#always warn for two steve rogerses!

[darsynia]

\o/ Thank you!! I have to laugh because as I was writing it, I was so immersed in the plans I had for it that I guess I just didn't think about how awesome it would be to have them BOTH THERE?? So then it hit me around chapter 2 and I did indeed kind of scream in the corner for a bit. VALID GIF is what I'm saying 💚

((I did a search for 'chris evans scream' and... I don't know what I expected, but this is a JOURNEY))

Just Right | Ch 1

(Steve Rogers/F!Reader, post-Ultron multi-chapter)

gif by @dailystevegifs

Summary:

You've been in love with Steve Rogers for at least a year, but he treats you the same way he treats every other member of the team-- with respect, but nothing more. It takes an inter-dimensional mistake and a whole second, more assertive, actually interested Steve for you to realize that you don't want just any version of Steve Rogers-- you want the one you've been pining for all this time.

Length: 2,998

FIC MASTERLIST | NEXT CHAPTER | MCU MASTERLIST

Ok so the thing is, I adore @ronearoundblindly, and I decided to write her this. The idea I got also very happily fits with my Avengers Bingo square of 'Is it permanent?' It's not my first Steve fic, but it is my first Steve/Reader! I hope you like it Ro.

Reader's nickname 'Dine is pronounced 'Dean.'

Chapter One

You simply can’t believe this is happening.

Fifteen minutes ago, while you were going over proposed alterations to Sam Wilson’s Falcon suit, a person who looked exactly like Steve Rogers walked through the wall right beside you.

“Oh my God!” you’d immediately said. “Do not tell me that Stark created some kind of matter splitter that lets a person walk through walls, please? I live here. I don’t want to put alarm lasers in my bathroom, but I’ll do it!”

Steve had looked behind him at the solid wall and seemed surprised. “I’m sorry miss, but just a second ago, that was a doorway.”

“If you two are trying to distract me out of noticing that the controls for Redwing are different, it’s not going to work!” Sam said, his focus remaining on the sketch you’d mocked up for him.

You’d looked back over to Steve, and that’s when you noticed that something was… off. First of all, you hadn’t designed that uniform, but he did have a few vintage ones still floating around. Second of all, his hair was longer than it had been the previous day at the monthly midday meeting.

The third difference was the way he was looking at you. Admiringly. Something he’d never done before-- you would have noticed. 

Sam asked a question about one of the altered features, and as you went through your explanation, you’d kept an eye on the way Steve was wandering through the large room. He seemed to be growing more and more confused, picking up an item to frown at it, walking around one of the free-standing computer terminals, and generally seeming lost. More than once, you’d caught him looking over at you in confusion.

With alarm bells going off in your head, you had made a decision. “You know what, Sam, I think I just caught a problem with this. Can I fix that and have you go back over it tonight, after the dinner thing?”

“Sure, ‘Dine. How many wings did you sign up for?” Sam had said challengingly.

“Oh no you don’t! That’s confidential information. Not as many as you, that’s all I’ll say.”

“You know it. See ya, Steve,” he’d said on his way out. You’d walked along with him, and once Sam was through the door, you hit a very specific button on the panel next to it.

“I think you know I could probably break through any one of these walls,” Not-Quite-Steve said from across the room. He sounded regretful.

“I mean, you could try, but this room is fortified. We test prototypes here, and not every invention behaves as expected,” you’d replied, a little proud of your deliberate double meaning. The button had sent an alert to just Stark, for now, but it also turned on a live recording of the whole room, displayed in certain spaces all throughout the complex.

“That’s why there are no windows,” Faux-Steve observed calmly. “Basement of the tower?”

You had willed yourself not to react to that. After the disaster with Ultron, after losing Bruce to fury and almost losing Stark to guilt, they’d all moved upstate, away from the bad memories. Was this Steve from their past or a whole other future? Was he really Steve at all?

