Notes: This story is a sequel to A Losing Game, which must be read first for this to make sense. The title comes from the Rilo Kiley song I Never, which reminds me of Steve and Anne. The full lyric is, "All of the beautiful things that make you weep, but don't have to make you weak," which I think is just lovely.
A Losing Game ended on New Years, 2014, and this story picks up in July, 2014. Obviously, we're deviating from as-yet unestablished Marvel canon at this point. The format is ten episodes from the later lives of Anne, Steve, and company.
This chapter is a little more Anne-centric, the next one is more Steve-centric. It might be a little while until the next update, but I wanted to get this up for the people who were looking forward to it. As always, thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to review this story. Knowing that someone is enjoying what I'm writing means a lot to me.
Also, just so I don't feel like I'm being obscure, the opening paragraph includes a reference to the Dodgers, which were, of course, originally the Brooklyn Dodgers (Captain America establishes Steve as a baseball fan; I'd assume the game he attended in May 1941 was a Dodgers game) and became the LA Dodgers in 1957.
Disclaimer: Original characters belong to me, the rest belongs to Marvel/Disney.
1. July, 2014
For Steve's birthday, Tony flew the five of them – Steve, Tony, Pepper, Bruce, and Anne – to Los Angeles to watch the Dodgers play. Steve was overcome with nostalgia; the blue-and-white uniforms serving as a reminder that some things could remain unchanged by time.
After the game, Tony showed Bruce and Steve the latest designs from the LA Stark Industries team. Anne and Pepper declined the tour, choosing instead to lounge by the pool at Tony's Malibu compound, working on matching, golden tans.
When the three men returned, they found them stretched out on lounge chairs, a table between them holding empty glasses half-full of melting ice. Pepper dozed lightly; Anne held a book up, dark sunglasses covering half her face.
She looked up as they stepped onto the patio, and waved. The sight of her, clad in a dark green two-piece, vast expanses of exposed skin glowing in the bright sunlight, made Steve's mind go unexpectedly blank.
"That's…Is that a bathing suit?"
Bruce laughed. Tony sighed and slung his arm over Steve's shoulders. "Isn't the future wonderful?"
Tony set them up at a table in the shade. Cold bottles of beer in hand, the three of them spent most of the afternoon talking strategy. Steve was grateful that his reflective sunglasses would mask his inability to keep his eyes off Anne. When she glanced at her watch and turned over onto her stomach, shaking Pepper's arm until she woke up and did the same, for a brief moment Steve felt his heart stop.
Half an hour later, out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw Anne sit up, murmuring a few words to Pepper and pulling a white, cotton tunic over her head. As she rose and made her way into the house, she gave their table a friendly smile. "Going to call my sister," she explained as she passed them.
Steve waited ten whole minutes before standing, gesturing towards the empty bottle in front of him, "Goes right through you."
Tony grinned and raised an eyebrow suggestively, but as he opened his mouth, Bruce kicked him under the table.
"Sure does," Bruce smiled, watching Steve walk away.
As he opened the door to the huge, airy room Tony had assigned to them, Steve found Anne immediately on the other side, rushing towards him. Her outstretched hand was the only thing that stopped them from colliding.
"Jesus," she cried out in surprise, "For a second, I thought you weren't coming."
He grinned, pulling her against him, lifting her until her toes barely grazed the floor. "I was trying not to be so damned obvious."
She pulled herself up higher, wrapping her legs around him. He leaned back slightly to accommodate the added weight, stepping inside and kicking the door shut behind him. His lips were on her collarbone, his palms cupping her backside; her skin was sun-warmed under his hands.
"It's just them," she murmured against his hair, "And it's your birthday. Who cares?"
"Not all of us believe in free love."
She rolled her eyes, "I should never have let you watch that documentary about Woodstock."
He smiled, tumbling her back onto the bed, climbing over her, his fingers finding her most ticklish spots. She laughed and wriggled underneath him, begging him to stop. When he did, she pulled the tunic over her head and sent it sailing to the floor.
He shifted over her, his mouth on the base of her neck, settling himself between her legs. As his hands slowly traced the Spandex triangles of her bikini top, he looked up at her, one eyebrow raised rakishly. "I thought you were trying to kill me out there, with this." One finger slid under the fabric and she gasped, her hips canting towards his instinctively. "A man can only take so much."
