A/N: So there I was, minding my own business, being a perfectly good little fanfiction writer, when my good friend Dresupi messages me on tumblr with a lovely, happy prompt: Steve building a blanket for with kids (a la Chris Evans' blanket fort-see YouTube for hot, dorky, excessive cuteness).

Yeah, happy lasted about zero seconds. Which really shouldn't surprise any of my readers. :) Hey, I made you happy yesterday, what more do you want from me? hehe

What you need to know: This is from my personal Captain Hill universe so Steve and Maria are married and have one daughter, Hope. She turned five on July 11, it's August in this story. Tony and Pepper are married and also have one daughter, Mia, who is a few months older than Hope. Clint and Natasha are also married and have an adopted son, Gregory, a year younger than the girls. (Hey, what can I say? I might put my muses through hell but they always get their happy ending...the MCU writers could take a cue from me. :D)

Maria was on an assignment with SHIELD, which she was currently only a contractor for...that was a terrible sentence. Jasper Sitwell was the head of SHIELD for a few years before recently being replaced by former director Nick Fury. Oh, Jasper is a GOOD GUY in my stories that are from my headverse. I really hate what the writers of TWS did to him but don't get me started coz I won't stop.

See below for a list of stories referenced in this, if you are interested. Oh, and the title is from the Genesis song, Home by the Sea

Images of sorrow, pictures of delight
Things that go to make up a life
Endless days of summer longer nights of gloom
Waiting for the morning light
Scenes of unimportance like photos in a frame
Things that go to make up a life

Genesis, Home by the Sea

Steve pulled the Jeep into the drive and killed the engine. He stared at the dash for several minutes, working up the courage to do what he needed, just as he'd had to do every day since Maria went missing. Only now she wasn't just missing anymore.

His chest tightened and his throat constricted as he fought back the emotions the memory of Nick's words brought.

"I'm sorry, Rogers," he said. "There is enough evidence that the entire team is lost. Maria is going to be officially declared dead."

Steve supposed he should take some comfort in the way Nick's voice had cracked. But it was too small a comfort to have any effect.

Finally, Steve took a deep breath and threw open the car door. Then he slowly trudged up the walk after shutting the door not so softly.

He thought of all the years he'd come home to their little house and bounded up the front steps with a smile to greet Maria and Hope. He recalled all the times he was on missions when just the thought of doing that again would carry him through.

Steve opened the screen and put his key in the door. The sound of laughter made his heart stop for a moment before his mind caught up and reminded him it was just Bucky making Hope laugh.

How was he supposed to do this? How could he tell his daughter her mother was never coming back to her?

Two faces turned to look up from the sofa as he entered the house. Steve tried to smile as Hope ran across the room to him and jumped into his arms.

"Daddy, daddy," she exclaimed. "Uncle Bucky is reading the funniest story about a boy who sat on a giant egg."

Steve held her tightly and kissed the side of her head.

"Daddy, are you OK?" she asked pulling back from him to look at his face.

Steve nodded.

"OK, because you promised we'd build a blanket fort tonight," she reminded him.

"Yeah, sweetie, we will," Steve assured her as he glanced toward Bucky. The look of concern on his friend's face told Steve Bucky had probably already figured out the news Steve had.

"Why don't you go get the blankets, kiddo?" Bucky told Hope. "I need to talk to your dad for a second."

Hope leapt out of Steve's arms and bounded up the stairs. Steve clenched his jaw as he watched her go. He turned back to Bucky who had walked over to him as Hope left.

"I'm sorry about this morning," he told his friend.

"Don't worry about it," Bucky said. "If you've gotta take it out on someone, I'm your man."

Steve shook his head.

"No, that doesn't make it OK," he said. "You were right, I should have been more realistic. I should never have told Hope that…"

Steve's throat constricted and he couldn't get the rest of the words out. He felt the tears he'd kept at bay for two months with his false hope that his wife would be found begin to stream uncontrollably down his face.

"Did they find her?" Bucky asked quietly.

Steve shook his head.

