seems to hesitate — to leave you alone, you think, more than anything. You… well, now that you think about it, you must’ve given him quite a scare. You’ll have to make up for that. “Well, I’ll get started.”

“Okay.”

If Steve notices your despondency, he doesn’t mention it; but he’s worried, his scent tells you he is, and yet — no matter how much you try, you just can’t seem to feel better. You know he told you to stay out of your thoughts, to try and distract yourself, but it’s hard. Especially when your worst thoughts are absolutely adamant to be heard, and your good thoughts are missing in action. 

Nevertheless, when Steve leaves the room, you stand; strip yourself of the bulky hoodie and sleeping shorts you’d been in for the night, and fetch a towel from the cupboard across from his bed. Wrapped in the towel, you cross the hallway to the bathroom — the air white and steaming already, and you can’t help but sigh as soon as you enter. You don’t remember much from last night, but you remember the cold. Bone-deep and frighteningly numbing. It’s almost as if you can still feel it, now.

But you step into the shower of warm water — not too hot, not too cold — and feel some semblance of peace. From the freezing tips of your toes, to your shoulders, to the small of your back — a flush of warmth seeps throughout your entire body, and you find yourself sighing with relief. If nothing else, this shower will be the highlight of your day.

Steve’s got breakfast done and dished by time you build up the courage to step into the kitchen; eggs and bacon for him, oatmeal and orange juice for you. Your aversion to savoury foods for breakfast has made this your usual breakfast, and it’s almost always Steve who makes it, too, but still — maybe it’s because you’ve realised how much your lives have slotted in together, or because you know that if the conversation that’ll surely come turns sour, this will stop — your fingers tremble at the sight, reluctance tugging at your heels. 

(It’s these things that worry you the most. Simple things like sharing breakfasts, or knowing what temperature you like your shower water, or watching him cut wood for the fire. Sharing comfortable silences. Taking long drives together. The big things will stop, too, but it’s the little things that weigh more on your mind.)

Like usual, Cap sits underneath the table, head resting on his paws — prepared to raise his head and whine for a share of bacon from Steve’s plate, no doubt. It’s the sight of the gentle giant that wrings you from your thoughts, and the smile that you greet him with is the widest you can muster. 

“Thank you for the food,” you mumble, sitting yourself in your usual seat — the one opposite Steve. The one you’d always used, the one that suddenly felt much too close. 

His smile feels just as wrung tight as yours does; just as quickly manufactured and brittle. But it’s not anger or irritation that dots his scent — it’s nervousness. Like you, he is nervous. That does a little to settle your stomach. “No problem, bub. C’mon, it’ll get cold soon.”

It feels almost like a trap. Here: your usual breakfast in your usual seat, to lull you into some semblance of normality. The conversation you’ve been building up in your head for the past 45 minutes can and will come at any time — but you don’t know when, so just sit tight and eat, okay? 

Well. It’s not like you have any other choice, really. And you doubt any serious confrontation on Steve’s part will be intentional — he’s… nice like that. (He wasn’t last night, your mind reminds you, souring. When he rejected you, remember? Snapped at you real sharp then.) You dig your spoon into the honeyed oatmeal and shove it in your mouth in the hopes of quelling any desire for conversation — both with Steve and the irritatingly snide voice in your head. Steve pierces a piece of egg with his fork, and you both get to picking at your breakfasts. 

The air is stilted. Pregnant, you could say. You think the anxious pangs in your stomach are stunting your appetite — but still, you attempt a few spoonfuls. You don’t want to make it too obvious that you’re overthinking everything — secretly, you don’t want the conversation to happen at all. You’d prefer it if you both forgot the last 24 hours and went about your usual routine, but—

But you can’t, can you? You can’t. No matter if you both agree to it; the knowledge, the memories, they’ll always be there. Always teetering over your head, threatening to drop, threatening to displace everything once more. This… talk has to happen. You don’t like it, but it’s true. But if it’s to happen… maybe it can be on your own terms.

You swallow the meagre spoonful of oatmeal left in your mouth, and clear your throat. Steve’s eyes flicker up from his plate. “You said we were gonna talk?”

“Oh.” His jaw slows in its chewing, hand coming up to scratch at his jaw. “Thought you’d, uh… want to finish before we got into it.”

“It’s okay.” Then, after running your clammy palms over your thighs, you find it within yourself to admit: “I think I’m too nervous to eat.”

“Y’don’t have to be,” Steve says, quiet. “I’m — there’s nothing wrong, just… things that gotta be said.”

"I know, I…" (Nothing wrong seems like a grave misreading of the situation, but you suppose for Steve, nothing is wrong. He probably thinks you're just a pup, a baby, some young girl who catches feelings for the first man to respect her a little.) "Uhm… you can go first, I guess."

Steve sends you a smile that you know is meant to ease your nerves — and it works, a little. Even when you try to, you can't deny the effect he's got on you. "No pressure, I guess."

"Course not."

He sets his fork down. Reaches for his mug instead, though he doesn't drink from it — just holds it between his hands, fingers taut and tight around the swell of it. “Guess I should start with what I said yesterday.”

As expected (and dreaded): right into it.

“I'm sorry,” he begins with — and he can’t meet your eyes, you notice. Maybe that’s for the best. “It’s not — it’s never been your fault. What you feel it’s — it’s not bad, okay? I know I made that a little hard to see yesterday, an’ I’m sorry. I panicked. ‘Nd that’s no excuse, now, but… an explanation, I guess.

“I’ve always tried to shoulder everything. Blamed myself for things I shouldn’t’ve, and… that’s been pilin’ up ever since Peg left. I tried to ignore it, lied to myself that it was fine and that I could get through it, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t, pup, and I took that out on you. I got my baggage and it’s my business to deal with it.”

The silence that follows is much too loud. It's clear that he isn't finished, and somehow you have both too much and not enough to say to him — your thoughts aren’t taking the time given to organize themselves, just agonizing over every word that comes out of his mouth.

“I want to take care of you," admits Steve, finally — and it’s like a weight off your shoulders, embarrassingly so. Your ears burn hotly at his confession; even more so when: “An' I want to make sure you’re safe and happy and — I want to be whatever you need. If that's a friend, if that's a… a mate."

Wait.

Wait a second.

What did he say?

Did he…? Was that a…?

The air in your lung hangs heavy — throat tightening from pure shock, and you know it shows in every way imaginable. In your scent, on your face, in how your fingers jolt and curl up on the table — you’re gaping at him like an idiot, eyes wide — but there’s this giddiness welling up in your chest, the ticklish type, and your cheeks hurt from the strain of holding it down.

Steve — he wants — and with you—

“I — you…?”

His scent is all campfire — smoke and wood but underneath it, there's the smell of burning sugar, chocolate, smores roasted over an open flame. Bashful. Nervous, but… still excited. “Yeah. Yeah, and I — I’m done pretending 'm not."

Your mind is, for lack of better description, a flustered sludge. Running faster than you can keep up with, flitting from thought to thought — not completely unlike the night before, but this confusion isn't nearly as all-encumbering as that was.

It's more a survival instinct than anything else that your mind instantly travels to deceit — and you know his scent can't lie, and you know Steve wouldn't in the first place, but—

"You're not just — just saying that, are you?" You say. Your next swallow is dry, dragging all down your throat, the thought of everything is too good to be true sour on the back of your tongue. "Just to make me happy? You’re not…?"

Steve — oh, Steve, his eyes are glassy. He’s hunched forward, too, hunched forward like he wishes the goddamn table and cutlery and food would disappear, like if he leans forward enough he’ll reach you. His hand — his left hand — pulls away from his cup, twitching towards you on the table. "I wouldn't do that to you, pup."

No. No, he wouldn't. He would never. Steve wouldn't.

Slowly, cautiously, you lift your hand onto the table. Breath in your throat, you inch it across — at a snail's pace, and whether that's to comfort yourself or Steve, you don't know. In the back of your mind you worry that he'll pull his hand away. Or maybe he'll meet you halfway instead, or…

But no. No, he doesn't move. He lets you come to him — turns his hand over so that his palm faces up, inviting you (at your own pace) to place your hand in his. And you do.

The breaths that shudder in both of your chests are audible — it's like all of the stress and agonizing you'd done are dusted from your shoulders, and you sink deeper, more comfortably, into your seat. Neither of you bring attention to it — instead, you bask in the warmth of his palms; the calluses of his fingers, the lines and indents in his skin; how large they seem in comparison to yours, even though you've never been particularly dainty; how, when he glances up and makes sure you're not prepared to flee, he closes his fingers around you, and holds your hand in his. Soft. Warm. Safe.

"We'll take this slow," Steve says quietly, bowing his head to meet your eyes. "As slow as you want — as you need. Don't gotta rush into things. We have time, and… and we both gotta heal."

“Right.” Right. You both need to heal. “I — I don’t know what to say.”

Steve’s face brightens — his attempt at reassurance, and for all intents and purposes, it works. It’s hard to feel guilt and confusion when he’s crowding forward, setting his mug down to cup your hands in both of his, eyes soft and sweet. “Y’don’t have to say anything. Nothin’ at all, if you don’t wanna.”

“No, it’s just… I just don’t know how to say what I want to say.” I’m elated. I’m nervous. I want to apologize for last night and hug you and I want things to go back to normal but I want them to keep going the way they are. “I’m shocked, but I’m — I’m really happy, Steve. After last night, I thought…"

His brow creases at the mention. "I'll make it up to you, I promise."

"No, no, you — you really don't have to. We both made mistakes." You shouldn't have sprung a confession on him like that — as accidental as it was. He shouldn't have gotten snappy when those men bothered you.

It's going to be a learning process — everything is. And the thought scares you, really. You can't help but remember that most big changes in your life were accompanied by fear and anxiety and danger — running away from home being the most applicable example. 

But Steve's got two hands holding yours, and this little bashful smile on his face, and you think that maybe the process won't be so terrible. "... I'm a little nervous, I guess."

“That’s a relief. I am too, pup. Believe it or not, it’s… been a long time since I’ve thought about… this, y’know.”

"Well, it's the first time I'm thinking about this stuff," you mutter. It's true, really. You'd been brought up relatively ostracized from alphas — male and female, it didn't matter— save for rare dinner parties and social events, where the only thing you'd give is a small smile and stay quiet. 

Your inner circle was carefully composed of betas and omegas, children of your parents' friends who shared close to the same ideals as their parents did — and even then they were hardly friends. There'd been shy talks of crushes, of course — little giggles swapped over lunch, but nothing more. None of your parents would let you act on such motivations, anyways.

Brock was the first man — alpha — you'd ever assumed you'd end up with, and even then the thought of him was often accompanied by fear, isolation, anxiety. His parents had a good business going; bankers, you recall, and Brock had never missed the opportunity to flaunt it. 

He himself had had — how many was it? Three, four omegas before you? Never properly mated, of course, because you were to be his prize — promised to his family the moment you were born. They were women from all walks of life: there'd been a school teacher, you think… the town doctor's daughter, and the farmer's daughter too.

Despite their differences, each and every one of them shared something in common — unfettered sadness. Sadness in a way that you'd never experienced, even with your closely monitored life. They'd always looked so small, so timid in a way that even you weren't. The bags under their eyes were deep and dark, and often they'd have bruises hidden under the sleeves of their shirts. 

Everyone knew. Everyone noticed, though no-one more than you, who was to be his wife once he'd had his fill of others.

The last omega, the farmer's daughter — a girl just a few years older than yourself — had been the last straw. You heard from one acquaintance that she had to be rushed to the hospital as a result of Brock's temper; beaten, bruised and bloody, her face a mangled pulp, and you thought to yourself will that be me?Will I be the next regular to the ER? 

The difference would be that you'd have no choice in leaving. If you were mated, if (God forbid) he gave you pups, that was that. You'd never get away from him, or out of that town, and not just because of state law — but because you'd be too scared to leave and obligated to stay.

Technically, you knew that running when you'd already been promised was against the law, but it was necessary. It was the only way you could get out of town. You were terrified the night you packed a tiny bag (now stolen) and sneaked out of your house, right out the front door because your parents never imagined you'd even try to run. Your heart had been in your throat, your fingers shaking to undo the lock… and that anxiety hadn't eased, really, all throughout your journey away.

If it wasn't your parents and Brock finding you that scared you, it was not having enough food, or finding a safe place to sleep, or being out alone at night on the freeway.

Now, it's… you haven't felt that way in months. Apart from your panic attack yesterday, it's practically been smooth sailing. You can't remember the last time you'd felt so safe, so comforted, so at home. So unafraid to speak your mind and voice your opinion.

“I grew up thinking that I’d just… I’d be with Brock,” you continue, voice quiet. “That was my life. I’d be his, and I’d give him pups, and… I didn’t see anything past that. But here, I have — I have options, y’know? I don’t feel like my life will hit a brick wall when I’m with you, I feel like there’s more—”

You take a breath, words jumbled and piled high on your tongue. You’re not sure what you’re trying to say — earlier, you could’ve sworn you had enough thoughts for thousand-page novels to be made. Now that it’s time to say it, you’re just… it seems you really only have a little bit to say that really, really matters to you. Everything else is just icing on the cake.

(Steve’s eyes are glassy when you lift your head. Neither of you say anything about it.)

“That’s… what I wanted to say,” you finish lamely, shrugging your shoulders. 

