Disclaimer: The characters and things you recognize in this story don't belong to me. They belong to Marvel and Janet Evanovich. I'm pretty sure you'll recognize which is which. Mistakes belong to me.

Chapter 14

Steph's POV

Steve and I collapsed sideways on the bed, tangled in and wrapped around each other, trying to catch our breaths. Truth be told, I was more than a little proud of myself that I could make a super soldier out of breath. When I felt a little less like my heart was going to leap out of my chest, I opened my eyes to see Steve watching me, and I couldn't stop a huge grin from breaking out across my face. Before too long, Steve was sporting a matching grin. It took me a couple minutes longer to dredge up enough energy to move. I reached my hand up to stroke along Steve's cheek.

"I love you, Steve," I choked out feeling oddly emotional. "I don't understand how it just keeps becoming more."

"It's the same for me," he replies before pulling me in for another kiss with his hand stroking my back slowly. Reverently.

When the kiss broke off, I shifted to rest my head on his chest and we stayed like that, silently for several minutes.

We both tensed up instantly when the lights slowly increased from the dim setting we'd had them on and JARVIS broke in with, "pardon me. Both of you are requested to go to the living room as quickly as possible, the Avengers are being contacted about a possible mission."

Without hesitation we scrambled out of bed and quickly pulled on our clothes before heading upstairs. "Why am I going up with you?" I hissed out at Steve as we left my apartment.

"Well, it's not like SHIELD exactly has security clearances right now, so we don't have to worry about that. Which means you get to know at least some of where we're going and how long we'll be gone. Not to mention that, depending on those two things, we'll need to make a plan for you."

That all made sense, so I just kept quiet until we made it to the living room. I noticed that Sam, Bucky, and Pepper were there as well as the man in the suit from the night Batroc attacked me outside the bar.

I made my way over to Pepper and she introduced me to the man, Phil Coulson, who was working to put SHIELD back together again. I quickly expressed my pleasure in meeting him and gratitude for his help dealing with the cops the other night before he abruptly, and somewhat awkwardly, excused himself and went to talk to the Avengers.

"Don't take it personally," Pepper said "he's a huge Captain America fan, so he can never wait to get to talk to Steve. And before you arrived, he was really nervous about meeting you. He badly wants you to like him."

"Well, he seemed nice enough, just busy. Why would he be nervous about me?"

"You're Captain America's girlfriend. I'm pretty sure that makes you #2 on his hero list."

I scoffed at that, and Pepper just added, "It's true. Honestly, I'm a little jealous. Steve gets all the sweet fans, and even the fangirls seem to love you because you're with him. Tony's fans are insane, and they HATE me for taking away their chances with him."

"I doubt they love me. I've seen plenty of internet comments that would indicate otherwise, actually."

"No, it's true. Or at least they're giving you the benefit of the doubt for now, assuming you make him happy. Random internet people and trolls make the mean comments, but his fans are always defending you. Which reminds me, assuming this mission goes well and is short enough, I have a couple of public appearances scheduled for you and Steve in the second half of this week. I thought it might be good for you both to get a couple of interviews out of the way before Friday night. If you don't, I think they'll eat you alive on the red carpet into the red gala and then the press who are inside will hound you endlessly, trying to get the first 'scoop'."

I thought about that for a few beats. "Let's just get them through the mission first. Then, I don't know, I'm not wild about the idea, but I'm also not wild about being fresh meat thrown into a den of lions on Friday either. So if you think it is for the best, and Steve agrees to it, then I'll do it."

Pepper clearly took that as acceptance because she whipped out her phone and took a few steps away and started making calls. Looking around, I walked over and stepped into the space between Sam and Bucky as they leaned against the breakfast bar.

"You two bummed you're not going with them?"

"No. I may be me again, but I'm not sure if I'm really ready to let the Winter Soldier back out already for a full-blown mission. I've got a lot of penance to pay, so I'll probably decide I need to go soon, but I'm fine with staying here for now," came Bucky's surprisingly honest reply.

"And I'm fine either way," said Sam. "Really, it'd probably be a smart idea for me to get some training with the team before I go out on a mission with them. Plus, Bucky and I need to stay back and help Happy make sure you and Pepper don't get into trouble!"

