A/N: The original list doesn't have this until #26, but for the purpose of my story line, I have moved it here.
As with yesterday's story, this is part of a larger story so I've edited it to fit into the short story idea. Hopefully, the parts I chose will make sense. It is one of only two stories that will be told from both Steve's and Maria's POV.
he title is from the single best wedding song ever written. I prefer the version with Shania Twain and Bryan White. It makes more sense as a wedding song that way. :)
Steve left Maria's after breakfast. He'd waited for Natasha to arrive to help Maria get into her wedding dress. But he knew he wasn't fooling anyone. Both women knew he simply wanted to make sure nothing happened before the wedding. Natasha had given him a smile and assured Steve she'd have Maria there on time.
Now, he paced nervously in the room located at the side in the front of the chapel. He'd already sent Tony to check on Maria twice in the thirty minutes since they'd arrived. He was waiting for his best man to return now. When the door opened he spun toward it. Instead of Tony, however, it was Phil entering the room. He smiled his bland smile and quirked an eyebrow at Clint and Bruce, who both took the cue and excused themselves.
A million scenarios of what had gone wrong ran through Steve's mind instantly. His heart felt like it was in his throat and his hands were cold and clammy. He might not know what it was but it must be horrible if Phil had come to tell him, not Tony. An accident, a kidnapping, worse, something terrible had happened, and Steve attempted to calm himself so he could be ready to take action if needed.
"Sit down, Steve," Phil said, pointing to a chair against the wall.
As soon as Phil said it, Steve felt the need for it. His legs felt like rubber and he wasn't sure if he could stand.
"Ok," Phil said when Steve sat. "Now calm down."
Steve looked up sharply at him.
"It's just another thirty minutes," Phil continued.
"You mean you're not here," Steve started, but didn't want to say the rest, just in case he misunderstood.
"She's fine," Phil said.
Steve nodded, wanting to believe him, needing to believe him, but part of him wouldn't be satisfied until he saw her himself.
"If it will take your mind off things, I'll give you the father of the bride talk I've been meaning to but haven't yet," Phil sat in a chair opposite Steve and leaned back.
Steve allowed himself a brief chuckle.
"You never have to worry about me hurting her," Steve said.
Phil nodded.
"I know you would never do anything intentionally," Phil said, then took a deeper breath before continuing.
"There are things in this business," Phil said. "Things that aren't black and white."
Steve knew, he and Maria had talked about this, how they'd handle classified ops and some of the less savory parts of her work.
"One day, it will become an issue," Phil said, then shook his head.
"Maybe knowing what I had to say is why I put it off," he went on.
He looked at Steve and the super soldier found himself surprised at the level of emotion he saw on Phil's face.
"I didn't want to scare you off, or make you question your relationship," Phil told him. "I've never seen Maria so happy."
Phil swallowed back his emotion.
"I know that decisions Fury and I made after New York upset her, and rightly so. I thought I was protecting her. I didn't want her to get her hopes up."
Phil lowered his head and shook it.
"I really suck at this," he laughed as he lifted his head.
Steve smiled encouragingly. He did want to know what Phil had to say. And it wasn't as if he hadn't been expecting something like this. He'd already had the "older brother" lecture from Jasper, and Steve knew full well where Fury stood.
"It feels weird telling you how to behave," Phil quirked half a smile. "For my whole life I've always looked to you to kind of tell me what to do, how to act, what was right and wrong."
Steve felt himself grow warm. He'd known how Phil felt, but to hear it was another thing entirely.
"Choosing that way has meant I will never get above my rank in SHIELD," he confessed to Steve.
Steve knew where he was going with his speech now. It was an argument he'd had with Tony multiple times. SHIELD's secrets had secrets, and people like Maria were charged with keeping them, regardless. He had wrestled with it time and again since they'd started dating. He felt he now had a very good handle on it, that his love for Maria trumped anything that might happen as a result of her job.
"One day, something will happen, some information, some op, something will happen that blurs the lines for you too much," Phil gave Steve a hard look now. "I know, because it's happened to me too many times to count."
He leaned forward and rested his hands on his knees.
"I expect that's why Fury didn't want me to be your handler," he admitted. "I might have said things that would have made you question SHIELD."
"Then why do you stay?" Steve asked, curious now.
"Because, at the end of the day, I believe what they say they stand for, and I have seen the work I do make a difference," Phil told him. "No job is perfect, but I can do more good here for more people."
Steve smiled at him. He wasn't entirely comfortable with the way SHIELD handled some things, but he agreed with Phil's assessment.
"One day," Phil continued. "It won't be enough."
He paused, as if for emphasis, looking straight at Steve.
"For either of us."
Steve nodded.
"When that day comes, I hope," Phil stopped again, looking as if he was trying to find the right words.
"Please don't cut and run from her."
Steve opened his mouth to promise but was taken again by Phil's unusual emotions. It was somewhat of a joke around SHIELD that Maria had asked Phil to give her away. He wondered if anyone there could begin to fathom what these two meant to each other.
"She probably won't make it easy, you know how she gets," Phil smiled slightly at him. "Just trust her and stay by her. Because if it happens the way I've always imagined, she'll need you more than she ever did before. But I doubt she will tell you that. More likely than not she'll think she needs to find some way to protect you from any sort of fallout."