His fingers squeeze over yours — three times — and you remember with a jolt that he’s holding your hands, and your lungs expand and contract and the breath that comes out is slightly shaky, trembling autumn leaves and fronds in the wind. 

Your next breath is warm. It settles in your stomach like hot peppermint tea.

The more things seem to change, the more they stay the same.

You’d never quite understood the phrase in its entirety until now, you think, staring at where Steve’s hand has clasped over your knee as he drives. 

Tonight’s shift sees you propped mostly against his side, head cushioned against his shoulder, eyelids heavy with sleep and snow and the ongoing buzz of wheels underneath you; his fabric softener smells like fresh linen and paired with the heater, your mind fuzzes up like cotton. Between short slips into dreamland, your bleary eyes blink down at the gentle grip on your leg — placed there almost mindlessly, comfortingly, thumb drifting back and forth to lull you into a deep sleep. 

You’ve fallen asleep on him before. Sometimes in the car, mostly at home on the couch. Had flushed with heat the first few times, jolting up and explaining in a fluster that you hadn’t meant it, sorry, your arm must be numb — but then you started sharing a bed, and it happened more and more, and the embarrassment slowly faded until it was more natural for your head to thump against his bicep than your pillow.

The hand is new, though. Welcome, too.

Warmth pools in your stomach, somehow calming and electrifying — if it's possible for a feeling to evoke opposite sentiments at the same time. The radio crackles lowly, one of those old country songs that nobody can name but everyone knows the lyrics to — and you snuggle deeper into the collar of your puffy jacket, deeper into the folds of his coat, and let the rocking of the truck and the crunch of gravel deliver you to a dreamless sleep. 

You don't even let yourself feel nervous when you clasp your hands over his and hug his arm close.

Anne-Marie hands around little pamphlets at your next meeting.

Colorado State College Omega Fund — bridging the gap and supporting future generations.

On the cover, two girls and a boy beam at the camera, textbooks clutched to their chests. One of the girls' bag is hanging from one of her shoulders, and the boy is wearing — from what you can see — at least four layers. A cardigan, a sweater vest, a long-sleeved t-shirt, and then something underneath that, too.

"_____? Did you hear me?"

The scheme funds the education of omegas to help combat designation discrimination and inequality in academia and in the workplace. At least, that's what it says in Times New Roman on the back. There are places specifically withheld for omegas; grant schemes; support networks; links and contact info for not just this support group, but one offered on campus, too.

Your first, trigger-happy thought is: I can go back to school. But then you think for a moment longer and you wonder whether or not you're saying that just because the opportunity has been presented to you.

You never remember actually enjoying academia. Didn't like the pressure to memorize things, the anxiety of tests and the red pen in the top left corner of your essays. You especially loathed having to learn equations and apply them to crazy problems. The classrooms were tiny and either too hot or too cold, and the hours were long and tiring. It was a different way of life back then; your grades didn’t matter much when you considered you weren’t going to college, and yet you still bled yourself dry for each and every assignment, every essay, every pop quiz.

You did not enjoy school.

Still. The choice to discontinue your education wasn't your own. And who knows — maybe if you'd been allowed to continue to college you might've liked it a lot more! Maybe you would've found something you were passionate about, something you wouldn't mind memorizing until your mind went static. Maybe the college you would’ve picked had been air-conditioned and heated. You never got the chance to find out because it was taken away from you, so why not now?

The idea hadn’t really stuck with you — going back to school, that is. You’re only really thinking about it because it’s tangible, in your hands, three faces grinning emptily up at you. You don’t even really know what you’d study. 

Can you work at the Jester until you’re old and grey? Is that an option available to you — or an option you even want? The work is nice. Simple. Stressful on big nights, and sometimes somebody can get a little too heavy-handed with their liquor and make a scene, but nothing more than that. Could you do that day after day, year after year? Seeing the same faces, serving the same drinks…

You adore the Blue Jester. You adore Nat and Bucky and Sam and every opportunity they've given you, every regular who's thanked you for your work and… and everything. 

Is it… wrong for you to want more? Is it selfish?

Steve already hinted that he wouldn't mind if you went back to school. He… loves you, you remind yourself, chewing relentlessly on your bottom lip. So what if you're only interested because it's available?

You're allowed to want things. Your nails press indents into the glossy paper, and your eyes trace over the boy's outfit again and again like it's the only thing that matters. You don't need to rationalize everything. Cardigan, vest, t-shirt, t-shirt. Cardigan, vest, t-shirt, t-shirt.

"_____?" A gentle hand presses against your shoulder, and you jump.

"Huh? Oh, sorry. I—" Finally blinking back to reality, your instinctive glance around the room shows you that you've probably outstayed your welcome; most of the chairs have been put away, save for maybe three. The refreshments have been either eaten up or packed away into tupperware, and the door to the studio is propped open. Outside, the last stragglers make their way home; the evening yoga class treks in, hauling brightly coloured equipment and water bottles. "—I didn't notice it'd gotten so late. Sorry, I—"

"You seemed a bit out of it," says Anne-Marie, smiling kindly. "Are you alright? I noticed you haven't spoken in a while."

“Oh. Yeah, I’m… I’m fine.”

“You seem to like that pamphlet a lot,” she continues, lowering her gaze to meet yours. “Thinking of registering?”

Your thoughts stall — fingers squishing the edges of the page in until they fray, the coloured ink and plastic crumbling and curling until only the white paper underneath can be seen. “I don’t know. Um, maybe."

"Well, it's never too late. I went back to school when I was 39 with three kids. Got my college diploma in Psychology and I couldn’t be happier.”

"I want to help people," you say before your mind can catch up with your mouth. The sentence comes out like a cloud of frosty breath when it's cold outside. "I don't know anything past that."

Anne-Marie tugs at the chair next to you; flips it around so she can sit facing you, arms folded across the backrest. “That’s okay. We always tend to think we need to know everything right away, but we very rarely do. It’s enough to take it day by day, hun.”

“I know.” But what if—? “What if I make the wrong decision, though? What if I go and I’m not happy?”

“That’s up to you, I suppose. You can stick it out for the three, four years it takes to get your diploma, or… you could drop out. There’s still opportunities for people without a college degree. Don’t you have a job right now?”

“Yeah. The Blue Jester.”

“Ah, I know of it.”

“They said — they said they’d be willing to teach me the books, if I wanted. And it sounds great,” you add hurriedly, “I’m very grateful. But I just keep thinking about… I mean, what if that’s not what I’m meant for?”

Anne-Marie’s face is motherly, pitying when she places a warm hand on your arm. “Trial and error, honey. Trial and error. And sometimes, what we’re actually meant for doesn’t align with what we think we’re meant for. Y’could wake up one day and suddenly have a love for Physics, y’know? It’s all just trial and error. It’s never too late.”

You echo her words to yourself as you walk out of the room, bag on your shoulder, pamphlet clenched tightly in hand. 

Trial and error. 

Never too late.

Trial and error.

Cardigan, vest, t-shirt, t-shirt.

Your stomach twists and turns strangely as you enter the main lobby, still bustling even this late in the evening. There’s a 24 hour coffee area with couches and tables available for use, and some night classes beginning. You keep your eyes down, and suppose the sudden increase in your heart rate is a by-product of the stress you’ve found yourself under. You always are a little overstimulated after a session; pumping out pheromones (you've gotten a little better at dealing with them, to be fair), still a little uncomfortable with baring yourself emotionally to so many people...

Within a minute you’re barrelling out of the warmth and into the parking lot, barely casting a glance each way to see if a car is coming—

“Wh— hey, hey,” hands grapple gently at your shoulders, but it’s barely any use — your fast pace had seen you barrelling right into Steve’s chest, nose aching as it scratches against the zipper of his coat. “Hey, you alright?”

You blink dumbly up at him. 

He always waits in the car, but here he is, eyes wide, little smile on his face, and not for the first time you wonder whether he does it on purpose — makes you feel like nothing can hurt you or worry you, ever. “You’re… you’re supposed to be in the car.”

“Y’were late,” he says, sheepish. “Got a little worried, so. Thought I’d stand outside ‘nd wait. Got your head in the clouds, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

He fixes you with another smile, smaller this time — the smile he always gives you after a particularly rough group session. One time you came out with your eyes all puffy and red and didn’t speak until you got home, and he let you — didn’t press, didn’t ask. Just let you sit with him calmly until you were ready to speak. He’s doing it again, you think, shuffling into the truck after him. 

He starts up the car while you place your bag at your feet, pamphlet still scrunched up in your grip. You’re not sure if you want to bring it up now — or… ever, really. 

It’s such a weird feeling. You know Steve doesn’t mind whether or not you want to go to school, and you’re at the point where you’re at least beginning to separate other’s opinions from what you want to do, anyways. Grappling between wanting support and wanting to be strong enough to succeed even without it. 

The streetlamps cast their amber light into the car, flickering on and off as you pass; light, dark. Light, dark, light, dark. Sleepy enough after all the emotional vulnerability that comes with almost every group session, the lights don’t do much to alleviate your fatigue.

I seem to fall asleep in the truck very often, you think before you fall asleep.

You come to softly, gently; the lights are low and easy on your eyelids, your body tucked firmly against what you can only imagine is Steve’s chest, and there’s a sudden wave of warmth as, presumably, you’re carried inside. Your eyes are heavy, your body even moreso, and you can’t bring yourself to even try to open your eyes as he walks through the house — chuckling softly to himself when Cap greets you at the door, the dog’s wet nose bumping excitedly off of your shin. 

“Down, Cap,” he whispers, shifting you in his arms. “C’mon, now.”

The planks in the hallway squeak as they always do, and the door gives one massive creak! as it’s pushed open (to which Steve curses softly, and tiptoes past). Back and forth you drift, a light rest to a hazy waking and back again — almost awake when he’s gently tugging your shoes and coat off and then asleep once more, only to wake up minutes later when he’s tucking the blankets in around you.  

Very much awake when he kisses your forehead, whiskers tickling your skin, and mumbles a night, pup.

The next morning you resolutely clutch your beloved pamphlet in one hand and storm to the living room, a woman on a mission. You slap it on the coffee table, fumbling.

"I — school," is all that comes out of the long and rambling speech you'd planned. Steve blinks up from his notebook, startled. "Uhm… yeah."

He leans forward to take a closer look at the (admittedly half-ruined) piece of paper, eyebrows springing up in surprise. "Y'wanna go back to school?"

"Yeah. If, y'know. If I'm able."

Steve hums; sets down his notebook to pick the paper up, blue eyes trailing carefully over the words. A nervous wreck — for no good reason, apparently — you wring your hands together, rocking back and forth on your heels. Through the window, you can see Cap bounding back and forth through the trees, scrabbling against the grass in excitement, and you smile despite yourself. Old as he is, he still plays like he's a puppy.

"This looks amazing," Steve confesses, and the sound of his voice has your head ricocheting back to him. "I mean — really, it's amazing. CSU?”

“Yeah. I mean—” Hurriedly, you take a seat next to him— “It’s a, um, a special programme they run through the local community college. A year there, and then they’d have a place for me at CSU. ‘m not even sure of what I wanna do, but… Anne-Marie said it’s a good opportunity—”

“It is! It’s a great opportunity.”

“—I just don’t want Nat and Bucky to think that I’m abandoning them after all they’ve done for me, y’know.”

Steve looks up, frowning. “C’mon, now. They wouldn’t think that.”

“It’s just… y’know. They’ve gone out of their way to accept me, and… the stuff with the books, and—”

He tsks, shaking his head. “Never you mind about that. They’ll be thrilled to hear that you wanna go back to school. They only want the best for you, you know that.”

You stay quiet. Like always, what you’d built up in your head to be detrimental and anxiety-inducing had only taken a few easy seconds to overcome. That’s the way it always is — you’re slowly learning to remind yourself of it. 

“‘M proud of you, y’know,” Steve says suddenly, voice quieter than it had been before. His thumb trails absentmindedly over the subtitle (How to apply and eligibility for the Omega Fund). “Y’don’t need me to tell you how far you’ve come, but… Can’t help myself.”

You’ve learned after enough times to stay silent — mostly because if you say what you’re thinking (couldn’t have gotten here without you, Steve), you know he’ll shoot it down immediately. Don’t discredit yourself, he’d say. Y’don’t need to thank me. 

Even so, you know you’ll never not be grateful to him. And you think some part of him knows that too. 

The silence that follows pulls on your thoughts; pulls at one, which pulls at another, and so on until it’s as if your whole mind is tumbling out like a bundle of knotted string. The end result is a contradiction in and of itself — too much to think about, your mind thrumming with possibilities, and yet when Steve takes a deep inhale beside you you’re shuttled back to the present, and suddenly there’s not enough to think about.

He smells like sandalwood and… something distinctly warm, cinnamon or nutmeg, like he always does. His beard has grown back after the last time you shaved it, completely full at this point, and he's got this flannel on — your favourite, you think, though you're not sure why. It's red marked with blue and teal and black, and when he shifts — one hand cupping his jaw, thumb swiping back and forth in thought — his arms bulge against the fabric. 

I want to be whatever you need. If that's a friend, if that's a… a mate.

