I Wrote Your Name
Chapter 4: The Problem With Excuses
"I wrote your name in the sand, but the ocean washed it away
I wrote your name in the clouds, but the wind blew it away
I wrote your name in my heart, where forever it will stay"
Steve wanted to gag at the pungent stench of Natalie's hairspray as its fumes wafted out from the ensuite bathroom and into the bedroom. For a cop, Steve noticed that the dark haired woman hung more on the girly side and had a tendency to doll herself up just to go into work. Her hair, tied back in a tight pony tail, was curled at the ends in loose ringlets that bounced with her every step, her eyes were outlined with a thick black line of eyeliner, and even her face held copious amounts of pinup makeup to hide all her alleged imperfections. For a supposed professional in the police force, Steve had a hard time believing such a thing. "So you can pick up Jake this afternoon from daycare, right?" She called from the bathroom, her eyes glued to the mirror as she applied a layer of lip gloss to her full lips. "I have court all afternoon, so I won't be able to do it."
"I told you I had meetings all afternoon." Steve shot back, venom dripping from his every word. Reaching up the blonde grabbed the pillow from his girlfriend's side of the bed and smashed it over his face to drown out her incessant voice. Gagging instantly, as even the pillow held the vial smell of hairspray and the strong aroma of her perfume, Steve threw the flimsy thing across the room before forcing himself out of bed.
"Steve, I never ask you to do anything and this one time I do you can't skip out on a stupid meeting to pick up Jake?" Appearing in the archway of the bathroom, adjusting the expensive wristwatch around her bony wrist, she fixed Steve with a heated look. Watch secured, she crossed her arms expectantly.
"It's not like your department meetings where you just show up when you feel like it, Nat." He wanted to argue that SHIELD was getting ready to send him out into the field for a snatch-and-grab of a high profile prisoner over in Saudi Arabia, but that would be a breach of protocol and Director Fury would personally sink Steve in a block of ice if he were to leak such information to a civilian. Natalie knew what Steve did for a living, who the man behind the mask really was, but that's about all she knew as Steve made sure she wasn't privy to all the things he did in his personal time. "Just call John, it's his night with him anyways." Big mistake…
Peggy was right, even after all these years Steve still knew absolutely nothing about women.
"So you want me to pass my son off to that man so you can go off—"
"You were married to the guy for three years Natalie, he couldn't have been that bad! Besides, Jake has been dying to see his father for the last several months and you're the one who keeps interfering."
Steve hated mornings like this where something would crawl up his girlfriend's ass and turn her from the sweet little southern bell and into such a bitch. He hated arguing and he hated being on the receiving end of her verbal abuse for every little thing that went wrong in her life. Days like these were when Steve found himself missing the warmth of Tony's body snuggled against his own, the man's soft snores making a sweet melody in his ears rather than the screaming banshee that was Natalie. It wasn't enough that Steve had to suffer through with the woman's mood swings and violent temper, but he also found himself to be the primary caretaker for her four year old son, Jacob.
The toddler, on a good day, was generally and okay child but even at such an early age Steve could see the telltale signs of a maturing brat in the boy. Sitting at the kitchen table, a warm bowl of oats before the child, Steve silently listened to the boy yammer on about how his daddy was going to come and get him, how his daddy was going to get back together with his mommy, how his daddy was going to kick Steve's ass (Steve hated that the man taught his young son that word, and hated how Natalie never did anything to correct him), and how Steve was never going to be his daddy. It wasn't the first time Steve found himself in the midst of a conversation such as this, but he knew it wouldn't be the last. After changing his tee three times, ridding himself of the flung gobs of hot oats, Steve grabbed the sticky toddler and took him to daycare. Passing the little terror off to the less than willing caretaker at the center was one of the highlights of Steve's day.
Unlike the other children who refused to leave their parents side, Jake ran into the toy room to instantly knock down a block tower a little blonde girl had been building. Ducking out as the cries lifted to his ears, Steve made a quick bee-line for his truck. Looking down to his hands, noting their frustrated shaking, the blonde took a few calming breaths in to put his life back into perspective. He was in a relationship with the beautiful detective-sergeant from the NYPD, basically had an adoptive son, and his girlfriend's baby-daddy issues to deal with. Never mind the credit card debt the woman came with or the mortgage on a shoddy two bedroom house that she could barely afford. Dropping his head into his hands, Steve found himself wondering what he was doing most days as he had no idea how to raise a family. Striking the steering unit with his palm, Steve dropped his forehead to the leather and sighed deeply. He had five months until the little one growing inside Natalie was going to be in his arms and he was so scared.