"Hey! I resemble that remark!" I fired back at them. "Besides, if you need or want to go, Rangeman would keep me safe. I'd prefer to stay here, but there are always other options. They'd take me in until you got back. Not that I wouldn't be perfectly safe staying here alone! If they're gone and you stay, will you both be able to help me with some training in the morning?"

"I think we can handle that," Bucky replied with a grin.

Oh shit, what did I just get myself into? He and Sam both laughed, and I just groaned. I really don't think anyone should hold anything I accidentally say against me ever, but especially after 9pm. Plus, Bucky was probably at least as scary as Natasha. Well, maybe not quite as scary, but I was pretty sure Natasha liked me more. I wasn't sure if Bucky liked me, or merely tolerated me. At this point, they were both laughing hysterically and Bucky managed to gasp out, "naw, I like you! I won't hurt you."

I'm sure I was definitely looking nonplussed when Steve stepped up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. "What's going on here?" he asked.

Before I could say anything, Bucky said, "she asked us to help her with her training in the morning if you guys aren't back. We agreed and then she started rambling because she's apparently more afraid of me than she is of Natasha." That last part was definitely a boast and everyone else had joined us at this point and heard the last bit.

When Natasha started to bristle, I quickly said, "no! That's not what I said. I said that maybe he wasn't as scary as you, Natasha, but I was pretty sure you like me more. So you won't hurt me when we're training, but I wasn't sure about him!"

That seemed to please Natasha and she tugged me out of Steve's grasp, wrapped an arm around my waist and led me over to the couch whispering, "of course I like you! And I would never hurt you. He'll do a good job with your training though, don't worry about that. And everyone likes you too, just not as much as me! Well, other than Steve, but that's different."

I laughed at the absurdity of the conversation, and then we all settled down in the seating area. I had Natasha on my left and Steve on my right as Steve laid everything out for us.

They were going to scout out a location of a possible HYDRA facility in New Hampshire. If the intel was deemed to be good when they got there and they could find a way in, they were going to take out the facility. Coulson had another team to help with some of the support, but there weren't too many of them, so they asked Sam to come along and Bucky to hold down the fort. I was going to protest that they could take Bucky too if they needed, when I remembered what he had said about not being ready. So instead I said that it would make me much more comfortable to have Bucky stay. He caught my eye and nodded his head in gratitude. From the way Steve squeezed my hand, I could tell that he knew what was going on and was grateful as well.

Because they were only going to New Hampshire, which was a short flight. Even with recon time, they were expecting to be back by mid-morning, afternoon at the latest. I promised to call Ranger and have a couple extra Rangemen pick me up in the morning so that my escort wouldn't be light. With everything decided, I followed Steve, Bucky, and Sam down to Steve's floor so Steve and Sam could "suit up".

I was sitting on Steve's bed, listening as he talked to me from his closet and told me the story of Loki's attack on the helicarrier and Phil's apparent death. I was trying to decide if the story was terrifying or if it was reassuring that they might be able to bring Steve back from a really bad injury even if they let me think first that he was dead. Then he stepped out of the closet in his uniform with his shield on his back and my mouth went dry. Fuck. me. Nobody should be allowed to look that hot ever, but especially not when there's no time to do anything about it.

Steve chuckled then walked over to me a dropped a quick kiss on my lips before evading my hands when I tried to stroke where his uniform clearly accentuated his abs. And maybe my other hand was reaching for his ass, but trust me, there's not a jury in the world who would convict me for that!

"Another time, I need to go."

I sighed then got up and grabbed the hand he was holding out to me. Sam and Bucky were waiting in the living room when we stepped out, and we all went back to the elevator together. "You're going to be careful," Steve said.

I laughed and said, "I'm pretty sure that's my line!" But he was not amused. He just turned and fixed me with a stern gaze until I waivered and said, "fine, I will if you will." I could sense Bucky and Sam trying not to laugh at that before the elevator doors gratefully opened into the small room leading out to where the jet waited for them. It was floor to ceiling mirrored windows on one side, so we could see the others out there waiting. Sam headed out to them.

When I tried to walk out into the open, Steve stepped in front of me. "There's still an unknown sniper out there, so this is as far as you go." Then he reached a little ways into the neckline and pulled out the dogtags I was wearing. He leaned down to rest his forehead on mine and said, "what did I tell you when I gave these to you?"

