Disclaimer: The Avengers, its characters and The Marvel Cinematic Universe belong to Marvel Studios and The Walt Disney Company, among many others. I'm only a fan, writing this for my love of this film franchise and personal pleasure.
A.N.: Wah! I can't believe this is done! I've never been able to finish such a long project and I'm so glad and proud that this is here. Special thanks to anyone who's still reading it after two years have gone by!
Finally this is set after Endgame (aptly ignoring that blasted end scene) and my other story, Lights Will Guide You Home. I'll try to sum up what happened there in case someone hasn't read it, but for any details it's best to read that one first. ;)
To Build a Home
26. Calls Me Home
Light streamed in gently through the partially opened window, the sounds of the city that never sleeps slowly turning up and seeping into the bedroom. Somehow the level of noise seemed greater than the one Steve Rogers had grown accustomed to in the last few years and even as he still had to fully regain consciousness it registered somehow in his brain that this was the result of getting half of the world back to life (some 1.2 million people in Brooklyn alone) and that notion made him smile.
The other thing that contributed to the smile that seemed permanently etched onto his lips was the fact that he was lying in bed and had his arms around a sleeping Natasha Romanoff. He cracked open his eyes and just gazed out at the mess of red/blonde hair on top of his pillow and the gentle curve of her neck and shoulders as it disappeared under the covers, feeling her arm draped loosely over the one he had circling her waist. It was such a picture of domestic bliss, something that for so long had seemed so unattainable, that Steve couldn't help himself as he squeezed her just a little tighter against his chest and the slightly shuddering breath that left him then.
He felt her tense for a split second before she seemed to realize where she was (or more importantly, who she was with) and she relaxed again, turning a little to her left to look back at him over her shoulder. "Hi." She whispered at him, a soft smile tugging at her lips.
"Hi." He whispered back, pretty sure he was mirroring the smile back at her.
His heart seemed too full and about ready to burst as the impossibility that she was here, alive, in his arms and had been asleep in his bed through the night registered in his brain. He still caught himself wondering if this was all a dream or maybe the result of his mind cracking as it could no longer deal with the bleak reality of a world without Natasha Romanoff by his side. The swirl of conflicting emotions racking him, the wonder and love he felt for her and the utter sadness and despair he'd felt when she was gone, were suddenly overwhelming and the only thing that seemed to assuage this ache was to bring her in impossibly closer and feel her lips moving beneath his as his fingertips lightly traced her jaw.
As she kissed him back and opened her mouth up to him, images of the previous night came flooding in when he'd taken her out on a actual date with dinner at the small bistro he loved and then having drinks and dancing at an old jazz club before they barely managed to get back to his place to rip their clothes off and explore their bodies, all smooth curves, hard muscles and jagged edges of battle scars, relief and excitement coursing through their veins as they made love then fell asleep in each other's arms.
This was the sort of calm and happiness he'd always aspired to in his life but that always seemed just out of reach of his hands. If he could, he'd repeat last night's events and this morning for as long as possible, basking in this personal afterglow and leaving the mess of the world to sort itself out. He supposed that was doable, right? He had earned ─ they had both earned ─ the right to be a little selfish and enjoy some vacation time from being superheroes. Or maybe even a complete change of pace in their lives.
Before he could get carried away and sink himself in the feelings Natasha so easily stirred in him, Steve gave her one last soft kiss on the lips before he pulled back and just looked at her for a few moments. He really wanted to talk to her about all these things running through his head and know her opinion on it. "You really think Tony will retire for good now?" Steve asked her softly. It was a strange way to broach the subject, but it was also something that had been in the back of his mind along with everything else.
Natasha raised an eyebrow at him and a smirk pulled at the corners of her mouth. "Should I be worried about you thinking of Tony while naked in bed with me?"
He huffed out a small laugh and rolled his eyes a little in good humor. "No, I was just wondering about staying in here with you forever and how he once tried having that with Pepper."
"Hmm, yes." The smirk melted into a soft smile as she concentrated back on his question (and did her best to ignore possible implications of marriage, kids and a house in the country that he'd inadvertently brought up with his words about their friends). "I'd say probably only until the next big crisis comes."
"Why does there have to be a crisis?" This time, he rolled his eyes somewhat in exasperation.
"Because." She answered simply, giving him a half shrug with one shoulder as she laid comfortably on her side facing him now with his arms around her. "It's the life we chose to live. As Nick once told me, no matter who wins or loses, trouble always comes around."
He looked back at her with a softly contemplating look for a moment. "We could choose something else."
Her eyebrows jumped up in her forehead at this. "I thought you once said that as long as you could help protect the world, it was good enough for you and that you wouldn't let me do this by myself after we got everyone back." She finished by poking a finger lightly at his chest with a smile.