"No, but," he stopped and tried to gain control of his emotions so he could actually get the words out. "SHIELD declared her…"

He closed his eyes and shook his head to let Bucky know he couldn't say it. Steve felt Bucky's hand on his shoulder and when he looked at his friend, he saw Bucky's eyes were red, his face contorted by his own emotion.

"I'm so sorry, Steve," he said.

"I should have…" Steve started, but Bucky interrupted.

"No, don't do the 'should have's,'" he said. "It won't get you anywhere."

Steve nodded, though they both knew that later Steve would do just that.

"Do you want me to stay?" Bucky asked. "I could make dinner."

"No," Steve said. "I don't have much of an appetite and Hope is easy to cook for."

A huge pile of blankets rolled down the stairs at that moment, followed by Hope who pushed them with a happy grin on her face. Steve quickly wiped his face on his sleeve to hide his tears from her.

"This is going to be the biggest, best blanket fort ever," she said. But when she looked up at the two men, Steve could see her smile was a false one, in her eyes he saw the sadness that had grown since Maria had gone missing.

Bucky walked over to help her carry the blankets to the sofa.

"Alright, kiddo, I'm gonna go," he told her. "You be good for your dad, OK?"

Hope gave Bucky a hug, and, though Bucky didn't face him, Steve could see his friend's back tense with emotion and the hug lasted far longer than usual. Finally, Bucky broke away from her and cleared his throat. He turned and walked past Steve to the door, pausing to place his hand silently on Steve's shoulder.

By the time the door clicked shut, Hope was already dragging the dining room chairs into the living room. Steve stared at the dining table and recalled his last anniversary. He tried to smile as he thought about Maria's surprise at the leg lamp, and at the ensuing whipped cream fight. Instead it only seemed to intensify the pain. He wasn't sure he could stay in this house now, not with every corner of it filled with memories of Maria.

He finally turned his attention to helping Hope lay out the blankets over the chairs and the sofa. When they were finished he made her a peanut butter sandwich and she ate in the fort as he watched her. After dinner she ran upstairs to grab her sleeping bag insisting they sleep in the fort so they wouldn't have to tear it down. Steve helped her roll out the bag then lay down next to her.

Hope was silent, and Steve had the terrible feeling she had already guessed what he had to tell her.

"When I was a little boy, about your age," he started. "My dad got really sick. He took the medicine the doctor gave him, but it didn't help at all, he just got worse."

Steve took a deep breath before he continued.

"He actually never got better," Steve said. "And one day the angels came and…"

Steve stopped again as the emotions became too intense. He wasn't sure he could get this out. How could he tell her Maria was never going to come back to them when he couldn't deal with it himself?

"Something happened when your mom was working, you know, and we tried to find her," Steve said. They all had. SHIELD, The Avengers, Steve had even asked Professor Xavier for help, which he knew wouldn't sit well with Maria at all. But no one had been able to find a trace of her. The others they had started to find, literally piece by piece.

"But we couldn't," he went on, trying to shove aside the thoughts of what Maria had gone through in her last hours. It wasn't fair, he thought angrily. All the hell she went through in her life, all the sacrifices she made for others, she deserved better, she deserved dignity when she died, not to be tortured then…

Steve shook his head, if he thought about it he was afraid he might go mad, and he needed to be strong for Hope. He thought about his father's words on his death bed, about how Steve was such a strong boy, his mother had told him the same. But Steve didn't feel strong right now, he felt the way he had when he'd thought Bucky had died, empty and utterly alone, as if everything that mattered had been taken from him.

A soft touch on his arm brought him back to the present.

"Did the angels take mommy to heaven?" Hope asked.

Steve looked back at her and nodded his head.

"Why?" she asked.

"Well, because in heaven no one is ever sad, and no one is ever hurt, and no one ever cries," he told her. "Because in heaven no one is ever bad, no one ever hurts anyone else."

He really wasn't sure where the words had come from, but they seemed to him the ones he needed to say to her.

"Oh, I'm so glad," Hope said and Steve looked at her in surprise, but then the tears began to pour out of her eyes. "I was so afraid someone had mommy and was hurting her."