"That you're always coming back to me." He pressed a kiss to my lips and said, "that's right."

"And I'll be here waiting for you." I added, which earned me another kiss. Then without another word, he walked away.

I sighed, then jumped when Natasha said from next to me, "I've got his back."

I turned to look at her as I nodded and said, "as long as you take care of yourself too." There was a moment where I could see surprise plainly written across her face before she recovered and made it completely blank again. It was my turn to be surprised though when she wrapped me into a quick hug before walking out. I stood there for a couple minutes after the sound of the jet taking off had faded away and Pepper had joined Bucky and me.

Finally I turned to them both and shrugged before leading the way back into the elevator and into the common floor. When we stepped out into the living room, they were both eyeing me warily. I was reasonably sure they were waiting for me to fall apart, but I just kept my shoulders straight and gave them a small smile. "Might as well try to get some sleep," I said. Pepper eyed me and then nodded with satisfaction. "I have an early meeting tomorrow- around 5 AM. Conference call with some people a few time zones away. I probably won't see you until dinner unless something comes up. They'll be back by then and we can talk about those interviews with Steve, okay."

"Sounds good. Good luck with your meetings." With that, Pepper walked over to the stairs that connected their floor with this one, and was gone with one more goodnight tossed over her shoulder. I turned to Bucky and asked, "What time do you want to hit the gym in the morning? I'm probably going to need a run, so I'll head down around five. If it's alright with you, I'd like to be done by around 6:30 so that we can grab a quick breakfast and be on our way by 7 or 7:30? Rangeman will send a car for me again, and I assume you're coming with?"

He nodded, "0500 sounds good, and yes, I'm going with you."

"Good. You'll like the guys." When he didn't look like he believed me in the slightest, I tossed in a, "trust me." He exited on Steve's floor where he was staying now that I'd moved out into my own apartment and paused, surprised when I didn't join him, "I'll be fine on my own floor. I need to get used to it anyway. Good night!"

Much to my surprise, I actually managed to sleep fairly well. When I stumbled out of my room and out toward my kitchen, I stopped and grabbed my gun out of my holster at the smell of coffee already drifting out toward me. I pressed myself to the hallway wall before Bucky called out, "it's just me, Steph, sorry!"

I holstered my gun and walked out. "Don't worry about it," I reassured him, "I wouldn't have given you access if I wasn't okay with you coming and going as you please. I just figured I'd see you in the gym around 5:30 or so."

Bucky held out a cup of coffee for me and watched as I doctored it before drinking it down. By the time I'd finished the first cup, he had a second waiting for me, with what tasted like the exact same amount of milk and sugar already added. I smiled my thanks and drank it then laughed, shaking my head as he handed me a muffin while we walked out to the elevator.

I had been a bit nervous about how the morning was going to go, but I shouldn't have been. Bucky took Clint's place on the treadmill next to mine for the first half hour. He was clearly running at a much faster pace than me, but he filled the time asking me questions to get to know me better, answering my silly questions, and telling me stories about growing up with Steve. We both became decidedly more serious when we got to the self-defense training part of the morning, but it went well too. I could see where trading off trainers would be a big benefit in the long run, and he seemed pleased with what we accomplished that morning.

When we got to the elevators, we decided just to meet on my floor for breakfast, as Pepper had already left for the morning and no one else would be joining us upstairs if we went there anyway. And that would just be depressing. I showered quickly and put on my Rangeman uniform before calling Ranger to setup a 7:30 pickup in the garage. I was strapping on my weapons as I walked into the living area and wasn't at all surprised to find that Bucky was already there setting out two bowls of granola with fruit and milk on my table.

We ate breakfast companionably, and when Bucky asked me more about being a bounty hunter and security specialist for Rangeman, I happily filled him in. I also told him about the various Rangemen he'd meet today, making sure to emphasize the backgrounds of those with more checkered pasts, like Hector with his teardrop tattoo and his time in a gang.

"And you trust them? Feel safe with them?"

"Absolutely. I love them like brothers. I trust them with my life."