“What were you doing right before you came here?” you asked, walking slowly over to the locker area. You’d probably fit into a few of the things there, if you had to.

“Arguing with Tony over something I thought he shouldn’t be doing.” He’d offered her a thin smile and slipped his hands into his pockets, like that would make him seem less dangerous. You knew better. “Look, whatever it was, it sent me here, and this ‘here’ isn’t my here.”

Natasha had taught you never to give too much away. “Oh?”

“My ‘here’ doesn’t have--” 

Before Fake Steve could finish his sentence, Stark burst into the room completely suited up, and things had gotten chaotic from there. 

You’re on your way up to one of the open office rooms to write down everything you can remember, but as you get closer to the correct floor, you slow down. You have a bit of a dilemma, and no amount of reassuring yourself is helping.

The sticking point is how you realized something was wrong, what first made you recognize a discrepancy. The longer hair thing will probably be enough, but it isn’t the whole truth. You don’t want to reveal the whole truth, because the whole truth involves something you’ve kept to yourself for over a year.

The real truth is you are head over heels in love with Steve Rogers. Your Steve Rogers, except he isn’t yours. He’s never looked at you the way this one just did.

You haven’t let that be a problem, of course. You’re in your dream job; after being in armor fabrication and development at Stark Industries for years, you’d been recruited by Tony Stark himself to work with the Avengers. It’s been a genuine pleasure creating individual designs that are tailored to each fighter’s strengths and weaknesses, instead of the mass-produced stuff you’d worked on for Stark Industries. 

You’d tried hard not to let yourself show any favoritism, after you’d realized your crush on Steve wasn’t going away. You don’t even call him Steve, except in your own head-- but all of that is at risk right now. You’re tuned to indifference, and the open interest you’d caught a glimpse of today is sending your senses reeling.

“Hey, ‘Dine. Tony sent me up to make sure you’re okay, said you looked a little shaken up.” It’s Natasha, and she’s coming your way down the hall. Now you’re even more shaken, because if Stark noticed, Nat sure as hell will.

“I need to write this shit down, but yeah, a little bit,” you admit. “It’s like if instead of Vision, the model in the cradle was Rogers, and they got him 95% right.” With a 5% ��thinks I’m cute’ flaw, you don’t say aloud.

Nat follows you inside and stands waiting as you busy yourself with finding an incident report and the exact right pen. You handle it right up until you start writing your name and her shadow darkens the rest of the paper.

“Something you need?”

“You’re freaked out.”

“Well, yeah. If an interdimensional version of St-- Rogers is able to stroll into our test room, we’re going to need some equally interdimensional protections for this place, not to mention a thousand thousand other important locations all across the country!” You’d just picked something out of midair to bluff her, but it’s the truth, and now you’re even more worried. You set down the pen and look up at Natasha. “What if they need him, Nat? What if we can’t send him back?”

“If it’s something Tony built, Tony can build it,” she says pragmatically. “One worry at a time.”

“There she is!”

You’re late to the gathering, and you’re going to have to make up an excuse, because the forty-five minutes you spent dithering over your clothing choices had everything to do with the image you wanted to present tonight. You ended up going with something casual, dressed-down, because as much as you’d felt a little thrill at the way Alternate Steve had looked at you, it had been disconcerting and alien. No way did you want to foster more of that.

You look up and smile weakly at Sam-- until you remember something. “Shit, Sam, your thing! I’m so sorry, I didn’t go back in the room after--”

He comes over and slings an arm around your shoulders, comfort bred by familiarity. “No, I get it. Don’t worry, manufacture isn’t set for another week.”

You relax into the hug, slip a hand around his waist and squeeze before both of you let go. “It’s just that I promised--” This time it’s Sam’s expression that interrupts you.

“You know you design this stuff, you don’t have to act like armor yourself, right? You sensed something right away, didn’t you? And you got me out of the room.”

Stark’s loud, defensive voice cuts through your mumbled explanation.

