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Somewhere along the long, dwindling road of being on the run, you realize with decisive clarity that Steve Rogers is in love with you. It’s right there, woven into the moments, into the small things, in much the same way individual notes form a melody. It’s not an aria; the responsibility for all four of you is sitting on his shoulders like a heavy cloak, and that is enough to suffocate any grandeur from it. But it’s there, shining through like light shines through a curtain, like a song that starts playing in your head before you realize it’s echoing from somewhere. The warmth is shimmering, scattered, but still the rays reach you and stroke your face in gentle caress.
It’s there in the way he turns to look at you that when you choke a giggle, lounging on the motel bed and reading one of the hilariously bad fantasy novels Steve gets you for peanuts from second-hand bookstores, because he knows they make you laugh. And laughter is scarce, these days, so you scavenge for it like survivors roaming the wastelands, meticulously looking for a chance.
“What?”
“The knight’s shirt just strategically ripped off in an attack, and the badass assassin seductress heroine is spending time mid-battle ogling at his chiseled, sweat-glistening muscles trembling in the sunlight,” you laugh. “Come on. Hand-to-hand combat is way less sexy than they make it out to be.”
You set the book face downwards on the bed and roll to your side to look at Steve, and he is looking at you with a smile on his face. But it’s not the kind of smile you’d expect him to have as a reaction to bad prose. No, it is him looking at you and smiling like he’s just seen a particularly stubborn ray of sunshine peek through a thick comforter of clouds.
“I should ask Nat if that has ever happened to her,” you say. “I mean. SHIELD had plenty of hunks.”
“It’s your life expectancy,” Steve shrugs.
It’s there when you get into screaming matches with him somewhere in the nameless streets of the Bad Part Of Town. It doesn’t matter which town, because every town has one, and without fail, you go find them, taking whatever medical supplies you’ve managed to gather. Some of them come from volunteer organizations and others from the drop points all over the world you know the locations of. It’s a risk, but you know how the system works – in another life, they were your handprint, your legacy, and now they’re not your salvation, but someone else’s. You don’t wear a white coat or a fancy title these days, but your hands still know what to do, and you do what you can with the little you’ve got. Such is the world these days, but it helps to help.
Steve tells you, repeatedly, that you can’t save everyone, no one can, and if you get caught or killed, it’s going to make all of you crash and burn. He goes to ridiculous extents to shadow you once he realizes you’re preparing to go, and he gives you crap for it, but he also provides you the extra pair of hands you so often need. It’s ironic; even if any of these people would turn against you, no one would believe they really saw Captain America and Dr. Sawbones. But as far as you know, no one tattletales on you. There’s certain code of honor among the outcasts.
And when you both risk everything to get someone the care they need, when their situation is much worse than you can handle on the street with a glorified first-aid kid, he hugs you for a long, long time once you’re in the safety of a shabby motel room.
“Thank you,” he whispers into your hair.
“For what?”
“For not letting me give up on the world.”
It’s there when you, one night four months in on the run, tell Natasha that you’re staying with Steve for the night, and he just nods from where he’s unpacking the car. You let Nat pretend that this is about you and Steve and not about the calm that overtakes her and Sam every time they’re sitting next to each other. You let her keep her face about not needing anyone, because you know it helps her withstand the days when everything is going to hell. It’s worth the teasing, when her smile reaches her eyes for the first time in a long while.
It’s there in the way Steve keeps insisting he’ll sleep on the floor, until you tell him that you need him close to protect you from the cockroaches, and then there’s a smile in his eyes, too. It’s there when you never go back to the previous sleeping arrangement, and it’s there when you without fail wake up every morning with Steve’s arms hugging you close and your face buried into the crook of his neck.
It's there when you turn to look at him during one of those exhausting periods when you really have to watch your every step, and he knows that you know from his silence where his head is. And you look for the least dirty mug and make him a cup of instant coffee and take the seat next to him at the dented, sticky table.
“Tell me,” you say.
He sighs.
“You’re not a psychiatrist, Sawbones.”
“I’m not. I’m a friend.”
He talks, every time. He talks about Tony and the phone that doesn’t ring. He talks about Bucky and if he’d still gone to war against the world if Bucky had been what they made him out to be. He talks about Peggy and about how it felt to drown. Sometimes, he talks about you, too, about everyone he’s dragged into this, and you tell him that there was never any other choice for any of you. He revels in the anonymity of the peeling walls around you, ones you’ll never see again, in the way they make everything feel like a dream. He tells you that he’s ashamed of how much he loves the fact that the lost shield is no longer there to mask him from those close to him; that by becoming no one, he’s for the first time in a long while free to become himself. He revels in the fact that he can leave all these things here and never return for them.
It’s there in million small moments. In the lines with which he draws you, the careful strokes of a ballpoint pen on stolen diner napkins. In the way his hand engulfs yours when you need to make a run for it, and you know you’re slowing him down but he won’t leave you behind. In the way he grins at you when you rant about medical inaccuracies in the dramas of the motel room TV. In the way he drapes a flannel shirt over you every time you dare to shudder in his presence. In the way he pops your dislocated shoulder back into place the one time you fall in the shower, his eyes firmly on your face, an apologetic grin on his lips. I’m not you, Sawbones, but I was in the army once. You hear the rest, too: I was a captain, once, and you reach up to touch his face. I won’t be the last one you save.
