Notes: Parts of this have to do with my guesses as to the themes that, based on trailers, may possibly be dealt with in Iron Man 3, which, as of this posting, hasn't come out yet.

So this is the end. A sequel will be coming – keep your eyes peeled. Hope you all enjoyed it. Thanks again to all readers, followers, and reviewers!

December

It had been a weeks since Steve had left S.H.I.E.L.D. Weeks since his last mission. After he told her about the surveillance, Anne resigned. She spent her newly-free time helping him move into Stark Tower, helping him pick out furniture to fill the gigantic penthouse, her bruises fading more every day.

They stayed up late together, talking and laughing. They put a Christmas tree in the corner of his living room, forgoing new, plastic decorations in favor of popcorn garlands like they had made the Christmas before.

In his new, spacious kitchen, he taught her how to make pierogi the way his mother had taught him.

"She was Polish? Your mother?" Anne asked as she watched him roll out the dough, beaming the way she always did when she learned something new about him.

"Her parents were," he answered.

"Did she speak Polish?"

"She did."

"Do you?"

He smirked, "No. She didn't want me to. She wanted me to be all-American, like my father."

Anne's heart paused, her eyes fixed on his face; it was the most she had ever heard him say about his father. But in the next instant, he was suddenly absorbed in his task, giving her instructions on assembling the pierogi filling, and the conversation was gone.

Later, though, she coaxed him into telling her more about his mother. He told her that, before she was married, her name had been Sarah Kowalski. He told her that she had had blonde hair and blue eyes, like him. He told Anne that she had raised him to believe that America was a land of promise and opportunity.

They spent hours just kissing, wrapped around each other like teenagers. They spent weeks falling asleep pressed together in Steve's new bed. It was something they hadn't had before: being together and in love without the pressure to consummate. After the humiliation of what Fury had put them through, there was something cathartic and new about it; like they had given themselves a chance to start over without going back to the beginning.

December 29

Tony called Anne in to meet first, inviting her up to his top-floor office. When she got back, she just smiled enigmatically, telling Steve that he would find out what they had talked about soon.

He had looked at her seriously, "No secrets."

"It's not a secret," she had told him, stroking his arms until his skeptical look softened, "It's a surprise."

The next morning, Tony called them both up. For the first time since he left S.H.I.E.L.D., Steve found himself face-to-face with the entire Avengers team.

"How can we ever really be in the right as long as we're attached to S.H.I.E.L.D.?" Tony demanded, looking at them all sternly. "This is the new team; a top secret department of Stark Industries. Banner heads R&D. Spring, Locke, and Wright head our subdivisions: Medical, Tech, and Defense." Tony pointed at each of them in turn Steve vaguely recognized the other two as former S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. "Cap, if you're on board, you'd head Tactics. Barton, Romanoff, you'd be on Intelligence. Thor," he smirked, "International Relations. Jane Foster and Erik Selvig have already agreed to come aboard as consultants."

He stormed on, "This is our chance to make something better than what we had. Not one person in this room hasn't been lied to, manipulated, or double-crossed by S.H.I.E.L.D. It's time to take the Avengers Initiative back."

Clint and Natasha exchanged a look, then turned back to Tony.

Clint nodded, "We're in."

"As am I," Thor's voice boomed.

Steve looked at Anne. She gave him a small smile and a shrug. He turned to Tony and nodded.

Later, as the team left, Tony tapped Steve's arm, indicating that he should stay behind. Anne glanced back at him, concerned, but left with the others.

When they were alone, Tony poured them each a drink, even though he knew that Steve couldn't be affected by it.

"So," he began, "You and the doc. I see the birds are flying again." Tony's voice was uncharacteristically quiet. The brash confidence he had displayed just moments earlier was long gone.

Steve smiled to himself, looking down at his drink, "Something like that."

Tony swallowed his drink in one sip, setting the heavy glass down on the counter with a deafening clink.

"Listen to me. There are people out there who want to destroy everything that means anything to us. The things we care about most are in danger because of us."

Steve's brow creased. As irreverent as Tony could be, he was always honest.

"I love Pepper more than anything. Anything. Life without her would be half a life," Tony could hear his voice choke up and he paused to compose himself, "but I will never marry her. Signing a piece of paper that tells the entire world what she means to me would be like signing her death sentence."