“-veryone’s giving me shit over this, but I’m not the one who screwed up! And I’m the one who’s going to fix it, so lay blame on the correct Stark! Who is, for once, not me.” He’s been making his way over to you to thrust your favorite beer in your hand without asking. You look around for Sam, but he’s gone. “If anyone should be mad, it’s ‘Dine,” he shouts over his shoulder. In a quieter voice he adds, “Don’t tell them I said this, Brigandine, but I apologize on behalf of my bumbling alternate universe counterpart. Who knows what kind of weird traits IMPOST-Steve has that our version doesn’t!”

You already feel sick, and you haven’t drunk or eaten anything yet.

Stark drags you over to the catered wings and fills a plate for you without paying much attention to the cues you’re trying to give him, which is tipsy-typical. Honestly, you’re kind of grateful; with a plate piled high you’ll have every excuse to focus on your meal instead of the cluster around the Steves. Your gregarious boss at least carries it for you, and you indicate the farthest table. This earns you a bit of a concerned look, but you just clink your beer against his and tell him to shoo.

It’s interesting watching the seemingly identical men holding position, holding court, really, as the various Avengers and associated staff ebb and flow around them. It takes a good hour (and half of your plate) for each person to get some time with the newcomer, after which the lights dim a bit, along with everyone’s senses. This is the open-bar payment for the all-hands monthly midday meeting of the day before. Not all the attendees actually live at the compound; you only see the whole team once a month.

With the lights down low, your corner is practically dark, but when a familiar figure approaches, you know who it has to be.

“Have they settled on a name for you yet?”

“Tony seems to favor ‘Major America,’ which is better than I would have expected,” Not-Steve says as he pulls out a chair and settles into it. He turns his head toward you and smiles, the relaxed, almost-flirty kind you’ve always wanted from him. “I get the feeling that if it weren’t for the contrast in uniforms, most of these people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”

You make a non-committal noise and finish off your beer. It takes a few gulps, but he just watches, like there’s anything more to see than an anxious, embarrassed woman incredibly out of her depth.

“What about you?” you ask, afterwards.

“Well, we don’t have this complex, which I think I gave away when we met the first time. Tony asked me not to go too deep into the changes--”

“No, no, I get it,” you interrupt. “There could be something we don’t know about yet.”

“And vice versa, yeah. It might have taken longer for me to figure things out if it weren’t for one of the biggest differences. I’ve never seen you before.”

The half-bottle of alcohol hits you just as he says that, and you stare at him.

“Yeah, seeing Sam so comfortable with a complete stranger in a room that strangers probably shouldn’t be allowed in ticked some ‘danger’ boxes for me,” AU Steve says. 

The light from the only nearby lamp edges his profile in yellow, and you decide to call him Gold Steve in your head, because ‘AU’ is the periodic table symbol for gold, and that’s what passes for clever for you right now. You’re so proud of this that you miss the next thing he says, and have to ask him to repeat it.

“I said, how did you know? You knew right away.”

“Your hair is longer,” you say, a little too quickly.

Gold Steve tips his head sideways and regards you with a look that amplifies your blood alcohol content to dangerous levels. “It’s a subtle difference. You noticed that?”

“For all you know, it’s my job to keep everyone up to regs,” you joke. 

His slow, easy smile is familiar enough, but for the fact that you’re alone together in a dark corner. “I wouldn’t mind that at all,” he says warmly.

It’s time to get out of here before your lost dignity is your only legacy here at the Avengers compound. Already the tipsy feeling is fading, but the Steve Proximity Alarm is blaring at full volume.

You didn’t actually know how accurate the thought was until Gold Steve stands and gallantly (bafflingly) offers his arm, and you hear a second familiar voice behind you.

“I don’t think that’s necessary, is it? She just had the one beer.”

Gold Steve reaches up to rub the back of his neck, clearly chastened. “No, of course. Just instinct, I guess.”