And it’s there, now, in the long silence that has landed after that Steve has fallen from your lips. You stare at the bathroom door in front of you, knowing he’s there on the other side, the shower still running.
He has heard it from your voice, that something, the tell-tale sign that something has changed. And nothing has changed. And everything has changed. You think your heart should be thundering, your palms sweaty, but instead, you’re completely calm. It’s Steve. It’s everything you’ve already been for months.
“Yeah?” he finally calls, his voice so gentle you barely hear it over the shower and through the door.
There’s nothing special about tonight. You’re still dripping water onto the disgusting carpet of the room, the bathrobe wrapped tightly around you. The comfortable routine of washing the grime of the road off once you got your room, you first, Steve then.
“Can I come in?”
Another long pause. You don’t need to see his face to know the look on it.
“Yes.”
You don’t need special; you don’t want special. There’s plenty of special going around these days, and what you both need is normalcy. So, this is how. No grand gestures, no declarations. This is you and him, going down the road you’ve already chosen a long time ago. He loves you, with or without saying it out loud, and there’s no reason at all why you can’t simply take this step. There is nothing to shout from the rooftops, in much the same way one doesn’t need to declare the existence of gravity, the route of Earth around the Sun.
The door unlocks, and you slip into the bathroom.
The shower is still running, droplets flying into air from where they hit the tub, and Steve has not moved the shower curtain to cover himself. You’ve seen a fair share of Steve in various states of undress over the year on the road, courtesy of the often cramped conditions and the often needed medical skillset, but never like this. He’s standing in the tub, water falling down his body that is now honed to even sharper weapon with the bodyweight exercises he’s been using to beat back the boredom and clear his head. His hair is soaked and swept back, darker than the shade of gold it is when it’s dry. You stop to stand in front of him, so close that your knees almost touch the edge of the tub and tilt your head up to meet his eyes.
“Are you sure about this?” he murmurs, looking at you directly in the eye. “We don’t know how long it’ll be until things return to normal. If ever.”
You smile. You consider telling him that if you had wanted normal, you wouldn’t have become the head of SHIELD medical department in the first place. You wouldn't have become an Avenger after the fall. And you wouldn’t have run away with two soldiers, witch, rogue computer program and an assassin. But that’s not what Steve needs to hear, because all that he knows.
“It’s just us, Steve. We can have this, if you want to,” you whisper, and you are right, but you also know he needs something more than that, something clear to drive away the ghosts you know reside in him. “Yes. Steve. Yes. Yes.”
That’s all it takes. A yes. A darkness overtakes his gaze, the heat of it seeping right into your veins. Everything but this you’ve talked through, the necessary conversations of medical histories in the very beginning. There’s nothing stopping either of you, if he’ll have you.
“I want to,” he whispers.
That’s your cue, and you pull the belt of your bathrobe and let it fall onto the floor. Steve drinks your form with his eyes, looking at you like you’re posing for the paparazzi in front of the MET gala in a haute couture gown that costs more than the average apartment, and not like you’re standing naked on the cracked tiles of a motel bathroom.
The nervousness is still not there, and now that you’re standing in front of him, it makes perfect sense. There’s something so familiar in him, even as you’ve never seen him look at you like that. It’s just Steve. It’s my Steve. That’s all. Why on Earth would you be nervous when you’re with him, when you’ve never been more safe than you are with his arms around you? He extends his hand to help you climb into the bathtub, much like he would help you into a horse-drawn carriage if he was the hero of your low-quality novels, and you are just about to say that to him. But he sees the smile on your face and he does what he has clearly been wanting to do for months.
As Steve’s mouth comes down onto yours, it’s a soft kiss. The touch of his lips and his hands cradling your face are slowly memorizing the feel of you and locking it deep into his memory. The warm water is pouring all over you both, and you press yourself gently into him, feeling all of him against yourself for the first time. You’ve been naked in front of each other for a long time before this, and now his presence against you is lighting a fire that is not a scorching forest fire but a deep, deep glow stemming from the depths of your soul. But even as it is, you can’t understand how you could’ve possibly lived without this, how you could’ve waited for this.
When you bury your hands into Steve’s wet hair and pull him tighter against your lips, his hands fly down, cupping your butt and yanking the very short distance that was there in between your hips and his, and the kiss changes. He’s come to realize that this is for real, this is you in his hands, and he’s been starving for this, for those soft moans of your breath against his lips, for the smooth skin underneath his hands he’s always felt guilty for touching, even innocently. But now it’s his, it’s willingly given by you, and he can’t, he possibly can’t wait for the fifteen seconds it would take for you both to walk from here to the bed. And it’s right. It’s you two, it’s always been you two. He’s learned that happiness isn’t a fanfare of angels coming from the heavens above, washing over him and filling him with a drugged bliss. It’s the quiet hum in his chest as you’re there next to him, the notes of you getting mixed into everything, your fingerprints all over the melody of his life, the one that has now become a ballad of the road.