As much as he wanted to run back to the mansion with the other Avengers and slide into bed next to Tony and forget these last few months never happened, Steve knew he couldn't. A feeling of disgust swirled in the pit of his stomach for even thinking of going back to his homosexual lifestyle with the man. He didn't think he could keep going to confession sessions at the church for such inappropriate thoughts about another man because at this point Steve didn't think he could get anymore passes from the big guy upstairs. It was easier to suppress these sinful feelings back in the 1940's where Steve knew that if anyone found out he would rather bat for the home team he'd be shot on the spot. The first time Steve saw two guys kiss in public he was sure his heart stopped as panic shook his core. He watched and waited for someone to do anything, say anything to the two men at the airport but the only thing that happened was that a business man had walked by with a look of disgust on his face. It took a while to get used to, and a little research from Jarvis, but Steve quickly learned that—for the most part—homosexuality was a widely accepted lifestyle. But just because it was accepted by society didn't mean it was right.
Steve compared gay rights to a woman's right to abortion, again another subject that was unspeakable back in his time. No matter how much he looked into the political subject all he understood was that it was murder, that a woman would be so cold as to scorn her unborn child by terminating their right to life for her mistake. Even if the argument was made that she was raped, Steve didn't want to believe that a woman would deny the innocent victim the right to life. As much as he didn't want to see the child go into foster care, he didn't want to see the child die either which was why when Natalie brought up that she could easily get an abortion for his one night of weakness four months ago Steve felt like he couldn't breathe. That child was his, a part of himself, and he couldn't allow her to just get rid of the problem as she so coldly stated.
It was a stupid fight, another one of Tony's insecure moments, which wedged a knife in their relationship and forced the two of them to take a break from each other. While Steve knew he shouldn't leave Tony he knew he had to as his lover needed to sort things out and understand that no matter what Steve would always love him. Whether he believed that then or now wouldn't matter because Steve found himself in bed with the temptress and it only took one time, only one time for her to become pregnant with his child. Apparently her being on the pill and using protection wasn't enough to keep his little super-swimmers from impregnating the officer. He never wanted anyone to learn of his moment of weakness with the officer, but when she showed up outside the mansion a month later with a grainy black and white photo Steve knew he had to push Tony away.
He would admit that his actions were demonic in nature, and he wanted to vomit every time his hands came in contact with Tony's body because even though it was accepted back then to abuse your spouse, as everyone turned a blind eye, Steve couldn't stop the uneasy feeling it left him with. The hurt in Tony's eyes the first time he stuck him made him weak in the knees and reminded him of the new term Natalie threw around; Domestic Violence. Tony didn't deserve Steve's insecurities, and he sure as hell didn't deserve the treatment the soldier dished out at him. His illogical thinking pushed him to be harsh with his lover because then maybe Tony would hate him enough to never want to take him back and damn near every time Steve pleaded for forgiveness the billionaire caved and accepted Steve with open arms. This was a never ending, vicious cycle that needed to end.
His phone rang, the sound piercing through the thick atmosphere of his truck, jolting the blonde from his thoughts. Fumbling with the piece of Stark technology, Steve groaned as the familiar number of SHIELD's home base illuminated itself on the touch screen. Looking to the clock on his dashboard, the captain groaned at the time knowing he was already more than an hour late. "Director Fury, I—"
"Save it Rogers, I need you to suit up. Report back to base, the Avengers are needed." Leaving no room for an argument, Steve frowned as the line was suddenly disconnected. Growling to himself, frustrated beyond belief, Steve tossed his phone into his bag that sat idly in the passenger's seat. Natalie would have to forgive him later; Steve had something he had to deal with at the current moment. Already dreading the later hours of the evening and the following day, Steve pulled out of his parking space and headed towards base.
