Notes:

This was going to be an epilogue for "Curves and Edges" but it just didn't work, IMO, so now it's a one-shot. Set right before AOU.

The title is from the Sting song and lends itself toward explaining their relationship pretty much forever in this story arc. I have two other stories that I've started for this, but I'm not sure if I'll finish them before AOU, or not. After that, we may be in the same state as the Clintasha ship...oh, gosh, I can hardly stand that, so depressing.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

April 30, 2015, 9:30 PM

Steve kissed Maria gently on her lips and pulled the bedcovers up over their quickly cooling bodies. He smiled as she hummed contentedly.

"Did I make you happy?" he asked as he ghosted his lips across her jaw and nuzzled his face in the crook of her neck.

"Mmhmm," she replied and wrapped her arms around him to pull him closer.

He rested himself half over her, one hand gently in her hair, the other crossing her body to grip her hip, one leg over both of hers, and hummed his own contentment. Steve wanted to take as long with her this evening as he could. In less than two days he'd be leaving again; he groaned mentally at the thought. He'd only arrived home a week earlier, but Maria had good intel on Bucky and, even if he was a step behind his friend again, he had to find out what he could. Sam would meet him there.

"Don't," was all Maria had to say to let Steve know he hadn't been as secret about his feelings as he thought.

He took a deep breath and propped himself up on one elbow to look at her. He nearly cringed at her look; she could be intimidating even here, in her bed, with nothing but a cushion of air between them.

"I can't help it," he told her. He watched his hand as he slid it slowly from her hip, up along her side, over her breast, to cup her face, then he looked back into her eyes. "I love you, and I hate to leave you."

It was the same argument they had every time, and it wasn't so much an argument as it was a need for each to assure the other. Steve found it ironic that he was the one who usually needed more assurances than she. The words of a song that reminded him of the two of them ran through his mind.

"Funny you're the broken one, but I'm the only one who needed saving."

That's how it was, and how he'd missed that at the beginning he wasn't sure. He needed her because she had filled that hole, the one no one else had since he'd awoke from the ice. She was his friend, comrade in arms, lover, everything.

"Well," she said, and reached up to touch his face. "Just concentrate on the part where you'll be coming home."

He leaned down and kissed her lips gently. Then rested his forehead against hers for a moment. He realized that if he didn't leave now he wasn't going to want to leave for another hour or more, and he was fairly certain it was nearly 10pm already.

Reluctantly, he untangled himself and slid out from under the covers to dress. Maria watched him pull on his clothes. He hated leaving, but even after all this time their relationship was still secret. If he was seen walking out of her apartment much later, it would raise questions neither wanted to answer. There were plenty of good reasons for the secrecy; enemies, both had plenty; the media, they would have a field day with Captain America's "torrid" affair with the former Deputy Director of the disgraced SHIELD; the government, if their relationship was discovered to have started before they'd burned SHIELD to the ground, there would be even more questions asked. But the only reason Steve truly needed was that this was what made Maria comfortable. And while Steve might long for more, the chance to fall asleep in her arms, the opportunity to make her breakfast in the morning, he would take what she could give him until she felt she was ready for more. He wasn't usually a patient man, but he'd learned that he would do almost anything to make this relationship work, to make Maria as sure of this as he was.

After he dressed, he sat down on the corner of the bed and began to pull on his socks and shoes. Maria crawled out from under the covers and slid off the bed to pick her robe up off the chair and shrug it over her shoulders. Steve stood and stepped over to her. He pulled the belt tie around her waist and knotted it in a half-bow in front. He stared at her for several minutes longer, re-memorizing her features, before he leaned down and kissed her. He kept the kiss far cooler than he desired and pulled away before he allowed his need to gain much more of a foothold than it already had. Maria slipped her hand into his as he turned to walk to the front door.

"I love you," she said when they had taken the mere twenty steps from the bedroom to the door. Yes, he'd counted them. Twenty was now his least favorite number.

"I love you, too," he said and he cupped her face before he kissed her again.

"Tomorrow night?" he asked, almost needlessly.

"Dinner with Stark," she said and Steve groaned audibly that time.

"It won't be that bad," she assured him. "It'll be kind of nice to see everyone together again."

"OK, but you have to promise me you'll stay later than ten at my place," he said.

"So demanding," she said, but the glint in her eyes told him she was joking.

He pulled back to look at her again.

"Let's see, lip stick duly kissed off, hair properly and thoroughly mussed."

Maria smiled as Steve checked off his list.

"Ah, there, the smile that drives me absolutely mad," he finished and, with a deep breath, restrained himself to a chaste kiss on her forehead.

He stepped back and put his hand on the doorknob.

"Steve," Maria stopped him. "I was thinking, maybe you could wear that brown leather jacket of yours tomorrow night."

Steve cocked his head. Maria didn't usually request he wear certain clothes.

"You like me in it that much, huh?" he smirked.

She laughed nervously and Steve felt his brow furrow in concern.

"It's just really, well, comfortable," she said. She looked away from him before continuing.

"I'm going to go to the dinner straight from work and I probably won't bring a coat or anything, and, well, I might get cold and…" She trailed off and looked back at him, one eyebrow raised and a smirk forming on her lips. Steve understood completely and he had to stop himself before he over-reacted.

Only Sam knew about the two of them. If Steve were to offer Maria the coat at dinner and she accepted it, there would be talk. At the very least Tony would never be able to keep from some sort of comment. It wasn't a public date, nor was it an open admission, but it was more than she'd been comfortable with up to now.

Steve smiled and leaned down for one more kiss.

"Yeah," he said. "I'll wear it."

For the first time the click of the door shutting behind him and the turn of the locks didn't bother him. Tomorrow they were going to take another step forward. Steve was fairly certain there was nothing even Stark could do that would ruin the next night for them.

Notes:

Um, yes, I *am* mean like that. Poor Steve, he obviously hasn't watched the trailers. ;)

This is probably it for a little while. I have only a limited time to work on writing, these three just happened to be ready all at once. I am working on editing a few more but I sort of just work on them as I fancy, in no particular order.