It's perfect just like this, right here, the soft sound of water echoing in the room as his palm travels down your chest, your stomach, and for a second, his eyes drop closed when he feels you for the first time.
“Fuck, honey, you’re soaked for me,” he whispers, a deep rasp sending shivers all over your body.
More of this. More of him. More of everything. You’re already aching for him, for more, for anything and everything he is going to give you. As his fingers dip down between your legs, what you’re singing to him is a string of yes and Steve and please. He’s never touched you like this; no one has ever touched you like this, his fingers gentle but certain as they find the rhythm to stroke you, and your arms wrap around his neck for support. You haven’t been touched for a year, and that has nothing to do with how fast you’re falling towards the edge. It’s all Steve knowing you so well now that he reads the smallest of your cues, and he’s not kissing you, because he wants to see you, his eyes white-hot on your face. It’s hot and humid in the bathroom, the steam from the water floating all over you, but you can see his face clearly and that’s enough.
“Steve,” you whimper, pushing your hips against his hand.
“I know, honey.”
He turns, pressing you against the wall with his body and lifting your left leg with his free hand to rest against his thigh. You can’t slip; you won’t slip, because he’s got you, he’s anchored you to reality even as his touch is sending you tumbling down into oblivion. He lifts the pads of his fingers away from your core and turns his wrist before gently edging two fingers inside you and landing his thumb on your clit. His touch is relentless even in its softness, and your whimpers grow louder, needier, unashamed. He growls as your hand reaches down to wrap around his shaft, and it’s entirely too much and far too little when your thumb ghosts over the head. You cherish the feeling of him throbbing hard under your fingers, right there with you, for you, because of you. His lips ghost your jaw, your throat, the rasp of his beard scratching your skin, every sensation heightened by the water falling onto you both as he can feel you getting closer, your body gripping his fingers. The glow inside you is turning hotter and hotter, and you’re going to melt down from the core, and still, it’s the endless stream of Steve falling from your lips. Every syllable is making his chest expand just a bit more.
“Come for me,” Steve whispers onto your earlobe. “Come for me. Let me feel you, honey. Let me feel you fall apart.”
He feels on his fingers the last rift before you shatter for him, and he snaps up to watch your head thud back in helpless whimper. But your eyes stay on him through it all, through the heat that washes over you and makes the glow shift into something permanent and ever-present, like a lighthouse that’ll always be there to guide you home. Before your knees can give underneath you, Steve kneels down to grab you and lifts you up on the wall, his hands holding the back of your thighs with no effort at all, and the testament to his strength is a terrifying, exhilarating realization.
He falls into you, all the way down to his hilt, and his forehead drops to rest against yours as another string of whispered curses leaves his mouth. You wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him as close as you can as he begins to move, his hips rocking against yours. The strain on his face is clearly visible, even as his eyes fall closed. It’s a slow rhythm that lets you coast on the tail waves of your own release, and lets him to savor the moment. He’s breathing ragged, every muscle of his body tense, and that has nothing to do with the fact that he’s holding up your entire weight. The words are almost pained when they leave him:
“Every night. Every damn night I’ve wanted… wished… hoped…” he rasps, almost to your lips.
“I’m yours,” you whisper. “I’m yours, Steve. I’m yours.”
His eyes fly open, and you see that his self-control has shattered with your words. He lets his weight fall onto you, pressing you against the wall as picks up the pace, basking in the sounds that you make for him. There’ll come other times, other entire nights of him going slow, him doing everything he’s been dreaming of to you, but not now. Now he’s reaching for his release, desperately chasing after that last note that finishes a symphony.
He watches your face when it sweeps over him like a calming wave of water, his forehead falling back to stay against yours. For a second, there’s nothing in the world except for your softness in his hands, against his chest, around him, and the water falling down his back. There’s no sound except for the gentle hum in his chest, now somewhere deeper, and then the words it tricks to falling from his lips:
“I love you.”
You hum, too, as you pull him in for a long kiss before answering:
“I love you too.”
It’s there in how it's the most natural thing in the world to stay in the shower, even as the steam is now thick enough to fill the whole room, and you’re going to be on the hook for an extra payment for the water. Steve sits in front of you in the tub as your hands gently work the shampoo into his hair, fingers massaging his scalp, and you can see from the way his back arches that it’s been a long time since anyone has touched him like this.
“We skipped dating, huh?” he whispers.
He’s right. Straight into the calm intimacy of a couple. You hum, leaning in to press a kiss onto his shoulder.
“Well, it’s pretty hard to get a table reservation when you’re the most wanted fugitive on the planet.”
He turns his head, his hand reaching up to the back of your neck to pull you in for a kiss, and as you go, you can feel him smiling onto your lips.
“One day,” he says when he lets your mouth go, his hand still cradling your cheek. “One day I’ll show you off to the whole world.”
“One day,” you reply, smiling.
But right now, it’s just you and him and the road wide open in front of you, and that is plenty.