I came back to an empty suite much to my dismay. Admittedly I'd been gone for a week and had no clue what she might be doing, never mind if she were even here or on an op, but I had still been hopeful that she'd be here given the time of my arrival. Late enough that the entire teams debriefing had been put off until tomorrow to permit us a chance to rest and recover a bit.
I headed for my bedroom, stripping off my garments before jumping into the shower. My original intention to be quick about it, but the heat of the pounding spray held me in place, loosening tight muscles that I knew to be covered in bruises and scrapes, they'd be gone in a day or two at most, but for the time being, they ached.
I threw on some comfortable clothes and walked out into the main suite still toweling my hair dry to discover her sitting on the sofa, hunched over her computer on the coffee table, files spread out across the surface.
"You're home."
"Hey." She lifted a hand to acknowledge my presence but she didn't even turn her head to look at me.
Nothing new, really, work stole most of our time so I didn't hold it against her. I'd had the same response to her greetings on several occasions. I walked over to the back the sofa, leaned down, brushed the hair off her neck and kissed her softly causing her to shiver. I glanced at the work before her and immediately understood why her attention had been lacking. I set my chin on her shoulder. "New trainees?"
She shifted and turned, kissing me on the cheek before answering. "Two dozen and they want me to handle them."
That had been my idea, actually, though I doubted she realized it. Her team had proved their versatility over and over again with a broad spectrum of skills and abilities. They had become what all the others needed to be. Hill, however, had yet to be able to recreate the effectiveness of the team, so Myla had been tasked with doing so. The theory being that she would have a better grasp on who and what made her team function as it did and therefore should be able to find the right people to duplicate it.
"You got this," I assured her.
She snorted, "I find your confidence most disturbing."
A misquote, and one I understood no less. I climbed over the back of the sofa to settle in behind her, my arms about her waist and drawing her back against me. "I missed you," I mumbled into the back of her neck. I followed up with my lips and teeth, digging into the tight muscles with just the right amount of force to make her groan. No way she could not be aware of my interest or intent, given our position. I had the sudden need to take her right here right now and fuck any extended foreplay.
I wanted her and had lost any shyness about showing it. When alone at least. The need for propriety still reigned supreme when in public.
She groaned and whimpered. "Steve."
"Yes," I said in her ear, encouraging her to lean back against me.
"God, I hate you sometimes. I need to finish this. Hill wants a report first thing and I have no clue what I'm going to tell her."
She sounded generally upset and my ardor cooled instantly. Don't get me wrong I still wanted sex, now, but had more than enough control to defer it until she felt ready. "How detailed does it need to be? Anything specific?"
She sighed, though in relief or irritation I couldn't be certain. "Overview of team structure, hierarchy, and dynamics." She twisted about to catch me in her peripheral vision. "Trouble is I'm not sure I can explain it."
I got her to shift a bit more and kissed her, distracting her for a few minutes that she didn't seem to mind. Her body, relaxed in my hold for the most part, though there remained an underlying tension to her. "Your team is unique, the only one with two XOs, correct?"
She nodded. "Yeah. It just works for us. They have entirely different skill sets that compliment each other perfectly. We tried it with one, but it just didn't work at all."
"Maybe if we talk through it. Record it, then go through it later. I can call Hill and put the meeting off if you like." I gave her a grin. "Least I can do considering."
"Considering what?" she questioned voice full of suspicion.
"Considering the whole team restructuring idea was mine," I told her.
"You did this?" She jerked upright, out of my arms to spin around and glare down at me. "You realize my team is pissed?"
"Why?"
"Why?" she echoed, fisted hands on her hips. "We've essentially been benched until I come up with an effective training program." She flung her hands up and stalked away. "If this is your way of getting me out of the field..."
I realized she had become really and truly angry, something I hadn't experienced before. "No. That is not why I did this."
"Then why? We're needed out there." She flung an arm toward the window, her meaning clear.
"You're right, but that's the problem. The others are good, don't get me wrong, but your team can function in situations the others would have fallen apart in. We need more of you and this," I gestured at the piles of paperwork she'd brought home with her. "is the only way we could think of to accomplish that."