Steve took his daughter into his arms and held her as she cried. And, as she had for the past several weeks, when she cried herself out, she fell asleep. He laid her back down in her sleeping bag then watched her sleep for several minutes. He wished he could sleep that easily, but he hadn't since Maria was reported missing.

Slowly the memories began to come, unbidden. He thought about all the blanket forts they'd built over the years, about the first one and how happy Maria had been that day, how happy he'd been.

"What is this?" Maria asked when she walked through the front door.

She set her briefcase down and peeked through the "door" of the fort.

"It's a blanket fort," Steve smiled at her as Hope toddled over to give her mom a welcome home hug.

"I see," she said.

"You've never built one?" he asked, though he instantly realized what a foolish assumption it was to think she'd ever enjoyed a moment like this in her childhood.

But Maria didn't look pained at all, she only shook her head.

"Tea pawty," Hope squealed in her little one-year-old voice. Then she scrambled out the "door" and made her way to the corner of the living room where her "kitchen" was set up. They could hear her rummaging around and loading her cart with all the supplies for the "party."

"You're smiling," Maria commented, and Steve understood. It was an unusual thing these days.

"It was a good day," he told her and took her hand to pull her closer to him.

She smiled back at him and Steve leaned in to kiss her lips.

"You are the best thing that ever happened to me," he told her. "I don't know how I would have made it through anything I've been through since I woke if it wasn't for you."

She touched his face and Steve was just happy she had stood by him that year, he was glad for her patience. He had realized finally that if he hadn't taken that chance and asked her out after the events in New York, his life would have been so radically different and the pain he'd suffered as a result of almost losing her and Hope might have been nothing in comparison to the loneliness he'd have experienced if he'd never fallen in love with Maria.

"You know I feel the same," she said. "I'm glad we're together. I never thought I'd have anything more than work to fill my life. I never thought I wanted more before I met you."

She kissed him and then pulled away laughing as Hope announced her presence with what appeared to be every last dish and toy from her kitchen.

"Wow, this is going to be quite the tea party," Maria said.

Steve relaxed against the arm of the sofa which made up the back wall of the blanket fort and watched Maria unwind by helping Hope set out the plates for their party. She had told him how much their daughter grounded her, how Hope gave her something more than she'd ever expected.

"Daddy, fwoot," Hope handed him a yellow plate with a bunch of plastic green grapes. "Goo fo you."

"Thank you," he told her.

Hope returned to her dishes and took out a cup, then lifted her play coffee pot and poured something into the cup and handed it to Maria.

"Cawfee," she said.

"How come Mommy gets coffee and I have to eat fruit?" Steve asked and winked at Maria.

"Cawfee makes Mommy happy," she explained.

He stared at Hope for a moment as Maria started to laugh.

"You don't want me to be happy?" Steve smiled.

Hope looked back at him and put her hands on her hips in a very Maria-like way.

"Mommy make you happy," she said with a very serious look on her face.

Steve watched as blush crept up the back of Maria's neck. He tried not to think of how she might be considering making him happy.

"Your daddy makes me happy, too," Maria looked over at Steve and smiled softly.

Hope looked back at her mother then took the coffee out of her hands and handed her a plastic orange.

Both Steve and Maria broke into fits of laughter. Hope looked between them and smiled.

"Hope made Mommy and Daddy happy," she said, delighted in herself.

Maria took the little girl into her arms and held her close.

"You always make us happy," she told her.

Steve stared at the roof of the blanket fort and tried with no success to allow the joy of that day to wash over him. All he could feel was the pain of his loss. He'd wanted to keep looking, he'd argued with Bucky that morning that things would have been different if Steve had looked for his friend. But maybe Bucky was right, maybe it was just better to try to believe she'd died quickly, painlessly. Only he couldn't, not with the facts they had.

The next morning the phone started ringing. Steve ignored it and stayed in the blanket fort with Hope. She brought him books to read to her and they had a tea party with her dolls. Finally, there was a knock at the door and Steve figured he'd better answer that. With the types of friends he had, they were bound to tear the thing off its hinges if he ignored them.