His voice echoes in your head, and traitorously, you decide that now of all times you should bring it to the forefront of your mind; it, being the long-awaited change to your relationship. You hadn’t done more than hug him — though sometimes in the morning, when you were both too sleep-addled to care about consequences, you’d feel his lips press against your hair, his hands rubbing warmth into your biceps. Then you'd get up for breakfast and it'd be back to the bare minimum, back to stolen glances and prolonged stares of his side profile and his biceps, just like you're doing now—

Your breath is a shuddering, stammering thing in your chest. 

You could reach over right now, inch your fingers closer and closer until they touched his. If you were braver, you could even lean forward, forward and forward and forward until you shared the same breath, until you could feel the warmth of his face just centimetres from yours—

"Pup?" 

You had been getting closer. You had been leaning forward, you realise with a mortified inhale — and your mortification only flusters in the air, tasting distinctly of sour candy. The more you think about how close you still are, or the curl of his lashes, or the blue of his eyes, or his scent — God, you're making it worse — the heavier and heavier your scent bundles up.

Steve repeats himself — and God, you don't think he realises he's doing it, but his voice just… rumbles in his chest, sits heavy and grumbling right in his throat, and the more and more it lingers in your ears, the less you find yourself wanting to move away. Embarrassing as it is, intimate as it is. Terrified as you are of being anything less than perfect, but—

But he's never demanded perfection from you. You have demanded perfection from you.

"Steve," a swallow, and you watch his eyes drop very suddenly to your lips, and your hands tremble at your sides. "I… back then, you said — you said you'd be whatever I need."

"I did."

"I don't know what I need," you blurt, as if the words can't come out quick enough. "Not in so many words, but… I… I know I want to kiss you. Very badly."

Silence.

He obviously hadn't expected you to just come out and say it — hell, you didn't even expect as much — and his throat bobs nervously when he clears it, mouth opening and closing around vowels and consonants that just won't come out. Your heart thuds, sonorous and painful in its strength, and a sickening sense of regret begins to curl around your tongue—

"You — y'sure?"

Yes tumbles out before you can think otherwise — embarrassingly quick and curt, but you’re given no time to linger on it because Steve’s leaning forward — he’s going to kiss you, he’s going to do it—

It’s… warm. A little wet. His lips are soft — maybe a bit chapped, but yours are no better — and his beard tickles against your cheeks and your chin and the underside of your nose, and when you squirm, your noses press awkwardly together. You don’t move (can’t move), stock-still as he shifts closer — and it’s like that one, short shuffle pulls you right out of your thoughts. All worry and anxiety about not being skilled or practiced enough evaporates right into the air, and almost feverishly you push yourself closer to him — plaster yourself right to his side, so that you can feel the heat of him through his clothes, so that his scent is overwhelmingly dizzying.

(It's nothing new — you've grown accustomed to it, you mean. It's as comforting as a mug of hot cocoa, or thick woolen blankets on snowy evenings, or a warm truck on a cold day. Home. Embarrassing as it may be to admit it, that's exactly what you've come to recognize it as. Home, and safety. It shifts and evolves just like anyone’s scent would, and this time it’s a tad more spicy and warm, and a little sweet — cinnamon, maybe. If you had your head screwed on properly you could try and scent yourself — but you’re so caught up in him, you can’t bring yourself to try.)

In the back of your mind — through the haze of excitement, through the recurring reminder that he's kissing you — you register his hand moving; up and up, and you tense in anticipation of where it might land — your hip? Your waist? Maybe your elbow, or even your hair — or he might forgo you entirely and plant it on the couch beside you— 

And then it comes to rest on your jaw and you're purring, buzzing underneath his touch in a way you never have before. It feels like every place he comes in contact with comes alight, like the nerves themselves frazzle at the ends and tips. It's almost addicting, addling your mind and rendering your own hands shaky; and the heat of it — God, Steve runs warm in general, but now it's like — it's like it's grown ten times more intense. Somehow, though, it's a comfort. Not sweltering, or burning, but still completely all-encompassing. 

All too soon Steve pulls away with a ragged gasp, and it's with a start that you realise you're panting too, lungs aching and fingers clenched tightly around the denim on his thighs. You loosen your hold, and your joints creak as you do so. You really had been holding on tight.

(It's almost shameful how quick your first thought comes, then — almost shameful, really, how it’s that you could've gone for longer — would've gone for longer, until you were light headed and woozy, and you wouldn't have minded at all. Not if it meant being so close again, so undeniably and irrefutably close. For now, though, you'll take the press of his forehead against yours; the heart-pounding intimacy of sharing the same air.)

"You—" Steve swallows, and you find yourself captivated, unable to look away from him — his eyes, more specifically. Blue. They've always been blue, you know this, but for some reason it's just — isn't it amazing? They're not particularly bright or vibrant (more grey than blue, really) but so pleasant. Striped with dark teal and ringed with black... "Y'good?"

You almost laugh. It's such a Steve thing to say.

"Yeah," you say anyways, bottom lip between your teeth. You hope it does even a little to hide your elation. "I'm good. You?"

Childish, almost, the giddy little grin that pulls at his lips then. You can't help yourself — your own grows, and you're both smiling, eyes averted and skin flushed with heat, and you think that maybe it's okay that you didn't have this growing up. Maybe it's okay that you didn't have a high school sweetheart or a young love. Your fear of missing out on some grand, forbidden love dissipates, and the fear of not living your teenage years to the fullest follows. This here and now is just as sweet and satisfying — perhaps even more so, you think. 

(There is, after all, a strong sense of pride in rendering Steve 'Alpha Supreme' Rogers a blushing mess.)

"I'm good."

Omega support — Fridays, 5.30PM. 

Brock scoffs at the sight of the poster, rolling his eyes over his black coffee. The flyer is unassuming; a pale blue, with the words written in a plain, ugly font in black. It’s a simple thing, if not completely and utterly boring. He assumes a member of said support group made it. They can’t be the brightest tool in the shed if they’re attending.

The small print underneath reads: taking omegas of all ages, races, genders and creeds. Speak if you want to, listen if you want to — we’re here to support regardless.

Fucking pathetic. Y’know, that’s exactly what happens when you start giving omegas ideas. They think that every damn thing is a slight against them, and then they go and cry to other no-good omegas to wallow in their own self pity. Fighting fruitlessly against the role they were given at birth because they think there’s something more for them. Ungrateful, if you ask him. Overly sensitive as omegas are, though, he would expect it.

The journey back home has taken much, much longer than one would deem necessary. Months. Almost a year, though Brock doesn’t weigh it too heavily. It wasn’t exactly a kitschy life — spent most of his nights in hotels, sometimes in his truck — but he was eating well, taking care of himself, and making good time. He's gotten to the point where he's not all that angry at the prospect of not finding you himself — if need be, he's rationalized over many late nights and false alarms, he can buy out the best bounty hunter this side of the Atlantic. What really matters is your punishment when he has you home.

Though, he thinks, taking a sip of coffee, catching you himself would be preferred, of course. Much preferred, but truly after all this time he’s only taken aback that you’d managed to evade him for so long. You’re a lucky girl.

His eyes trail after a particularly tight-knit group of omegas — fresh outta their little session, he realizes. Smiling and talking amongst themselves, reeking of the stinking chlorine-like smell of scent suppressors and bitter chocolate. God, it’s a disgusting mix. Why hide natural sweetness behind foul chemicals? It’s not natural. He almost wants to plug his nose, strong as it is, but he shoves aside the thought. They should be the ones making space for him, not the other way around. 

Coffee’s shit, he thinks to himself, glancing down at the half-empty styrofoam — but it’s not like he expected any more. This town is little more than a glorified truck stop with a few houses and mom and pop shops clustered around it. He's gotten used to burnt, watered down, bitter coffee — but what he wouldn't give for some fresh cream, or even a little—

Sweetness. Cotton candy. Caramel apples. Sour, rotting fruit.

Brock freezes, nostrils flared. His mouth stills at the rim of his cup.

Did he imagine it? Did he make it up? There's no way… There's no way.

He tilts his head slightly, nose pointed further towards where he estimates the scent is coming from — the rest of him frozen in time, careful in its stillness. If he's right — if he’s not crazy, if the months on the road hadn’t screwed with his head —, erratic behaviour would only get him noticed too soon.

There it is again. That same sweetness — achingly, mouth-wateringly familiar. He could pick it out of a crowd — it was imprinted into his brain and his tongue and his nose even before this entire debacle. 

But what’s the chance he stops at this shitty little hovel and finds what he’s looking for? Divine intervention at its finest, but... It’s been too many days of fruitless searching, and he’s grown a little jaded. There’s only one way to confirm it, and that’s with his eyes. 

Scents may be specific, but they can also be muddled — and in this community centre, where it’s clear multiple 'distressed' omegas have been gathered for long, he’s not sure he can trust his nose alone. Great as it may be. No, this is a job for both senses.

Slowly yet surely, sharp eyes trail over the faces closest to him. Careful not to linger for too long as to not arouse suspicion, but long enough that he can tell. An old, greying couple (no), a group of teenagers chortling over a few cups of hot cocoa (no), a worker carrying a stack of files (no). A pair of men holding yoga mats, no. 

No, no, no — they’re not who he seeks. Eyebrows knitting together in a frustrating mix of annoyance and desperation, he tries to picture you in his mind: frail and hunched over like you always are, and the way your eyes would find the floor. How you walk with your head down, pace quick. He can’t imagine any amount of time changing that.

Another few failures in the form of a group of middle-aged men playing cards; a woman bouncing a baby on her knee; a severe looking woman looking through papers with multiple empty cups around her — and then there’s a clatter behind the front desk. One of the secretaries had spilled her pen cubby, and his eyes are drawn directly from the commotion to the area surrounding it — more specifically, a figure swiftly cutting through the maze of coffee tables and beanbags and sofas. Dressed in an oversized coat with the bottom of their face covered, walking with a purposeful stride — but it's there. The same outline. The same lowered eyes. The same hunched shoulders. Hell, the same hair.

The giddiness that fills Brock is... euphoric, really. Divine in nature, even. Completely unfettered  and uncontrollable. It's something that wells in his chest and fizzles out to his fingers and has him restraining a laugh low in his throat. In that moment, he doesn’t give a fuck about what image he may be broadcasting — he lets his grin stretch far and wide, lets the grip on his coffee cup tighten, lets his eyes aflame with something fierce and feral... 

But he can’t be too hasty. He can't just pounce, not yet. No, he has to do this properly. He has to wrangle in his excitement, tailor his scent smartly. You've obviously gotten enough resources and help to evade him for as long as you have, and he's come to realise just how slippery you can be. That day outside of the omega shelter was a lesson learned.

If he were to seize you here, in a place that was clearly… Well, they offer omega therapy sessions, and that's all he needed to say. If he were to strike here he’d quickly be apprehended, even if the law is ultimately on his side. He needs to lay low — gather more information in order to contrive a plan that he can carry out more privately.

Covertly he rises from his seat; takes another sip of coffee and holds the cup over his face, just in case you caught his reflection in anything. While he weaves in between furniture in much the same manner as you, he lets his eyes trail over you, curious.

You look good. Taken care of, he means. There's no way you were getting by without help — you looked too well fed, too well bathed. Cheeks plumper and hair shinier, and the bags under your eyes aren't quite as deep. Even your posture is far more confident — the slouch, he realizes as he catches sight of the lethargy tugging at your eyes, is a product of fatigue. Maybe even a little sadness — how about that, eh?

You slip out of the doors, past another few yoga-practitioners, and he waits a few moments before following discreetly. His eyes narrow as they adjust to the dark outside. The carpark is decently full, what with night classes in full swing — but the streetlamps illuminate enough for him to catch your shadow trekking across the car park, clearly heading in a particular direction, to a particular car. And you can't drive, so...

Brock watches you barrel head-first into a large frame — scrabble to gain your footing in the snow, but this guy steadies you easily. He hears murmurs carried on the wind; maybe a breath of laughter, the thrum of baritone. Brock’s chest tightens. The elation at succeeding in his goal from earlier fades into a deep, unsettled fury. His gums and jaw ache from how hard he grits his teeth.

The months it had taken him to find you — the hardships he’d endured through his journey, the way he’d ground himself to the bone, and yet here you are: whoring yourself out to the first man you see, apparently. Brock’s willing to guess that that’s the guy who’s been feeding you, clothing you, housing you. 

What had been so wrong with him? What had been so different? Was he not capable of taking care of you as he should? Was he not strong enough to do so?

The anger splutters to a rolling boil in the pit of his stomach, and Brock seethes. He hardly remembers stalking across the shadowed corners of the car park and into his own car — only feels the scratchy surface of his steering wheel gripped tightly in his hands as he follows your truck from a distance, the pain in his knuckles from tensing his hands so hard.

Things change after the kiss. For the better, you think.

For a few hours after you can't look him in the eyes without flustering; for a few hours after, Steve's got this look on his face like he's all too proud of himself, cheeks flushed under his beard. You sneak glances at each other when you think the other’s not looking; hide grins terribly beneath the edge of a book, the rim of a mug, anything that’ll hide just how pleased you both are. 

Another kiss before dinner — chaste, this time. A warm peck that has you flushing with heat just as badly as the first. Another after dinner, too. One while you’re washing the dishes, and another when you’re reclining on the couch after that. And one as you’re both settling into bed, warm and satiated and content. 

Even with sleep tugging at your eyelids, limbs heavy and brain seemingly dunked in molasses you can’t seem to fall asleep. The bed is warm enough, soft enough, comfortable enough for you to sink into — Steve certainly is on the brink of doing so, his breathing sitting low and long in his chest. Even Cap has been snoozing for the past twenty minutes or so on his little carpet in front of the bed.

