Steve POV

"Come in!" Jade's light voice yelled from inside her apartment. I smiled a little, and shook my head at her antics. I would have to talk to her later about leaving her door unlocked and inviting people in without knowing who was there. But I let myself into her apartment, and found her sitting on the couch talking on the phone.

"I told you, I'll have to think about it." She said. Jade scrunched her nose a little, listening to what the other person was saying. She looked over at me and made a motion for me to come over and sit down. So I did.

"I'll have an answer for you by tomorrow. I'll sleep on it, okay? Alright, talk to you then. Bye." She said hanging up the phone. She lightly tossed the phone on her coffee table and said, "Sorry about that, I wasn't expecting a call."

"It's fine." I said smiling. "Happy Birthday."

She smiled back, "Thanks."

"Are you ready to head over to Tony's?" I asked.

She nodded, "I just need to grab my coat and we can go." She said. I noticed she was wearing a dark blue polka dotted dress that went down to her knees. She grabbed her leather jacket from the closet and walked over to me putting it on.

"You look nice." I commented.

She blushed, "Thanks Steve."

We left her apartment and I led her to my motorcycle. Oh shoot, she's wearing a dress.

"Uh, are you going to be okay riding my bike?" I asked.

She laughed, "Yes, I'm wearing shorts under this- see." She said picking up her dress and sure enough, there was a pair of black shorts.

I quickly looked away. I could feel my face heating. "Oh, sorry!" She said and adjusted her dress. "That was really stupid. I do things without thinking sometimes."

"It's okay. Let's go." I suggested and handed her a helmet.

We made our way to Tony's tower and I'd be lying if I said I didn't like having Jade's arms wrapped around me. But I shouldn't be thinking about that. Jade probably isn't ready to start dating considering that Phil just died.

Do I want to date her?

We got off the bike, and she took the helmet off and tried to fix her hair. She smiled at me and handed me the helmet. She really is beautiful.

Yes. I do want to date her.

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Jade POV

"Welcome, Captain Rogers and Miss. Riley. Dinner is being held in the penthouse." A British voice informed us and we stepped into the elevator.

Steve chuckled, "Don't worry, that's Jarvis, Tony's, uh, AI."

I nodded, "Cool."

"Jarvis, take us there please." He said.

"Right away, sir." The AI replied.

"I hope Tony didn't go to too much trouble with this." I voiced my concern.

"He really wanted to do this, Jade. He feels bad about what he said to you on the helicarrier. This is his way of making it up to you. And you shouldn't be alone on your birthday." Steve said.

"I thought this was Pepper's idea." I said confused.

Steve smiled, "It was Tony's idea and Pepper made sure it happened and that it was going to be a nice party."

"Oh, well it's better than what I was going to do anyway."

"Which was?" Steve asked.

"I was going to watch some movies, eat cake and drink some wine." I admitted.

Steve smiled, "This is better, huh?"

"We'll see." I said and the elevator stopped and opened.

Steve put his hand on the small of my back and led me into the room. It was nicely decorated with birthday themed balloons and banners.

"Happy Birthday!" Some people cheered and a flash went off.

"That was a good picture." Tony said and walked over to me.

"Hey, thanks for having me." I said and hugged him.

"It was no problem, really. Foods ready. Then we'll eat cake and you can open presents." He said steering me over to the table.

"You didn't have to get me anything." I said and took off my jacket and hung if on the back of my chair before sitting down. Clint made sure to sit next to me and Natasha sat next to him.

"Of course I did!" Tony said and sat on my other side and Pepper took the seat next to him. Steve ended up sitting across from me.

"What are we eating?" I asked.

"Your favorite, of course." Clint chimed in.

"Mmm, pasta." I said looking at the dish.

After serving ourselves, Tony asked, "So Jade, have you quit playing the cello? I thought you played for the symphony. But when I looked it up, I saw that some other girl was first chair and you weren't even on the list."

"I haven't quit, I'm just on hiatus. And I was first chair before I quit the job." I said defending myself.

"Oh, do you think you'll go back?" He asked.

I shrugged, "Probably not. I enjoyed playing for the symphony, I have for a while, but it's probably time for me to move on and do something new." I said.