Steve wasn't surprised to see Tony and his family. He ushered them in and Pepper put her arms around him. After a minute they separated and she said she'd like to take the girls outside to play. Steve knew that meant Tony wanted to talk to him. He didn't really want to, but he acquiesced because Hope looked so excited at the idea of playing with Mia in the backyard.

"I'm not in the mood for a pep talk," he told his friend after the girls had left.

"Actually, I just came over to play in your blanket fort," the billionaire said, then surprised Steve by crawling inside.

Steve stood outside staring down at the blankets for half a minute before Tony stuck his head back out.

"Got any snacks?" he asked.

Steve rolled his eyes and walked over to the kitchen pantry. He pulled out some chips and found some fruit roll-ups, the latter as a joke.

"Got any cheese-whiz?" Steve heard Tony's voice from the fort.

"That stuff is gross," Steve said.

"I'll take that as a no," Tony commented.

Steve walked back over to the fort and crawled in with Tony. He knew what his friend was doing, trying to make things light before they got down to the serious conversation. Steve didn't want either. He had just wanted to spend the day quietly with Hope and try not to think about the cold truth, that Maria was never coming back to them.

Tony finished about half the bag of chips before he asked for a soda. Steve crawled out and got a soda and, if he'd been in a better mood, would have pulled out "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" for Tony just to make a point.

They sat in silence as Tony finished his drink. Steve was already exhausted from the ten minutes they'd been keeping this up. He just wanted them to all leave.

"I'm sorry," Tony said.

Steve didn't reply. He knew he was going to hear those words a lot over the next several weeks. He was tired of those words. He'd heard them when his father had died, then his mother, then when he thought Bucky was dead. He never wanted to hear them again, especially not in this context.

"I was always wrong about her," Tony continued, and Steve looked up.

"At the beginning," his friend explained. "I didn't think she was good enough for you."

Steve remembered, he and Tony had several conversations after Tony had moved into the Avengers Tower and made New York his home.

"She was always good for you," Tony said, and Steve suddenly wanted to run. For the first time in his life he wanted to run away. He wanted to take Hope and go away from everyone they knew, everyone who'd known him with Maria. He didn't want to take trips down memory lane with people. It was too painful.

But Tony said nothing more, to Steve's great relief. And the two sat under the blankets until the girls returned and they were summarily evicted for a doll tea party.

Pepper, too, was silent, though her eyes were rimmed red and she looked as if she might burst into tears at any moment. Her presence was more helpful to Steve. She and Maria had become close friends over the years and Steve found he could deflect his pain by concentrating his thoughts on her loss of a friend.

After a while there was another knock at the door. Steve felt himself whither inside. He didn't want more company.

Pepper opened the door to reveal Clint and his son, Gregory. Steve vaguely recalled that Natasha was in Berlin, as the two entered.

"I just heard the news and," Clint didn't finish his words, it wasn't needed.

He walked up to Steve and shook his hand grimly. Then he sat with the others at the table while Gregory joined the girls for their tea party under the blanket fort.

Pepper got out some food and drinks and the three nibbled lifelessly at the food.

"Steve, you need to eat something," Clint said. And Steve knew it was more than the usual admonition someone gave when their friend was grieving.

Steve only shook his head.

"I'll be right back," Tony said as he stood.

They watched him walk out the front door then Steve went back to staring at a spot he'd just noticed right under the sofa. He'd have to clean that. Without thinking he stood and walked into the laundry room in the back of the house and picked up the bottle of carpet cleaner.

Clint met him as he walked back out and took the bottle from him.

"Just go sit down," he told Steve. "Don't worry about this right now."

Steve felt himself shake his head.

"I have to do something, Barton," he said.

"Not clean the carpet," Clint told him.

Steve stared blankly for a moment before he shook himself out of his stupor. He walked past Clint and back to the kitchen. The three sat again, waiting for Tony to return from wherever he'd gone. Steve recollected hearing Ironman leave, but he hadn't been too concerned. At the moment he was mostly numb.