A-V-E-N-G-E-R-S
Clint stood over Tony's shoulder, a hard look plastered over his face at the man's complete stubbornness. Arms crossed firmly over his chest, the blonde rocked back onto his foot to settle his weight over his left hip and fixed the engineer with a firm glare. Drumming his fingers impatiently along his bicep, Clint waited for Tony to acknowledge his concerns and head back home to rest. "I'll be fine—"
"God damn-it, Stark!" Tony flinched at the sudden outburst but refused to turn and look at the archer. "You can barely move, how do you expect to pilot the MARK suit?"
"He's right, Tony." Bruce lamented, agreeing fully with the archer that Tony should still be confined to bed rest. The brunette should consider himself lucky that Bruce even allowed him to busy his hands in his lab, but this was where the doctor found him putting his foot down. Not only was it reckless on Tony's part, but it was also going to create a liability with the team if Tony suddenly found himself incapable in the heat of battle. "Go home, I'm sure the three of us can handle this."
"You mean the five of us." Everyone's head snapped over to Steve who had walked in, dressed for the occasion in his battle ware.
"Tony's injured, he can't fight." Natasha offered up from her silent position in her chair.
"I'll be fine—"
"He says he's fine, he's fine. Stop babying him, we have to go. I'll brief everyone on the way." Turning to march back out of the room, Steve missed the teams jaws hit the flooring and just pushed his way down the halls and down a few flights of stairs towards the flight deck where the new SHIELD issued Avengers jet was awaiting the remainder of the team. Clint growled loudly and slammed his fist down on the desk.
"You are not going, Tony, and that's final!" Ignoring the startled look that appeared over the man's face, Clint rolled his chair back and perched himself on the engineer's lap, thighs bracing the edge of thin waist. "Do you like being hurt all the time?" Tony shook his head and refused to look up into Clint's concerned blues eyes that reminded him so much of Steve's. "Well then you must enjoy making the rest of us suffer, because we care about you Tony. Please, if not for yourself but for us, go home and rest. I promise you can come with us on the next mission." Leaning forward to rest his forehead on the man's shoulder, Clint slowly drew a breath in trying not to get overly worked up.
"It'll be okay and if I feel like I can't hold my own I'll duck out and offer intell from the jet." Patting the archer on the back knowing where the sudden surge of protectiveness was originating from, Tony waited for Clint to slowly extract himself so he could stand and follow his team out to the loading dock. Briefcase in hand, Tony locked his jaw and was thankful for the reassuring hand Clint slipped into his own as they boarded the jet. "I'll be okay," he reassured the blonde before taking a seat in one of the rear seats and buckling in while Clint slowly made his way towards the pilots seat.
He cast a quick glance at the brunette, silently reassuring himself that this wasn't going to be a disaster, and sunk into his seat heavily. Huffing out a long breath his hands deftly sought out the controls to work his way through his pre-flight battery of tests. Contrary to popular belief, SHIELD only learned of his skill with a bow and arrow and crazy aiming capabilities after recruiting him from the Air Force for his natural flying dexterity. Slipping his headphones on over his ears and adjusting the mic to rest two inches away from his mouth, he spoke briefly with the air traffic controllers back at the base and awaited for the clearance to lift them up into the sky.
To say there was zero tension in the cockpit of the large jet would be an understatement because there was not only the one elephant but the whole fucking zoo hanging around the team roaring and making all sorts of inappropriate noises that distracted each member from focusing on their newest mission. Steve tightly held the StarkTablet in his hands and starred down at the words floating across the screen, desperately trying to ignore the nagging feeling in the back of his mind that something wasn't right and they had no business venturing into the northern parts of Greenland to seek out a possible alien threat that a group of analysts found well over a few weeks ago. The team was divided against him because of the recent turn of events with his and Tony's relationship ending the way it did, and for the most part he couldn't blame them and in the same respect he had to argue that even though things were taken a little too far they still should respect him enough to get them all home in one piece.
"Thunderbird you are clear for Heaven's flight." A familiar voice chirped in Clint's ears and his hands flicked over a series of switches before he pulled down on a lever to start the forward motion of the jet. Once in the air, Clint leaned back and adjusted the headset over his ears and threw Tony a concerned look before stabilizing them at their current altitude and activating the autopilot system that was connected to JARVIS's server back in New York. Choosing to keep his free hands busy, by making himself look unavailable, the pilot was pleased when his captain turned away from him to address the others.