He shook his head again and leaned back in his chair.
"She loves you," Phil said as he finished.
Steve wasn't sure how to process what Phil had told him. Was this conjecture, Phil playing out scenarios in his own mind, or was something really going to happen? Steve knew better than to ask, he'd never get an answer right now.
He noticed that Phil was staring at him and knew he was waiting for some sort of response.
Steve nodded, then he stood. He suddenly felt as if he'd been given a challenge, as if Phil had given him some impossible task he knew no one else was capable of, only Steve.
He put out his hand, and Phil stood and took it.
"I love her," Steve said. "I don't expect things to be easy, but I'm not the type to quit when they get difficult."
Phil smiled, and Steve got the feeling he was attempting to be reassuring, but wasn't quite sure if Steve truly understood. Steve would just have to prove himself when the time came.
There was a knock at the door and Clint opened it.
"Ready?" he smiled.
"I'd better get back to Maria," Phil said.
He nodded one final time to Steve, then left as while Steve followed Clint out to the front of the church to wait. He tried to push aside the concerns Phil had brought to his mind, his sudden doubt as to whether or not he could be what Maria needed when she needed him.
They hadn't planned the usual processional. Maria convincing Jasper to be her own best man had changed that. Instead the whole party, except Maria and Phil, were standing in the front of the small church, the few friends they'd invited, and who'd been able to alter their schedule a third time, in the first rows of pews.
Steve took a deep breath as the music Maria had picked for her walk up the aisle started to play, the. The doors opened and, as the guests stood, Steve got his first glimpse of her in her dress. It was elegant in its simplicity. Covered in white lace, modest, as always. She wore no veil, instead she had a wreath of white carnations* on her head. She smiled at him as she saw his face register the meaning of the flowers.
As she walked down the aisle beside Phil, all the fears Steve d had leading up to this vanished from his mind. Instead, he could only think of how lucky he was to have this one woman in his life. He couldn't think of anyone else who could have so perfectly filled the emptiness he'd felt since waking from the ice than Maria, because he didn't know anyone else who could understand his loneliness so well.
Maria sat in the small bridal room in the foyer of the church. Things had gone far more smoothly this morning than she had thought they would.
It certainly hadn't hurt to wake in Steve's arms, she smiled to herself.
When Natasha had arrived, Maria had her first real attack of nerves and she wouldn't stop babbling. It had seemed so strange to her, she had never babbled, never been that out of control of her thoughts that they just couldn't stop pouring out of her mouth.
Natasha had taken most of it in good humor, but by the time Maria had chastised herself the fifteenth time for not letting the wedding take place in December, the assassin simply gave her a look in the mirror as she was buttoning up the back of the dress. Maria tried to remain silent after that but every once in a while something would spill over, then she would blush, worse than she'd ever seen Steve blush.
Happy arrived to take them to the church. Maria was surprised, since he was supposed to be a guest. But he and Natasha told him that Tony insisted, that none of them trusted another driver to get her there. Maria tried not to consider the negative implication. She and Steve weren't the only ones worried about how things would end today.
Pepper and Jasper were in the car waiting. In forty minutes they were at the church and Maria wasn't the only one breathing a sigh of relief.
She was waiting on Phil now. He'd gone to assure Steve after her groom-to-be had sent Tony twice to check on her. Natasha, Pepper, and Jasper had already gone into the church.
Maria tried not to let her thoughts get away from her. She tried to focus on the good that was happening today. She still found it so hard to believe though. She had never considered this sort of happiness before she met Steve. She'd been content to let her job be her life, it had been better than her old life, and that was all she thought she needed.
Then Steve had walked in and changed her, made her think there might be more to life than just work, than just protecting the free world. And he had convinced her by making her life more full than anyone else ever had.
The door opened and Phil walked in.
"Ready?" he asked.
She nodded and Phil helped her stand.
"Have I told you how beautiful you look?"
She nodded again, noting that her voice seemed to have left her.
He smiled at her, then held out his arm for her to put hers through.
They walked to the doors and waited for the music to start. Phil patted her hand that had his arm in a death grip and Maria tried to relax. Everything would be fine, she assured herself. This was what Steve wanted, she was what Steve wanted.
The music started and the wedding coordinator opened the doors for the two to walk through. Maria glanced up at Steve and saw when he recognized the flowers and understood their meaning. After that she forgot her nerves, forgot her fears.
Later at the reception as she and Phil shared a dance he would comment that he had never seen her smile as she had in the wedding and he hoped she'd be able to continue to smile like that for many years to come.
"I'm not going to be easier on you at work, if that's what you're trying to infer," she smirked.
Phil laughed.
"I didn't think we'd get off that easily."
*white carnations=the strength and enduring qualities of love (There are three meanings I could find for this flower, this is the meaning I'm using. :))
A/N: Sorry if that seems cut off, as I said, this is part of a longer story that will be posted some time in the far future. I have to post all the stories that keep them from getting here, first. :)
In the WiP section: I am done with my chapter for the Avengers/HIMYM crossover. I just need to find a paragraph I lost. Yeah, I sometimes misplace paragraphs. And sometimes I let my participles dangle. It's embarrassing. :*)