After another fifteen minutes, he heard Ironman return and Tony walked in the front door. He was carrying food from Maria's and Steve's favorite restaurant in Brooklyn.

"Don't get cranky on me," Tony said when he saw Steve's scowl. "You need to eat and, quite honestly, I have a great fear that your wife would crawl out of the grave and kill me if I didn't make sure you took care of yourself."

Steve stared at Tony for a moment, not sure how to process his words.

"OK, actually, that's what she told me she was going to do," Tony said as he set the bags full of food down on the table.

Steve felt a sad smile come to his face.

"That sounds like her," he said.

Clint and Pepper got out the place settings while Tony herded the kids into the small downstairs half-bath to wash their hands. It ended up being nicer than Steve had thought it would be when Tony showed up with the bags. The adults were silent, mostly listening to the children talk. That was a huge relief to Steve who simply didn't want to hear anyone's thoughts about his wife at the moment. Hope would occasionally make a comment of "Mommy says…"then she'd stop and look up at Steve and he'd try to smile at her and get her to continue.

After he'd finished several plates of food, Steve found he could at least think more clearly. It didn't ease the pain, but he no longer felt like doing anything completely off the wall.

The children returned to the blanket fort to fight the Chitauri invaders and there was another knock at the door. When Pepper opened it to reveal Bucky, Steve suddenly found himself wanting to run again. He didn't want to think of how his friend had been restored to him when he knew Maria never could be.

Bucky refused the food Pepper offered and looked hard at Steve before he jerked his head toward the door in a not so veiled invitation. Steve didn't want to go with him, but he didn't want to start anything in front of Hope like he had yesterday and he knew Bucky was more than done with Steve's attitude.

Steve stood and followed Bucky out and down the path toward the beach like a man headed for the gallows. When they arrived, Bucky sat on one of the driftwood pieces and indicated for Steve to sit next to him. The two stared out at the water for some time before Bucky finally spoke.

"I've always felt bad that I left you during the war," he told Steve.

"That was hardly your fault," Steve reminded him.

"Yeah, but when I was first recovering, before they messed with my head, I remember thinking that I'd left you alone and that was worse than the pain," Bucky confessed.

Steve was silent as he processed Bucky's words.

"I hope that's not what she was thinking," Steve started but Bucky cut him off.

"Steve, that's not why I told you that," he said. "I told you yesterday to just assume she was the first to go. There's no other reason for the team to be captured except something happened to Maria. She'd never have allowed it, not knowing what she did about this group."

It was true, and Steve was certain he'd never forgive Fury for sending Maria on this mission. Once Steve had started to learn the details, it looked as if it had been a potential suicide mission from the start. Adding more people wasn't going to do anything to help. It had certainly explained Maria's goodbye. The way she had made love to him the night before she was set to leave had reminded him far too much of a time early in their marriage when she thought the next day she would be permanently parted from him. The way she'd held Hope before she walked out to the waiting SHIELD car...

Steve shook the thoughts from his head, they were only making things worse.

"If Jasper had been here this wouldn't have happened," Steve complained.

"You don't know that," Bucky said.

"Fury has always been too hot-headed, too gung-ho," Steve said, a little louder now. "Jasper might have listened to any concerns Maria had. But Fury just wanted to get this done and he didn't care who was sacrificed."

Bucky was quiet. Steve knew his friend didn't want to start this argument again. It was pointless, because nothing could be changed.

"What do you think Maria would want you to do now?" Bucky asked.

Steve was quiet. He didn't want to have this conversation. He and Maria had to have it occasionally and he hated it. He hated that the lives they lived, the jobs they did, made it necessary.

"She told me not to quit," Steve said. "She knew I'd want to, so Hope wouldn't ever be an orphan."

Bucky only nodded.

"But she knew it would be worse because I'd pull into my shell again," Steve confessed.

Bucky turned to look at him, a confused look on his face.

"When I woke from the ice, here in this time and place, I couldn't deal with it all," he told Bucky. "I retreated, I guess, for a while."

"Until the Chitauri?" Bucky asked.

