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darsynia · 2 years ago

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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...

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darsynia · 2 years ago

Text

Just Right | Ch 2

(Steve Rogers x F!Reader, post-Ultron Multichapter)

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: 3,446

FIC MASTERLIST | LAST CHAPTER | NEXT CHAPTER

Dedicated to @ronearoundblindly who is the bestest

Excerpt:

“Starting out or just getting back?” Steve’s voice asks.

You smile without turning around. “Can’t you tell from the damp, bedraggled hair?”

“I would never think to comment on such a thing,” he says gallantly.

“A king among men,” you pronounce.

“If so, I’m an absent ruler.” His tone makes you turn to look over your shoulder. Steve’s looking down at the ground with a wistful look on his face. He’s wearing sweatpants and a tank top, and the hem of the latter is folded, giving you a glimpse of the jut of his hipbone above the low waistband of the sweats.

Your mouth goes dry before you turn back around, hoping he doesn’t mind if you have no idea what he just said.

Chapter Two

You stand there staring at Gold Steve for three whole seconds before your stomach growls loudly. Using the poker face Natasha taught you, you keep your expression and your gaze steady and get to watch as his attempt at ‘stoic’ starts to fracture.

“Go ahead,” you say, pressing your lips together to stop your own laughter. “It’s my own fault for waiting so long to eat.”

“I’m no hypocrite,” he says, backing up and bowing a hand toward the microwave. “I ate late, too. Got caught up with your Steve and Tony, trying to figure out the thought process that led Stark to invent the device that sent me here. They’ve got me a room and a badge for access, but until we get an inkling about how to reverse it, I’ll do what I can to help out your Steve.”

You clench your jaw ruthlessly to prevent a reaction to his repeated use of ‘your Steve,’ leaning to sniff your soup with the door of the microwave blocking his view of you. When you straighten back up, though, Gold Steve is standing there with oven mitts.

“It was pretty hot when I got mine out, and I’m guessing you don’t have any healing abilities.”

“Is that a fishing expedition, Rogers?”

He follows you out of the kitchen to a table, and hands you the spoon you forgot. “Well, you’re the only different thing I probably won’t risk unbalancing the universe to discover, so, yes.”

All of the previous heart-fluttering things he’s said to you suddenly lose all meaning. You choke out a weak-sounding “Oh,” and focus entirely on your soup, even though you’ve lost your appetite.

“I feel like I just watched a flower wilt in real time,” Gold Steve says, sitting down across from you. You desperately wish for a book you could hold up between you, anything to hide from the discerning look he’s giving you. Suddenly, he pulls in a sharp breath-- he’s just figured out why you’re upset. “That’s not what I--” Breaking off, he reaches his hand across the table, palm down, like a tiny little white flag begging for your attention.

You deliberately eat another spoonful of soup; you’re no one’s entertainment, least of all this oddly open version of the man you love. Infuriatingly, he doesn’t take the hint, but instead twiddles his fingers. It’s stubborn, ridiculous, and it works, damn him. You look up, but you refuse to smile.

“I implied you were an object of last resort.” You don’t let yourself move a muscle. He tips his head to the side slowly, sincerity arching his eyebrows as he says, “I promise you, that’s not the case.”

You’re suddenly possessed by some strange spirit of determined peacemaking. “It would make sense, wouldn’t it? You have no way of knowing what you could alter! If your version of Stark can send you across universal lines, even a casual comment might give ours any number of ideas.”

He’s nodding. “I’ll admit I’ve been locked down pretty tight since I got here.”

For a few glorious seconds, his phrasing reminds you of the specific close cut of his uniform pants from the day before. You’d never have been able to get away with a design like that! Everyone would have figured out your feelings immediately.

“So you’ve watched your words with everyone but me?”

Gold Steve’s little frown of acquiescence is familiar and bittersweet. “I deserved that. What I mean to say is, I got lucky that the person who’s different is you.”

You’d snuck another spoonful of soup as he was talking, and now you choke on it a little bit. “Oh my god, did you, like, lose a bet and have to take a pick-up lines course from the Anthony Edward Stark School of Superheroes Who Can’t Date Good and Want To Learn How To Do Other Things Good Too?”