“This is above my pay grade,” you squeak, and set off toward the door. You’d been looking forward to talking to Clint while he’s here. There’s a containment idea you’d had for some of his more dangerous arrows-- but there’s no way in hell you’re staying around to watch Steve Rogers talk Steve Rogers out of paying attention to you.

As you slip through the door, you hear one of them call out, “‘Dine, wait!” but you have no idea which one of them it is.

The next day brings with it a more detailed plan of what to do with Gold Steve. You’re on the periphery and busy with the planned upgrades to Sam and Clint’s gear, so you only hear about it at lunch. 

From Gold Steve himself.

You hadn’t even planned to go to the cafeteria area, but as always, your minifridge is sadly devoid of take-out when it really matters. The kitchen looks safe when you get there at two PM, late as usual, but in your defense, you were really caught up in the creative process. 

One of the things you love about the Avengers Compound is the random thoughtfulness scattered everywhere. In the cavernous freezer, there’s always a supply of various frozen meals, almost as if you were living back at home and digging in your mom’s fridge to find something she’d made two months ago. They’re made biweekly but eaten any old time, and you score a hit on the back bottom shelf: your very favorite hearty soup.

You’re mid-microwave with it when Gold Steve walks in to rinse out his bowl. Seems he’d made the same exact thing. You wonder who helped him, where that person is now, and why Stark had thought it necessary to design a kitchen with only one way in or out. Hasn’t he ever seen Jurassic Park?

“Oh, hello,” Gold Steve says. You aren’t looking over at him, but you can hear the smile in his voice. You don’t answer right away (because your brain is running through a fragmented list of things to say, and every time you grab one it’s garbled. ‘Soup is for the winter,’ is right out. ‘It’s nice to not expecting to see you here’ makes you nearly abandon the kitchen and push past him out of sheer desperation), and he fills the silence for you. “Oh, that smells familiar, is it the soup?”

You nod, hoping like hell that his version of Tony Stark hasn’t designed telepathy.

“Maybe it’s bad form to joke about it, but I wouldn’t mind taking that recipe back with me. If we figure out how to send me, of course.”

If this was your Steve you would have said something like, ‘I imagine we’d just write it down and put the notecard in your pocket.’ You do joke with the guy, it’s not like you never interact. It’s just that those interactions are as platonic as two houseplants sitting on the same indoor windowsill.

The microwave dings, and you excuse yourself to grab the spoon over near where Gold Steve is standing. After a stir and a taste determines it needs more time, you grit your teeth and start the timer for another minute.

“I’m sorry I make you so uncomfortable, if you don’t mind my saying.”

“You don’t!” you lie, but Gold Steve’s crossed arms lay on the guilt too much to ignore. “I’m… not used to the attention,” you say delicately. His brows furrow, and somehow there are still forty more seconds on the timer before you can be saved by the bell. “She who is seen and not heard?”

“I don’t believe that for a second. Sam Wilson hugged you at that thing last night, you don’t get there by being seen and not heard.”

“Yeah, well, I’m one of the only people who love Redwing as much as he does,” you mutter.

To your delight and horror, Gold Steve comes over and rests a heavy hand on the microwave door, inches away from you. “I cannot imagine being in a room with you and not seeing you,” he says.

The traitorous microwave beeps loudly, startling you sideways into his arm for one shocking second. You back away, saying the first thing that comes to your head.

“Why?” You close your eyes tightly as you realize you’re basically asking for a run-down of compliments from the guy, rushing to say, “I don’t mean that. I mean, I do, but I’m just--” 

You hear the sounds of the microwave being operated, and confused, you just stand there with one hand clapped over your mouth, eyes closed. After two loud beeps and the start button, the microwave runs for a few seconds, beeping loudly again. It’s so unexpected that you open your eyes and see Gold Steve with an encouraging look on his face, one hand held out placatingly in your direction.

“Can we start over?” he asks.

Next chapter...