Note: The first scene (7) takes place a little over a month after the last chapter left off. The second set of scenes (8) take place when Joseph is five years old.
7. May, 2015
Andy and Claire arrived first, along with Claire's partner – a statuesque redhead with tattoos from her shoulders to her elbows. Anne's parents arrived just hours later on a separate flight from Mombasa, where they kept a second home. Her father was a tall, bespectacled man named Alan. Her mother, a curly-haired woman with a gigantic beaded necklace, introduced herself to Steve not as Anne's mother, but as "Rachel Berkowitz-Spring." The five of them stayed for a weekend, filling Anne's Stark Tower apartment, passing Joseph from person to person, letting him coo and sleep in their arms.
From Anne, Steve had come to understand that her parents had been rarely seen in the Spring home; they had been more concerned with their tenure than their children. He understood that it had been Claire who had taken care of Anne and Andy, cleaning and bandaging their childhood scrapes, cooking them dinner, singing them to sleep.
To watch the three of them jockey for their parents' attention even now – Claire and Anne at their father's elbows, Andy doting on their mother – made something in Steve's chest twist. The way Anne looked at her father – hopeful and a little anxious – made Steve wish she had had more from him.
On their second night, Anne told her parents about Captain America, and Steve answered nearly all of their questions about his strange story and anomalous physiology. Her mother had curled her finger around her lower lip in a perfect imitation of Anne's most thoughtful expression. Her father had nodded comprehendingly, his expression withdrawn and cool.
Afterward, as the Springs opened a bottle of wine and settled in for the evening, the aroma of Anne's mother's borscht wafting through the apartment, Steve found Alan on Anne's tiny balcony. The cool night air filled his lungs as he closed the door behind him and approached the railing.
"May I join you?" he asked quietly. He wasn't sure what bearing Alan's approval had on his standing with Anne or her siblings, but he found himself seeking it anyway.
After a silent moment, Alan cleared his throat. "When I was three years old, my father was killed on Omaha Beach."
Steve bowed his head, taken off guard but immediately understanding the seriousness of the revelation, "I'm sorry."
The older man swallowed, his voice becoming strained, "They used to give the servicemen these comic books – I suppose you know – about Captain America. He'd send them to me, even though I couldn't read yet."
He cleared his throat again, chasing away the emotion that threatened to choke him, "When he died, my mother was out of her mind with grief. When she got rid of his things, she let me keep them – the comics. They were all I had…" His voice finally gave out. He stared at his hands, curled around the railing, "I've never told anybody about that."
Steve could tell he was unable to go on, so he relieved him. "My father died in combat, too. Before I was born."
Alan looked up at him, "Did he?"
Steve nodded. "My mother was a nurse with the Red Cross in France – that was how they met. She had this record, this song about a soldier who gets wounded but wants to stay in the hospital because the nurses are so pretty. She told me it was his favorite. I must have listened to it a million times."
He looked over and Alan gave him a sad smile. "The way Anne turned out, the way all three of them turned out, I wish I could take more credit." He sighed, and adjusted his glasses. "I didn't know what to do with children. No one ever showed me. But that's hardly an excuse."
The two men, made alike only by what they had both lost and how they had lost it, stood together in silence, looking out at the glow of the city.
"Anne told me that you were Joseph's father," Alan said softly, "You'll do better than I did."
"How do you figure?"
He smiled, pulling his tweed jacket tighter around his torso and turning to go back inside. When their eyes met, Alan bore an expression Steve seen before from old-timers who recognized him: familiar and fond, the way people look at old friends.
"Because you're Captain America."
8. Summer, 2020
June
Joseph's eyes turned into an icy blue, like Steve's; his chestnut hair mirrored Anne's. As he got older, he proved to be precocious and shy, like Steve had been as a child, and free-thinking and open-hearted, like Anne had been.
At first, they had only halfheartedly committed to the plan to present Steve to Joe and the world as an uncle. Anne had been a particularly vocal opponent of the idea. But once he was born, once they had seen how small and vulnerable and precious he was, once they had seen the intelligence Natasha and Clint provided about incoming threats, they had become desperate, willing to try anything.
