A/n: This is an AU time line where "Stevie" was not in WWII. I mean, I like the historical stuff, but I just can't write a girl Steve in that time. It doesn't make sense to me.

Warnings: Fem!Steve, non-canon pairing, AU, language, violence, non-graphic sexual references, everything but the kitchen sink, ya know.

Disclaimer: Property of Marvel, et al.

Not Worth Breaking

"A heart that's not worth breaking isn't worth much."

Chapter One-In the Flesh

The first time I saw her it was dark and I was a bit preoccupied, but I couldn't help noticing that she was exactly what I expected her to be. That was bad. Well, bad for me because I was hoping she would be a little less awesome. Because let's be honest, it's kind of hard not to be awesome when you're Captain-fucking-America. I suppose it wasn't her fault, except it probably was. What normal person is so... good?

I kept my cool of course. There was no sudden burst of fanboying like I was certain Coulson had already done. No, I was far too sophisticated for that. All I said was, "Captain."

Really? That was all I could come up with? Impressive. Maybe less was more. Maybe it would be okay. But from the tone of her voice, I could already tell she didn't like me. Probably because she didn't like people rescuing her. That seemed like a valid hypothesis. And it wasn't as if she wouldn't have been okay had I not swooped in, but what man in his right mind isn't going to take the opportunity to save Captain America?

I decided not to rub it in though. Wouldn't want to be on the bad side of someone who could break my arm with her little finger if she wanted to. Well, not when I was safe in my suit, and not that she would. She was too nice to do that. I hadn't had any experience in that particular area, but her reputation preceded her.

The confined space of the Quinjet was a new sensation. Maybe I should have flown myself, but it would be kind of hard to say that I didn't want to be too close to Captain Rogers. It would send completely the wrong message, not to mention putting me in the awkward position of explaining why.

The truth was, I never thought I would meet her. I never wanted to meet her really. I was happy with my illusion of what I thought she was. No need to have that confirmed and thus transferred from a childish fantasy to a cruel reality. Cruel because in the fantasy, I could at least imagine I wasn't who I was, and she actually liked me.

No, I certainly did not want to explain all that, so I kept my mouth shut and we took off. That was when I got a better look at her. She took off that weird hood/mask thing, and I could see that she really didn't look 30 years old, or whatever she was supposed to be. She looked about 18, and scary tight bun aside, she was, well, beautiful. I don't use that word a lot, but it was the only thing that fit. Eyes didn't have a right to be that blue or cheekbones that prominent. And she was muscular too. How a girl could be that muscular and beautiful at the same time was a mystery to me, and slightly disconcerting.

Oh, and she was as tall as me. Unfair, but undeniably sexy at the same time. And what was I thinking? It was nothing new, but I had practiced chasing those thoughts away until now. Maybe it was seeing her in person for the first time. I really should have prepared better, but I didn't. Such is life.

She made some comment about capturing Loki being too easy, and I couldn't help cracking a joke about her age. It was out of my mouth before I could stop it, and really, she was younger than I was anyway, so it was hardly insulting. Of course, she took it that way. I think women tend to be like that about their ages, even though this one seriously did not look a day over 20, tops. She could have passed for about 15 if she had wanted to. Well, maybe she was a little tall for that.

It wasn't until she stopped Mr. Shakespeare from crushing me into metal dust that I started to think, shit, I really can't do this without her. Of course there had to be a reason Fury wanted her in on it, even though her files clearly stated that she had been out of commission for quite a while and possibly dealing with various undiagnosed traumatic disorders.

Of course she had to be awesome anyway. She had to be better than everyone at everything. I had expected no less, but it might have been nice. And it wasn't so much that I wanted to do this alone. I didn't. But me and teamwork did not go well together. Maybe I didn't want to do this at all, but I agreed because I couldn't help myself. Because I knew she would be there, and as much as I had tried to avoid thinking about her in the last few years, a very small part of me had always wanted to meet her.

I was relieved when we got back to the Helicarrier, and I had the chance to slip away and get out of the suit. But it gave me more time to think, which I certainly didn't need. The problem was, I knew I wasn't going to change my approach. I was going to be as obnoxious as I damn well pleased because it wasn't as if she were going to like me anyway, so why bother? And that just made me more irritated with her, and more obnoxious. Yes, I was more self-aware than most people gave me credit for.

Eventually, I headed to the bridge and put my game face on. There was plenty to distract me from the star-spangled leader of this operation. At least, I think she was supposed to be the leader, but with this group, one couldn't be certain.

On a side note, I like Dr. Banner more than I like most people. With the way the evening had gone so far, it was nice to be around someone who actually made sense to me. If I had my way, I'd spend the rest of this mission with him. And to be honest, I kind of really wanted to meet the big green guy. Maybe that was kind of like a death wish, but I wasn't so attached to my life that I'd pass up an amazing opportunity like that.