As we finished cleaning up, I leaned against the counter, crossed my arms and bluntly said, "there's more than one way to make amends. We take dangerous people who don't care about who they hurt off the streets and we help keep people and families safe. If you aren't sure you want to go back to the espionage way of life, we'd be happy to have you at Rangeman. I'm going to be needing a permanent partner with all of the shuffling that is going on right now. And trust me, you're crazy qualified. Overqualified really; you'd probably find it boring. And we could work something out where you could still go with the others on the really big save-the-world missions. Just something to think about and let me know if you want that. I'll talk to Ranger for you, but I know he'll agree."

"Thanks. I will."

Before either of us could get another word in, there was a loud bang and the entire wall of windows in my living room exploded. I had my gun out before I even registered it, and Bucky calmly started moving me toward the hallway and my bedroom as a bunch of men started dropping in through the space the window used to be. "They're here for you; they don't care about me. I'll hold them off; you get to your panic room. You don't come out until Steve or I come get you." I wanted to protest that he could come with me, but he was already rushing back into the living room so I ran toward my room. As I was halfway to the closet, my bedroom windows exploded too. JARVIS's voice calmly but firmly said, "the door is open, and I'm ready to shut it behind you." I emptied my clip at the men I saw jumping in that window as I scrambled into the safe room, letting out a sigh of relief as the door clicked shut.

Then came the waiting and the uncertainty. When we'd gone through setting up the room on my birthday, JARVIS had explained that depending on the situation, he would use different protocols. He'd given me the option of approving or rejecting each individually if I'd wanted, but I figured whatever he set up with was fine. I'd never used a panic room before, and he would always use the protocol he thought would keep me the safest. Unfortunately it seemed that meant that he may not provide me with the security feeds or even talk to me if that was part of what he'd decided was the best protocol. And apparently he'd decided this was one of those times because JARVIS would not respond to me, no matter how much I'd pleaded.

I had a small bathroom and enough supplies to last me in here for several days, and I was hoping it wouldn't come to that. I badly wanted to go check on Bucky, especially when I heard what sounded like several much closer explosions followed by deafening silence. I had promised him I'd stay inside though, so I kept that promise. While the silence and the waiting stretched on for hours, I kept imagining the absolute worst case scenarios. Eventually, I curled myself into a ball in the corner, put my head in one of my hands, the other latched onto my necklace, and just cried.

What felt like days later, but I was eventually told was "just" three hours, the safe room door opened. I held my reloaded gun in front of me, trained calmly at the door forcing myself to take slow, smooth breaths and surprised that my hands weren't shaking. As soon as I saw Steve standing there, and he whispered out, "Steph", I flicked the safety back on and holstered the gun. By the time I was done, I was in his arms being held firmly but with great care.

That's when I started sobbing again. Steve was whispering, "you're okay, Love. You're okay," before I finally managed to cut him off.

"B-b-b-bucky. Is he dead?" I asked with the last word coming out in a pathetic wail. From the doorway I heard a cocky, "oh, come on Doll, I'm much harder than that to kill! Those men were amateurs!"

I let out a sob of relief then launched myself at him. I gave him a quick hug, checked him over for injuries, and, when I found him unbelievably without a single scratch, I started hitting him.

"Owww! What the hell, Steph?!"

"How the fuck long have you been out there? Why didn't you get me? Was it some kind of punishment for getting you shot at or something?!"

I felt Steve shaking with laughter as he pulled me away from Bucky and spun me around, pressing my head into his chest before wrapping his arms around me again.

"Steph, do you remember when you set up your panic room access code with JARVIS and had him set one up for me as well?" Steve asked.

"Yes."

"Well, JARVIS took that as an order that no one else was allowed to open the door with you inside. So Bucky couldn't open the door. Why didn't you open the door? We were actually really worried that you might somehow not be in there anymore or be hurt or something."

"Or that you were afraid to be out here with me," muttered Bucky.

"Because JARVIS wasn't talking to me! I heard a few more explosions and then just absolute silence. I thought Bucky was d-d-d-dead because of me," I broke down a little then and heard muttered curses from around the room before I continued, "and I thought they were out here waiting for me. Maybe with hostages or something if JARVIS wasn't willing to show me what was happening out here. But I promised Bucky I'd stay inside until he or you came to get me, so I did. Bucky, I swear, I wasn't hiding from you!"

Steve just held on to me until I stopped crying again and my own personal nightmare went away. "Tony?" I finally called out, unsure if he was there, but assuming he was.

"Yeah, Steph," he responded warily.