"If you want, I have connections. I could find you a job." Tony offered.

"No thanks. I can find one." I assured him.

"It's really not a big deal, Jade. And you need a job." He reminded me.

"Actually I don't. I have enough money where I don't need to work for the rest of my life.. I just enjoy playing and having something to do." I said.

"What do you mean?" Steve asked.

"I have a lot of money from my parents' life insurance policy and Fury just gave me Phil's." I said. "I don't really use it because I make enough money to support myself."

"If you don't use the money, then what do you do with it?" Steve asked.

"I help fund a scholarship at Juliard." I said. Everyone seemed pretty impressed by this. After eating dinner and birthday cake, which Tony tried to shove my face into, we went to the living room to open presents.

"Open mine first!" Tony said shoving a box into my hands.

I laughed a little and shook my head at his antics. I opened the box to reveal a small sleek device. "What is this?" I asked.

"It's a tuner/recorder. It can help you tune your cello and it can record your playing. I thought it would be helpful when you're practicing." He said.

I smiled, "Thank you, it definitely will come in handy." I said.

Clint handed me a jewelry box. Inside was a charm for my charm bracelet. This was his customary gift to me for my birthday. This charm was Phil's initials. I got up to hug him and said thank you. I quickly put the charm on my bracelet.

Natasha handed me a box, which was wrapped very beautifully and I almost didn't want to ruin it. Inside the box was a gun. It was small, just a bit bigger than my hand. A note was attached that said 'for when you're street performing'. I laughed a little, and thanked her for the gift. Of course Clint told her.

Pepper handed me a card and inside was a certificate for a spa day. "I've never been to a spy." I told her, "So this should be fun!"

"I figured that us three girls could go." She said.

I nodded, "Sounds good to me."

"I think that's all of them." Tony said, "So back to the job thing, are you going to go back to work?" He asked.

"I just got a job proposition today. I told him I'd sleep on it and have an answer by tomorrow." I said.

"What's the job?" Clint asked.

"A friend of mine from Juliard wants to produce a channel on youtube. He says that I would be perfect for it, but I don't know." I said.

"What would you do?" Clint asked.

"Cover songs. He watched an old video of me singing and said it would be awesome for me to combine it with playing the cello." I said. I looked over and saw that Tony was on his phone. What is he doing?

"Found it!" Tony exclaimed suddenly. He then proceeded to pull up a video of me on youtube.

"Oh no! Turn that off!" I pleaded.

Instead of listening to me, Tony pressed play.

The video opened with me sitting in a chair with me holding my cello and bow. "You're not getting the pitch right." The video version of me said to someone off camera.

"Then why don't you sing it?" The person countered.

I shrugged and started playing the cello. The sound of Seether's 'Broken' filled the room and the video version of me began to sing.

"I wanted you to know
I love the way you laugh
I wanna hold you high and steal your pain, away
I keep your photograph
I know it serves me well
I wanna hold you high and steal you pain
Cause I'm broken, when I'm open
and I don't feel like, I am strong enough-" I abruptly stopped when I realized someone had been recording me.

"Jason! What are you doing!?" I asked.

"This is history in the making, Jade! You wait and see. This is going on youtube." Jason said.

"Uh, no! It's not!" I argued getting up and rushing toward the camera and the video ended.

"I can't believe he actually put that online." I huffed from my seat.

"You have a beautiful voice." Steve complimented.

I looked over at him, and I could tell by the look on his face that he was being sincere.

"Thank you."

"I think you should take the job." Clint said.

I shrugged, "I'm thinking about it."

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"I didn't want to give this to you in front of everyone else." Steve said pulling a box out of his jacket pocket. "I thought it was a little personal."

I opened it and inside was a silver oval locket. Inside the locket, was an old family picture of me, Phil and my parents. In the picture, I was probably 5, and Phil had me on his shoulders. My parents were standing on each side of him.

"Where did you get this?" I asked.

"I asked Clint, and he was able to find a copy of it. Do you not like it? I'm sorry, I just thought it would be nice-"

"I love it." I said cutting him off and hugging him. "Thank you."

Steve hugged me back and said "You're welcome."

We stayed like that for a while and I found myself thinking that I could get used to being held by Steve Rogers.