Another contribution to the Avengers pool. :D This time an insert with more Steve than Tony. I think Captain America's my favourite character, but sometimes Iron man wins out. It's kind of a toss-up depending on my mood. Hahaha! SO. This is actually an idea I'm pretty sure I have no clue how to continue. If anyone wants this continued, I'm going to have to demand feedback and ideas. :P

The pitter patter of the rain was the only thing she wanted to concentrate on.

But she doesn't always get what she wants and so she has to struggle to block out the surrounding wails of people, the sirens of cop cars, and the blaring governmental announcements put on an endless repeat. Combined, they create a dull roar that unfocussed her already blurry eyesight and scrambled her thought processes. And with what she was trying to do, it was frustrating enough to bring her to tears.

Julie swiped roughly at her face as she struggled to fit the crowbar she had found under the jammed door of the candy store. She worked with stuttering, shaky motions, the crowbar sometimes slipping off, but refused to stop. The muffled sounds from behind the blockade bolstered her determination as she pushed and pried.

One of the government promises proved false, she realized, as the door gave way to reveal one of those aliens that had been 'dealt with'. Then again, most of its promises usually fell through, so she shouldn't be as surprised as she was.

A nauseating stench that she had learnt to identify as the result of someone having their insides splattered outside bellowed out and she reeled. And screamed as the frenzied monster attempted to replicate its feat on her.

It was mere luck that had her dislodging the crowbar enough to swing it, and fear-driven adrenaline that gave her the strength to send it sprawling on the broken road. She barely noticed the way it scrabbled confusedly at the broken concrete as she swung again and again.

Only after the creature's head had completely given way did she pause, the heavy metal tool stubbornly held in the air to crash down at a moment's notice. When three minutes of nothing passed, she fell to her knees.

That warm, wet, cloying scent was still wafting from the candy store.

"Ma'am? Are you alright?" A voice sounded behind her. Her body protested as she leaped to her feet, scrambling for the crowbar.

The careful baritone belonged to a tall young man dressed in what could only be described as the American flag. The tight fabric clinging to his frame bore her colors, complete with the stars and stripes.

Even without the iconic shield in sight, there was only one person he could be.

"C-captain?" Julie's voice was shrill and half-sobbing, "I f-found…"

"Yes, ma'am," Captain America cleared his throat uncomfortably, one hand on his trademark shield, the other flexing at his sides for something to do, "I saw what happened. I apologize for not reaching you sooner."

Her throat was sore from screaming. Her arms were exhausted from swinging the crowbar so vehemently. Her fingers bled sluggishly from various nicks and cuts and deeply from a gash across her palm from one disastrous attempt at bare-handed salvaging. She shivered, either from the freezing rain or shock. But Julie Jones reckoned she made her family proud when she managed to approximate a shrug as she replied to America's Hero, "'S not your fault. Nothin' to 'pologize for."

But her reassurance only caused the good captain to furrow his brow more and send her a look so earnest and sad that her hand was patting his arm (leaving bloody palm prints) before she noticed.

"Not your fault," she insisted, forcing her vocal chords to work. After all, this was Captain America—he, of all people, was worth the effort.

Her nation's hero was saying something to her, but that dull roar was back in her ears. Her sight was also going fuzzy.

Julie swiped at her face again, but couldn't see what happened after.

xXXx

"Oh this is too good to be true. Capsicle bringing home a girl?" A voice cackled in glee, disturbing the restful, dreamless sleep she had been in.

"Stark! This isn't—she isn't…"

"Oh come on, we know how effective that All-American Apple Pie thing you have going on is. Just raking in all the women, aren't you?"

"You!"

"If I may, my systems are indicating that Miss Jones is awake."

It seemed there was no hope of drifting back. Julie had never been one to fight against the flow—she was weak like that—and so groaned quietly as she pried open her eyes.

She blinked as her vision cleared to reveal blue. It was a mesmerizing azure that sucked her in and before she knew it, she was leaning forward.

"Are you alright, ma'am?"

She squeaked, shrinking back into the pillows. The blue flinched in surprise.

"Ma'am? Is something wrong?"

Her face burned. Someone snickered in the background. She cleared her throat and winced, but managing to whisper while gesturing between them, "Can you…not so close."

"Oh!" Blue retreated to reveal a familiar, handsome, sheepish face, "I am so sorry, ma'am. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable…"

A snort came from her right. A quick glance showed a face that had been splashed over the TV screen more times than she could count. Except instead of the usual glamour, he was nursing bruises and a scotch in a torn and bloody bodysuit. "Oh please, I'm sure she'll be asking you to invade her space as much as possible when she's out of shock."

"Not in shock," Julie murmured absent-mindedly as she surveyed her surroundings, "No stuttering, no cold, no shaking." She was in a lush bedroom filled with stuff she was pretty sure came straight out of a designer catalogue.

There was a short silence. "Huh. Well, Miss-Medical-Student, are you saying that you don't want that adorable mug in your face?"