"And that means I have to do this?" She looked about ready to tear her hair out by the roots.
"Who else could?" I had to admit that I might not have thought this all the way through. I hadn't just arbitrarily decided to have Myla do this. There'd been meetings and discussions and arguments on how to improve the tactical units that went on ops with us. We didn't want yes men. We needed people who could function on their own and as secondary to the main team. Hell, I'd seen her by the seat of her pants run three tac teams at once, including her own, with a coordination and success that impressed even me.
She had to be the one to do this.
However, I now recognized the fact that we hadn't once thought to consult her at any point along the way. I now had a bad feeling that had been a mistake.
I stood and strode over to her where she paced back and forth stiffly. Three quick steps, spin about then repeat.
"You know, if you didn't want to see me any longer you could have just told me."
I damn near tripped over my own feet and she put out her hands in surprise as I stumbled into her. An instant of contact with my chest and she pulled them away as if burned. "This has nothing to do with us," I told her, tone harsher than I intended, but my frustration had begun to build.
"Doesn't it? We barely see each other as it is, what do you think will happen when I'm out on week-long training maneuvers with noobs on the regular?"
I wanted to shout at her, but I drew in a breath, trying to see it from her perspective. As it stood, between my ops and her ops, which yes, sometimes were the same ops, but definitely did not count as time together, we spent nights together, please note I did not say sleep as in actual unconsciousness, maybe ten days a month. She always spent the night before an op with her team and often the night post-op. While she had moved in, she still maintained her room at her pod since she spent a fair amount of time there as well.
And, yes, I recognized the fact that this new assignment would take up even more of her time. No way we could pull her and her team off of ops completely, they were just too damn good. I'd been thinking about the welfare of the Avengers as a whole and not once thought about how it would impact us on a personal level.
I had foolishly assumed we'd simply work it out as we had everything else.
Instead, she thought I had done this to push her away even though I'd climbed onto the sofa intending to explore every inch of her body and prevent her from sleeping for hours and hours. And there she stood, wanting to punch me because I'd done the right thing for the team.
The wrong thing for us.
"So, little fool, do you want help moving out, or you gonna do it all by yourself."
She twitched ever so slightly. "Oh, I'll be fine. I've got two dozen trainees to abuse after all." She pushed past me and began to close the files and pile them up. "Gimme five and I'll be out of your hair."
I had hoped my words would force her to admit that leaving would be the last thing she could possibly want.
Well, that had backfired horribly.
I wrapped a hand around her biceps, reminded instantly of the solidness of her. "How can you manage to be so stubborn?"
She tried to pull away, but on this occasion, I didn't let her go. She spun about to face me. "Steve," she growled, "let go of me."
"No, I'm not letting you leave. We can make this work." This had to work. I needed her here, with me. She had been pretty much the first person who had listened to me. Who asked about me. Who wanted nothing beyond what I, Steve Rogers, could give her. She seemed to like me for me and, damn it, I needed that so badly.
I couldn't let her go. Not now.
"How? Lately, all you ever seem to do is pile more work on me. When was the last time we cooked dinner together?" As she no longer seemed about to run away I eased my hold on her. I didn't let go, just adjusted my grip into more of a caress in hopes of soothing her ruffled feathers.
"Do you know what Fury told me the last time he was here?"
She gave me a blank gaze. One I'd seen her give Tony on a couple of occasions when he'd been poking her with sticks. "Of course not, I've never had the pleasure of meeting him."
"That if he had his way your entire team would be promoted to training full time. That is if we didn't need you in the field so badly."
She blinked at me. "You're lying."
I released her and took a single step back, giving her space while still remaining near to hand. If she really and truly wished to leave I'd let her go. Forcing her to stay would do little more than make her even more angry and for entirely different reasons.
"You know I'm not. Tony keeps offering to clone you, but Hill keeps nixing that idea." I had moments I worried he'd been serious. Though not really his field he'd pulled off miracles before. Vision a prime example of that. His butler programs verged on actual AIs so how much of a step would it be to take an actual human intelligence and place in a suitable body. The cradle still existed, FRIDAY could be given life with little effort. I know he'd been working on a means to access memories, so how big a step would it be to downloading them.