But sleep evades you. Tiredness and fatigue remain your faithful companions, and yet sleep evades you.

It's with a sigh that you roll from your side onto your back once more, staring up at the wooden beams of the ceiling with the same amount of interest Cap would give to a blade of grass. Luckily, Steve sleeps like the dead. If not, you think with a fond smile and a glance his way, he would've woken up from your tossing and turning by now, and…

Well. You think you just want to be alone with your thoughts for a while.

Privacy isn't hard to come by, here. There are only two of you in the house at most times, and then Steve goes off to do deliveries or you go off to work — and the cabin, while small, isn't the type of small that makes you feel cramped. It's always been cozy, but always more than enough to give you your own space should you need it.

It's just so much. Everything. Everything just keeps happening and happening and happening and you're happy, you're so incredibly happy, but happiness doesn't quell the feeling of… of…

Well, at its simplest: time passing you by. That's what you feel settling over you, slowly yet surely.

It started, you think, with Steve telling you he felt the same way. Or maybe it was even before that, when Nat told you she'd like you to learn the books. Maybe it was afterwards — maybe it started with the first few kisses you'd shared today, the reminder that so much has changed, and will continue to change regardless of whether you want it to.

It's not a bad thing, you remind yourself. It's a marvellously good thing, really. You're happier than you ever have been, but—

It's just so much. Everything is happening so quickly — and you're not doubting you've made the wrong choice, not doubting Steve or your place here or anything, but… Can't things slow down? Can't you savour things a bit more? What if it all falls apart? What if this is fleeting, just another stop before you’re forced to move on, just—

Ah. There it is. 

There is some relief, you think, in realising just what it is that has your stomach turning — getting to the root of the problem, so to say. Even as it curdles and rolls about in your stomach, and you clutch at the sheets in an effort to ground yourself; you stare determinedly at the ceiling and force yourself to concentrate, force yourself to keep your scent under control—

Beside you, Steve heaves a great sigh — you hold your breath, narrowing your eyes like it’ll help anything — but he’s still sleeping. He rolls over on his side, facing you, his mouth parted mid-snore. It almost makes you laugh; instead, you push aside your upset and tuck the blanket further up and around his neck—

“Mmf,” he grunts, frowning. He always sleeps with his arms folded — if not, then they're splayed out on either side of him, open wide and willing for you to press yourself against him. He does it unconsciously — makes space for you even when he's sleeping.

It's that little movement, that little huff, that settles you. Your anxiety tapers off slowly, an acid meeting a base to form perfect neutrality, perfect calm.

He's always accommodated you. Always kept you safe, acted in your best interest. And — because you know if he was awake he'd remind you — you kept yourself safe. You ran, you hid.

And you think, as you fit yourself against his chest and finally give in to the heaviness pulling at your eyelids, that you have nothing to worry about. 

You watch Sam’s face carefully, bottom lip worried between your teeth. His face remains impassive.

In his hands, he holds the final draft of your application essay — all eight hundred words of it, detailing your life and your struggles and your strength. Enough for them to see you really wanted the place, but not enough that they’d know that you’re (technically) on the run. Enough for them to see that you’re driven and motivated, but not so much that it’s overwhelming.

You hope.

You’ve written six, seven drafts, all crumpled up and discarded once you built on them — were almost gonna write an eighth, but Natasha had seen you scribbling at the table in the back once again and snatched it right up. Your overthinkin’ is gonna run it into the ground, she’d proclaimed, eyes scanning the sheets. Look, this is fine. Tidy it up a little and you’re done. 

You’ve held onto this final draft for almost a month. Agonizing over it. Spell-checking. Rewriting sentences. Trying to talk yourself out of applying completely, and fretting over whether or not you were making the right decision, and — and—

“This is amazing,” Sam says, finally looking up at you. His lips split in a wide, toothy grin, and you’ve never felt relief quite so sweet. 

“You’re serious?”

“Damn right I’m serious!” He sits up straighter, beckons you to sit beside him with his free hand. “Relevant anecdotes, gripping prose, and y’connect it all at the end with your motivations to study, to help others — I can’t imagine them readin' this and not accepting you, I really can't—"

"Oh, gosh, that's a relief—"

"Well, what do we have here?"

You almost didn't notice the door open, flustered and focused as you were — but in comes Steve, nose red with cold, six-pack of beer in one hand and a half-full grocery bag in the other. He must've stopped by the grocery store on his way home; a good portion of the groceries have been used up, what with the weekly shopping being done a few days ago on Monday—

"Got y' more cookies," he says, holding up a familiar red and gold package. "Line was long as hell."

"Oh, thanks." You lean over his shoulder as he rests the bag on the kitchen island, pulling out the rest of his ever-so-important foodstuffs: a large block of Kerrygold butter, a loaf of sourdough bread, another tub of instant coffee, and an extra-large head of broccoli. "Oo, broccoli."

"Mm. Gonna roast it up with the rest of what we got in the fridge."

"Are you gonna stay for dinner?" You call over to Sam. "Steve's gotten better at cooking."

Steve scoffs a laugh, pulling out the last item — an extra large carton of orange juice. Your favourite. "Mhm. No more canned soup."

"I like my canned soup," says Sam, slowly coming to a stand. He flits the papers in his hand back and forth until they're back in the right order. "But I can't stay, 'm afraid. We're preparing a guest speaker for the vets down at the community centre, so I have to be there."

"Next time, maybe."

"Next time," he promises, setting the papers down beside you. He redirects his attention to Steve, then. "Gotta keep an eye on your girl, Steve. She'll be writin' circles 'round us soon."

Your girl.

Steve doesn't react — just grins wide and shakes his head and tells Sam to get goin' or else he'll stay for another hour, and Sam claps him on the shoulder and ruffles your hair and pats Cap's head as he leaves. 

But as you're gathering your essay up, your mind is whirling in the most — most childish way, giggles and bashful flushes of heat welling up in your chest—

"I'm putting on the kettle," you squeak, shuffling away from him. "C—coffee?"

Your girl.

"If it's no bother, pup. I'll get started on dinner, too…"

Quiet. The thud of the knife against the cutting board, crinkling plastic, the scuffle of Cap’s paws on the hardwood. The kettle whistling, the cutlery clashing gently together as you open the drawer and fumble for a spoon. And still, like a record playing:

Your girl. Your girl. Your girl.

It’s terrible. It’s terrible and you’re happy and proud and you’re sure you’re doing a terrible job of hiding it, but Steve doesn’t say anything — at least, until you hand him his jumbo-mug of coffee and linger by his side. His smile is small, barely restrained, and he casts it towards you gleefully as he accepts your offering.

“Happy ‘bout something?”

“Hm? No, no—”

“No? Y’sure?” Lips spreading further, teeth bared in a grin— “Nothin’ ‘bout… bein’ my girl?”

“Oh, shut up.”

A bark of a laugh, and you find yourself giggling along — embarrassed, sure, but not debilitatingly so. Just enough to have your cheeks warm and your head dipping, stomach tensing with butterflies. “Don’t act all high and mighty — can smell you’re not exactly angry either, mister.”

Yeah, because — beneath your own scent, constantly muddled in your nose as it is, Steve’s scent glands are working overtime — sweeter than usual, pleased, happy. You hadn’t noticed at first, but it’s there. The thought relieves you — that you weren’t on your own in your childish giddiness, that there was no real cause for embarrassment. Whatever you feel, he seems to feel in spades. And vice versa, you suppose. 

"Can't say I am," Steve says —  tray of chopped and seasoned vegetables slipped quickly into the oven, before he's rinsing his hands off and drying them on a nearby tea towel. His eyes lift to you as he does — so unbothered, so unashamed by the elongated eye contact he levels you with. "Happier than I've been in a long time."

The air in your lungs stutters and presses outwards — leaves you breathless for a moment. You can only fix him with a look that’s soft as spun sugar and murmur:  "Is that so?"

He doesn’t drop your gaze. "Mhm."

"I'm glad.”

“Yeah?”

“You deserve it.”

Almost instantly, his scent changes — intensifies in its sweetness, yes, but takes on a spicier note you’ve never smelled before. Something deep and muted — something complex and multi-faceted, and you can’t put your finger on it. But it doesn’t matter if you can’t figure out his scent, because Steve wears his emotions on his face, his heart on his sleeve — and Steve’s looking at you like he wants to be much closer than he is.

Steve hums — short and low, a grumble in his chest — and steps closer. Nonchalance coats his every move, but you both know it’s nothing more than an act, a carefully cultivated and crafted mask. Because his eyes haven’t left yours, not once, and he’s looking between your own like he’s searching for something, what you can’t be sure of, but he gets so close that’s toe to toe and bows his head — just a little, barely a bow — and when you don’t move he lowers himself even further and—

A kiss. Not your first with him. Surely not your last, and yet… yet there’s something about it. It’s just as chaste and sweet as the others, but something in the way he lingers — something in the way that spiciness from his scent tickles your nose and clings to the roof of your mouth has you pressing yourself up, accepting his advances readily and happily. Not as unsure of yourself as you usually are, but— but instead, surging forward, clutching the heat that blooms in your chest at his warmth, his large, solid frame, his scent— God, him—

You don't shy away from his touch — the hesitant drift of his hands along your waist, up your spine, and back down again. Chest to chest, nose nudging against his, you're completely content to stay just where you are, if not closer. Closer, closer, more — that spice clouding up your senses, every orifice clinging to its headiness—

"Wait, wait—" Steve pulls away, gasping for breath, and you've half a mind to follow his lips forward — but you blink once, twice, three times; inhale deep, and try to dispel the broiling heat in your gut. "Wait, I…"

He clears his throat, and you wait, expectant. 

"I think, uh — I should stop. 'm — well, 'm gonna get ahead of myself, and..."

"And?" You don't think you've looked away from his lips for more than a second since you parted. Should be listening to him, should be stepping away, but… but you really don't want to. It's like you've gotten a taste for it — that feeling, that tingle of heat up your spine, the thought that even being pressed together like you were wasn't quite close enough. And his scent — oh, you haven't forgotten about it. It lingers even now, sharp and vivid, all subtlety of lemongrass and cedar gone with the wind. It's not a smell you can put your finger on. You just know you want it on you, around you, all the time.

Steve's face contorts like something's aching him real bad. "Pup," he says helplessly, smile a little nervous, "I — don't gotta explain t' you what a man thinks when he's got a pretty lady pressed against him, do I?"

"Hm—? Oh."

Oh.

That's what he—

Oh.

"Oh," you say again, very intelligently.

"Mhm."

"Well—" God, the thought isn't exactly disgusting. You won't pretend you haven't thought about it once or twice — maybe when you'd seen him haul logs up and onto his shoulder, biceps bulging, brow set; maybe when he'd wrap an arm around your shoulders in crowded places, strong and protective and covering you in a blanket of safety so thorough that your stomach flipped. Maybe, once or twice, you'd distantly and vaguely imagined what he'd look like underneath all that flannel and denim; if his cheeks would flush with the heat of it all. If he took care of himself during ruts, or sought help...

Your cheeks feel hot. 

"Do you… want to?" You say carefully. "Because — I mean, it's — it's you. I don't mind if it's you."

Your question seems to placate him — or, at the very least, offer him an answer to some unknown question he'd been mulling over in his head — because the nervousness on his face simmers down, down, down, until it only really lies in the corners of his mouth and the twitch of his brow, hidden.

"When it's time," Steve says — and the way his eyes drift down to your bottom lip, the way his hand smooths real firm over your waist, you don't think you're imagining that both of you want that time to be soon— "I don't want you to just not mind. I want you to want it just as much as I do — if not more."

You swallow, and the motion seems too big and too substantial for the thickness in the air between you both.

"Besides," he finishes, lips splitting in a smile, "Need t' wine and dine you first."

It's giddiness, you think, that joins the slow and smouldering heat in your stomach — happiness at the progression, at the idea of being something even more with him… but mostly at the plain and very mundane thought of being so desired by somebody that you desire, too.

He's always made you feel wanted. That's not a problem — he shows it everyday, no matter what — but even now, hearing him say it outright like that has you flexing your fingers, tugging your bottom lip between your teeth. You want to say something back — something about how you'll wine and dine him first, or how you trust him, or how you really don't mind right here, right now, as long as it's him, but—

"I don't like wine," you only say.

"We'll replace it with somethin' nice, then. Promise."

And that's that.

You hadn't actually been expecting to be wine and dined. You thought — well, you thought it was purely a figure of speech. You're pretty damn well sure it is, anyways, but you're not all too adept at reading the room. 

As long as you've been in the area, it's not like there's a manual for the complexities or normalities of the place. Maybe when people say that 'round here they really do mean it. Steve does, at least, because when you come home one day from a long-enough shift, there's dinner on the table and the fire's lit and he's even got a candle on the table between two plates. 

It's a pasta dish, slathered in a savoury orange-red sauce and vegetables, with garlic bread to the side, too. It's the fanciest spread you've ever seen in this cabin. Especially with the candle.

Steve chuckles when he sees your face. "C'mon now. Y'didn't think I was that terrible a cook, did ya?"

"No, no!" You exclaim, slinging your bag onto the ground. "I just — I wasn't expecting this. It looks nice." 