"Yeah, and then I almost lost everyone important to me, in more ways than I care to count." He whispered back, a sudden pain clouding his clear blue eyes and pulling painfully at her heart.
"But you didn't." She whispered in reply, unsure for a moment why they felt the need to lower their voices but respecting the moment. "You found a way."
"I still have no idea how I actually managed that, and I can't rely on it." He said, shaking his head a little. "I think that was a one-time thing, Nat. It's really making me pause and in a way I don't want to, because like Tony I don't want to stop, but I feel like I need to reevaluate my life and what I want out of it."
"Having another identity crisis?" She asked with a soft frown. "What would you do if you weren't Captain America again?"
"I honestly don't know." He heaved a deep sigh. "I've been carrying that mantle for 15 years now."
"More like 80, Steve." She raised an eyebrow at him.
"Time lived, Nat." He rolled his eyes. "I'm not counting the 70 years I spent frozen in the ice."
"Okay, fair enough." She huffed out a small puff of laughter, but nodded in agreement then became serious once more. "But you weren't always Captain America. In fact, you haven't been Captain America full-time for a while now. You could continue with your counseling at the VA, maybe even open a practice. That would still be helping people."
"Maybe." He paused and seemed to consider her words, looking out towards the wall as he got lost in his thoughts. "It's important for me to help people, that's why I volunteered for Project Rebirth back in World War II." She nodded absentmindedly as he spoke; Natasha had always known such things about Steve, but it was nice that he felt comfortable enough to actually share the words with her. "But in a way I didn't have anything to lose back then. I didn't have my parents anymore, and all I had was Bucky, and he was going off to fight in the war as well. I felt like it wasn't fair that I'd get to stay behind while other people were putting their lives on the line." He paused and focused back on her, his blue eyes gleaming with so much emotion that it momentarily took her breath away. "It's different this time. This battle forced me to see just how much I have to lose now."
"All the more reason to keep fighting to protect it." She managed to reply back, swallowing hard for a moment before continuing. "If not us…" She let the phrase hang unfinished in the air as she gave him a half shrug.
The corners of his mouth turned up in an almost smile as he ran his fingers lightly down jawline before he heaved a deep sigh. "There was a time when I was the most advanced human being on Earth, so it was the only thing I could ever do. But now, with so many powerful people we've met over the years, maybe my strength isn't as essential as it once was."
"It was never about your physical strength, Steve." She frowned a little up at him, surprised and a little frustrated that he still didn't seem to get it. "You stood up to a mad titan who beat the crap out of the Hulk and Thor, who are arguably the strongest Avengers. You held Mjolnir and summoned lightning like the god of thunder. You brought the dead back to life." She said, almost gesturing at herself as evidence of the latter point she'd listed.
He was shaking his head even before she'd finished talking. "That's just me being too damn stubborn and not knowing when to quit."
"That's you and your enormous heart and faith. It's what makes you so powerful." She told him with a soft smile, as she traced one hand from his shoulder down to the middle of his chest. "And it's what made me fall in love with you."
Hearing those words caused him to inhale sharply as he'd suddenly felt lightheaded. Steve and Natasha had never even used the word love to describe what they felt for each other when they'd simply been friends and partners. Knowing that she was as in love with him as he was with her was something he still wasn't used to and the heady rush the simple statement caused was almost overwhelming.
She could understand this and truth be told she'd used it exactly because she wanted to make a point. She wanted him to understand and she wanted him to remember that it wasn't about his physical body or strength. It'd never been about any of that, all the punches he could throw or all the miles he could run, but who he was as a person, on the whole. It was true of both her feelings for him and for his role as a hero to the world.
He leaned in and kissed her deeply then, trying to pour into the action all the words and feelings he wanted to convey. Not for the first time that day even, Steve thought of how lucky he was to have her there by his side. Before they could get too carried away in their feelings and the wonderful sensations they were able to spread throughout their bodies, Steve's stomach did an embarrassingly loud grumble of protest that caused them both to pull apart in lighthearted laughter.
"C'mon, soldier," she said with an easy smile as she ran a hand down his arm in a slightly teasing manner. "We'd better get some breakfast ready before your body collapses on me."
"I would never," he protested in a mock-affronted tone, but that gave way to an easy smile. "But yeah, we should probably get something to eat. Damn super soldier serum." He grumbled the last part under his breath as he gave her one last quick peck on the lips and reluctantly pulled away.
He pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a clean white t-shirt while Natasha chose to wear the blue button-down shirt he'd worn the night before over her silk panties and nothing else; a little cliché, sure, but she'd always wanted to genuinely do it (as opposed to enacting a part, as she'd done in the past). They padded out barefooted towards the kitchen and on the way they greeted Liho, petting her on the head and filling in her bowl with cat food ─ after Natasha came back, they'd found her at the ruins of the Avengers compound, as thankfully she'd been out and hunting in the woods at the time Thanos had attacked them. The little black cat wasn't impressed with being cooped up in Steve's apartment so far, but it was the best they could come up with at the moment while the compound was under reconstruction.