"Sort of," Steve said. "But Maria sent me to DC before that. She…"

Steve's voice cut off at the memory of the apartment in DC, the small round table in the kitchenette and the papers on it, the Latin Mass highlighted in yellow. Had he ever really conveyed to her how much just that one act meant to him?

He recalled holding Maria in their bed in Chicago after she'd told him about Melissa and her life before SHIELD. He realized that he had only begun to scratch the surface of the depths of this incredible woman. Her compassion and her humility had been a part of who she was. She hadn't been raised to be that way, she simply was that way. And to have kept those traits of humanity after the way she'd been treated, to be able to understand him when no one else could seem to be bothered, how could he not have fallen deeply in love with her?

He looked back at Bucky who was patiently waiting.

"I wanted to run earlier," he confessed. "I wanted to take Hope and start over somewhere no one knew us."

Bucky nodded, and Steve knew he understood. All his friends understood. They had all lost family and loved ones. First in childhood, then as a result of their chosen lives. Maria had told him more than once that it was theirs to sacrifice because they understood the need for others to live peaceful lives.

But Steve didn't want to think about the need for sacrifice today. He wanted to pretend that when he woke tomorrow, everything would be OK. He didn't want to face raising Hope alone, and he would be alone because no one could ever replace Maria. His daughter was starting Kindergarten in one month and Maria wouldn't be there for her first day. He'd have to drop Hope off at school, then come home to an empty house.

He felt Bucky's hand on his shoulder and turned back to his friend.

"I want to be there for you this time," Bucky said.

Steve laughed at the way it appeared that his friend had read his mind.

"Throw some cushions on the floor like when we were kids?" Steve joked.

"Exactly," Bucky said, but he was serious.

"Well, right now I'm living in a blanket fort," Steve chuckled.

"Blanket forts are cool," Bucky said. "I don't think I've ever lived in one."

They were quiet again for a while before Steve spoke.

"I have to plan the funeral," he said.

"No, you don't," Bucky told him. "That's what your friends are for."

Steve sighed.

"You have a place you like or do you want me to see if I can get something close to your folks?" Bucky asked.

"Fury says she can be interred at Arlington," Steve explained. "I think that's the most appropriate place to honor her sacrifice."

Bucky nodded.

"I'll get on it," he said.

They sat for a long while after that and no words passed between them. When they returned to the house it was nearly time for dinner and Tony flew out for more food. After they'd all eaten, the group left, except Bucky. Hope and Bucky expanded the blanket fort and rolled out sleeping bags for the two men while Bucky told Hope more stories about her dad growing up in Brooklyn.

As they lay on the floor, Hope's head on Steve's shoulder, Steve tried not to let the memories overwhelm him again.

"I'm glad Uncle Bucky's camping out with us," Hope said in a sleepy voice.

"Yeah, me too, sweetheart," Steve replied.

"I hope when I grow up, me and Mia and Gregory are as good of friends as you and Uncle Bucky."

Steve smiled and looked over at Bucky who was watching them with a bemused look.

"Punk," he said when he saw Steve turn to him.

Steve sighed and let the memories rush in as Hope's breaths evened out in sleep. It was going to be hell, no one was denying that, but he did have Bucky, and Tony, and the others. And, even though the pain he felt at losing Maria was somehow worse than the pain of loss he'd felt when he woke from the ice, at least he wasn't completely alone this time. As he thought through the years he could see, as much as she would probably be surprised at the fact, it was Maria that had made sure Steve had friends. She was the one who'd known how important people and relationships were to him. She'd even encouraged his friendship with Tony when he knew she couldn't stand the billionaire. She had always known what he needed and made sure he had it. He took great comfort in that thought tonight, in the knowledge that he'd been privileged with her love. It was a privilege she had reserved for him and he knew he'd never received a greater gift.

A/N: If you are terribly depressed after this, you can read yesterday's story, Life's a Circus. It takes place two years after this story and will make you happy. :)

Stories referenced: Chs 17, 27, & 28 of I Don't Dance; All of Suffering Is a Guarantee and Happiness Is a Phase.