Steve felt the bottom fall out. It was something he had known, on some level, all along, but hearing Tony say it out loud made his entire body clench. After his talk with Andy just weeks earlier, the idea of marrying Anne, the idea of spending the rest of his life with her, had lodged itself in his brain like shrapnel. He felt a rush of shame, chastising himself for not thinking of the consequences.

Watching Steve's reaction, Tony smiled mirthlessly and poured himself another drink. "Trust me, it took me a long time to learn this. You want to keep her safe? Be in love, be happy, but no more coy looks in mixed company. The more people know, the more trouble you're in."

Steve nodded and Tony swiftly changed the conversation, transforming himself again into the self-assured man who had just proposed an independent Avengers. The two of the talked strategy late into the afternoon, while Anne burned in the back of Steve's mind.

December 31

10:00 PM

As was expected, Tony had planned an extravagant New Year's Eve celebration. But, when Clint and Natasha's information-gathering discovered a sinister string of explosions in a shopping mall in Idaho, the team was called away. By the time they crossed back over the Rockies, the job was done, but their first mission had been trying – the six of them fumbling recklessly and missing each other's cues. The ride back to New York was a quiet one.

While the others showered, changed, and were ushered by Tony into his massive party, already well underway, Steve lingered alone in the locker room, as he so often did after difficult missions, rehashing what hadn't gone right. It was there that Anne found him.

"I'm sorry," she said as she entered, seeing him sitting on a bench, still in uniform, his elbows on his knees, his forehead in his hands. When he looked up at her, she suddenly felt like she had intruded on a private moment, "I'm sorry, I should have knocked."

She hesitated, "How did it go out there?"

He gave a short bark of a laugh, "Could have been better."

"It will be," she moved towards him, meeting his gaze, but he looked away sharply.

"You always believe in the best."

"I believe in you."

When he didn't react, she turned away again, moving towards the door.

He stood, crossing the room in an instant, his arm moving around her waist, pulling her against him. Up close, she smelled the smoke on him, saw how his uniform was in tatters.

"Please," he whispered against her hair. What Tony had told him echoed in his head: she is in danger because of you. But instead of pushing her away, as perhaps he should have done, he squeezed his eyes shut and tightened his grip.

"Don't go."

She locked the locker room door and led him to the showers, a high-ceilinged room with white tiled partitions dividing it into five separate stalls.

Facing him, she unzipped and unbuttoned the suit. She pulled his gloves off gently, peeled the ruined jacket down his arms, rising onto her tiptoes to pull his undershirt up and over his head. Her fingers grazed his bared flesh. She pressed a kiss to his naked shoulder and he felt himself relax. She unfastened his belt buckle, lowering his pants, bending down to unzip his boots. As she moved, his hands brushed her shoulders, her hair. He sighed. It felt good to allow himself be taken care of, to let her manage him.

As he sat to pull off his boots, she slid her feet out of her own shoes, shedding her sweater and pencil skirt, her bra and panties, folding them on the bench next to him. Steve watched her carefully as she tied up her hair, examining every inch of her. She saw him look, and let him. Picking a stall, she warmed the water as he eased himself onto his feet, crossing the room to join her.

Stepping aside, she made room for him to stand under the hot water. His hands pressed flat against the tile on either side of the showerhead, letting the water's heat seep into his aching muscles, letting it wash away the layer of grime that coated him.

Behind him, Anne lathered a washcloth with soap and ran it across his shoulders and arms, down his back, across his hips. Reaching around him, she washed his chest and stomach. Soap ran down his legs and he watched it circle the drain, mingled with the filth coming off of him.

As he felt her lips press against old, familiar scars, her fingers dancing across new contusions and scrapes, something in Steve's chest – something nameless and despairing – grew heavy. Needing to see her, needing to feel his arms around her, he turned suddenly. He cradled her against him, feeling the water run down his back. After a long moment, she pulled back, looking up at him.

"I don't want us to be apart – even a little apart – ever again."

Her eyes were fixed on his, wide and anxious.

He smiled down at her, grateful that the water would mask the tears on his face. "Then we'll have to stay together."