"I have some questions about how the panic rooms work. Do you think we could go over them sometime soon?"

"Sure, Steph, no problem."

"Bucky?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry I hit you."

"That's okay, it didn't hurt."

"Hey! There's no reason to be nasty about it!"

I squeezed Steve tight one more time before pulling back and finally looking around the room. Steve's back had been to the safe room, so it was the first thing I saw. That and the remnants of what had been my closet around it.

"Damn it!" I cursed.

"It's alright, Steph," came Pepper's voice. "We'll get you new clothes." I slowly turned, taking in the damage to that whole wall, when they'd clearly tried different angles looking for a weak spot.

"Guess that explains all the explosions. And why they sounded so close."

My gaze continued around the rest of the room, not quite taking in its occupants yet as I saw the bullet holes, scorch marks, and other assorted damages. When my gaze settled on the floor in front of where the windows had been, a couple of people tried to shift to cut off my view of the bodies on the floor. But I'd already seen the two dead from head shots and the couple of bloody spots with drag marks next to them.

"Did I?"

"Yes," said Clint, "range time paid off, Steph. And this has got to be one of the clearest cases of self defense I've ever seen. JARVIS has it on camera from multiple angles; it's fine."

"Right. Just hold on a second." I slowly backed into the safe room again, grabbed the trash can that was in there and proceeded to lose my breakfast. I walked back out and Natasha held out a piece of peppermint gum to me. I took it and chewed slowly on it for a few seconds. Then I said, "thanks. I feel better now."

Trying to lighten the mood a little, Natasha said, "Steph, I just have to ask. Are those your shoes?" indicating the black chest that was the only thing other than the panic room still standing in my closet.

I grinned and rushed over to it, entering in my combination and letting out a triumphant shout when I opened it. My shoes were sitting in there, just as shiny and new as when I'd opened them on sunday. "Yessssss! You all laughed when I mentioned it, but JARVIS hooked me up yesterday. BEST DECISION EVER!"

I heard Steve say, "hey!" and Bucky say, "not getting into the panic room when I told you to?" but it was Pepper's "she's got a point" that had me reaching out my fist in the direction from which I'd heard her voice, and saying, "see, Pepper gets it, right Pepper?" satisfied when I felt her give it a shaky bump with her fist and heard her "right."

I finally looked at all the people in the room, when I'd taken everyone in, noting that Sam and the Avengers were all in uniform looking a bit worse for the wear themselves. Agent Coulson was surrounded by a few people I didn't recognize, so I assume that was his team. I settled my gaze on the Rangemen. And it looked like all of Rangeman Manhattan and Trenton was standing there in their uniforms. I finger waved at them and said, "hey guys, how's it going?" before singling my gaze in on Ranger and saying, "hiya boss, sorry I'm a little late today. It will certainly happen again."

Everyone burst out in laughter at this and Ranger just held his hand out, palm up with a satisfied smirk as Tony grumbled, pulled Pepper's wallet out of her purse with a promise to pay her back, and slapped some bills into Ranger's hand.

"Ranger, I thought you were on my side of the betting on my life thing! The side that recognized that doing so is awful!" I shouted, feeling a bit betrayed.

"Relax, we weren't betting on something happening to you or anything, just what you would say first to the guys and I when you got out of the room."

I scoffed but let it go. For now.

That was until Ranger locked eyes with me and pushed it saying, "actually, Tony, she's already spoken to you and Pepper each as well." Then, unbelievably, he held out his palm again. Tony complained then smacked more money into it, and quick as a whip, I walked over and grabbed the money out of Rangers hand.

"I'll be keeping this, and I'll thank you kindly to never do that again." I said, eyes narrowed and pointing at the two of them. I turned to Steve and asked what time it was. Satisfied with his response, I did some quick math then I looked back at Ranger and said, "Ranger, mats, 1500," before waltzing out of the bedroom.

I heard rushing behind me and Bucky's "uh, Steph, hold on, I don't think you want to…" he trailed off when he realized that they were too late to stop me. I looked around the wide open center of my apartment and just gaped. There had obviously been a couple of smaller, more contained explosions as well as machine gun fire in here. There were several more dead bodies. I turned my wide eyes on Bucky and said, "oh, Bucky, I'm so sorry you had to do this."

