A/N: I'm having major computer issues so all my updates are delayed. Just so long as I don't lose them all like last year, I'm not going to freak out. I typed this one out on my mini and posting it from there as well. Apparently you can't post from a cellphone. Time to get with the new century, FFN.
ReginaRiverMayHill sent me a list of prompts for some drabbles. The list is thirty long and you are supposed to choose eighteen. My eighteen stories are about my Steve's and Maria's wedding anniversaries. I will skip the third and eighth as I already posted those in I Don't Dance, chapters twenty-six and twenty-eight respectively. This means I can end on their twentieth. :)
While I will attempt to keep this as T as possible, these are all anniversary stories so there will definitely be inferences to s-e-x.
Anyway...I shuffled the list they sent with the help of my seven year old and the first word that he picked out of my hat (literally) was "limos."
Title for this chapter is "We've Only Just Begun" from The Carpenters' song.
Please R&R. :)
"That's your plan?" Steve eyed Tony dubiously.
"What?" Tony turned back to him from the layout on the computer screen. "Too few? Do you think we should have forty?"
"I'm fairly certain ten would do the trick," Maria responded dryly.
"Ten?" Tony gasped as if affronted. "Where's the fun in that? No, thirty limos. See, I have the timing down."
"That's twenty extra people who know what's going on Stark," Natasha interrupted.
"Argh, you spies and your secrecy," Tony groused.
"It's kind of the point, Tony," Maria said.
"But this will be more fun, and still secret," he said. "I understand your point, Natalie."
Natasha rolled her eyes and Tony let out a yelp as a rubber band hit him on the back of the neck. The group turned and looked over at Clint who sat on his perch on the back of the sofa in the Avengers common lounge, an innocent look on his face.
"I can program all the limos to be remotely controlled from our command center." Stark turned his attention back to his plan to get Steve and Maria to their first anniversary vacation safely.
"Ten limos," Maria said. "That's the deal. As it is this will be a huge mess for SHIELD to clean up."
"I'm gonna take care of the clean up," Tony assured her in a peevish voice.
In the end, Tony agreed to ten, and he only blew up half.
Steve and Maria made it to their cabin unscathed.
Later, Steve lay in their bed wondering, again, how he could run for miles and barely break a sweat, yet a mere thirty passionate minutes with his wife left him gasping for breath.
He held held her tightly as his heart rate slowly returned to normal.
"Thanks for putting up with me this year," he whispered against her temple then pressed his lips to her skin.
"Yeah, it was a real hardship," she mocked as she pushed herself up on her elbow next to him.
"It was," Steve insisted. "The whole mess with HYDRA."
Maria put her fingers over his mouth to stop him from continuing.
"It's the past, Steve," she told him. "We promised we wouldn't live in the past."
"It was only four months ago," he insisted on continuing the argument.
Maria sighed loudly to indicate her displeasure.
"And I forgave you, and you were exceptionally good at making it up to me." She smirked and raised an eyebrow at him.
"I made you cry," he said, his voice tight with the pain of the memory.
"And I've never done anything that hurt you," she said sarcastically.
"That's different," he said.
"How?" she asked immediately.
"You were just afraid I'd reject you if I knew everything about you," he said.
"And you were just afraid I'd reject you because you weren't Captain America anymore," she retorted.
Steve was silent. It was difficult to rebutt the truth.
"I don't want to argue this week," she said. "Four months ago I spent twenty-four hours not knowing if we'd even have a first anniversary. I'm just grateful we're here and together."
Steve looked over at her and smiled softly.
"I'm sorry," he said, then pulled her back into his arms and placed a kiss on her forehead before beginning to run his fingers through her hair. "I just love you so much."
"I know," she said, then langorously moved her hand across his body, taking slow, blissful time everywhere she knew he was sensitive until Steve felt his heart rate increasing.
"If you keep doing that, I'm not going to be able to control myself," he breathed out.
He felt her body shake as he listened to her laugh.
"I know," she said.