* Avengers *

Dad used to talk about Stevie all the time. He met her during his last few years working with the Army. Before the heart attack. He died a few months later. I think the last conversation we had was about Stevie. He always called her that. I asked him once if that were her real first name. He didn't know.

It added to the intrigue of a girl who seemed pretty straightforward. Joined the Army at eighteen after nine-eleven, got into a super secret super soldier program. Dad was in on that too. Apparently, Stevie was the most amazing thing he'd ever seen. His greatest accomplishment or whatever. It wasn't much of a stretch to assume he wished I were more like her. It was a little late then. I was already set in my ways, and it wasn't as if he had taught me any differently.

And I tried not to think about all that, the way my father was more interested in a scrawny teenager than he ever was in me. She was a good soldier, he said. A patriot. I was chopped liver. You can imagine why I tried to put that out of my mind.

Of course, it didn't help when Captain Perfect started getting in my face about sticking to my job and not asking too many questions. No successful person ever stuck to the status quo. I knew she didn't, but I guess her individuality was more socially acceptable than mine. She was good, as in morally and militarily. I was good in a different way, talented, smart.

But I was too smart, I guess. Too inquisitive. I wasn't going to rest until I knew what was going on. It wasn't until everyone was in the lab shouting at each other that I thought I might have made a mistake. And wouldn't it have been big of me to be the one not to shout back? But that wasn't my style, and as you know, I'm all about style.

That was when everything went to hell. My job wasn't actually that hard, but it didn't help matters much to have a not quite incompetent assistant. Don't get me wrong, I still liked her. Nothing was going to change that, much to my annoyance, but she wasn't good with mechanics. It was actually kind of surprising because she struck me as the chick who worked on cars with her old man and went to baseball games and preferred cheeseburgers to salads.

Maybe I was a little too observant, but I had looked into her life as much as I could over the years. I wanted to know who could be so wonderful that she stole the attention I never got from my father. It was innocent curiosity. Or maybe I was an incurable busybody. I don't know where I found the time, but I managed. JARVIS helped of course. He was the only one who knew about my obsession with Stevie Rogers.

We got it done in the end. Then we heard what happened on this inside, and for once I regretted my actions. I didn't know how much any of this was my fault, but I probably made it worse. Maybe it was bound to end up this way with Bruce and Thor falling out of the sky and Coulson—Phil getting killed. Maybe he was an idiot, but he didn't deserve that. And then to suffer through Fury's guilt trip which would definitely work on Rogers and was ever starting to convince me.

Where did all this go so horribly wrong? Here I was standing in the empty room where it had all happened and there was Captain Spangles, looking appropriately sad and profound-like, saying things I'm sure she meant, but I couldn't agree with. Or didn't want to.

It was the comment about losing soldiers that set me off. Because I knew she'd been through this before too many times, and she was damn good at acting like it didn't bother her, but I hadn't, and I wasn't. And that pissed me off.

"We are not soldiers." I didn't shout, but I might as well have been with the way my voice betrayed my fear.

They way she looked at me was something I never expected or wanted from her. Sympathy. I hated it. Maybe it was better than the derision I had gotten so far, but it was only a cruel joke. She would feel sorry for me for an hour or two, and then she'd have something more important to do like winning a war or saving the world.

I gave in eventually, not because she was so damn persuasive, but because I finally figured it out. I knew why we were all put together, and I knew we all had to be there in the end to resolve this. I knew we could do it if only we could all manage to work together without killing each other.

Guess that was the tricky part.

* Avengers *

It was her face I saw when I first opened my eyes. I half hoped that she had given me CPR, but that would be unlikely. She only said, "We won."

It was so simple for her. No need to make some big speech about how we all put aside our differences because we didn't really, but it all worked out in the end. We made it out alive. That wasn't really the point, and I wasn't even counting on it when I took that missile into outer space. But there we all were.

The Shawarma thing was kind of a joke, but we were all starving, and since we just saved the city, the owners were more than happy to feed us. As we ate, I noticed that Cap looked more exhausted than the rest of us. I remembered my previous thoughts on her youthful appearance, and right now she looked nothing like a super soldier, and everything like an eighteen year old kid who'd just been through hell. I thought it might have something to do with the fact that she had ordered Natasha to close the portal. She was the responsible one. That was a lot of weight for anyone to carry, and it was beginning to show.

So maybe she wasn't perfect. Maybe she was human. It was a startling, yet not unpleasant discovery. And when she shook my hand before we all parted ways, I thought that maybe if I ever saw her again, it wouldn't be so bad. Maybe we could even be friends.

Yeah, that'd be the day.