You’re not sure what you were expecting as a reaction to that, but it wasn’t this. Gold Steve’s body tenses up visibly and he looks down, a distinct look of regret gracing his features.

“That was out of line, I’m sorry,” you whisper, getting up and rushing toward the kitchen with your mostly-uneaten bowl. You find the ziploc bag it was in previously, snag a sharpie, and put your name on it, so it’s not wasted. The soup you’ve already eaten is being broken down by your peculiar mix of remorse, worry, and stomach acids. When you shut the freezer door, you see that Gold Steve is standing in the doorway to the kitchen, a soft smile on his face.

“You didn’t need to run away. It was a good joke.”

“It was a harsh joke.”

“I deserved it,” he says, and when you scoff and move to rinse out your bowl, he elaborates. “I said I was sorry for making you uncomfortable, and then I did it again. You fought back. Seems fair to me.”

You mutter something about being a weirdo who can’t take a compliment, but he’s still Steve Rogers, so he pushes back on that, too.

“I’d ask you where you got the idea that it’s unusual or concerning for someone who looks like me to compliment you, but somehow I don’t think I need to,” he says gently.

“That’s gossip, and I have to get going,” you say. The expression on your face has to be forbidding, because Gold Steve moves out of the way and doesn’t stop you as you leave the kitchen.

Even though you have more time left for your break, you head toward your desk in the testing room. You feel a qualm of conscience, but the idea of talking about someone you care so deeply for behind his back, even with a version of himself… it makes you sick, truth or not.

You step into the darkened room, let the door fall shut, and lean up against the wall for a few minutes, letting your breathing patterns and anxious mind settle. It’s been less than twenty-four hours since Gold Steve walked into your universe, and you’re a mess. Sleep last night was restless, full of dreams you can’t remember except for the uneasy feeling you were left with when you woke up.

The unbalanced feeling just gets worse the more you talk to Gold Steve, and you’re terrified about what that means. Your feelings for Steve Rogers have increased steadily the longer you’ve known him, with no active encouragement. What does it mean that you are so disconcerted by his lookalike?

That thought will set your feet on another anxiety spiral, so you picture your favorite image of puppies and flick on the light.

Across the room, you see a tall figure leaning up against the wall. When the two of you make eye contact, he lifts his hand and does an embarrassed little wave.

“What the heck are you doing here in the dark, Rogers?” you ask, hoping like hell a) he’s the Steve from your universe, and b) if he isn’t, that you don’t have the power to somehow conjure a version of Steve just by thinking about him, because that could get really awkward really fast, especially at night.

“I had some time, thought I’d kill it making sure nothing comes walking through the walls in here again.”

“In the dark?”

He pushes off from the wall and shows you the cell phone in his hand. “Tony keeps giving me crap for not feeling entirely comfortable with these yet. Figured the dark might be disorienting for any intruder, at least until you came back.” You must look confused, because he adds, “I’d feel better if you weren’t alone in here, at least not until we make the room more secure.”

Your earlier concern prompts you to say, “Your counterpart let slip that they don’t have an Avengers Compound. Unless Stark was testing a dimensional portal in the middle of the woods in upstate New York, I doubt anyone else will pop up here.” Steve’s nodding, and impulsively, you add, “Given the number of security risks all over the world, we’d need to have about a million Captain Americas to cover them all!”

“That may be true, but I would want to go after a member of my team if they were lost like that,” he says, strolling to the middle of the room.

“And leave your universe without their Captain America?” you tease, settling in at your desk.

“I prefer to think of it as giving my teammate a better shot at getting back home. Speaking of which, Sam told me how you escorted him out, when the other guy showed up.”

Steve’s voice has gotten steadily closer, but you’ve been carefully arranging things at your desk as you listen, thus avoiding the look that’s probably on his face. Your desk faces the room instead of the wall, though, and he’s caught on. Steve walks over and stands directly in front of you, resting his hand on the object you were nervously adjusting. Your fingers are separated by barely a centimeter, and you realize you’re staring at their proximity when he clears his throat.

Reluctantly, you look up at him.

“You want to tell me why your first instinct was to get Sam out of there and handle things yourself?” His eyes are kind, and he does sound concerned, but he’s still questioning your judgment, and that raises your hackles a little.