Smells even better than it looks, if possible, and your stomach gurgles at the reminder. That's what nothing but a handful of peanuts and a bottle of water over the course of eight hours will do to you — Nat and Bucky were too busy handling the floor to realise that you hadn't eaten, and you were too stubborn to take more than a five minute break. With the weather warming up — as warm as it could get here, anyways — the bar was steadily growing busier and busier. 

"Let me wash my hands," you murmur. You realise as you scarper past the kitchen and into the bathroom that you're trying hard to fight a smile — unjustified excitement welling up in your tummy, the calm evening atmosphere that had once lay flat and unimportant suddenly fizzing up. Wined and dined. You were being wined and dined. 

For reasons unknown to you — or, rather, reasons you're too embarrassed to examine at the moment — you find yourself lingering in front of the mirror; tucking your hair this way and that,  brushing imaginary dirt from the bridge of your nose. Patting tissue paper under your arms and poking at your scent glands a little to mask the smell of the Blue Jester that still clings to you a bit. It's not lost on you what's being implied — how Steve had said he'd wait to ... to bed you until he treated you a little. Does that mean… tonight…?

Do you want to...?

You look at yourself in the mirror — the brightness of your eyes, the lack of dark circles in your sockets. The way you grin to yourself when you make eye contact with your reflection, like the happiness in you just can't help but show in some tiny, miniscule way. Healthy. Happy. Taken care of, satisfied with who you are and what you’re doing. 

You’d always expected to do this once you were married, or… something like that. You were always expected to stay pure for your future husband. Whether or not you plan to marry Steve (not the time to think about it), you… it feels right. This feels right.

You’ve thought about it before — being with Steve. It first presented itself in short, shameful fragments — thoughts that would have you averting your eyes and curling in on yourself, embarrassed. Then, during your heat, they reached their peak — oh, how hard it was to stop yourself from begging, from asking him to help you through it. Each wave of pain, each twinge of pleasure, was accompanied by a terrible feeling of desire. You’d wanted to ask him, you’d wanted it terribly, but you couldn’t put him in that position. And you couldn’t go through with it when you weren’t sure whether your feelings would be reciprocated or not. 

But now, in your right mind… Safe and assured and confident…

Yes. You… you want to. 

But dinner first.

"Where's Cap?" You ask as you reenter — pretending very well, you think, that you hadn't just had an entire Q and A session with yourself in the bathroom. 

"Outside," came the answer. "Was scrapin' and yowlin' at the door, so 'm lettin' him run off some steam."

"Ah." 

A natural progression, you both settle into your seats across from each other.  There are glasses of water between you both, as well as a single can of beer and a bottle of pop, your favorite flavour. He must've gone shopping while you were gone. Is it juvenile to be entirely taken with the amount of effort he's put into this? It's not even like it's completely and utterly unimaginable — Steve's just like that, mostly. He remembers the little things. Does things for you without expecting anything in return, anticipates your needs like you try to do for him. 

It’s — it’s been months, and you know you should stop agonizing over it, suspend your disbelief, but… but sometimes it really is hard to believe that somehow, you’d ended up here. Out of everywhere in the country, you were lucky enough to find perhaps the kindest man in the state.

Enough of that. You shove a spoonful of pasta into your mouth and let yourself be distracted by pillowy garlic bread and tomato sauce, tales of your regulars and the fun at the Blue Jester traded for a run down of his self-proclaimed boring-as-all-hell day — and it’s sweet. For all your contemplation in the bathroom, it’s as easy as any other dinner together; and although the weight of what is to come sits heavy in your stomach, it’s not a feeling of dread that accompanies it — it’s anticipation.

You can smell it in the air, and… for some reason, you’re not all too embarrassed. Sure, when it flares up particularly strongly at one of Steve’s laughs (the rumbling, grumbling type of chuckle), you avoid his eyes for a second — but you’re back to laughing in the same amount of time. Steve drinks his bear, you drink your pop; at some point, you both get up — him, to let Cap back in, and you, for napkins, because you haven’t been shy about gorging yourself and the sauce has made a home for itself around your mouth.

And just like that, dinner’s over, and you’ve both retired to the couch and… you’re trying to read, and it’s not working because he’s got his right hand on your ankle, the other holding his own book. It’s not even a particularly tight grip; just warm, and firm, but you’re repeating the same line over and over in your hard, eyes retracing the paper ten, twelve times:

Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth.

His thumb smooths over your skin idly, back and forth; he turns to the next page of his novel.

Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth.

Cap sniffles from his bed by the coffee table — Steve coos a quiet what’s wrong, bud?

Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth.

Back, forth; back, forth; back and forth and back and forth and you don’t even think that your distraction is inconspicuous anymore. Your grip on your book tightens when he turns the page again. 

Think… think not… sleep when you can… my eleventh commandment…

Enough is enough. 

In an impatience-driven burst of energy, you roughly set your book aside — Steve’s head shoots up, wide-eyed, and he barely gets out a “You okay?” before you’re clambering closer to him. 

“Wined and dined,” you only say, breath heavy. Your fingers hold onto his flannel so tightly your knuckles hurt. “Been wined and dined, now, and… and I want you.”

“Y — where’s this comin’ from?” Steve manages to get out, throat bobbing under a dry swallow, and you shake your head. 

“Since we first kissed, I think,” you confess. “Or — before that, even. During my heat, I… it wasn’t just heat-brain talking.”

For a moment, he can only stare — eyes flickering between yours, brow furrowed like he’s either trying to figure something out or arguing with himself. But his scent is heady, sweetening with every passing second — the sweetness of bonfire, of burning wax — all the while he looks upon you, takes in the desperate glint in your eyes, the nervous twitch of your fingers on his shirt. 

“I’ve thought about it.” Your breath is shaky — excitement, apprehension. “Again and again and again and — I’m ready. And if you’re not, I — I can wait—”

Faster than you can comprehend (which really isn’t all that fast, because your thoughts seem to be wading through molasses to find you), Steve’s got your chin in the light grasp of his hand — and he’s leaning forward, and he’s tilting your face up towards him, and he’s kissing you—

But this isn’t a sweet kiss over breakfast, or a breathless, giddy peck after slipping on sleet — close but not close enough, quick but not hasty, slow but not lagging; your thigh aches as you push yourself up into an awkward position, but you’re plastered together at almost every possible plane, so it’s a small price to pay.

He doesn’t stop you, not like last time. He seems even more reluctant than you to part. With his right hand still grasping your chin, and his left arm looped ‘round your waist, you’re halfway to slipping onto his lap — and it’s not an unpleasant thought. You’d fit right on him, slotted against the broad barrel his chest, supported by thick, strong thighs—

An exhale much too mellifluous to be a simple breath leaves you, hits the little space that exists between your lips — and all of a sudden you’re being hoisted up, parted hastily. You find yourself blinking owlishly up at Steve as he ‘rounds the coffee table quickly, stepping towards the bedroom — it’s so unexpected, so undeniably desperate that, well—

“What’re you laughin’ about?” Steve asks, glancing down at you with a grin of his own.

Your bottom lip is tugged between your teeth, smile pulling at each corner. They’re already bruised, no doubt puffy and bloated, but the feeling is nothing short of addicting.

 “‘s nothing — you surprised me, is all.”

“I’d rather move this to the bedroom,” he says, shifting your weight in his arms as he toes open the door. “The couch is great, but — not for this. ‘Specially not the first time.”

The bed dips under you when he places you down, shared scent billowing up from the fabric. It’s one of those things that are constantly romanticised in fiction — the mingling of scents, so intertwined that you can’t tell which notes are yours or your lovers. The reminder dances on your mind every so often, and each time it affects you just as it does now — flustering under his gaze, nose twitching as you try to (secretly) take a deep, full breath of it. Sweet and musky and… homely, cosy.

Steve stares you down. You’re laying down on your back, wringing your wrist with your hand — staring right back at him.

“Y’don’t want to do anything, you tell me immediately,” he says suddenly. His mouth is a hard, downturned line beneath his beard — that type of grimace that says I’m dead serious. You know that, despite the relative light-heartedness of the night, this is absolutely non-negotiable.

"Y-yeah. Of course."

"Okay." Steve takes a deep breath of his own, chest collapsing and shoulders slumping with the force of his exhale. "Good."

And with that — with the last of his worries cleared, at least for now — Steve takes the initiative and places his knee on the bed. And the other. Then, his arms steady themselves on either side of your face, and you're left with him essentially hovering over you, enough space between your bodies for hesitance's sake, but close enough to rejoin your lips again. Which he does.

It's different on the bed. You're restless because of it, really. It was easy when you were on the couch; easy to think of it as another makeout that would end in pushing each other away, panting and flushed — it's another thing altogether when he's above you, blankets beneath you, the door hanging somewhere between open and closed. Another thing altogether when you wind your arms around his neck and tug him closer, breath catching in your chest. Closer, closer, closer, mouth wet and warm, his chest rumbling with the startings of a grumble he hasn’t noticed yet—

And you find, after realizing that you’ve been arching up towards him, pressing your chests together, that your impatience is getting the better of you — that you haven’t got the willpower to reel it in. Steve doesn’t seem to mind, though, if the hunch of him over you, the bow of his head towards you is anything to go by. He’s just as impatient as you. Just as desperate. Perhaps that’s why, when—

“Too slow,” you gasp out. You feel like you're burning up. “Hurry—”

—Steve does exactly as you ask — though maybe burning up isn’t the correct choice of words, because it’s not that balmy, inescapable warmth that had covered every inch of you during your heat.  It’s a fizzling ball in the pit of your stomach, it’s eagerness nipping at the crook of your neck and the tips of your fingers — but in the fuzziness of your brain, in all your distraction, the explanation is lost in translation. 

Steve’s hands are practiced in gently tugging your shirt over your head. A bolt of nervousness charges your chest, but it’s to be expected — it’s ygour first time being so bare in front of anyone for something like this — and although some nerves linger, they’re mostly soothed when Steve pulls his own off. Your mouth runs dry.

He’s that type of strong that isn’t shown by popping veins and washboard abs; muscles ripple underneath bands of fat, his chest strong and barrel-like, his arms thick and hard. His entire upper half is covered in a smattering of hair, though it darkens and thickens in a trail towards his pants.

He’s… so… big. Just… entirely large.

The heat grows to sweltering so quickly that for a moment, you consider the possibility of your heat being induced — but no. You’re just flustered, staring at him with your mouth agape and your fingers clutching the blankets and your own chest heaving with each breath; but the moment is over quickly, because he surges back down within seconds, and your view of him is taken away.

Your pants join your shirt on the floor — his too. Your nerves climb to all new heights. Especially when, after parting from your lips once more, he asks: “Can I touch you?”

It’s happening. This is happening. He’s going to touch you. For the first time ever, you’re—

You nod. You’re still worrying your bottom lip between your teeth.

Steve peers down at you, still poised above you, knees on either side of your hips, hand cupping your jaw. “Hey,” he says, not unkindly. “Remember. We can stop at any time, pup.”

(Maybe what scares you is that you don’t want to stop.)

“I know.”

“Good.” 

He’s still close. And he doesn’t move away, like you’d expected him to — doesn’t kneel back on his haunches to take you in. You appreciate it more, you think, that his nose is nudging at your scent glands as the one hand that’s not steadying above him travels down your body; brushing gently over the swell of your chest, the softness of your tummy, past your belly button… 

You give an awkward mumble when he first pulls at your underwear. It’s so alien to have somebody else down there — pulling them down, down, down, until you can kick them off and onto the floor — and the sound escapes you before you can temper it. 

“‘s okay,” he mumbles, smoothing a hand over your stomach. “Nothin’ to be afraid of. I’ve got you, pup.”

The air hits the skin between your legs, and it’s ice-cold. You can feel from the way your underwear is peeled off that between your legs is sticky and tacky; hot and pulsing, your hands shake and your stomach tenses nervously as — for the first time in your life — between your legs is bared. You have to hug your arms to your chest and screw your eyes shut when Steve nudges your knees wider apart, a low groan settling deep in his throat — embarrassing, it’s embarrassing, but you want him to see, you want him to touch you—

“‘m gonna touch you, now,” Steve says — and against everything telling you otherwise, your eyes shoot open to watch. He’s already looking at you, kind eyes searching your face— kind eyes darker than usual, kind eyes flickering down to where you’re wet and willing. Nervous energy in your gut swells and tapers as he brings his thumb to his mouth, wetting it with with his tongue — and then, fuck, he brings it down, brings it down right onto your clit, gentle but firm—

Slow, steady circles. Your breath stutters in your chest. Your knuckles ache from how tight you’ve wrung the blankets in your hands — and you’re going between his face and his fingers touching you, pleasuring you, not sure where to look, not sure where to marvel at. 

“Feel good?” He asks, like he doesn’t already know the answer.

“Yeah. Y-yeah.”

It feels different from the times you’d touched yourself. The quick, clandestine flicks of your fingers, the way you’d bite at your palm to silence what little noise you’d make. It had been over quick, short-lived. Steve’s had his hands on you for all of two minutes and you can already feel that it’s different — is that because it’s somebody else, or because it’s him? Because his scent is clouding your nose and your head is full of him — it’s in the room, it’s on the blankets, it’s pumping from his scent glands by the minute. You’ve already become habituated with it.