"The information is in your tablets, but according to SHIELD intell an unidentified life force touched down in the northern hemisphere of Greenland. Over the last several weeks people have turned up missing, and a few of those people have been found but they… well, I'm not sure how to classify this but—"Steve rubbed the back of his neck with one of his large hands unsure how to scientifically describe what was happening. Thankfully Tony and Bruce seemed to be reading ahead in their respective tablets and comparing notes in the back of the class and completely ignoring their team leader. Even Natasha was turned in her seat to listen in on their high tech conversation about human mutation. Steve clenched his jaw tightly, a little irritated that they decided to stop list listening to him.
"—the cell samples have been genetically mutated, that's for sure." Tony commented lowly as his fingers skillfully skipped across the surface of his tablet before bringing up the holograms and grabbing at an atom replication wireframe and holding it in his palm. "Got to be honest here Doc, this is more your area of expertise; I do tech, you do biology."
Bruce nodded to himself and reaches out to grab the ends of a table and enlarged the picture so he and Tony could both properly read it from in their seats. "If I'm reading this correctly, the ground is giving off low levels of Gamma radiation too."
"Are we going to need HAZMAT gear for this?" Natasha inquired as she set her tablet on the seat next to her and turned fully to watch over the back of her seat. "If so, we should suit up before we land and work with the locals to set up a decontamination center to treat the civilians who have been exposed."
"I think Bruce needs a few friends, Nat." Clint commented offhandedly from the pilot's seat. His eyes lit up with mirth underneath his black visors. "I think we should get one of each color and add them to the team; Power Rangers, just Hulk style."
Natasha deadpanned and shook her head while Tony bit into his bottom lip to suppress a few chuckles. Everyone seemed to relax at the sound of him laughing and Clint was internally masturbating his ego for finally getting Tony to loosen up, especially around Steve. "That's just what the world needs, another Hulk, let alone a team of them."
"Yeah, but the original will always have an honorary spot on the Avengers team." Tony playfully nudged Bruce with his elbow and returned his eyes back to his holograms. "I'm no expert, but I don't think these levels would be detrimental to a person with short term exposure. We're definantly going to need an environmental group to come in and work clean-up, but when don't we need them?"
"I agree, Tony, we shouldn't need the HAZMAT gear but just to be safe I'm going to upload an algorithm to JARVIS and have him monitor the levels in the ground. If my calculations are correct, the radiation should have spread to cover the entire land mass by the time we land so we're just going to have to be cautious. Each of your Stark-Watches we gave you a few weeks ago to monitor air toxicity, so with a few modifications to them before we land they will also alert you to areas of high exposure risks." Natasha nodded and slipped her watch off her wrist before handing it over to the good doctor.
Steve who was still fuming held his palm out and waited for their pilot to wrestle his off and drop it into his awaiting palm alongside his own. With everyone's watches, Bruce excused himself and moved towards the back of their newly updated Thunderbird to begin working. If he was worried about Hulking out on accident his composure didn't reflect any of his worries which put the rest of the team at ease. "What should the rest of us be doing, Cap?" Tony asked with a distant voice, clipped and professional. His eyes never lifted from his readings on the file and his hands never stopped moving but Steve knew he was waiting for an answer even if he wasn't looking at him.
It took a long time for Steve to learn and understand the genius, and now that he was keyed in to his mannerisms the fact that he could hardly look at him without having the corners of his mouth drop unsettled the soldier. It was his fault for that pain he caused his lover, and now he had to deal with the repercussions and look forward to a future with Natalie, Jake, her baby daddy, and the little one on the way. Ignoring his personal phone buzzing in his pocket again for what felt like the tenth time that hour, Steve crossed his arms and sighed. "We should focus on recon and see if we can find ground zero or any evidence as to what we're dealing with. If it's just a space rock like the techs back at headquarters thinks, I'd like to obtain proof that there isn't anything else to worry about. While Dr. Banner and Stark remain at the safe house monitoring the radiation levels I'd like the three of us to get out and see what we can find."
Natasha nodded, already knowing that her people skills were going to be needed because if they entrusted that detail to her blonde counterpart the whole mission could go belly up in a matchbox douse with gasoline. It'd be better to wash their mouths out with buckshot before they land to save everyone the hassle of dealing with Clint and lack of people skills. There was a reason he was the resident pilot and sniper; he didn't have to deal with people, the lucky bastard. From her turn position she could easily see the smirk on the archers face because he was going to be doing what he loved best, getting up in high places and just using his eyes. Another good thing about this set up was that Steve wasn't going to be alone with Tony and from everyone's collective silence on the plan, they all agreed that it was for the best too.