Instead of just wishing he had more faith in your decision making process, you decide to show him why he should.

“Sam’s not a super soldier, and his armor isn’t stored in here, it’s in the armory. Following him over to the door got me close to the panic button without agitating the intruder,” you point out. “I imagine you watched the footage?” He nods thoughtfully, his posture straightening. “I walked straight from the door over to the lockers, where the prototypes are.” You leave it go at that, because you’re not trying to lecture him, just show you’re not trying to be a martyr.

He’s chuckling ruefully, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “Okay, point taken. I’m sorry I underestimated you.” The undercurrent of relief in his voice warms you.

“I don’t want a world without Sam Wilson any more than I’d want a world without Steve Rogers,” you say, just to twist the knife.

“Everyone’s contribution is important,” Steve emphasizes, and you avoid rolling your eyes. You were never one of the people worried about credit; every time something you made helps the person you made it for, that’s enough credit for you. “I’m sure he misses his team as much as they miss him. All of them,” he adds, nodding his chin in your direction as he backpedals to go stand with his back to the wall again.

“Not me,” you say breezily, pulling out a piece of sketch paper. Wanda Maximoff doesn’t have armor, and she probably doesn’t really want armor, but that doesn’t mean you can’t mock something up.

“‘Dine.” Steve sounds exasperated.

“I’m pulling your leg. He says I’m not in his universe.”

There’s silence for a long while, long enough that you look up from the spiky vest you’re idly sketching. Steve looks lost in thought, brows furrowed. You toy with the idea of trying to get him to leave, but decide against it. You’ve always wanted this space to feel like a comfortable, safe place to try new things. If Steve Rogers wants to guard you from an undetectable, unpreventable new threat, you’re fine with that.

That night you don’t have nightmares, but you do dream about Steve’s hands. It’s as if your brain has been hiding a photo album and is now excitedly showing you the result of a year’s work.

Steve running his hand along the chestpiece of the first armor you designed for him.

The crowbar that’s winched open your stuck elevator doors being replaced by Steve’s hands, which then wrench the doors wide with ease.

The moment when you realized you actually loved the man, as you stood nearby at a party and watched Steve run his hand through his hair, smiling at something Stark said.

Countless times when he’s gotten your attention with gentle fingers on the back of your hand, a knuckle tap on your desk, resting his hand next to yours on a railing, stretching his arm across the table to wiggle his fing--

You’d been laying in bed half-asleep, waiting for the alarm to go off, but now you’re wide awake-- because that last image? It’s Gold Steve.

“Absolutely not,” you say aloud. You draw the line at conflating the two. Groaning aloud, you realize what you’re going to have to do.

A week later, Stark’s pretty sure he’s onto something, which you only know about because Sam told you at the meeting you two had scheduled to finalize the changes to his gear. You’ve spent the whole week to yourself, not really on purpose, it just worked out that way. The feigned cold took care of a few days, and after that, you’d joked you were catching up on a tv series you’d been looking forward to. The strange part is, while you never really tried to see Steve every day, you usually did, and the longer it’s been, the more it feels like something’s missing.

Well, your minifridge is full of takeout leftovers, you’ve gotten two weeks’ worth of work done in half as much time, and your heart is full of stupid ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ bullshit, but at least you haven’t compromised your principles.

The weather today is supposed to be fantastic, so you get up early and lace up your trainers to take a dewy walk around the complex. You’re not a jogger per se, more of an ‘every three months, I forget why I’m not a jogger, and need a wheezing, limping reminder’ nature enthusiast.

You’re strolling along the back near the woods, reminding yourself how to breathe, when you see a figure jogging towards you. It doesn’t take long to recognize Steve in his typical work-out garb, those dark blue athletic pants and gray t-shirt. In full summer, he swaps to shorts (it’s around then that many of the compound staff find reasons to be outside around jogging time), but spring hasn’t quite shifted away from the bite of the winter wind yet.

Even though you’ve been deliberately avoiding the Steves, you slow your pace to prolong your moment of admiration. As it happens, he slows down too, and by the time you approach each other, your heart is full and your smile is genuine. It doesn’t hurt to be friendly to Gold Steve, and even though you hate to admit it, you do like the way he looks at you.