His thumb drops from your clit to dip between your folds — tapping languidly, like he’s got all the time in the world, and watching with hungry eyes as silvery threads join his digit to your pussy. Then he drifts back up again, thumb re-slickened, to resume circling your clit. His other hand is still firm on your stomach, warm. A welcome weight.

You could finish like this. Fuck, you could finish like this. You can feel the beginning flutterings of an orgasm just out of reach — you have to stop yourself from bucking your hips at him, begging him to go faster—

“Gotta get you ready,” he says, and you nod mindlessly. “Gonna give you a finger, pup.”

“Okay, okay — go, please—”

His skill isn’t lost on you as he continues to tease your clit, simultaneously prodding at your entrance with one thick finger — you’re tensing up, “Relax, bub,” in your ear, breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth as he breaches you. It’s a sharp, needling pain — nothing compared to your heat, surely — and he goes so slowly that it dulls out within a few moments, but the discomfort is there all the same. And you’re so full. You never thought that you felt empty but knowing what it feels like to have something inside of you is a new experience entirely — you can’t imagine taking anymore, even with how wet you are—

And then another joins. 

“Wha—” You’re dumb with it — propping yourself up on shaking elbows to watch as his two fingers disappear into you, slick and glossy when they ease out with a squelch. “Oh — oh my…”

“Good?”

His words go in one ear and out the other — your hips rock up and down in time with his thrusts —up, down, up, down, toes curling, stomach tensing, so close so close so close so close so—

“Fuck,” Steve curses, and he lurches down towards you as the first few contractions hit, as your pussy (as your entire bottom half, really) tenses, clamps around his fingers in quick, pulsing waves — swallows the breathy whine of his name and the warbling cry that follows. This kiss isn’t gentle, it isn’t careful: it’s sloppy and wet and more teeth than lips and you curse at the feeling, curse at the relentless way he rides you through the waves of pleasure. “That’s my girl. Go on, now.”

You huff and puff through choked lungs, vision clouding, mind fuzzing up like puffs of cotton. Pleasure has settled over you like a fine, warm blanket, a pleasant buzz under your skin. More intense than anything you'd wrought from yourself. By the time your head is righted — as righted as it could be, right now —, he’s already slipped his fingers out of you, the slick quickly drying up. He wipes them on the side of his boxers anyways, you suppose to be safe.

Oh. That's new, too. He's almost completely naked, save for his boxers — but from the looks of it, those are coming off, too. Kicked off even as he leans over you, biceps strong and firm on either side of your head — form unwavering, unshaking. Firm in some places, yielding in others — but undeniably stable regardless.

Whip-quick, he reaches over to the rickety bedside table that you're sure is older than the both of you combined; fishes about in the drawers for a second before something crinkles, and he pulls out a little foil square. 

Oh. He'd prepared.

You're not stupid — you know what a condom is. Of course, most of your knowledge came from scandalled giggles between 'friends', back when you were in high school — something about pulling it down with your teeth, though you're not sure how that'd work. Steve is fine with rolling it down his length by himself, it seems; makes quick work of it, too.

He bows his head to meet you again, then, lips brushing just against yours; his fingers drifting across your shoulder, while the other hand guides himself to the wetness between your legs. The threads of nervousness begin to knot themselves together again, and Steve's nose visibly twitches.

"Y'okay?" He asks again, hushed. "Ready, or…?"

"'m ready," you whisper. In any case, you lift your hands to grasp his biceps, hoping to steady yourself — or your thoughts, or something — because his scent just isn't cutting it anymore. If anything it sets your nerves off even more, the ever recurring thought that, in just a few moments, he’d be… inside you. "Just — go slow?"

"Course," he promises. He licks over his lips, takes the bottom one between his teeth as if to steady himself, to concentrate his thoughts — and then, as he nudges his nose against your temple, one of his arms disappears from your side, presumably to reach between his legs. “If it’s too much, or—”

“Yeah.” It comes out as a puff of air — impatient, almost, if not for the tremble of it in your decolletage. “I’ll tell you.”

Breath lays bated, muscles tense in their attempted relaxedness as something — something warm, something silky brushes against you, rounded and dull and… well, a bit larger than two simple fingers. It’s an awkward feeling — the blunt, stretching pain of it, surely not able to fit, at first, and then—

“Oh.”

Steve watches it all like a hawk — your face, and then where you’re joined (beginning to join) and back and forth. Watches as half an inch pushes in, painfully and terribly slow, as your pussy gives way around him — then an inch, two inches, three, and on and on, and he has to put his arm back to steady himself because—

You’re so — warm.

And don’t get him wrong, it’s been years since he’s been inside of someone, years since he’d fucked into something other than his hand — but even so, even then, it shouldn’t be like the first time all over again, should it? Because he’s had this before, and… he’s not young, not like he was when he did have it, not particularly sensitive or nimble or responsive — and it shouldn’t be like the first time. But it is. The warmth, all-encompassing; the feel of you tight and ribbed and wet, pulsing, hugging his cock beneath the condom. And then he’s — he’s in, all of him, and you’re brows are knitted together, and you’re staring down at where you’re fully, completely joined—

"Y'okay?" He grunts out, like he's not tensing up so much the veins in his arms are near popping, like his cheeks aren't flushed rosy red, like his chest isn't heaving with each attempted lungful of air. "C'mon, pup, y'gotta tell me. Let me know."

"'s — fine," you say, but it's all slurred against the pillows — or maybe it's not the pillows, maybe it's just you, pleasure-drunk and hazy, blinking up at him, hands clinging to him. Cotton candy. Bubbling sugar. Lemonade and lollipops. "Real… real good, Steve."

And you shudder, short and sweet, body tensing and tightening — around him, fucking hell — and Steve's not sure whether the whine that comes after is from you or him. All he knows is that when he readjusts himself, pressing his knees further up to keep his balance, his cock shifts inside you — gets deeper, suddenly, and his mind almost blanks.

You make a sound like the air has been punched out of you, and your knees press deeper against his hips, and you look up at him like you can’t quite believe it — the feeling of it, that is. The fullness, the drag of him inside you. He’s not quite sure he can believe it, either. 

"'m — 'm gonna move," he says — mutters, because it takes all of him to even speak. It’s all he can do to pull his hips back — the drag, fuck — till the very tip of him remains inside of you, walls silky smooth and tacky, before he pushes back in again. The give of you around him has his breath caught in his chest. “Goddamnit.”

With each thrust your grasp on his arms gets tighter — nails digging into the meat of his biceps, contracting and relaxing in time with the movement of his hips, and he doesn’t think you even realise that you’re doing it. You’re just letting yourself be taken with the rhythm of it, letting your mind and your body rock along with each sway.

“Kept y’waitin’ too long, din’t I?” He says to himself, no more than a grunt. “Ever since your heat, huh? Got a lot to — to make up for, pup.”

If it's possible, he shifts closer — or maybe, just shifts differently, because now each thrust of his hips ends with a deep, rolling grind of his front against yours, prickly hairs pressed against your clit firmly — and you squeak with it, an embarrassed little sound that has you avoiding his eyes and peering up at the ceiling.

It's a darling thing, he thinks, to watch as you loosen up. No more embarrassed wrinkles of your nose when you make a noise, no more avoiding his gaze. With each thrust, each block of pleasure atop the last, you lose yourself in it; head thrown back, then hunched forward to stare, restless and impatient; knees tightening 'round his hips, if only to help you push yourself towards him. The idea of it — the comfortability, the smoothness, sharing each hot open-mouthed pant and each lingering, tender kiss, the thought that it's only with him that you're like this, only him — has him just as bad, halfway to an orgasm that's sure to knock the breath out of his chest.

(Not even 15 minutes in and he's… well, he hadn't expected to last very long, anyways. And he doesn't want to wear you out too much, either.)

At one particularly deep grind, he's rewarded with a cry of his name and a shuddering gasp — an "Oh!" that makes his stomach twist pleasantly, disbelieving, and you're burying your head in his neck and tightening your arms around him as you cum for the second time. It's all-encompassing; the pulsing, squeezing warmth, and your lips grazing against his scent gland, and you're sweet, so sweet—

The groan he lets out would be embarrassing if he had it in him to care; long and pained as he fills the condom, hips slotted against yours as if he could get any deeper. It's the type of sensation that shoots down your limbs to the tips of your fingers and toes — the type that makes your legs tremble and arms give out, and God, do his legs tremble. He's lucky he's already laid flat, because the way he'd fall wouldn’t be graceful nor elegant.

His mind rights itself a few minutes later when you squirm underneath him, feet flexing back and forth mindlessly. Says a lot that he barely even thinks to think hey, I might be crushin' her right about now — but think he does. 

The smarter part of him tugs his cock free and goes about discarding the condom, rolling off the bed and doing the sappy, warm stuff that had always secretly been his favourite part. Fetching a glass of water for both of you. Making sure you use the toilet, no matter how sore and achy you are, and that you both wash up a little. And when that's all done: tucking you in beside him, only half covered in blankets because you're mostly satisfied with the heated remnants of movement and tension.

He finishes that part up, now — folding the sheets in around your hips as you sip at your water, blinking sleepily down at him. When he's finished, and fits himself in beside you, Steve's taken aback to find himself a little… Well, nervous.

It was your first. That's a big responsibility to share, and the amount of trust it takes is monumental. Your first isn't all too important in the grand scheme of things, he knows, but he also knows that it tends to set a precedent for what's to come. That's a big responsibility, even if it's not one you expected him to shoulder.

You're all sleepy eyed and warm when he pulls the blankets over himself — content to set your water aside, then, and press yourself to his side, purring happily. You'll fall asleep soon. That's good, that's good. You seem good. Satisfied. Happy. He's glad — it's been a while since he last…

"Hey, Steve?" You mumble out.

He's alert within seconds. Your eyes are already shut, breath already slowing and preparing to sleep. "Yeah?"

"I'm glad it was with you," you say. "You — felt really good. And I'm happy. And I love you."

You don't know it — halfway asleep as you are — but he has to take a hefty breath to stem the growth of the lump in his throat. And if his voice sounds a tad watery when he returns your I love you, then you say nothing about it.

It's entirely embarrassing, how easy you make it. Brock wonders how you evaded him for this long at all, really, when you're about as cautious as a blind bunny rabbit. No care taken to hide away, to check over your shoulder. No, no, no. You've grown complacent.

It'd been a simple matter of following you home from your little play date at the community centre — Fridays at 5.30, like  clockwork. Like always, you'd crossed the car park, greeted the man waiting there, and entered his truck. Brock sat and watched as he always did, except this time — this time, he followed for the first time since he’d done it initially. 

Nothing had changed. The quaint little cabin, the well-worn tracks leading up to it — it’s well built, he'd admit, nothing like those cheap shacks they're selling nowadays — and Brock was sure he'd have no problem taking your new pathetic excuse for an alpha, but he had to be smart about it, too. If there's one thing he's learned, it's that you're slippery.

He doesn't know the layout, either. And people up this way are fond of keeping their own guns. He'd heard a dog, too, that first day he'd followed you back — probably something big, something bulky. No, it wouldn't do good to jump straight in. 

A few miles away on the side of the road, tucked into the driver's seat and sipping at a hot drink, Brock ponders his luck. It's almost like a sign. Just as he was preparing to give up, to return home, to choose the easier option, his spirit was relit again. 

Just goes to show, doesn't it? Good things don't come easy.

Embarrassingly, it lingers on your mind for days. Weeks.

After that first time, you find yourself falling into bed (or the couch — or the shower) with Steve more often, learning each other, taking care of each other. He never pushes you, never pries; he only makes you feel good, and you reassure him every step of the way. You've come to know pleasure you could never think up by yourself, and, well—

Today, book in hand, your mind is resolutely set on his fingers. Thick, long fingers. Calloused and rough, but warm and gentle — skilled, he'd shown you that. His hands were big enough that he was able to reach around you, two or three fingers inside, and—

“Focus,” you grumble out loud to yourself — and Cap lifts his head from your lap, blinking those big puppy dog eyes up at you. “Sorry, Cap. Was talking to myself.”

It’s your day off. Or, rather, one of your days off. You usually work Thursday to Monday, the days where a bit more help is needed cleaning up after the wilder nights before. It’s not as strenuous as Steve’s wood-cutting or as monotonous as his long deliveries, but it’s tiring all the same. 

The place is old, sure, and has a lot of wear and tear, but it has to be practically glittering to even reach Nat’s standards. The sticky floors have to be mopped twice, usually, scrubbed with this cheap floor cleaner that they buy in bulk. And then the food has to be sorted out — lots of it — and deliveries of drinks have to be signed for and put away into refrigerators and coolers out in the snow—

So you savour your days off. Especially since you'll be starting school soon, you want to get your fair share of complete and utter peace before that madness begins. A book, a blanket on the couch, not safe for work thoughts keeping you company when Steve can't.

At the reminder, you peer outside. He should be getting back soon. You can’t remember where exactly his delivery had been, just… just that it was about that time he should be getting back. The skies starting to darken into a slate-grey, clouds heavy and close to popping overhead. Even the air feels stiff, biting cold and eerily quiet whenever you pass by an open window. Sometimes it feels like you can hear each tiny flake of snow hitting the ground.

It unsettles you. But it’s in your head, you know, and Steve’ll be back soon, and — well, you’ll feel better then. If you just keep distracting yourself with your book and your thoughts, the 30 minutes-or-so will pass by easily.

