A/N: Will You Love Me Tomorrow (2010 live version) - Carole King and James Taylor Duet
mcali187- I'm excited to get into Avengers plot too! I hope you enjoy this chapter!
PistolHattersButtercup- I understand how you feel, and I have been kind of doing that on purpose. I have this thing about characters where I think if they are written well, it is impossible to not dislike them once in a while. People are flawed and I don't want to make Maddi perfect. I hope to grow her character a bit though so she understands that her feelings about the situation are not the only valid ones.
Guest- thank you so much, I hope you like this update!
March 9, 2012
It was three days since I last saw Steve when I heard a knock on my door in the evening after finishing my dinner. I went to answer it and when our eyes locked, I did not move or say a word. He looked at me hesitantly and then asked "May I come in?" I said no response, but moved aside so he could walk through the door. I shut it once he was in and made my way back to the kitchen table, sat down, and grabbed my cup of tea I had made before he arrived and took a sip as I saw him search for words to say. "Maddi, what I said was wrong. I cannot even begin to tell you how sorry I am about it. I am truly sorry."
"Are you sorry you said it or sorry you felt that way? Or feel that way, I guess?"
"I'm sorry I said it because I don't feel that way. I was just upset and I said it because I wanted to make you feel as bad as I felt in the moment, but I didn't mean it."
"But did it come from some truth? Who I was, what I've done, does that bother you? Because if it does, don't you think we need to talk about it if we hope to resolve anything between us? I don't want to spend the rest of my life just running from it or you and regretting everything."
"You are the love of my life, Maddi. Attacking you for being hurt and lonely and dealing with it the way you did. I had no right to do that. That's not what hurts me when I think about your past. What hurts me is to think about how you loved someone else enough to almost get engaged with, despite knowing what you know now about your aging issue. Yet you refuse to be anything more than friends with me now. You are the love of my life and I feel pain every time I think about how I lost you even when you are standing right in front of me."
I paused to think about what he said and what I wanted to say before responding. "What you said to me was really really hurtful, but how I've been treating you isn't very kind either. I've been justifying it because losing you in 1945 was the greatest pain I had ever felt. Living without you, is something I never stopped feeling pain over, I just learned to live with that pain. The thought going through that all over again just paralyzes me with fear. It would be worse than when I had to leave Jackson. Back then, I let my guard down with the hope of finding a fix to not aging. I don't have that hope anymore. So how can I let myself love you fully once more just to lose you all over again?"
He stood up suddenly and took my hands from the table and held them gently in his. He said "Because we deserve that happiness even if it is temporary. Maddy, the only thing that has gotten me through these months has been you by my side. You make the confusion and pain I feel a little more easy to deal with. I want to be that for you too. Your fears have not stopped you from finding a family with Tony Stark and a friendship with me, so don't let it stop you from forming a new love with me too. I love you; I'll never stop loving you, and I'm so sorry for hurting you. Please forgive me, Maddi."
I stood up in front of him, not letting go of his hands. "I do, Steve, I forgive you." He smiled slightly at my words but before he could say anything in return, I continued. "Steve, you are the love of my life too." He looked stunned and I clarified "not were. Are. You are currently the love of my life; you always have been, and I have been wasting our time denying that. Please forgive me for that, for causing you pain by pushing you away."
He didn't respond but he let go of my hands and put his on my face in one swift movement. Before I knew what had happened, he was kissing me. In that moment, I felt more free than I had in decades. I felt every bit of tension I didn't know I still had leave my body as I melted in his kiss. I wrapped my arms around his neck as I kissed him back and I could feel his smile against my lips. We pulled apart much too soon in my opinion and opened our eyes to look into each other's. "Wow," was all he said.
"Wow," echoed him in a whisper.
"I love you, Maddi."
"I love you, Steve." He met me again with another kiss and eventually we made our way to my bedroom. I gave my entire heart and soul to him as I once had 67 years before, and I could honestly say that I held no regrets over my actions. This was something that I had been holding back from Steve and myself for too long, and it felt beautiful to let go and fully be with the love of my life once more.