She stared at Tony Stark's strange enquiry, looked at Captain America's silently flushed 'adorable mug', and then back again. "I feel like I should be saluting or something," she cracked back tentatively, again in a hushed, hoarse whisper. The answering snort was gratifying.

And then she winced. At Stark's curious look, she ducked her head and indicated the now woeful expression on his fellow Avenger's face. "I feel like I just kicked a puppy," she whimpered mournfully. Another snort, but it wasn't so satisfying this time. She felt a little torn between two of her favorite idols. One who was still looking at her with big blue, disappointed eyes.

"Oh, all right," Stark rolled his eyes, proving that he was, indeed, made of iron, "Cap, be a good host and stop pouting at the girl you brought home. Now that she's awake, you can stop fretting and tell the rest of the class how you two met. Was there swooning? I bet there was swooning."

Captain America (Cap? It was a little tedious calling him by his full title) gave his teammate a disapproving glare, but relented and recounted their little adventure. It was short and direct, but he managed to inject a continent's worth of admiration at her 'selfless act' and 'bravery'.

It was so mortifying that she was actually thankful for Iron Man's snide comments.

At the end of the tale, he clasped his hands together, "Well! I am so disappointed in you, Cap! Fancy having to let the princess save herself instead of sweeping her off her feet!"

The hangdog expression returned. Julie frowned and repeated her earlier conviction, "Not your fault."

"But I should have been quicker," Cap (she could call him Cap right?) stated earnestly, "A civilian shouldn't have had to deal with that. If you hadn't picked up the crowbar…"

"Not. Your. Fault," she enunciated clearly, crossing her arms and deepening her scowl. She was not a fan of self-blame, especially when it wasn't merited. Seeing her favorite hero trying to beat himself up for not rescuing her when it was obvious that he'd been exhausted from stopping the alien invasion was so ridiculous that she would smack him if she could drum up enough courage to.

"I'm sure you wouldn't have a problem doing that, ma'am," came the dry reply. Oh. Wow. Captain America had a sense of humor. Not that she thought he didn't, but it was a little weird when it wasn't in the hero-villain bantering context. He always seemed so serious.

She blinked. Oh, she was talking without processing again. Filtering, she meant. Not processing.

"We get the idea," Tony Stark interjected, cutting through her babbling with mirth. He cut his eyes over to the Captain's pinked cheeks.

Julie felt her own steadily reddening.

"Uhm," she fumbled, wringing her (carefully bandaged) hands, "So…why am I…" she gestured at the five-star room helplessly.

"Welll," Tony Stark drawled, "Cap over here was so touched at your heroic beatdown of the chitauri and selfless act of helping others that he scooped you up when you swooned and carried you back to my tower to be nursed back to health."

"Uhm," she repeated, dropping her gaze to her lap.

The leader of the Avengers apparently had had enough of the awkwardness. He stepped close again and offered his hand with a brilliant smile, "Steve Rogers, ma'am, pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"Julie Jones," she replied automatically, "The pleasure is mine." His fingers closed over her own comparatively tiny ones gently, pumping up and down twice.

"Tony Stark," Tony Stark winked as he stole her hand and kissed it, "But you already knew that, of course."

"And you already knew mine, of course," she shot back without thinking.

He mimed a heart attack, "Why, Cap, you've picked up a feisty one. She isn't going to beat me over the head with a crowbar, is she?"

"You're not going to pounce on me, are you?" the snark came, again, without hesitation. She really should do something about her broken brain-to-mouth filter.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Steve (she could call him Steve, right?) frowning in disapproval. She caught his gaze and smiled reassuringly, prompting him to abandon his furrowing brow and offer an apologetic grimace.

Stark rolled his eyes at the interaction, "Yes, yes, respect, manners blah blah blah." He turned back to her and waved pompously, "So for the next few days, you're Steve-o's guest. Mi casa e su casa. Rest, relax, explore—except the floors you're not allowed on, which are…basically all of them except this one and the ground floor. Which you might not want to explore because you may not be able to get back up here afterwards."

And with that, he swept out of the room, leaving Julie and Steve to trade uneasy smiles.

"Will you be going back to help clean up?" she blurted out.

He was apparently getting used to her randomness, "Yes, ma'am."

She cocked her head to the side with narrowed eyes, "You're not going to rest, are you?"

A startled glance, and then sheepishly rolling shoulders, "No, ma'am."

"You should take a shower. Get clean," she ordered, "That's five minutes give-or-take and it'd help the tiredness."

Another startled glance, before he gave her a boyish grin and a wry salute, "Yes, ma'am."

It was ten minutes after he'd left and Julie was drowsing into her pillows again that she realized that she had just bossed Captain America around.

xXXx

It was evening when she woke up again, stomach growling loud enough to overcome her weariness. She climbed stiffly out of bed, spine cracking as she stretched carefully.

"Miss Jones, if I may be of assistance?"

Flinching was painful, she realized, as she tried to recover her breath. Her eyes darted around the room, only to see furniture.