I swallowed with difficulty. If Zola hadn't sacrificed himself in an effort to kill me he might have learned about the cradle and built himself an indestructible immortal body. And that thought alone sent terror shooting through me.
While I had no interest in losing Myla in any way, I doubted I'd approve of her being saved via an artificial life.
"How can I?" Her frustration evident in every line of her body. "I'm not sure who I'm talking to right now."
Not the response I had been expecting. I had to admit to not understanding her meaning in this instance. "I'm right here. And I really have no clue what you are trying to tell me."
She huffed out a breath. "Because I'm desperately trying to date Steve Rogers, but Captain America keeps getting in the way."
I froze at that. For too long apparently and she stormed off towards the door.
It took until her hand settled on the knob before I found the strength to move. I set my hand on the door and leaned, using my strength to prevent her from leaving for another moment. Her words had struck a chord in me. I hadn't once considered how difficult it might be for her, for anyone to date me. Or to even get to know me. Steve Rogers.
And I had to admit that, today at least, I'd been thinking and acting more as the Captain and not so much as Steve. "Five minutes, please."
"Depends on who I'm going to be talking to," she groused, clearly not happy with the whole situation.
I released the door, set my hands on her shoulders and encouraged her to turn around. I set my forehead against hers, pleased when her eyes closed and a sigh escaped her. "I'm sorry. I didn't think about how the work decisions would affect us."
"Because the greater always good comes first."
"We wouldn't have found each other if that were always true."
She snorted in reaction. "A point," she agreed, yet her voice seemed filled with pain. "I don't know if I can keep doing this."
"Do you want to?" That seemed to be the most important question at the moment.
"Yes," she told me at a bare whisper, "I'm just not sure how."
I decided to start with the obvious elephant in the room "What do you mean Captain America is getting in the way?"
She crossed her arms over her chest clearly defensive as if thinking I wouldn't listen to her. "I mean when was the last time we had dinner together much less a date. A real date and not yet another of Stark's parties where he does everything possible to marginalize me."
She had a point there. Tony hated when I brought her along even though he made sure the guest list had been filled with as much fluff and faces to make it seem like he had more than just us as friends. When the not-friends headed home for the night the only people still around were Avengers. For some reason, even though she had earned a place in everyone else's eyes, Tony endeavored to ostracize her. "Well, it's not like our schedules have matched all that well lately."
The glare she shot my way had frightened lesser men, but I simply took one of her hands into my own and waited for her real response. "You've canceled every time in the last six months."
I couldn't deny that. "And I've sent you out on ops for a few others."
She nodded. "Exactly. And when we're here..."
"I'm loading more projects on you."
"Or Hill is or Barton. We are supposed to get days off now and then."
Yeah, we were, but most of us just worked or trained, or did research pretty much all the time. "I think I've forgotten how to be Steve Rogers. So, what? Do we quit? Go pretend to be normal people? What would we do?"
She snorted. "You? That's easy." She waved at the drawings she'd hung on the walls. A couple of her, others little more than doodles in my opinion. One of them I'd drawn while sitting in a chair next to her hospital bed. The meds causing her sleep more often than not in those early days. It had been all of two days after we'd spoken and I'd admitted to having feelings for her.
Those feelings hadn't changed. If anything they'd grown deeper over the months and made me often wish we did have more time to ourselves.
"You think people will pay for my scribblings?"
"Own a piece of art drawn by the Steve Rogers? Oh hell yes. I could make a couple calls and have a showing in Manhattan set up within a week." She didn't sound the least bit facetious. "And if I talked you into doing some paintings... One call." Her arms dropped down, her hands still twisting together in her irritation. "You can have a life away from all of this. You just have to want it."
"With you?" I had to ask. Had to know if she would have any interest in me outside of the Avengers.
"If you wanted me still."
"You make it sound as if I don't want you now. Right now." I still had hopes that I'd be able to drag her off to bed when we sorted this out.