He tilted his head to the side and said, "these were for a good cause. So it helped me, I was just worried you would…" he trailed off and I just waved him off.

"That was because I did it. Also, I could see what I thought was brain." I paused and took a few deep breaths and tried to shake the thought off. "Don't suppose any of them told you who sent them?"

"No, but we'd heard that Batroc was hiring, so we think this might have been tryouts."

A shudder ran through my body at that. I really didn't like the idea of people trying out for positions that involved doing harm to me. The last time that had happened it had been the Junkman trying out to be a leader for the Slayers.

I shoved that thought away as well and, taking another look around my once beautiful apartment, I sighed. I turned to Tony and Pepper and said, "See, I told you I'd blow it up."

Much to my surprise, Pepper started laughing at that, and Tony just whined, "all you had to do was say that first and I would have broken even!"

Deciding his loss was punishment enough, and I didn't comment on it instead saying to the room at large, "not that I'm really complaining, but why aren't there cops here, asking me a million questions?"

"Don't worry about that, Ms. Plum, we'll handle this," said Agent Coulson, indicating to his team standing around him, introducing me to each in turn.

"It's just Steph, or Stephanie if you'd rather. And thanks. Can we go then?"

When he nodded, I walked out the door of my apartment asking Steve, "so, how'd the mission go."

"Fine, intel was good. We eliminated the base. Didn't find anything to help us discover the next location though."

"Well, one step at a time, right?"

We were standing in the elevator with Pepper, Tony, Clint, Natasha, Sam, and Bucky and it wasn't going anywhere. Everyone just looked at me before Steve finally asked, "Steph, where are we going?"

I looked around, surprised to see myself in the elevator and the others looking at me. "I have no idea. I just didn't want to be in there any more. You look like you probably want to clean up though, so how about your floor?" He nodded and the elevator started rising.

While we were waiting, JARVIS finally spoke, "I'm terribly sorry if I've done something against your wishes or to make this ordeal more difficult for you Miss Plum."

"JARVIS, it's fine. Clearly there are some things I didn't understand, but we'll figure it all out later."

Steve's POV

I let out a sigh of relief as I shut my bedroom door behind us, allowing Steph and I to be alone for the first time since we'd gotten the report on the jet ride home that there had been an attack on Avenger's tower this morning and Steph was believed to be in her panic room but was unresponsive.

When we'd gotten word, I'd paced around in the back of the Quinjet until Natasha finally made me sit down and eat some MREs claiming I'd need some strength for whatever was coming down the road. She had her phone pressed to her ear and I knew she was continually trying Steph's cell. Clint was on the phone with Rangeman and Sam with Bucky. Finally Sam and Clint were able to work together to get Bucky to go downstairs long enough to get the men from Rangeman in the building. And all of this seemed to be buzzing in the background as I thought of all the worst case scenarios for the rest of the flight back. The others had been lucky that I'd waited for them to get in the elevator before taking it down to Stephanie's floor.

As soon as I walked into her bedroom, however, JARVIS had spoken up saying, "very good, Captain Rogers. If you'll just enter in your code, I think Miss Plum will be very happy to see you."

I heard Tony in the background as I rushed up to the keypad saying, "Are you fucking kidding me, JARVIS? You couldn't at least have told us that before now?"

"Only Miss Plum and Captain Rogers have keycode access to this panic room."

The sight of Stephanie crouched in the back corner of the room as small as she could get, with tear tracks down her cheeks, but her gun head steadily pointing at the door managed to both fill me with pride and tear my heart to little pieces. And when she told Tony she had some questions about panic rooms all I could think was that, yeah, we were definitely going to be having an Avengers-wide panic room training session. Though, I had to admit, I was pleased with how the panic room itself had held up as well as it did.

As soon as I had her in my arms again and I knew everything was going to be okay, time that had stood still had sped back up. I remembered chuckling a little at Stephanie's antics, but really I was just biding my time until I could get her alone again and check over every inch of her body to make sure she really was okay. With the click of the door latching, it became clear that Stephanie was of the same mind as her hands were desperately sliding along my uniform trying to find the zipper. I pulled her into the bathroom and got her undressed before taking pity on her and guiding her hands to show her how to get me out of my uniform. I slip my hands along every inch of her, checking her over for fresh injuries and amazed that there were none. I trailed my mouth along behind my hands and things quickly escalated.