"I am JARVIS, Miss Jones," the voice repeated from the ceiling. She blinked, craning her neck upwards to find the source.

There was a definite note of amusement as JARVIS gave a brief explanation of what, exactly, he was. Apparently Tony Stark was even more of a genius than advertised, as he had built his own AI and installed it into the whole tower. It was worse than Big Brother.

With delightful manners, but still worse.

Julie followed Jarvis's directions to the kitchen, refusing his offer to order takeout. She had never been a fan of eating out, being a college student on a meager budget. And having inherited her mother's penchant for cooking and her grandmother's recipes, it made the idea even less appealing.

The fridge was fully stocked, even though JARVIS admitted that the ingredients were never used. It was such an affront to her Italian heritage that she immediately started pulling out whatever she could find and recalling the recipes that needed the most ingredients.

Honestly, what a waste.

She was halfway through the ox-tail soup when Captain America ambled in with a curious expression on his face. He sniffed the air like a bloodhound and, spotting her stirring the giant pot, brightened like a child. She noted that he was even grimier than when he had left.

"Wash hands," she barked when he attempted to sneak a piece of chicken off the counter. When he simply stood there blinking at her dumbly, she shook her spoon at him.

"Nice apron," he muttered as he removed his gloves and turned on the faucet. There was just a hint of cheekiness in his tone. She glanced down at the red 'kiss the cook' apron and shrugged.

"It's not an invitation."

He had definitely not intended her to overhear it as his ears brightened to a boiling red. Rolling her eyes, she spooned stew into a bowl together with pasta, making sure to put extra servings of meat and passed it over.

There was a brief rummage for spoons but even before he was seated, Steve was already stuffing his face with food.

"This is really good!" He exclaimed through puffy cheeks. Julie wondered if it was unpatriotic to liken Captain America to a chipmunk.

She shrugged over her own bowl, "I'm a good cook."

"You really are," he smiled earnestly, big blue eyes shining like two sapphires at her. She'd always liked sapphires.

She smiled but didn't reply, turning back to her food determinedly. Millions of people were at least a little bit in love with Captain America even without having met him in person. It was no surprise that she was the same.

"And what do we have here?" Another well-known voice called out from the doorway. Tony Stark cocked his head like a bird as he observed the scene in his kitchen.

His nose twitched.

Julie filled another bowl up and passed it to him silently.

"Ah, I don't like things being handed to me."

"Tony—" Steve stood up, frowning.

She put the bowl on the counter and returned to her seat nonchalantly. There was a brief pause as the two men stared each other down.

And then Steve turned away with an air of exasperation, leaving Tony to drill holes into his head for a few more moments before he finally picked up the bowl.

"You should come work for me," he said in greeting after the first mouthful. Or rather, with the first mouthful. And it was "Oo shuld come wok for muh".

"Shoodunt," she replied in kind, ignoring Steve's wince. She was hungry, she had cooked for more than herself, and she was sore.

Tony waved his hand, "Meh."

She deadpanned, "Muh."

"Meh."

"Muh."

"Meh."

"…Mmm."

"Mmmm?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Mmm."

"Mm-mm."

"Mm-hmm!"

"Mm-mm."

"Gnugh!"

Tony and Julie turned at the strange, snorting grunt from the third party. He was staring determinedly at his food, but she could see the smirk lurking in the corner of his mouth. They traded looks.

Tony made a show of clearing his throat. Julie took another fortifying mouthful.

"MMMmmhhmmmmmmmhmmmhmMMM."

"NGHhhhhnghhuhngghhhHHuhhh."

They both watched as Captain America spluttered into his food, choking in the middle of a snort and probably having stew going down the wrong tube. Oh. Yeah. It did. He just snorted it out his nose.

Julie did a spit take while giggling at that. Right into Tony. Who inhaled wrong and had to thump himself on the chest.

This was the scene that the rest of the Avengers plus a few agents in suits walked in on.

Agent Maria Hill took one look at the two superheroes and one civilian choking on their food and sighed.

So...well, this idea came about as I was thinking about the aftermath of the Avengers movie. I read a few fics where they said the Chitauri were hive-minded, which I think is canon? So I think the government would seize this as a reason to declare the threat 'taken cared' of, because when you kill the queen, the rest should just lie down and die, right?

...Er...right...

And so here we have our scenario. :) But now I have no clue what to do. I think the rest of it would be played for laughs lol. I think people will notice that Julie here shares the same surname with Sarah in 'Tony Frigging Stark' (which I initially titled Tony Fucking Stark) and that's because the idea was conceived at around the same time. :P So in a way, Julie and Sarah are sisters. LOL. I might add to the Jones family as I go along. (Hey, inside joke! Hahahaha!) And obviously this particular gal is angled towards Cap. She might be the love interest, but who knows? I like mixing things up. Be sure that if it's a courtship, it wouldn't be a normal one.

In any case, I'm taking this idea hostage until you people can give me more ideas or else there will be no second chapter!

Memory25