March 10, 2012 (STEVE'S POV)
I laid next to Maddi in her bed and she slept soundly under the covers. I softly brushed her beautiful red hair out of her face and smiled; I couldn't believe that everything I was feeling and seeing in front of me was real. After almost losing all hope of being with her once more, I got to spend the entire night with her feeling like I was in paradise. Even when she finally fell asleep, I stayed awake all night. Of course sleep wouldn't have come to me easily anyway, and I didn't want to risk having a nightmare with her so close, but I also wanted to take in every moment here with her because it felt like it could disappear within seconds. Eventually her eyes started to flutter open and she gave me a small smile when she saw I was already awake. "Good morning beautiful," I said quietly to her.
"Good morning handsome," she replied while lifting her hand to meet mine that rested on her cheek. "This is real, right? Last night was real?" she asked me.
"Yeah, I've been asking myself that too. I know that me loving you is real."
"Me loving you is real too."
"Then it must all be real."
"Yeah," she whispered and closed her eyes again. I wish I could know exactly what she was thinking. I was so worried about doing or saying the wrong thing that could make this all go away, and I wanted to make sure that this lasted forever. "Do you want to make breakfast together?" she asked with a mischievous smile and I returned it.
"Sure," I told her and we got dressed and made our way to the kitchen. As I stood there, my face dropped when I focused on the calendar on the wall and realized what day it was. "It's March 10th," I said and Maddi turned towards me with a concerned look on her face. "How could I have forgotten, today is March 10th."
"Oh Steve," she made her way towards me and put a hand on my face as I looked down. It was Bucky's birthday and I had forgotten. Of course I had remembered yesterday, but for a brief moment this morning, I was too happy to finally be with Maddi that I had forgotten it was his birthday. "You didn't forget it was his birthday, you just forgot for a moment that it was March 10th. Given the circumstances, I'm sure Bucky wouldn't have been all that upset that you just forgot what day it was when you woke up this morning." She gave me light chuckle to make me feel better, and I kept quiet on the fact that I hadn't actually woken up this morning forgetting because I never went to sleep last night. I guess it had slipped my mind as soon as we had kissed the previous evening.
"He should have been able to keep celebrating his birthday into old age, I hate having to spend this day without him every year now thinking about-" I couldn't finish as Maddi tried to comfort me.
"I know, I know." I looked at her as she spoke and I knew that she knew better than anyone else could. She had been living through this date as well as my own birthday and the birthdays of so many other people she cared about by herself for so many years. "What can I do to help you? Do you want to go visit the cemetary today?"
"No, thank you but it just doesn't feel right knowing he's not really there."
"He's with us right now," she reminds me.
"I know," I smile lightly at her. "Just being with you helps, I promise."
April 2, 2012
Oddly enough, it didn't feel super different with Steve and I since I told him the truth about my feelings. Of course things were different now, but we still spent most days together on a walk through New York or catching him up on history or pop culture of the last several decades. We simply also spent more time together kissing or in bed like we had all those years ago on the SSR base in Europe after we had gotten married. I had previously thought this would ruin my happiness I had found in recent years, but it only added to it and took away all the tension I had been holding. I also knew that my anger with him was mostly anger with myself while we fought. My love with Steve took away a lot of my pain and I could tell that it did the same for Steve too. He was happier than I had seen him in a very long time.
It was morning and we were in his bed together, I watched him peacefully as he slept. We spent a few nights together in either mine or his apartment, and this was the first time I had ever woken up before him. It was a whole different feeling being with him in this way again, I never thought I would experience it ever again. I didn't want to wake him because just being there with him watching him sleep like I used to in the 1940s was something I wanted to cherish. Soon I realized his sleeping wasn't as peaceful as I initially thought. I knew immediately that he was having a nightmare as I had seen that look on his sleeping face many times before during the war. I hesitated in waking him up because I knew he needed the sleep. I could tell that he spent most nights lying awake, even though I knew he would deny it if I brought it up. However, after a few minutes, I decided his dream was clearly getting worse and I needed to wake him up. I tried to be gentle to no startle him, but as I brushed my hand on his shoulder and whispered for him to wake up, he grabbed my hand very suddenly in his own. "Steve," I said a bit louder this time as I tried to pull my hand from his tight grasp. "Wake up, Steve." Before I knew it, he squeezed my hand extremely hard and it caused me to let out a cry in pain. "Steve!" I yelled at him trying to ignore the pain and focus on waking him. His eyes shot open at my yelling his name and when he saw his grip on my hand he released it like it was on fire. I was sitting up at this point and pulled my hand to my chest. He jumped out of bed and ran a hand through his hair.