"Then we need to figure out how to keep the work from coming between us," she explained with a frown. "And we won't be able to."
She might be right, but I didn't want her to be. We needed time. Time alone together to remember exactly why we'd fallen into each other and not just moved on. My stomach rumbled. A reminder that it had been a long day and I'd been sent home to rest and recover, which meant... "How about dinner?"
She scrubbed a hand across her face staring at me in confusion. "What?"
I chuckled softly, realizing it had indeed been a bit of a non-sequitur from her perspective. "How about we make that dinner now."
"You want to make dinner now? It's almost oh-one-hundred and I can promise you your cupboard is rather bare."
"So? I'm sure we can find something. Or.. or head into the city. The Tower will be open if nothing else."
Her eyes lit up for a moment before dismay chased the instant of joy away. "I can't. That damn report."
"Forget it. We went about it all wrong. I'll talk to Hill and set up a meeting we can all be at. You need to be part of the discussion from the beginning." Should have done that the first time around instead of just dumping the project on her lap without so much as a by your leave. "I'm certain we can come up with a better way to go about the transition."
"Uh, okay. So I guess that means my evening... morning is free."
I was dressed enough for the company we'd run into this late at night. Not that the Compound ever really slept. Shifts ran twenty-four seven around this place. She'd done little more than kick off her boots and let her hair down from the bun it had probably been shoved into all day. We didn't even really require shoes. The worst we'd run into is some dew on the perfectly trimmed grass.
I held out my hand to her. "Come on, my fool, let me buy you dinner."
She considered for a long moment, that sense of unease still about her even though she willingly twined her hand with mine. "Can we not talk about work?"
"I'll do my best." I leaned down and kissed her on the temple, earning a soft sigh for my reward. "I don't like fighting."
She barked in laughter. "You live for a fight."
"Not between us. Never between us." Arguments, disagreements had been rare between us and I found had absolutely no taste for her being angry at me.
She cocked an eyebrow at me and then she softened. She patted me on the cheek with her free hand. "You're just damn lucky I love you."
I swore my heart stop beating for the better part of what felt like an hour at her unexpected proclamation. When it jumped back into motion I ever so gently cupped her cheeks in my hands and kissed her with a fervor I hadn't known in a long, long while. I kissed her most thoroughly, burying my fingers deep in her hair and holding on for dear life. Encouraging her with teeth and tongue to open up to me.
I knew the instant she gave in, her entire body melting, her response full of the same hunger I had for her. When we broke apart, both requiring a moment to catch our breath I rested my forehead against hers. "You've never said that before."
"I thought that was obvious when I moved in with you," she grouched, but I could hear the hint of amusement in her voice.
"For the record, I love you too." And I did. I hadn't expected to, but I hadn't fought all that hard against it either. "Dinner. Walk under the stars."
"That sounds suspiciously like a date, Captain Rogers."
"Yes, it does. And I think it's time we revisit finding our own place." We had looked for about two months before our free time had whittled away down to nothing.
"I would find that most agreeable."
I took her hand in mine, kissed the back of hers, and led her out of the suite. The night air cool, the stars out, the moon low on the horizon. As we walked across the precisely manicured lawn towards the main building where the never closed commissary could be found. The food wouldn't be the greatest, but the point on the occasion not the food but the company.
Leaned into me and I stopped to shift about to gaze down at her. Not all that far really, short she had never been. I set my lips lightly against hers, making her aware that my interest in her had never waned even as we had accidentally drifted apart. "We'll figure this out, yes?"
"God, I hope so." She pressed her forehead into my chest. "I'd rather take a step back to work this out than lose you completely."
"Let's keep that option on the back burner, shall we? We'll find a place and I'll talk to Hill. If you're being overworked, then all of the teams are being overworked. We're not in the middle of a war, we need to make certain we remember there's more than this." I pressed a kiss on the top of her head.
"You most of all," she insisted, tipping her head so that her chin thumped solidly into my upper chest.
"You willing to help make certain I do?"
"Definitely. But you owe me a date first."
I chuckled. "Your wish is my command. M'lady." I wrapped my arms around her, thankful she'd been willing to work this out.