Landing sooner than he thought possible, Steve glanced at Clint who was busy flipping switches and turning knobs to power down the SHIELD issued jet. While their pilot seemed smug about getting them there faster than deemed necessary, Steve found himself smirking at the man's arrogance; the self assurance was a slight turn on for him. Glancing back to Tony who was moving to join Bruce, he felt his heart throb slightly before shaking it off and looking at the remaining two Avengers in the cockpit. "Cap, if you go out there dressed like that, and if you go out dressed like that, were going to blow our cover and you're going to freeze to death." She tapped her foot impatiently on the floor, waiting for the boys to catch on to her newly changed wardrobe. When did she change?
Steve was the first to nod and moved to switch into the winter gear SHIELD provided while Clint fixed his jaw in an irritated manner. "You know I don't shoot my bow as well when I have sleeves on, it messes with my aim and precision."
"You'll just have to use a long range weapon this time, birdbrain. Also, I don't think you'd want to catch hypothermia up in a tree." The blonde nodded and moved to quickly change into something much warmer and to fetch his alternative weapon with a loud grumble under his breath. Moving into the back where the science nerds were talking higher than high-level math, Clint silently started to change out of his traditional uniform and into the warmer TDU's, multiple layers of clothing, and the cold weather jackets. Securing the headband over his ears, effectively hiding the communicator and slipping his long fingers into a pair of snug black gloves, he clapped Tony lightly on the shoulder.
"If he starts bugging you, tell me and I'll make it look like an accident." Allowing his hand to linger on Tony's shoulder longer than appropriately necessary, Clint turned hard eyes on Bruce to silently communicate that he was in charge of keeping Tony safe from Steve should something happen while they were out in the field. It was unnecessary, as Clint had doubts that Bruce would allow anything to hurt his friend but it was still a nice reassurance to himself that he wasn't going to lose another teammate on a mission. Slipping his watch back on, Clint smiled at the two before disappearing out into the cold and securing the strap for his weapon over his shoulder.
"You know, I honestly wouldn't put it past him to try and put a bullet through Steve's head on this mission, Tony." Bruce commented offhandedly. His mind was still focused on the math on the papers in front of him and trying to figure out why their x-variable wasn't fitting to his predictions like it was supposed to until Tony took his pen and reworked a simple miscalculation a few steps back which produced the correct answer on the sheet.
"I really hope he doesn't," he replied while circling the answer and inputting it into the program he had set up with JARVIS. "Steve is still as much of a part of this team whether—"
"—we know that Tony, but what he did to you is unforgivable." The engineer nodded while absently rubbing at his side where the dark bruising had begun to yellow. "Just promise us that you won't let him bully you around anymore."
"You guys act like I'm the only victim in this situation. I mean I've lashed out at him a few times before when our arguments did escalate, and yeah I hit him a few times too, but—"
"You're making excuses again. Steve was the primary physical aggressor in the situation, he hit you Tony! None of us had the perfect parents growing up, but what Howard did to your mom is just as inexcusable as what Steve is doing. Just because he's not drunk doesn't make it any different, the only difference is that he's thinking with a clear head." Busy scribbling out more numbers across the sheet in his messy scrawl, Bruce missed the flash of anguish that cracked across his teammates face. When the engineer didn't say anything for the longest time, the radiation specialist slowly lifted his eyes to see Tony internally fighting with himself on Bruce's words. "You're not alone anymore, Tony. We'll be there to catch you from now on."
Smiling slowly, he slowly looked Bruce in the eye before turning back to their work and whispering a small "thank you".
A-V-E-N-G-E-R-S
A/N I know, I'm a terrible person for making you all wait so long for this update but work is a bitch, life kind is sucking all my energy away, and school is the only time I actually get some alone time so… I know updates won't be as frequent, but I promise you all that I'll do my best to update when I can. Huge shout out to everyone who has reviewed—I tried responding to them as they came in, but I have a feeling I missed a ton so even if I didn't reply to your review it was greatly appreciated—and another shout out to everyone who added this to their alert subscriptions. You all rock and it makes me smile every day to see that this is still tracking well even with me being a terrible author and unable to update like I want.