"Maddi, are you okay?" He did a short pace near the bed as he looked at me and my hand. "Oh god, Maddi. I'm so sorry, what did I do? How much did I hurt you?"
"It's okay," I said quickly. I looked at my hand and could tell that a couple of the bones in my fingers were definitely broken and the bruises were already clear and deep shades of purple and blue. I set my fingers straight as I winced in pain so they could begin healing themselves. It took less than a minute for my hand to fully heal and Steve remained quiet during the entire process. I looked up at him as I flexed and moved my fingers and wrist in front of the two of us. "See, no worries. Good as new," I told him and he gave me a look like I was crazy.
"Maddi, we both saw what they just looked like. I crushed your hand, it was broken and bruised."
"And now it's okay," I said as I balanced myself on my knees and reached out to him from the bed. He took a step back to avoid my touch and I shook my head. "Please Steve, come sit down and we can talk about this." He hesitated but slowly made his way next to me and we sat next to each other on the bed. "Take a look up close, it doesn't matter that they were broken a minute ago, my fingers healed themselves very quickly. Probably would have been quicker if I had ever broken a bone before, but my body has never had to heal itself in that specific way before."
"It doesn't matter how fast they healed themselves, you were clearly in pain because I crushed them in my sleep. I can't believe I let myself fall asleep, I've been so careful." He put his face in his hands and frowned at how upset he was.
"Steve, have you been staying up every night we've been together?" I asked him concerned.
"I didn't want to risk having a nightmare with you nearby. Clearly I was right to worry." he lifted his head up and looked at me.
"Steve, you should have talked about this with me instead of just not sleeping. Do you have nightmares every night?"
"Most nights," he replied and I carefully took his hand in mine. He jumped a little at the touch but he held my hand back as I encouraged him to continue. "Parts of the war sometimes get in my brain at night, losing Bucky, crashing into the ocean, leaving you alone in 1945. I remember a lot more of it than I thought I would and while I can ignore it during the day sometimes, it just doesn't leave me alone at night."
"Oh darling," I wrapped my other arm around his shoulder and held him close to me. "All of that is very normal for the trauma you've had to go through. I wish you had told me this earlier, and we could have started working through it before now. Our society understands the human brain and its psychology much more than when we were growing up, and there are so many resources that can help you."
"I just can't believe I hurt you, Mads. I'm so sorry, I never ever wanted to cause you pain like that."
"It wasn't your fault, Steve, I know you didn't mean to. Don't worry about me or my hand, I'm pretty strong now," I gave him a small smile. "Much stronger than you probably remember me."
"You've always been strong, Maddi. The strongest person I know," he said quickly before I could say anything else.
"Thank you," I said, knowing I had a slight blush on my cheeks. "I promise that I'm not mad this happened, and it doesn't make me look at you any differently. I just help you in any way I can," I told him and he nodded in return.
"Thank you, Maddi. I love you," he said as he rubbed his thumb on my hand.
"I love you too," I said with a smile.