They set about cooking breakfast, with Steve taking care of the scrambled eggs while Natasha whipped up pancake batter after they set the coffee maker. They moved in synchrony in the small kitchen space, maneuvering around each other with ease between the counter and the stove.
"You're a great artist." Natasha commented after they'd been working together in silence for a few minutes. "I'm sure you could make a decent living out of it. I mean, the world would certainly be interested if you decided to sell your art."
"I'd never thought of that." Steve replied with raised eyebrows. He'd done a lot of artwork as a coping mechanism in the last few years and he'd also been teaching art classes at the local community center, but he'd never thought of going back to it as a profession. "You really think people would buy my drawings?"
"Definitely."
"Because they're good and they would like it or because I'm Captain America?"
"Both." She answered truthfully, looking at him over her shoulder as he left the stove with a huge plate of scrambled eggs and she took over with her pancake batter. "Does it matter?"
"A little." He replied as he looked up at her with a small smile, coming back into the kitchen aisle to retrieve a jug of juice and a bowl of cut up fruit from the fridge.
She hummed thoughtfully to herself for a moment as she flipped a pancake. "You could go back into acting."
"God, no!" He jerked his head up abruptly at her, unsure if she was pulling his leg or something. No one barely remembered or even mentioned anymore how he'd once starred in the Captain America movies back in the 1940's before he'd actually gone into the field. "That was terrible."
"What? You were good!" She insisted with a bright smile which was almost turning to a smirk at the corners then she waggled her eyebrows playfully up at him. "Besides, I heard rumors a studio in Hollywood is interested in making a series of movies about the Avengers. You could audition to play yourself!"
"Now I know you're just making fun of me." He told her with a smile of his own as he walked past her to the breakfast table set in front of the window. "And why do you even know what's going on in Hollywood?"
"I have contacts everywhere, and I'm not making fun of you." She answered with a shrug, turning sideways to look at him. "You would make a hot onscreen Captain America."
"I'm a terrible actor." He shook his head at her. "You're always telling me I'm a terrible liar."
"You wouldn't be lying if you were playing yourself."
"A fictionalized version of myself. Nope, no way."
"You're no fun." She retorted with a playful pout and turned back to the stove to finish making the pancakes. After a few minutes she turned off the stove and went to the table with a plateful just as Steve retrieved the pot filled with coffee along with cups, plates and cutlery for the two of them.
"What about you?" He asked before taking a sip of coffee as they sat down to eat. "What would you do?"
"I don't know." She looked thoughtful for a few moments. "I feel like the Avengers is the place for me, where I'd get to apply the best of my abilities for some good in the world." She said at last with a shrug. "I have no doubt other threats and challenges will continue to come our way, even if we are done with Thanos. The world is certainly a mess again, with all these people suddenly coming back after being gone for five years."
"But if you could choose anything, anything at all to do, what would it be?" He insisted, curious to know what the greatest spy in the world would choose, if she could.
"If I could start over?" She raised her eyebrows in surprise and received a nod back. "I don't know. It's always been so out of the realm of possibility to me. I never allowed myself the thought." She paused for a beat as they ate in silence. "I do have a very vast experience infiltrating places and enacting different professionals."
"I know some of that. You were a lawyer when Tony met you, right?"
"A paralegal, actually. No courtroom drama and lots of paperwork. But I did impersonate a lawyer later on." She said, smiling at the memory of her time in San Francisco when she'd met Matt Murdock. "I also pretended to be a fashion designer once, but that didn't work out so well. Then there were various assistants, models, cocktail waitresses and strippers, but no way I'm doing that again."
"I'll say." He grumbled out, reaching for the maple syrup as he'd finished with his eggs and moved to the pancakes. "You're never doing that again, if it's up to me."
"So possessive." She murmured as a smirk pulled at her lips, looking up at him through her eyelashes. "What about private shows? Just for you?" She punctuated her question with her foot running enticingly up his leg under the table.
His response was to choke a little on the bite he'd just taken, his face turning red as he gulped it down and swallowed with some difficulty. "God, you're gonna be the death of me, Nat!"
"Sorry," she said, although she didn't seem too sorry as she handed him a glass of orange juice to wash it down. "That wouldn't look very good in the newspapers: Captain America, death by food chokage."
"More like death by shocking girlfriend," he said with a little roll of the eyes then he gazed thoughtfully back at her. "Now you would be a wonderful actress. Ever thought of that?"