In the end, though he loved all his uncles – Tony, who taught him to play air guitar, Andy, who taught him to play a real guitar, and Bruce, who showed him science experiments in the Stark laboratory – Joe was drawn to Steve, and became a fixture at his side. It was Steve who ate dinner with them every night. It was Steve who was only one who colored with him and watched cartoons with him on Saturday mornings. The only one who took him to the art store, and let Joe hold the flashlight while he fixed the leak in the kitchen sink. The only one whose hand his mother held when she thought no one was looking.
When the team wasn't out on a mission, Steve walked him to school in the mornings. It made Anne's heart ache to watch them leave: Steve making sure Joe had his folders, pencils, and snack, Joe's little hand in Steve's, his tiny backpack in Steve's free hand. When Steve came back, alone, she would wrap her arms around his shoulders and pull him into her bedroom, her love for him unbearable and overwhelming.
Tony had had a doorway installed between Anne and Steve's neighboring apartments, linking their bedrooms through a panel that slid away at the press of a button. Steve, his comings and goings a secret, slept every night in her bed, the two of them wrapped tight around each other. Together, they chased away their nightmares: hers about losing him, and his about losing them.
It was a warm June night - Joseph's first year at the kindergarten three blocks away had only just ended - when Steve was pulled from sleep by a strange presence in the room. As the mattress dipped under added weight, he jerked awake, sitting up, fists clenched. At the sight of the dark-haired boy at the foot of the bed, he froze.
"Joe?"
"Uncle Steve?"
In the shadowy darkness, the two of them looked at each other for a long, silent moment.
"What's the matter?"
"I had a bad dream." Joe folded his legs under him, sitting on his heels, "How come you're here?"
Anne shifted slightly; he could tell she was only pretending to sleep.
Steve swallowed, hesitating. "I had a bad dream, too."
Joe looked at him pensively, as though he were working something out in his head. When he finally nodded in understanding, Steve breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that he was still too young to come to any untoward conclusions, satisfied that the pretense they had built to protect him remained intact.
Steve moved to the edge of the bed, gesturing to Joe, who crawled into the gap between them, sliding under the covers and closing his eyes.
July
As he disembarked from the Quinjet, newly returned from the team's latest battle, Steve smiled at the sight of Joe, waiting for him patiently.
Steve walked up to him, ruffling Joe's hair with his gloved hand, "You're a sight for sore eyes."
Joe's little brow furrowed. "Are you hurt?"
He followed the boy's eyes to the torn side of his uniform. The bare skin under it was slashed, blood oozing down the blue fabric.
"Don't worry, kiddo," he smiled, sliding off his glove and taking his hand, "Your mom'll stitch me up."
Joe nodded and led Steve to the elevator and up to his mother's apartment. As they walked, Steve struggled not to favor his unhurt side.
As they entered her apartment, Anne came towards them, smiling and wiping her hands on a dishtowel.
"Hey, Annie." Steve's eyes were fixed on hers; he winced as he stepped into the room.
She noticed the injury immediately, and sobered. Joe glanced between them nervously, sensing something serious, but Anne smiled at him brightly.
Anne led them into the kitchen, spreading out her medical kit on the table while Steve peeled off his uniform jacket and undershirt. Joe climbed onto a stool next to her, watching as his mother's gloved hands knit the wound together. The first time he had seen them do this, he had cried, frightened by Steve's clenched jaw and Anne's drawn face. But, over time, once Steve and Anne learned to better hide their pain, Joe had grown accustomed to it. It helped when Anne gave him little jobs – things to hold, things to pass her when she asked for them.
When Joe looked up, meeting Steve's eyes, his father flashed a reassuring smile, "Didn't I tell you?" Joe looked at his mother, and Anne winked at him. He smiled and swung his feet, happy to be with them both, all together.
August
That summer, Joseph took to sleeping in their bed, his tiny body curled up between them. When Anne had asked him why he wouldn't sleep in his own bed, he had told her that he was afraid of losing Steve, and she couldn't summon the strength to tell him that he had to move back to his room.