May 3, 2012 (STEVE'S POV)
I hit my way through the bags at the old boxing gym in town, losing track of time. I came here a lot once I found I that it was here. When Maddi was busy running her part of the Stark company, it was a good way to spend all the free time I had. I also sometimes came here when Maddi and I weren't sharing an apartment for the night and I couldn't sleep. It was a nice reminder of how things used to look. I had been trying my best to keep up with all the new changes of New York and the world beyond the city I grew up in, and Maddi was so helpful the entire time, but sometimes I really needed places like this one. Using punching bags was also a very helpful way of me getting out my anger. Maddi was trying to get me into healthy ways of working through my feelings, and some helped more than others. I was going to this empty gym more often, and it definitely made me realize I was more angry that I had thought. Of course I was sad about a lot of things and admittedly fearful of many things too, but I was so angry about much more. I was angry that I had to spend so long fighting Hydra in a terrible war. I was angry that I let Bucky fall to his death from that train. I was angry that the only way I was able to save so many people was to crash that plane into the ice. I was angry that nobody found me until decades later. I was especially angry that I had left Maddi a widow at 26 and that she had to live through decades of pain. I was angry that we didn't get our dream life together in the 1940s. All of this anger had me punching through plenty of punching bags that broke when I let all my strength out.
"Trouble sleeping?" I heard a voice come from the door and it stopped me as I looked over. I saw Nick Fury standing there and I continued to punch the new bag in front of me.
"I slept for 70 years, sir. I think I've had my fill."
"Then you should be out, celebrating, seeing the world, spending a little more time with a certain redhead." His words made me stop my punching and I went to take off the wraps on my hands.
"When I went under, the world was a war. I wake up, they say we won. They didn't say what we lost. I thought I lost everything, but turns everyone wasn't entirely truthful their either though."
"We've made some mistakes along the way. Some very recently, in more ways than one. Dr. Rogers' current status wasn't something we thought was in our place to tell you just yet."
"She goes by Jennifer now, Jennifer O'Neil." I didn't think that I should specify that we together again with the man in front of me. It was strange to hear him refer to her as Dr. Rogers though, but I actually wasn't sure what to refer to Maddi anymore. Her new name was completely fake and foreign to me, but it also felt strange to calling her Madeline Bennett again. Of course, I wasn't going to start calling her with my last name without her okay because she said it herself months before that we weren't technically married anymore.
"I am aware of that," he responded. I looked over at him and noticed a file he was carrying.
"You here with a mission, sir?"
"I am."
"Trying to get me back into the world?" I internally scoffed at the idea of it all. As much as Maddi was integrating me into society now, it had all been in very low scale ways. It was just the two of us learning about everything I had missed together. The idea of being sent on a mission for SHIELD was not something was probably a good idea for me.
"Trying to save it." he handed me the file opened and the picture inside immediately caught my attention. The world Tesseract stood in big letter next to it.
"Hydra's secret weapon," I said with disgust in my voice. There was nothing on this Earth I hated more than Hydra, the organization that ruined the life I knew 70 years before.
"Howard Stark fished that out of the ocean when he was looking for you," Fury spoke as I looked through the file some more. "He thought what we think, the Tesseract could be the key to unlimited sustainable energy. That is something the world needs."
"Who took it from you?" I asked as I handed him back the file, knowing that this was going to be a manhunt for me if I signed on to help.
"He's called Loki, he's not from around here. There's a lot we'll have to bring you up to speed on if you're in. The world has gotten even stranger than you already know."
I gave him a look that didn't completely buy into his words. I had already experienced more than enough strangeness from what Maddi has shown me with technology and everything beyond it. "At this point I doubt anything would surprise me."
"Ten bucks says you're wrong. There's a debriefing packet waiting for you back at your apartment." He told me as I went to carry my things to leave the gym. I was honestly more than ready to no longer be with the man in front of me, I really just wanted to be with Maddi to talk through the things I just learned. Also, despite it being provided by SHIELD, it was also unsettling to know people had been in my apartment without me there. "Is there anything you can tell us about the Tesseract that we ought to know now?"
"You should have left it in the ocean." I told him, truly meaning it, as I walked out of the gym and straight back to my apartment. As soon as I got my hands on the packet that sat on my dining table, I made my way to Maddi's apartment knowing it was about the time she woke up in the morning.
I knocked on her door and when she answered, she was still in her night clothes sipping her morning tea. "Hey, what brings you here so early?" she asked as she let me in. We made our way to her kitchen table and I showed her the packet of information left to me about the Loki guy and him stealing the Tesseract from SHIELD. She read through it quickly and then gave me a frown. "SHIELD wants you to come in and help find this guy?" she asked.
