#but WOW! i streamed some of my attempts/me trying to build my meter.... it was 14 shifts

[crest-of-gautier]

trying to pursue a clear of triumvirate on hlm is such a humbling experience

[imhereforbvcky]

Bad Things

Summary: Steve’s question mark of a relationship is full of surprises. (wow could this be more vague?)

Prompt: Bad Things by Meiko

Warnings: Probably swearing, a lil pg-13 implied steaminess

Word Count: 1465

Author’s Note: JFC this took me forever and so many attempts. @redgillan I’m so sorry!! I can’t be trusted with limitless challenges. I’m so slow I can’t find the OP anymore and I don’t know how I was supposed to tag this or what the rules were... Thank you for being an actual angel and putting up with me.

Steve lay across the bed, head swimming in the bittersweet taste of “after.” The cool air drifted over his skin now like a soft kiss, cooling the traces of sweat that lingered there.

A feather light touch dusted over his eyelashes, pulling a smile to his lips, nearly even a laugh.

“What are you doing?” he chuckled.

“You have the most beautiful eyelashes,” she hummed, sweeping over them again.

This time he did laugh. “Not one of the things people usually notice about me.”

“Then I pity them.”

His smile lingered along with that sense of contentment that always seemed to settle over him when he shared moments like this with her. Or when he woke with her curled against his side. Or when he heard her slightly off-tune humming from the shower.

If it were up to him they'd stay like this all day. For days.

“I should go,” she whispered. Her lips soothed their mutual disappointment with slow, roving kisses against his heated skin.

“Mmmm. You could stay.”

He knew it was futile. His life didn't allow for more than stolen moments and hidden liaisons. Neither did hers.

The tickle of her hair drifting over his shoulder as she moved away from him was answer enough. She tried to placate him anyway. She hated that wounded look behind his lazy grin.

“You know I can’t,” she explained while she deftly hooked her bra behind her back. “I have a deposition, remember?”

He hadn't remembered but it hardly mattered. There was always something. Or nothing but the threat of something. And in Steve's world, that was reason enough.

Without further protest he savored the minutes they had left. He breathed in the smell of lavender still clinging to the sheets from her soap. His eyes followed delicate silk strings and buttery lace gliding over her skin as she dressed.

He thought of the way his hands moved over that skin. Of how her warm and yielding form molded in perfect contrast against his own rigid plains of muscle.

She stood as a beacon made just for him. Just to wake him from a world of work and duty and sacrifice. Just to jolt him back into the land of the living, only to leave as quickly as she came into it. Just to torture him with want; with hope.

Now padding to the entry of his apartment, she slid into a pair of sharp polished heels before turning back to her lover for a reluctant goodbye.

Steve pulled the dress shirt over his shoulders and gave it a firm shake to adjust its fit against his neck.

“You sure I can't convince you to come with me to Sam's barbeque?” Steve asked for the second time since Friday night. “It'll be casual. No pressure. Sam's starting to doubt you actually exist.”

She smiled, taking the edges of his button down into her hands and giving a swift tug.

“I like you. A lot.” She looked up at him with clear eyes and an honest smile. Her fingers worked to slowly button his shirt. “But it's not a good idea. I'm at the office more than I'm home and you drop everything and everyone when that phone rings.”

He hated that she was right. Clear blue eyes dropped to his hands curling around her waist as a sigh rolled through his lips.

“I love what we have here. I really like being with you.” Her eyes skimmed over his features, searching. “But neither of us are in a position to be sacrificing for love. So lets… enjoy this, whatever it is, without complicating it. Okay?”

He took another deep breath, measuring his response before speaking.

With the final button closed, her hands swept across his chest and down his shoulders. She took a reluctant but necessary step back.

“I really like you, Steve. If this arrangement still works for you, I’m here.” She leaned up on her toes to kiss his cheek. Her chest tightened around her lungs and she lingered for a moment, withholding her goodbye. Fearing it.

His hands curled around the back of her neck and held her there with an equal measure of apprehension.

“‘Til next time, then,” she murdered as she pulled away. The decision of when that next time would be now lay in Steve's hands.

“‘Til next time,” he repeated after her. It was a promise that at least, there would be one.

When Steve finally turned up at the compound two hours late for his standing morning jog with Sam, his friend had given him more than an earful. Truly exhausted from the teasing and the physical exertion he’d metered out in an effort to focus on anything but her, Steve collapsed on the couch in an empty great room with a deep sigh.

He rubbed the crease above his nose as he paged through the channels on the television. While his eyes lay on the screen, his mind was elsewhere, firmly stuck on the woman who held him so close and yet firmly at an arm’s length.

“You’d better pick something good. I have had one hell of a day.”

Tony crashed onto the other end of the couch with as little ceremony as possible. Steve peeled his eyes open at the sharp crack and hiss of a freshly unsealed beer.

“You look like it,” he smirked, crooked and jovial.

Tony nodded as he swallowed a long sip of beer and handed a can to Steve.

“Yeah, well. I spent the last 12 hours locked in a room with New York’s richest human tapeworm, five attorneys and a stenographer. What’s your excuse?”

“Lawsuit’s not going well?”

“Understatement of the century. Of course it would come from the resident centenarian,” Tony took another sip. “Their lead attorney is some… disaster relief specialist. Absolutely killing me with PR. This girl is kicking my ass. Is it in unethical to double her salary to switch teams and lead my defense?”

“How is that possible? You’re not responsible for damages caused by aliens,” Steve scoffed. He turned his attention back to the TV, passing channel after channel. Twenty-four hour news networks should be blocked in this compound. Nobody can relax when work is streaming into your living room in life sized high definition.

“That’s her!” Tony shouted, pointing at the TV with his beer. “How do I make her play nice?”

Steve laughed, searching for the unmute button. His heart stopped before his eyes even flicked back up to the screen. He knew that voice. Focusing on the face before him only made it drop into his gut.

He watched with a flagging chin as the reporter withdrew his microphone to lob another question her way.

“Is it true you’re suing The Avengers?? How does your client feel about going after what many would call heroes?”

“No, that’s an inaccurate claim. Our client is seeking reparations from multiple parties including Stark Industries for damage to their home and business – their livelihood – resulting from the incident involving the Avengers on May 4th of 2012.”

“Does your client blame the Avengers?” the reporter persisted, incredulous.

“Thank you!” Tony rolled his eyes, falling back into the couch.

Steve sat slack-jawed staring at her face on the screen. She looked so different than she had this morning.

This morning she was soft, warm. Comfort. She had been everything Steve had come to know of her, everything he wanted.

“That’s for a judge to decide.”

The woman on the screen before him had transformed into her exact opposite.

She was a statue of unshakable impassivity. Sharp features, determined eyes, her lips were drawn into a firm line. She stood resolute in the face of the barrage of questions.

Steve watched in awe, as the woman on the screen pushed through the sea of reporters, trying to make her way down the stairs of the sleek modern building. A shocked huff punched from his lungs when he realized he was sitting inside that very building. She was just downstairs and had never said a word.

“That was Y/F/N Y/L/N, an attorney for Bradford, Hale, & Associates leaving the Avenger’s compound. No doubt here hoping to work out a settlement for the law firm’s long-time client Oscorp, who claims their labs, and as we’ve just learned the owner’s residence, suffered significant damage following the events in New York City…”

Steve shoved himself up off of the couch with a sharp scowl hardening his features and moved quickly toward the wall of windows at the front of the building. From above, behind the safety of the darkened glass, his gaze followed the curling wave of reporters as they chased her to her car. For the second time that day he watched her slip away. The closest stranger.

Will reblog with tags shortly