Her clever retort died on her lips as his head bent lower, his teeth and tongue finding her nipple through the thin fabric. He ground the hard bulge in his slacks against her, and she wrapped her legs around his hips. Her fingers threaded through his hair and she sighed, feeling drugged and dreamy, "How many times does this make today?"
His breath was hot against her side, "Not enough."
Steve's hands moved between them, unbuckling his slacks. Anne shook her head, her eyes fixed on his, "All off."
As he stood and stripped, she shifted more fully onto the bed, pulling off her top. The sliding glass door they had left open earlier that day let a lukewarm breeze into the room. She closed her eyes, stretching her arms over her head, and took a deep breath; the sea air smelled like California and home.
When her eyes opened, his fingers were hooked her swimsuit bottoms, pulling them down and off her legs. No more preliminaries needed, she parted her knees, he stretched over her, and pushed inside her, letting go of a deep breath he hadn't known he was holding. His mouth was hot against hers; their arms wrapped around each other as their hips moved in tandem.
In the warm air and the quiet room, the sounds of the wind and waves drifting in from outside, with her under him, whispering his name, Steve reveled in the simplicity of what their lives together had become – how easy and uncomplicated things with her were. It always struck him most when they made love. In bed, it was easy to imagine that they were the only people, the first man and woman on an empty planet. He could tell she felt it too, and it had made their drive for each other insatiable.
His hand slid between them, his fingers finding the spot just above the place where their bodies were joined, coaxing her body into a quiet, shuddering fall. When he was certain that she had come, he followed her, his free hand fisted in her hair, groaning her name into the mattress.
He leaned up to look at her, not yet ready to pull away. Her hair was a mess, her face flushed, her breathing only starting to slow down. She looked up at him with heavy-lidded eyes, brushing his hair away from his forehead.
He pressed his lips to hers. "Love you."
She sighed, content; her hands drifted across his shoulders and down his arms. "Love you, too."
He slid out of her, rolling to lie on his back next to her. "Do you think there's any way they haven't figured out what's going on in here?"
She laughed and shook her head.
"I think they know about us."
He rolled his eyes at her, but when he spoke his voice was quiet, almost shy. "I know. It's just—I wish they didn't have to know everything about everything. Some things should just be ours."
She turned towards him, laying her head on his shoulder, draping her arm around his waist. "This is ours."
He looked down at her, and she held his gaze for a moment before leaning up to kiss him, slowly and purposefully.
After a while, after the kiss had escalated, after they were tangled up in each other and breathless again, Steve pulled away. "How much longer 'til we're supposed to head out for fireworks?"
"Hours," she replied, smiling up at him, waggling her eyebrows lasciviously.
"Oh, hell." Steve flashed an ungentlemanly grin, flipping her onto her back and pressing a line of warm kisses down her stomach.
Later that night, as they watched the Huntington Beach fireworks from Tony's yacht, Anne covertly slipped her hand into his.
When he looked down at her, she beamed up at him, the fireworks making her skin light up in red and blue, "Happy birthday."
2. August, 2014
Andy and Claire visited for a week, wanting to see their sister without the recent specter of doom hanging over her, and happy to take up Steve's offer of another free flight and free lodging in Stark Tower.
The day they arrived, the Avengers team had been called away. Anne showed them Stark Tower, impressing them with the futuristic lab and the fact that she knew Tony Stark.
As they walked down the long hallway between Bruce's Research & Development offices and the Quinjet hangar, a team of Avengers Initiative agents rushed past them. When she saw a doctor from her medical staff run by, Anne stopped her.
"What's going on?"
The woman glanced at Andy and Claire quizzically. "Team's back."
"That was fast."
"No injuries reported. You want us to just do check-ins?"
"That's fine. Put the report on my desk. Sounds like it'll be an easy one." The other doctor nodded and continued her sprint down the hall.
It suddenly struck Anne that Steve wasn't on the jet, but Captain America was. She hesitated, deciding to direct the group back down the hallway, away from the hangar, when he rounded the corner, mask off, shield in hand.
For a moment, none of them moved. Anne looked at Steve desperately. He took a deep breath, knowing that it had been inevitable that Andy and Claire would find out, but bracing himself for their reaction.
"Andy. Claire. It's nice to see you again," he stepped forward, sliding off one of his gloves and extending his hand, as though nothing was amiss. As if it were Steve Rogers in the room, not Captain America.
They took his hand dumbly. He flashed an uncomfortable smile at Anne and started to make his excuses to leave, telling them he needed a shower and a change of clothes, telling them he would meet up with them later.