Suddenly, Cap’s head lifts again — but this time his eyes dart in the direction of the door. He’s stock still and unblinking, body tense where he lays atop your legs. You try to ignore the way your stomach twists nervously. There’s nothing wrong, but, nevertheless:

"Sweetie," you say carefully, glancing towards the door yourself, "What's wrong, huh? What's got you spooked?"

You try not to get spooked yourself. It’s too early for Steve to be back, and the cabin’s far away enough from the main roads that nobody would stray near without reason, and—

(Well, you think, remembering your own arrival wryly. Not nobody.)

—Cap’s never usually this disquieted, either. Whining, he leaps to the floor, scampering behind the couch and towards the window and front door — standing up on his hind legs to peer out of the window and into the ever-thinning snow outside, before running to the door, and back again. With a frown, you set down your book and pull aside your blanket, nervously taking hold of the wireless landline — just in case.

“What is it, boy?” You murmur, squatting down, taking a hold of Cap’s silky ears and petting softly. “It’s just snow, isn’t it? Just snow. You know that."

Crunch.

You freeze. Still. Angle your head towards the window and strain your ears. No — you hadn’t been mistaken. That sounded like… like a car. Something (someone) was approaching the cabin. Steve? Maybe he got there early. Or forgot something important and had to turn around halfway through his journey. But what could he have forgotten? He had his coat, his keys, his scarf, the old, barely-functioning device he called a phone. He didn’t need anything else—

The grit of crushed snow gets closer — so close that the loudness of it almost makes you jump. Maybe it’s Sam. Bucky or Natasha, even. They’re the only people you ever have over, really, but — but Bucky and Natasha should be at the Jester, and Sam usually calls before he drops over, and—

It’s fine, you tell yourself, but your hands shake with anxious tremors as you slowly come to a stand. You know it’s nothing. You know you’re just a little unsettled, a little paranoid, a little put off by things not going exactly according to your schedule. It happens all the time, but — just to comfort yourself — you tap in Steve’s number anyways. He doesn’t mind you calling him when he’s driving, but you’ve mostly held off for fear of distracting him or catching him at a bad time. 

There’s the slightest flash of light through the trees, far away enough for it to be gone within seconds, but close enough that there’s no mistaking it: it’s headed your way.

That settles it.

The phone rings once, twice, three times before Steve picks up, the rush of the road crackling in the speakers. “Hey, bub, what’s—”

“Is somebody coming over?” You say hurriedly. You’ll apologise for cutting him off later, when you’re not actively trying to stop yourself from cracking and crumbling into a hyperventilating heap. 

“Wh— no, no-one’s s’posed to be comin’ over,” he says, before pausing. “Why?”

“It’s — I’m sure it’s nothing, it’s probably just — Sam, or Nat, or—” Another flash of light, this time closer and you back away from the windows — in fact, you quickly tug the curtains together and retreat back to the couch, hands trembling. “There’s a car here. Coming here, I mean. To the cabin."

Another pause on his end — you know he thinks it's suspicious, too.

"Probably just someone who's gotten lost," Steve says at last, placating. The sounds of the highway fill the silence. "'m sure they'll turn around and head on back, but I'm almost home, pup. Y'want me to stay on the phone?"

In your mind, you know it's most likely nothing. You know that there are explanations for why somebody would drive down this beaten road that leads to only Steve's cabin — a wrong turn, a mistaken path. Hell, they could just be trying to deliver something, even. 

But something has you on edge. Something nudging at the edge of your senses, just out of reach...

Better safe than sorry. Better embarrassed than sorry, you think, nibbling nervously at the tips of your fingers. "Yes, please."

So, he talks. Mindless stuff. Things he's seeing as he drives, what you'll have for dinner, a new drink he wants to try. Your ears blot out half of his words in favour of twitching towards the window, like if you just try hard enough you'll be able to tell exactly where the car is, what colour it is, what model it is. 

Cap paces tirelessly in front of the door all the while, whining low in his throat — even Steve can hear it, giving a: "C'mon, boy. Settle down, now." when he gets too loud. 

It feels like hours pass. It's only minutes, really, trying to convince yourself that you're overreacting and that they've probably turned away by now, but—

But this time, you're not imagining it — the beam of light that shines so closely it sweeps under the door, illuminating wood flooring and old couch fabric. Snow crunches loudly outside, too loudly, and—

"They — they're outside," you murmur, voice stilted with the sudden realization. "They didn't turn around."

"Don't answer the door," Steve says, stiff. His engine roars in the background. "I'm sure they're harmless, pup, but… just in case."

A car door slams just metres away, and Steve—

"I'm ten minutes away. Ten minutes, pup."

"It'll be okay," you say, trying to sound convincing — but you're cowering in front of the couch, now, peeking around it to watch the door. "M-maybe they're lost."

The porch creaks under the weight of a body.

"Just keep quiet," Steve instructs. "'m on my way—"

BANGBANGBANG!

"What the fuck," you whisper to yourself — whimper — shrinking down as far as you possibly can. You clutch the phone in your hands, knuckles paling—

"That's it," you hear Steve say distantly — his voice is shaking, so unlike his normal cadence. "Pup, go on and get my rifle—"

BANGBANGBANG!

"C'mon," calls the disfigured voice behind the door — raspy, low, but loud. Dangerous.

Familiar.

"I know you're in there," it continues, and this time you really do think you'll get sick — stomach swooping and twisting in such a way that makes your throat lurch. "I've been watching, omega."

Omega.

Tears prick at your eyes.

"I know who it is," you say quietly. Your voice is thin, reedy; ready at the slightest of cracks to break and shatter. You can't muster anything louder, anything stronger, because if you do you know you'll start sobbing.

It's your worst nightmare. It's supposed to only be a nightmare, and yet—

"It's… it's Brock."

"_____," says Steve — firm, serious— "My rifle, you know where it is. Y'remember how to load it?"

"Yeah," you hear yourself say. "I remember."

"Need you to load it for me, bub. Need you to do that for me now."

"O...kay."

You don't really remember standing; you don't really remember unlocking the cupboard near the table and taking out his gun, the door rattling on its hinges with every thump. You don't remember loading a cartridge into the rifle, or settling against the back of the couch, facing the door. It's like you only come to when the door really begins to creak, the unrelenting slam of Brock's body against it getting the best of it.

"Five minutes," Steve's muttering, and you can imagine him now — foot pressed down on the gas pedal as much as the slippery roads will allow, fingers clutching the steering wheel, jaw set. "Gimme five minutes, pup—"

But Brock will take less than five minutes. You can tell — especially when something in the door gives a massive crunch and an oddly shaped dent pops in towards you, rounded and bulbous. Cap's barks have gotten terribly loud — echoing, resounding things —, his hackles raised and his posture low and threatening. He's rooted himself firmly in front of you, but even the dog's bulky frame doesn't help your shaking hands—

There's a broken grunt outside, and the door's hinges finally seem to falter and break with a pathetic snapping sound — you realise with a start that you're not breathing, tearing a bloody hole into your lips with your teeth. Steve's yelling in the receiver — something about shooting, not being afraid to shoot, you think — but your ears are filled with rushing blood, and your eyes have finally met his.

Brock smiles a terrible, wide smile — a level of joy on his face that you've never had the displeasure of seeing. It's terrifying in the same way that all too-large smiles are on bad people — and Brock is a bad, bad man.

"There she is," Brock coos, stomping at the half-broken door. He steps over the jagged edges of it, heavy boots hitting Steve’s hardwood floors, and is greeted by a low, rumbling growl. Cap's bearing his teeth, hackles and shoulders raised, and you see Brock's lip twitch downwards. The same look he has before he hits, before he curses, before he spits.

"Cap!" You call with what's left of the air in your lungs. "C—c'mon over, Cap."

Cap doesn’t move. His eyes are focused only on the intruder, his ears focused on Steve’s panicked voice crackling through the phone.

"Please, boy," you continue, panic building in your chest. You know what Brock will do to him if he keeps protecting you, and you know he's only got so much patience. The lump in your throat grows to a painful degree; it pairs with the burning in your eyes and nose. "Please, Cap, c'mere."

A few seconds pass. Your eyes flicker anxiously between your stubborn dog and the man who's prepared to hurt him — or worse.

But Cap seems to register the upset in your voice, finally — he scrambles over to you, nudging at your neck and the salt on your cheeks. His large, watery eyes remain focused on Brock all the while.

"Look at that," Brock says, voice amused. "Got 'im wrapped around your finger, dontcha?" His eyes travel down. They stop on the gun in your hands, and his smile widens into something cruel, something patronising.  "Not gonna shoot me with that, are you, ‘mega?"

The way he says it makes you fucking—

It makes you sick. It makes you viscerally feel like you could puke. It’s a disgust that crawls under your skin and pulls at your finger nails and scratches at your back and you’re so fucking angry because who the fuck does he think he is?

He’s stepped all over you for too long. He’s been aided and abetted by the people meant to protect you. Followed you across the country because he thinks you’re a commodity to be taken, a challenge to be conquered. Haunted you. Hurt you. Terrified you. Existed like a boogeyman in the back of your brain, his shadow cast over every move you made. Your fear stands hand in hand with a deep, all-consuming fury.

“Gotta say,” Brock continues, “I’m a bit disappointed in you. Got me runnin’ up and down the country like a madman, omega.”

He keeps his voice casual, but it’s so clearly forced — his scent is bitter and acrid, all diesel and rot, his anger and disappointment and self-pity pushing out towards you in a thick, inescapable wave. His fingers tense and curl at his sides, limbs stiff, and when he steps forward towards you his head tilts to the side — like he’s just that irritated, that angry at you that he can’t even properly control his body.

The gun in your hand seems to buzz alive. Brock’s not even scared of it — hasn’t spared it more than a cursory glance. He really, completely thinks you’d go with him without a fight. He truly thinks you that weak.

“Where have your manners gone? Not gonna apologise?”

You have the means to do it. You could pull the trigger right now and be done with it, with him. The bang would hurt your ears; the recoil would hurt your shoulders and arms. But you’d be free, finally. No more looking over your shoulder, or wondering whether he’s caught up with you, or being afraid of dark roads and dark corners.

(Aside, you hear the faint crunch of gravel on Steve’s end. He’s gone completely quiet — probably doesn’t want Brock to know exactly how far away he is — but you know that he’s off the main road, at least. He shouldn’t be more than 2 minutes, by now, especially with the way you can guess he’s driving—)

You’d have a good case for self-defence. Enough evidence to be protected. It’d be gossip for two weeks, maybe three, and then the world would continue on and you’d just be another story in an ocean of billions. You could continue on living like you are, go to school, work, come home to a warm home and a man who loves you for you — continue on in your love-filled, pleasure-ridden haze, the happiest you’ve ever been. All it would take is…

Your fingers tremble.

“I don’t think I misspoke, runt,” Brock yells — a sudden, jarring thing, punctuated by a whip-fast kick of his leg against the leg of the coffee table. The carefully balanced pile of books sitting at the edge topples to the ground, and the wood creaks. “You have ruined everything! Everything! One fucking job to do, and you couldn’t even do that right!”

Face flushed red, lips dripping with spittle like a feral dog, Brock’s chest heaves — he stares at you with those terrifying, manic eyes. Expectant. Where’s your apology, omega?

“I… I…”

Trigger. 

Pull. 

Cap sniffles beside you, hackles still raised. 

In the distance, the sound of a rumbling, familiar engine.

“I’m going to school,” you say — and you don’t know where it comes from, this sudden incessant need to show him up, to brag, to shove it in his face — I’m doing everything you never wanted me to. I’m living. I’m free. I’m my own person. Your lips split in a watery, nerve-ridden smile. “I’m going to school, and I have my own savings, and… I… fucking hate being called omega.”

In the few seconds it takes for him to register your words, his face goes so red it’s almost purple, eyes opened so furiously wide that they look like they could pop out from his orbital bone. “You fucking—!”

Brock lunges forward, hands posed to tighten around your throat — your finger tenses and presses down on the trigger at the same time you squeeze your eyes shut—

The shot reverberates — explodes, fucking detonates, and your ears completely cloud over. The entire house goes still, dead-quiet, ghost-like; the length of the gun clutched in your hands swims in and out of your vision, little ribbons of smoke wafting up from the end of the barrel. It’s almost peaceful — would be, if not for the deep, unerring feeling of anxiety sitting in your stomach. 

And then, all at once, like rapids in a river — a high, whining type of screech, a heavy tension in your forehead, and an ache in your shoulders. With that, sound begins to belatedly return to you. Panicked barks. The distant whistle of wind and the rustle of leaves, the sound of a truck trundling closer and closer.

Oh. The gun. You'd just shot it. 

The first (and perhaps the only) thing you can bring yourself to do is drop the gun, and reach shakily for the skittering pup nosing at your cheek — he'd been halfway to sprinting out the door, bless him, but stayed back to fret over you. Loyal to a fault. "It's okay, it's okay — it's not gonna happen again, just that once, promise…"

Past Cap's snout bumping at your cheekbones, you take in the damage you'd done. 

Purposefully (or not), your arm had jolted at the last second. The ammo had only grazed Brock — mostly hit the wall beside the door, you’d have to apologise for that later — but what damage it did do had hurt him, obviously. He lays slumped against the doorway, now, hands pulling at his shirt to expose his bloodied midriff — pocked, leaking holes where the pellets had hit him. Snarls turned to pained groans. Hisses turned to whines. Posturing, swaggering narcissist reduced to a pathetic puddle.