A while later, Stephanie pulled me into the shower so that we could both clean up. Despite my objections, she made it clear that after lunch, she was heading into Rangeman for a few hours with or without me. She was fine with the "without me" option, but I wasn't quite ready for that yet, so that left me one option. It also left me once again grateful that I could go a couple days without sleep if need be without having to worry about decreased cognitive function.

As I sat on the bed, watching Stephanie flit about my room getting ready for the afternoon, I found myself more than a little impressed by her tenacity. Given what she clearly thought was happening outside of her little safe room while she hunkered down inside, refusing to open the door because of a promise she'd made, more than a few people would be curled up in a bed crying right now. Not to mention that she'd just had her second apartment in roughly a month bombed. And she'd killed at least two men. Yet somehow she was smiling and humming to herself as she went around trying to figure out what she'd left in my room that could be of use to her until she managed to stock up, again, on her essentials. I honestly couldn't have asked for or imagined a better partner for life.

"I can't wait to marry you," I blurted out. Oh shit. My eyes bugged out. Did I just say that out loud?! Was accidentally speaking your thoughts contagious? I held my breath, holding out just a tiny sliver of hope that I hadn't actually said that out loud until Stephanie turned to me with wide eyes. Thankfully I didn't see any panic in her face. Okay, I could work with this. I could extract my foot out of my mouth.

"That wasn't a proposal, right?" she asked, cautiously.

I ran my tongue along my teeth, "No, not really?"

"Not really as in, not completely, but a little bit?"

I sighed. "uhhhhh, well, no, it wasn't a proposal per say. More a thought I was having that slipped out. See, I was looking at you and I was just amazed by how strong you are." She laughed at that and I smiled and said, "mentally. Not that you're not physically strong, but you're right, not compared to me, not many people are. Tough I guess is what I was thinking. I mean, you've gone through so much today, and here you are with a smile on your face ready to go put in a couple hours of work even though you know Ranger would happily give you the day off."

"Part of what helps me stay strong is pretending that it is just a normal day. I'll probably have a bit of a breakdown later," she confessed, stepping between my legs and wrapping her arms around my neck while smiling down at me and allowing me to wrap my arms around her waist. "That, and of course, having you here, and knowing you'll help me stay safe. And what we did in there," she added, gesturing with her head toward the bathroom.

I nodded in understanding and looked in her eyes and said, "regardless of how you achieve it, it is remarkable. So I was looking at you, thinking about all this, and all I could think was that I was so lucky to have found you to be my partner in life. And I know it is too soon for a proposal, so it isn't that. I don't want to freak you out." I paused surprised once again that I wasn't seeing the slightest bit of panic on her face. So I reached up with one hand and cupped her cheek and with the other and ran my fingers over her necklace and I added, "but if you want, you can think of it as a promise that one is coming down the road."

I held my breath, waiting to see how she would react, and cautiously let it out when her face broke into a big smile and she said, "I suppose you're right, it probably is too early. But I think I'm going to hold you to that promise, okay?"

"Yeah, okay," I said, allowing a matching grin to find its way across my face. "How soon do you think is not too early?" I asked, curious to see what she'd say.

"I don't know. This thing is still so much more than I ever expected. My heart says now isn't even too soon, it's my brain that's telling me to slow down. Probably at least a couple more months?" she said, and I heard the question in her voice.

I sighed and said, "fine, I guess I can wait that long. You really think you'll agree to marry me sometime though?"

She snorted out a laugh, "I have no doubt about it."

Overwhelmed with emotion, I pulled her in for a deep kiss. When I pulled back, I wiped some tears off her cheeks and she did the same to me. Then I stood up and pressed a quick kiss on her nose. "Okay, let's go upstairs and see what we can hunt up for lunch before we head out."

A/N: Yeah, I totally didn't mean for that to happen, but I'm so not sorry it did. I hope you're okay with it too. You got short changed a bit on this chapter and Steve's POV because that felt like a good place to break it. I'm heading out for a bit of a trip, and it could either wind up being one in which I get nothing written for you or one in which I get a lot written for you. In particular I'm going to be traveling for several hours in a bit, and probably not able to sleep, so if you all treat me well with this chapter, I might be able to get more of the next written. Just saying, I love me some feedback and reviews! Happy Friday, all!