He pulled her back against him, the side of her face pressed against his bare chest, his hand on her hair. Slowly, piece-by-piece, in her arms he felt himself come back together.

After a while of holding each other, soaked and naked, she felt him grow hard against her hip. His lips pressed against her hairline sweetly, and a wave of need rose through her.

Her hand slid between them, wrapping around his erection and stroking, the warm, soapy water providing more than adequate lubrication. He tensed, trying valiantly not to thrust against her hand. "Bed," he whispered breathlessly, kissing the side of her neck.

He felt her lips curve against the shell of his ear, "Just to take the edge off." He looked at her and she smiled playfully, their serious moment passed. She wrapped her palm around his sensitive head, her other hand hooking around his neck, pulling him down until his mouth was pressed against hers. Her tongue slid across his and he surged against her.

His hands gripped her hips. He broke the kiss, unable to concentrate on both sensations. His head dipped, the side of his face pressed against hers. Near her ear, she could hear his breathing grow ragged as her hand moved faster. He gasped her name as he came, spilling hot against her stomach.

Anne stroked the back of his neck, soothing him, as he pressed breathless kisses down her neck to her shoulder, his hand spread wide on her back. She could feel her body hum with desire under his touch, his mouth.

"Let's go," he murmured.

She gasped as he took one of her breasts in his palm. "Lucky thing you live downstairs."

He smiled against her mouth, "Lucky."

By the time they reached the penthouse, after the torture of watching her put her clothes back on, after the long elevator ride down, after taking her by the hand through the empty hallways of Stark Tower's residential floor, after leading her inside and taking her back in his arms, after slowly undressing them both and laying her across his bed, his hardness had returned in full force.

As he joined her, in the dim light of the room, he could see that her eyes were watery, her hands shaking slightly. He pressed himself against her, his hand sliding between her legs, his fingers pushing into her. She sighed, melting into the mattress, loose and pliant under his hands. He knew her, knew her body, knew how to touch her, how to make her shiver and moan and unravel underneath him.

When she had climaxed twice under his touch, when she had soaked his fingers, when she lay flushed and heavy-lidded, satisfied and limp beneath him, he parted her legs and settled himself between them. As he pushed into her, she flung her arms around his shoulders, her fingers buried in his hair. It was languorous and slow, the two of them moving against each other in long, undulant strokes.

He groaned against her shoulder. "Missed this," he breathed, his voice growing hoarse and strained as he moved inside her, "Missed you."

After, sitting up against the headboard, curled around each other in the low, golden light of the room, he told her what Tony had told him.

"I don't know if he's completely right, but after what happened in West Virginia, it's hard to argue with him," he told her, his brow creased.

She sat up, alarmed. "You said—" She began, suddenly desperate at the thought that he might leave her for her own good, knowing that falling on his sword was his trademark move.

Steve understood her immediately. He shook his head, pulling her tight against him, "I'm here. I'm yours."

She relaxed, her hand warm on his chest, her head on his shoulder, "Then what is it?"

"I just—" he paused, collecting himself, then continued quietly, "I would have married you."

For a moment they were both quiet, each grieving the loss of a kind of future they knew they couldn't have.

Suddenly, Anne laughed, the sound echoing off of the still-bare walls. It seemed absurd to be sad when they were together, in his bed, their arms around each other. There was nothing better. Nothing else.

He looked down at her, his eyebrows raised in surprise.

"They say marriage is a wonderful institution…" she began, an insuppressible grin lighting up her face.

He smirked and finished, "…but who wants to live in an institution?"

She smiled, shifting to straddle his lap, sitting face-to-face with him, nuzzling the side of his neck. "We don't have to be married. We're not married now," she giggled. The sound was rare and wonderful, and despite his heavy heart he couldn't help smiling back at her. Her hands were on the sides of his face, "We have so much already."

His hands traced the sides of her waist. "What about…the future?"

She shrugged, "We can have whatever we want. We'll just have it in a different way. Our own way."

He leaned up, kissing her for a long while. When they finally lay down next to each other, Anne reached to turn off his bedside lamp, catching a glance at the clock next to it.

"It's past midnight," she frowned, "We missed it."

"No, we didn't," he smiled, "Happy New Year."