Maybe letting him live is too much of a mercy. Maybe he has done too much bad to too many people to deserve another day — but you’re not putting that choice on your own shoulders. It would only be another thing to haunt you, and… and you’re not sure whether you really could, to be honest. Not even the burning hatred you have for him would make you kill. Plus, you're content with having him rot in a cell for the rest of his life—

Steve’s truck comes to a screeching halt right in front of the house, narrowly missing the porch. He doesn’t bother closing the door after him — just jumps right out, the truck barely put in park, and sprints in so frantically you almost panic again—

“_____,” he breathes — eyes flickering between Brock, the broken door, the bullet holes, you. His steps falter only for a second before he’s stepping over the shards of wood that jut up from the doorframe, bypassing Brock without so much as a glance in his direction. “Hey, hey — look, it’s okay, yeah? C’mere, let me look at you—”

—but you can’t panic again, because he’s here. You see those familiar snow boots, and you smell that woody, aromatic scent — albeit marred with bitterness — and your muscles relax. The adrenaline begins to wear off; the energetic shakiness that had permeated your fingers and your limbs dissipates, and you’re left with only a bone-deep fatigue. Steve kneels down beside you and takes your hands in his, hesitant, like he’s scared you’ll spook and bolt.

“You’re okay.” And his breath trembles as he says it. He murmurs it over and over again, more to himself than anything, bringing your hands up to meet his lips. “Look, you’re fine. Not a scratch on you.”

His knuckles nudge your chin up so that you can meet his eyes; and when your lip wobbles and your eyes begin to sting — (traitorously, because you’re not all too sad anymore, just riddled with residual fear) — he only coos your name and takes you up in his arms. You’d burrow yourself against him forever if you could. You don’t think you’ve ever felt safer, nose dug into the thick fabric of his jacket, eyes screwed shut — his boots crunching over wood, over glass, and then over gravel as he steps outside. It’s only when you’re set down in the back seat of his truck that you open your eyes again.

“I’d stay here with you if I could,” Steve begins, shrugging off his jacket, “But I gotta deal with that piece of shit inside and call the police, okay? Hey, Cap! C’mon in here!” 

He begins tucking the jacket around you — and then, when that’s done, reaching for the blanket he keeps in the back as well. The most you can do is hug Cap close and let yourself be swaddled, sniffling. “Can’t we just — just stay here?”

Steve’s brow dimples with a frown; his hands freeze at their place around your shoulders, face displeased. “We need to make sure he won’t be able to hurt you anymore, pup. It’ll only be for a little while, okay? Just need to make sure he can’t do anything.”

“O…okay.”

A small flicker of a smile. “Atta girl. C’mere—” A short, sweet peck upon your lips, and you let yourself revel in the closeness for a second. “Love you. I’ll be back in a second. Turn on the radio and the heating, okay?”

“I will.” 

He gives you another kiss, and then he closes the door behind him. His footsteps are muffled through the glass, his movements even moreso, but you hear when he reenters the house. You’re not sure you want to hear whatever else he may be doing — you can guess that Brock will probably have a few new injuries by time he’s done with him —, so you take his advice and switch on the radio, and turn on the heating while you’re at it. 

Warm, bundled up in blankets, the pleasant weight of Cap atop your lap, it all suddenly sets in. In any other situation you would laugh, or cry, or do something at least — but presently, all you can do is blink and stare at a water stain on the windscreen and replay everything that happened in your head, over and over again. On the outside you’re still, but on the inside your mind is in turmoil.

The fear of hearing Brock get closer and closer still lingers in the tips of your fingers, like a shark dragging itself after its prey. The nausea that had crawled into your throat as the door was being kicked down is sour on your tongue — and then the utterly heart-stopping sight of Brock in the doorway, you know it’ll be imprinted on your retinas forever. The first sight of him in months and months and months, with his wild eyes and downturned lips. A nightmare. A phantom.

But no, he’s no phantom — he’s a man. He doesn’t lurk in shadows, he commands no frightful power. You shot Brock, you hurt him. And Steve’s here and the police are being called and there’s no other shoe to drop — there’s no rug to pull out from under you. There is no fanfare and sirens and dramatic swelling of music like you’d feared — just a strange stillness, and the tinkle of ABBA from the radio.

This is it. It’s over.

What the fuck. 

The police station is about one-quarter of the size of the town Walmart — boxy, brown, and most definitely built (and last renovated) in the 80s. After giving your witness statement, you're left to sit outside the Sheriff's office with a watered down hot chocolate. You can see Steve's silhouette through the frosted glass.

Steve had known the Sheriff for years, apparently. There was a year between them in highschool, their parents were pretty close, and sometimes they'd share a drink at the Jester if they were there at the same time — all in all, the Sheriff preferred to take care of the situation quietly and calmly.

And, well, while Brock kidnapping you wouldn't have technically been illegal because of the deal made by your parents, he had quite literally kicked in Steve's door and trespassed on his property with intent to harm. So things are looking dim for him. 

You take another sip of your lukewarm hot chocolate, kicking your feet back and forth. You’ve taken to burying your nose in the collar of Steve’s jacket every few minutes, still carrying the last dregs of stress in the pit of your stomach. Even after being assured by the Sheriff himself and Steve, you can’t shake the feeling of waiting. It’s muscle memory at this point to expect the worst is still looming over your head — and it’s irritating, you know? Because for months you’d settled into this routine of comfort and happiness and simplicity, and you’d gotten used to not looking over your shoulder, and… and in one single day, all of it had been turned on its head. Something in your brain is telling you that there’s a loophole, a clause, some fine print that you’d missed—

Distantly, a door slams closed, and the secretary totters across the hallway to some other room. You inhale, and wriggle about in your seat; you feel your toes pressing into the soles of your shoes and your feet flat against the floor. You feel your back against the chair and the pressure of the seat against your bottom.

Present. Stay present. Stay grounded. Whether or not Brock is put away isn’t completely out of your hands, but there’s no sense in worrying yourself dizzy over it right now. You’ve given your statement, you’ve been honest and truthful, and for now there’s nothing more to do except sip your watery drink and wait for Steve to be finished. Then you'll… well, you can't exactly go home, can you? Not with the bullet holes and shattered door and whatnot.

Beside you, Cap grunts. He sits obediently at your side, chin propped up upon your thigh, eyes half-lidded. He's pouting because he's not allowed to play, but technically he shouldn't be in here anyways so you're doing your best to not buy into his sulking. Still — when you see the Sheriff and Steve stand, their blurry figures shaking hands over the desk, you reach over to pet at his silky soft ears, apprehension staining your stomach.

"It's been a long day, bud," you whisper. "You were so brave. Need to get some treats, don't we?"

An agreeable huff, and he nudges his nose against your palm. You focus on the dewiness of his snout as Steve and the Sheriff finally stand before you.

"Good news and bad news," Steve announces, hands on his hips. He's chewing the inside of his cheek, and you find yourself mirroring him. "Well — depends on what you think is bad."

“Brock’ll at least be goin’ away for breaking and entering and property damage,” says the Sheriff. “But he could be released on bail.”

“You're kidding."

“But,” interjects Steve, casting the Sheriff a careful look, “if we can get Brock put away for anything, it’ll be stalking and intent to harm.”

"But… but I thought the contract with my parents—?”

“That’s the thing. It’s null and void,” says the Sheriff, “if you’re mated to someone else.”

Your confusion only stews.  “But I’m…"

"Happily mated, from what I hear," the Sheriff interrupts loudly, clearing his throat. "And that’s all I need to know to sign off on it. You two best get going —  'm sure y'all wanna rest up."

"I—" Your head is reeling— "Yeah, I guess we should. Um, thank you, Sheriff." 

"Not a problem." He spares a firm handshake and a pat on the back for Steve, before he turns and waltzes back into his office, the door closed and the blurred arm of his silhouette reaching for the landline.

"That was… nice of him," you say, watching Steve's face clearly as he kneels before you, readjusting Cap's collar. "To say that we're — y'know."

"It was," Steve hums. His fingers come to a natural stop; he tilts his head to the side and regards you with those eyes of his. "I mean, it already feels like we're—"

Mated. Because you basically are, aren't you? You care for each other too deeply and too wholly for it to be anything else. Each block of support and trust and love has been built upon steady, stable foundations. Hard-earned transparency and honesty were the beams that held everything in place.

"It does, doesn't it?" You say — and you don’t fully mean for it to come out the way it does, all sugar soft and quiet, whispered into the small space between you, and it smells like watery hot chocolate and old leather and pine needles. 

But it does come out that way. It does. And you look down at this man that has done so much for you and you don’t really care, not really, especially when this little bashful smile tugs at his lips and his eyes twinkle a little and he has to avert his gaze because he's flushing red.

Things are going to be okay. There doesn't need to be a heart-stopping climax, or a gut-wrenching twist. There doesn't need to be a rug to pull, or a boot to drop.

The sun shines through a window and casts shapes on the floor, and Steve's hand is planted on your knee, and things are going to be okay.

(Bonus scene.

"Y'ready?"

"Yes."

"Y'got your gown?"

You shake your arm pointedly, eyeing the carefully pressed pile of fabric laid over your elbow. "Yes, Steve."

"And your cap? Did you find it—?"

It's with a snort that you reach up to cup Steve's face, the rough bristles familiar and scratchy against your palms. "It's in my bag, Steve. You're more worried than I am."

Oh, his scent is an amalgamation of things today; the sweetest you've ever smelled it, musky with pride, but his anxiety tinges it with a sourness. It's not unbearable — in fact, his nerves are quite sweet — but you rise to press your lips against his cheek anyways, feeling his shoulders slump slightly as he lets himself relax a little.

“Want it to be perfect for ya,” you hear muffled against your shoulder, two warm arms winding ‘round your waist. “Y’worked so hard to get here, pup—”

“I’m just happy to have gotten this far,” you say honestly — and for a moment, you let the nervous energy fizzling in your chest die down, and you lean forward against him like he does you. “I kinda never thought I’d get this far.”

It’s surreal. For four years you knew what you were working towards — all of those late nights, stress-filled exam seasons, sore fingers from typing so much, presentations and essays and work placements and—

You’re graduating. You’re graduating. You’ve got your cap and gown and you’re dressed in this clean little dress and you’ve got your makeup done and holy shit, you’re graduating in — you check your watch — an hour and a half. Surreal.

An amused huff sounds at your ear. “I’m so proud of you, y’know.”

“I know. You’ve said,” you tease. “Yesterday night at dinner, and this morning in the shower, and before I got dressed, and at breakfast, and—”

“Yeah, yeah, alright. Have your fun.” Another second passes, before he pulls back — baby blues travelling over the planes of your face, over the pressed collar of your dress and back up again. The fondness in his eyes is almost too much to bear — as used to it as you’ve gotten over the years, there’s always some part of you that will fluster at the sight of it. He’s so open about it, always. “We should get goin’, bub. Gotta make it there early, take pictures—”

Your nose wrinkles. “I was hoping you’d forgotten about those.”

“It won’t be so bad.” Absent-mindedly, he begins towards the back door — probably to get Cap back in before you both leave. “Could you fetch my jacket for me? Think it’s on the couch.”

“Mhm.”

Your shoes click and clack against the hardwood floors, all the way from the kitchen to the living room. Sure enough, there’s his jacket, thick and plush and complete with seemingly 100 different layers. You pick it up, slinging it over your shoulder, and that’s when you feel it—

Something hard in his pocket. Something hard, and — you reach over to squish it between your fingers — square. You cast a careful peek over your shoulder, but Steve’s still half out the door, calling for the dog. It won’t hurt to have a little look, will it?

Quickly and quietly, you fish the box out of his pocket, and your heart thuds loudly in your ears. It’s one of those black velvet ones — the fancy ones, y’know, the ones that house necklaces and bracelets and rings — and your fingers tremble as you pull open the hinged top. Sitting inside, snug inside the space made for it, is—

You snap it closed as quickly as you opened it, face red hot and hands shaking. 

Oh. 

Oh.

Your severe lack of discipline when it comes to your scent and your face are blindingly obvious as you both make your way to the car, Cap set up at home, bundled up in jackets with your cap and gown in your bag. Focusing too heavily on acting normally has you fumbling over your words; focusing too intently on reeling in the excitement and nervousness in your scent has your hands shaking. It’s a lose-lose situation that has you trembling in your seat as he backs out of the driveway. You feel his eyes on you every few moments, back and forth between you and the road, and you catch the tail-end of a smile on his lips when you risk a glance his way.

“What?”

“Hm?”

“You keep smiling,” you say, eyes narrowed. “What is it?”

Steve snorts, then — taps his fingers against the steering wheel, one hand coming up to rub along his whiskered jaw and hide one of those smiles again.

“Y’know,” he begins, “We’ve known each other for almost 6 years now, bub.”

Your stomach swoops — this sounds like… no, you’re not going to assume. Fingers tangled up in each other, toes flexed in your shoes, you breathe: “I know.”

“And I know when I put somethin’ in my pocket that you can’t help yourself.”

Your mouth gapes open. “I— I didn’t mean—”

But he’s not upset — in fact, Steve’s smile seems more satisfied than usual when he reaches over and nudges his knuckle against your chin. 

“Focus on today,” he only says. “The ring’s not goin’ anywhere, pup.”

And that’s that.)