She made it nearly a month before finding Pepper, taking her by the shoulders, and begging her and Tony to take Joe for the night.
When Steve got back to the apartment, fresh from training, breathless and still in uniform, Tony and Pepper were just leading Joe towards the elevator.
"Where're you going?" he asked as he approached them.
"Joe's going to stay over at our place tonight," Pepper smiled cheerfully, her hand folded around Joe's.
"Really?" his eyebrows raised, the implication clicking into place, "That's…great."
He ran a hand through Joe's hair, and the boy grinned up at him, "Have fun, kiddo."
"You, too," Tony smirked, cocking an eyebrow suggestively.
Steve found Anne in her kitchen, grabbed her by the waist and lifted her onto the kitchen table. She gasped as he shoved her skirt up to her waist, pulling off her underwear, and kneeling between her legs, draping her knees over his shoulders.
In an instant, his fingers were buried in her, his teeth and tongue on the hard bud at the front of her sex. It was an act he had honestly never thought of until she had showed it to him, but it was something he had come to crave: the sight of her laid open in front of him, the way she cried out and writhed under his attentions, the taste and feel of her under his mouth – hot and heady and his.
As much as he loved Joe, as much as he loved the three of them together, in the last few days, his need to be alone with Anne had consumed him. Even standing too close to her made his skin twitch. With this goal finally accomplished, he felt a cool, cottony satisfaction take him over, making him hard, making him groan against her, making him struggle not to take himself in hand.
When he shifted, his hand spread across her mons, his thumb strumming the most sensitive part of her while the hard point of his tongue dipped inside her, she began to spend, whimpering, her hands clutching the edges of the table, her thighs clamped around his head, holding him in place until she was finished.
When her shuddering slowed, he kissed his way down her inner thigh. "C'mon," he murmured against the soft flesh there, "Want you in bed."
When she didn't respond, he looked up at her. Her arm was draped across her face, her mouth open slightly. She nodded, still too breathless to speak. Steve smiled, pulling her up against him, letting her wrap herself around him as he carried her into their bedroom.
"God," she swore softly, looking down at the uniform, "You're still—"
He smiled and blushed, "You want me to keep it on?"
Anne laughed, touching her lips to a spot below his ear, "Not this time. I just want Steve."
He spilled her back onto the bed, leaning away from her to pull off the suit while she undressed. He covered her, pushing hard into her. The warm weight of him, the heft of him inside her, the gentle brush of his mouth on hers, made Anne cry out and lose her senses for the second time that evening.
"You're…You're…" she gasped incoherently.
"What is it?" his voice was rough and gravelly, his breath hoarse and ragged, "What am I?"
His strokes deepened and quickened. His hand on her lower back tilted her hips, changing the angle until he felt her ripple around him; until her fingernails dug into his biceps and her legs snapped up and around his waist.
"Everything," she cried, her hands pawing at his shoulders, his hair, his lower back. He could feel the tension building in her, could feel how close she was to spilling over. "My lover. My husband. Mine."
It was more than he could take. He was thankful that she was so close, that she could follow close behind as he came with a sharp jerk and a shout.
For a long while, their arms were still wrapped around each other. His hardness faded, but neither of them had the wherewithal to part. He knew what she had meant – that, through all that they had endured, they were married together in a way that went deeper than paper or rings; to add the trappings of legal marriage to their union now would only cheapen what they had already pledged to each other.
They spent hours pressed together, not minding that they were sweaty and slick with the products of their lovemaking. They dozed together, her fingers woven into his hair and his big arms wrapped tight around her waist. When they woke, his hands were on her breasts, or her mouth was between his legs, and they began again.
Steve glowed, felt like he was lighting up the room. It was always the same, when he was in her arms: nothing bad mattered, and everything was exactly as it should be. For a few hours, at least, that was enough.
Notes: Thanks, as always, to all readers, followers, and reviewers! Obscure history-nerd notes/links are in my profile. Just one more chapter of this left. Hope you all have enjoyed it.