He had nearly made his way past them when Claire stopped him with a hand on his arm. For a moment, she ran her fingers across the blue fabric of the suit, her mouth open slightly.
She looked up at him, "Is this for real?"
He hesitated and nodded, giving her a self-deprecating half-smile.
Behind them, Andy burst into peals of laughter.
"Ho-ly shit, Annie. Captain America?" He strode over to them, "I'm sorry. You seem like a nice guy, Steve, and God knows I love you, Annie, but you – you – are going out with Captain America? I had no idea you were such a patriot."
Anne shot him a warning look, but Andy stormed on. He turned to Steve, pointing at his sister, "You know this girl has been arrested for civil disobedience three times? I've seen her – her – chain herself up to the fence in front of the White House."
"Narc," Claire hissed, "Anyway, it's not like she's the only one who's ever done that." She glanced at Steve apologetically.
Anne's eyes were squeezed shut, her fingers at her temples. Steve's face felt hot; the idea of the three of them fighting because of him – because of them – made him feel desperate and panicky.
Andy ran a hand through his hair, "Yeah, but she's the only one who's schtupping Captain America."
Steve cringed. Anne's eyes flew open; a line had been crossed. She grabbed Andy's arm and yanked him around the corner into her office.
Left alone in the empty hallway, Claire turned to Steve.
"Don't let him get to you. He always does this song-and-dance when Anne gets serious about someone. I don't know where he gets all this macho posturing from; it certainly doesn't run in the family."
He understood; Andy had told him as much when he visited New York last. But Steve had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself from asking how often Anne had gotten serious with a man. He had never asked her about the men who came before him. He knew that it didn't matter, that she was his now, but something in him tensed.
Claire seemed to sense his thoughts. Her hand rested on his forearm. "Don't get insecure. I've never seen her like anyone as much as you. The way she looks at you," she put her hand over her heart, "We should all be so lucky as to have someone to look at us like that."
He nodded, staring at the floor.
She shook her head, beaming up at him, "Enough of that. Can I hold your shield?"
Steve smiled, running a hand through his hair and passing it to her.
"He just doesn't seem like your type," Andy sulked, their argument relocated to the privacy of Anne's office.
Anne threw up her hands. "Why? Because he's not a derelict or a junkie or a narcissist?"
He sputtered for a moment, trying to form a counterargument.
"You're such a baby," she murmured. He grimaced. It was an old insult.
"Fine, then, I'm being a baby. It's just—"
He took a deep breath and she looked up at him, her eyes meeting his.
"He's going to take you away from us, I can see it. And he's not – he's not like us. What if he makes you different?"
She sighed. A moment before, she had thought that he was performing his usual routine – antagonizing her new partner. But this was different. She knew that he liked Steve, he had told her so, practically given them his blessing. This was a new kind of fear, one she could see in his face – a fear of permanently losing someone who had always been there for him, someone he had practically already lost when she moved across the country.
She took his face in her hands. "That's never gonna happen."
His expression softened.
"He's…He's it," her hands moved to his shoulders, "Please be happy for me."
"I am, I am," he whispered, pulling her against him, his arms wrapping around her. "You know Dad is going to hate this," he murmured against her hair, and she laughed softly.
Then, abruptly, she pushed him away. He looked down at her, concerned.
"I'm sorry," she muttered, her palm pressed to her forehead, "I just feel really strange all of the sudden."
She stumbled slightly and his hands gripped her waist, "Annie?"
She looked up at him, her eyes meeting his, seeing how worried he was. "I'm fine," she smiled feebly, "Maybe lunch didn't agree with me. I just need to lie down."
He nodded, "Let's get back to the room. You can lean on me."
She hooked her arm through his. As they walked back to Claire and Steve, Anne looked up at her brother.
"Don't say anything. He'll just worry."
Andy squeezed her arm and winked at her.
3. October, 2014
As summer turned to fall, Pepper noticed something change between Anne and Steve. There was something secretive and possessive about the way they looked at each other. Where before he had shied away from touching her unnecessarily, suddenly his hands were always on her.
In public, in front of the other Stark Industries staff, Pepper would see him just barely brush his fingers on her arm to get her attention. In front of the Avengers team, she would see him press his hand at the small of her back. When she and Tony were alone with them, he would wrap his arm around her waist. It wasn't much – tame in comparison to the way she and Tony hung off of each other, especially after he returned from particularly dangerous missions – but, considering Steve's natural reserve, it made Pepper happy to see it.