"Yes, Nick Fury came to see me this morning to ask me to join the mission. I don't want to do this without you, so will you come with?" I asked her.
She thought for a moment before shaking her head and replying "no."
"What?" I was confused at hearing her decline when I wasn't expecting it.
"I'm sorry but no. I can't go with you on this, I don't feel comfortable about it, I don't feel comfortable about you going either."
"Maddi, this seems really serious, I think it is something we should probably help with." I could tell that she was probably scared at what the outcome of this all would be.
"I understand that, but you don't have to do what they tell you to do. You aren't theirs to order around."
"Well I don't think they're just ordering me around," I told her. "I just think we should help here, we have abilities that nobody else has and maybe we should use them to help when we can."
"Okay first off, they asked you to go, not me. They don't need any of my abilities, and I certainly don't feel comfortable giving them any. Second, they shouldn't get to use me or you whenever they have a problem that they can't figure out on their own."
"Well they are providing my apartment, it's not like I should have expected them to leave me alone for the rest of my life."
"Honestly they shouldn't have to. You're entitled to decades worth of backpay from the government and SHIELD shouldn't be holding on to anything over your head that could get you to do things for them."
I could tell Maddi was getting worked up over the subject so I took a deep breath and to keep the situation calm "Okay, I don't think they are holding this over my head right now or ordering me around. I looked at the facts and I think that I should help. I think you should help too."
"And what am I going to do exactly? I can heal myself super fast, that's only useful if I knew how to fight at all, which I can't. I'm not about to put on a super suit and fight the bad guys, and I don't want to let you go do it either. The last time you did, I lost you!" I could tell she was on the verge of tears and I put my hand on her face to calm her down.
"Hey," I said softly as I rubbed my thumb on her cheek. "It's okay, I know you're scared."
"I'm not scared," she said quietly, but we both knew it was a lie.
"Come with me, none of this means that it's going to end in a fight, and if it does, trust that it's going to be okay. Just come with and maybe they could use that super smart brain of yours, huh?"
She suppressed a smile as she looked up at me. "It's not that super smart," she joked.
"It's super to me," I pushed some of her hair back behind her ear. "Come on, they already know about you, I don't think it's too much harm to just go and consult a little. Nobody is going to force you, or me, to do any fighting."
She thought for a moment and closed her eyes with a sigh. "Okay," she said. "I'll go with you, mainly because I don't trust all the people involved in this and I want to protect you from any kind of manipulation."
"Oh so now you're protecting me?" I asked with a laugh.
"Steve you should know by now that I've been the one protecting you for most of our lives," she laughed back and I nodded.
"Fair enough, it is something I've picked up on." I gave her a kiss on the forehead and then stepped back from her. "Pack some things quickly because the packet says we need to meet them at a pick up point in an hour."
"Okay," she gave me a nervous smile but tried to reassure her with a smile of my own. She was worried for our safety and while she joked about protecting me on this trip, I knew that I would be on high alert to make sure she never got too uncomfortable and that she would always be safe.
A/N: I put the name of a beautiful duet at the beginning of the top of this update that I think really fits this last chapter. If you've never heard that version from their live tour recording before, I highly recommend it. Additionally, I think that "I Almost Do" by Taylor Swift has fit pretty much the last several months for Maddi, and "You're in Love" also by Taylor Swift is a good transition song from that in Maddi's life. So I'd love for you to listen to them if you haven't or even if you have. Also, I want to thank everyone for being super patient with me and my updates! I have two jobs and I am a double major in Physics and Biochemistry (much like Maddi was back in her time in school, so I can relate a lot to her academic struggles, although it is obviously much easier for a woman to be studying these fields now) and I wish I could update more often. However, it is obvious that most of my time is already taken up by studying and working. I really am trying to give you guys as much as I can, so please keep reading and reviewing, I appreciate it all so much! I rewarded your long wait with a fairly long update!