“Been awhile, Brigandine,” Gold Steve admonishes you, pulling up one leg behind himself to grab the foot and tug.

“Oh, I’m a slave to my stories,” you joke. When Stark had complained about your absences, Sam had told him which show you were knee-deep into, and ever since then, he’s been making soap opera jokes in texts and emails.

“Yeah, well, you’ve only got One Life To Live,” Gold Steve says seriously, and you both crack up. “You’re okay, though?” he asks once your giggles die down, and damn, there’s the longing again.

“Yeah, no worries,” you say. It isn’t until right now that you realize: it’s not like someone’s going to come get you when they figure out how to send this man home. “Had some things to think through, and this was a good time to do it.”

It’s the closest you’ve come to alluding to your feelings for ‘your Steve,’ and you feel like you can see understanding, if not full comprehension, in Gold Steve’s admiring expression. To deflect away from that potential awkwardness, you look around you, nodding toward the woods.

“I will completely lose my momentum if I stop now, but hey, enjoy this while you can, right? I was glad to hear from Sam that Stark might be close to a breakthrough. See ya!”

You smile and wave like a complete idiot, opting at the last minute for the steady jog for your ignoble exit, instead of trying to actually run. There’s a non-zero chance this man will turn around and see you fall against the wall after 200 feet and heroically come back to help, and at that point, you’ll be looking to invent an interdimensional portal to open up underneath your feet.

When you turn the corner, you allow yourself a single look back, and see to your surprise that Gold Steve is still in sight, having slowed to a light jog himself.

About twenty minutes later, you’ve done a whole circuit, and most of it has been at a pace faster than a slow walk. You grab the damp towel you’d left draped by the rear door and wipe off your face and neck. It feels great; it’s been resting in the shade, so the wetness is refreshing rather than gross.

Instead of heading right in, you enjoy the light breeze coming off the treeline and lean on the stone fence, letting its heat soak into you. The door opens behind you, and you hope like hell it’s not Nat; she caught you doing this once, last fall, and the routine she sent you through (‘come learn this with me, it’ll be fun’) taught you that you don’t have to know you have a muscle for it to hurt.

“Starting out or just getting back?” Steve’s voice asks.

You smile without turning around. “Can’t you tell from the damp, bedraggled hair?”

“I would never think to comment on such a thing,” he says gallantly.

“A king among men,” you pronounce.

Your mouth goes dry before you turn back around, hoping he doesn’t mind if you have no idea what he just said.

Steve mistakes your quick movement for unhappiness, it seems. “Sorry, it’s just-- I can’t help but imagine what they’re going through back there. Wondering where I am, inventing God knows what to get me back.”

Your entire blood volume crystalizes into ice at once, and you taste metal in your mouth. “What did you just say?”

Gold Steve (because, that’s who it is, there’s absolutely no doubt, which means… -!) comes over and leans a hip on the stone fence, facing you. “I know showing up here was an accident, but I feel responsible. There’s nothing I can do over here but take up space.” He looks down at his clothes and huffs out a frustrated breath. “Literally. I only fit into my own clothing.” He stops and leans over, slowly moving his hand back and forth about six inches away from your face. “Earth to Brigandine. You… do still call it ‘Earth’ here, right?”

“Very funny,” you say. “No, I’m-- I’m just… If just this once, my stupid he-- brain would shut up about the ways I’ve possibly screwed up, that would be great.” You widen your eyes and shrug, and the crinkled-eyes smile he offers in response makes that heart skip despite yourself. Which is the problem, the reason you were staying the heck away from these men. At least the words ‘head’ and ‘heart’ sound close enough that you haven’t given too much away. You hope. “Shit,” you sigh.

“Can I help?”

“Nope, not unless you want to tell me this is all a big prank involving you, yourself, and I, and I didn’t just mix the two of you up!” You pull the towel up from your shoulders and drape it over your face.

“Why would that be a--” Gold Steve falls silent. “Are you-- do you have feelings for him?”

You’d been hoping to avoid that question, but the thing that soothes it is that Gold Steve says ‘him.’ He knows that there are differences, he knows this isn’t his universe, and that’s how you know that there’s no trick. The Steve that you saw jogging earlier, the one who looked at you like someone beautiful? It was your Steve. The man you love.

Next chapter...

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