Pepper hadn't been looking for them when it happened. It was late, the hallways of Stark Tower were quiet and still, the offices dark. She had been on her way home, to the massive top-floor apartment she shared with Tony and his waiting arms, when she overheard voices from the medical lab. Thinking only of saying her goodnights and continuing on her way, she paused at the doorway, peeking inside.
Through a crack in the door, she could see Anne, with Steve standing behind her. His chin rested on her shoulder; his arms were wrapped around her, his hands spread wide on her stomach. They talked in low, unintelligible tones. Pepper's eyes narrowed. It suddenly struck her that Anne had changed – her face was full and rosy, her breasts heavier, her abdomen curved.
She pulled back in surprise as the realization hit her, her mind reeling. Without saying a word to them, she hurried to the elevator.
"I think Anne's pregnant," she announced as she entered, her voice a scandalized whisper.
Tony, lying on the sofa in front of her, looked up at her blankly. When she raised her eyebrows, holding her hands out, trying to impress upon him the gravity of what she was saying, he picked up the cue, rising to his feet in alarm.
"Oh. Oh. That's…that's really something. Are you sure?"
She glared at him, "You already know about this."
He hesitated, then conceded, "We had to work out a strategy around it. You know how things are. Trust me, it's been torture not telling you, but they wanted to keep it quiet for a while. I think they're still kind of stunned."
Consternation was written across her face, but Tony shook his head, waving the conversation away dismissively. He crossed the room to pull her close against him. Against her better judgment, Pepper relaxed, curling her arms around his shoulders.
"You can ask her about it tomorrow," he murmured, his lips finding purchase on the side of her throat, "Tonight, you're mine."
It had taken Pepper all day to decide what she wanted to say, and by the time she finally strode into Anne's office, full of resolve, Anne was packing away her things, nearly on her way home.
"I need to talk to you," Pepper declared.
"I have news for you, too," Anne smiled broadly from behind her desk. Pepper hesitated, her tirade paused, and Anne continued, "We're going to be neighbors. I'm moving in downstairs."
She shot Anne a skeptical look. "Is there something else you want to tell me?"
Anne's brow furrowed, "I—You can help me decorate?"
"Anne," Pepper huffed, throwing up her hands in exhaustion, "I know you're pregnant."
"Ah."
"When did this happen?"
Anne shrugged, unable to meet her gaze. "L.A. We – I – got sloppy, I guess."
"Why the hell didn't you tell me?"
Anne winced, standing and moving towards her. "Don't be offended. It wasn't something we were expecting. Things–," she hesitated, shifting from foot to foot, "Things haven't been that simple, lately."
"What are you going to…I mean, how—," It suddenly struck her how difficult it had sometimes been for Tony to make sure she was safe, how hard it had been to keep the three of them – Pepper, Anne, and Jane – safe. To keep a defenseless child secure against the same threats seemed like an insurmountable challenge.
"The official story is that I used an anonymous donor. Clint and Natasha created this paper trail that's…" she trailed off, looking at her hands, "They did a really good job."
"What about Steve?"
Anne looked up at her, shaking her head and smiling weakly, "This kid's going to have the world's greatest uncles."
"Oh."
Pepper frowned, closing the gap between them and pulling her into her arms. After a while, she heard Anne sniff against her shoulder, but when she pulled away, her eyes were red-rimmed but dry.
At Pepper's urging, Anne explained the full plan – that they would wait until the child was old enough to tell them the truth of their parentage, that she would move into the empty apartment next to Steve's and the two of them would share as many responsibilities as they could without drawing suspicion.
"It'll be okay. This is a great thing." Pepper told her, her hands on Anne's shoulders.
Behind them, the door opened and Steve stepped through it, ready to walk her back to his apartment. Pepper turned to him, taking one of his big hands between hers, determined to put on a brave face. She smiled up at him brightly, "I hear congratulations are in order, Captain."
He swallowed, looking over her shoulder at Anne, then back at Pepper, "Thank you."
As they walked down the empty hallway, each going their separate directions, Pepper cast a glance back at them. Anne's arm was looped through Steve's; his free hand carried her briefcase. He murmured something Pepper couldn't make out and Anne laughed, her head tilting onto his shoulder.
Pepper couldn't help smiling to herself.