"I don't know. I used to love going undercover, slipping on a mask and being someone else." She said as she got this faraway look in her eyes. "I'd create these really detailed profiles, with background info, personality quirks and everything. It was so much easier to be anyone other than myself." She paused, bringing her cup up for a sip then she looked back at him. "But now, I think I like who I am."
"I also like who you are very much." He said, reaching out across the table to grab her hand as his blue eyes looked intently back at her.
"I noticed." She replied with a smile. They spent a few moments just looking at each other and finishing their meals before she returned to their conversation. "And I think I'm a little too old to join the New York City Ballet, even if I was a professional ballerina back in the day."
"You were?" He asked in surprise, eyebrows raised high as he cradled his cup of coffee in his hands, his elbows set against the table surface. "I thought that was only a cover for your training in the Red Room."
She bobbed her head left and right for a moment. "There was a very weird connection between the Red Room and the Bolshoi back in the day, so I was actually both a ballerina and an assassin when I first started."
"Beautiful and deadly." He murmured with a smile then put down his cup and leaned back on his chair a little. "You know, that was the very first thought I had when I met you."
"Really?" She was the one raising her eyebrow at him then with her cup paused halfway to her lips.
"Uh-huh. You looked very 1940's with your short, curled hair, but I couldn't miss the gun in your thigh holster." He said, leaning his chin against his hand and partially hiding his smile. "I had no doubt you were someone not to mess with."
She gave him an impish smile back, thinking back on that day. She remembered wondering what the fuss Coulson had been on was all about, thinking Steve looked handsome, even if he had been dressed in an old-fashioned way, but that he'd looked like many other guys she'd seen before. Until she'd looked into his eyes. There had been something special there.
"Can I ask you something?" She asked him suddenly, lowering her cup back to the table at his nod. "When did things… change for you?"
He tilted his head a little as he continued leaning his chin on his hand, elbow supported by the table. "What do you mean?"
"Well, you said that maybe you've been in love with me this whole time." She said slowly, remembering the words he'd told her back at Tony's porch after he'd brought her back from Vormir and he'd first admitted his feelings for her. "But that's not true, is it? I'm asking if there was a moment you knew. That what you felt was different and that this is what you wanted." She finished by making a hand gesture between the two of them.
He murmured thoughtfully for a moment as he just looked back at her. "When you asked me to boost you up during the battle of New York, I asked if you were sure and you said it would be fun?" He asked, and she nodded, raising an eyebrow back at him. "I had a feeling right then that you'd be trouble." He told her with a grin, then he was shaking his head a little. "But to be honest, Nat, I really don't think there was this one big moment of revelation. When I look back on the past decade or so, you were almost always by my side and sometimes it felt like it had always been like that. There was no one big moment because it was all these little moments. When we met on the helicarrier. When I called on you and Clint to get on a jet to go fight Loki. When you came to my apartment to offer me a job at SHIELD as your partner. When we had milkshakes in Brooklyn during that mission. When you took me to your apartment when we were on the run." He said with a smile on his face and she could picture every memory he mentioned in her own head. "And so many others that were just all adding up until it was like…" He paused, shaking his head a little once more as if at a loss for words. "You were always there with me, even when we were apart. And I started to realize you were like coming home. And I couldn't live without you." He finished with a smile and a shrug, as if it'd been as simple as that.
"Oh wow." She breathed out, blinking mesmerizingly back at him, pretty sure that he'd knocked the breath out of her with his words. Steve had always been inspiring in his speeches, but she'd never guess he'd ever say something like that about her in that same solemn manner.
He smiled somewhat sheepishly back at her, realizing that he'd thrown her a little with what he'd said. He reached out and covered one of her hands with his, tracing lazy circles with his fingertips on her skin. "What about you?" He asked softly. "Was there such a moment for you?"
She blinked again, focusing back on breathing and his question. "I think…" She paused, taking a deep breath in, as if gathering courage to spill it out. He'd been honest about it, she could do the same, right? "When we were on the run ─ the first time ─ at Sam's house and you said you'd trust me with your life." She admitted with a small, nervous smile.
"Really?" He asked, careful not to seem too surprised, though he thought she could see it anyway.
"Yeah." She breathed out. "There was something there, I just didn't have the time to really think about it at the time. Then when we brought down the Insight helicarriers and you went down on the Potomac…" Her breath hitched at those words and she took a shuddering breath in, gulping down and dragging her eyes away from his, looking down at the table instead. "I'd never been more scared in my entire life. While you were at the hospital, I just wanted to get up and run away, that's how scared I was." She started shaking her head a little, her voice becoming even lower and raspy. "All those months I spent away after that was because I didn't know how to deal with all that had happened and how I felt about you." She looked back up at him then and offered a bittersweet smile. "I'm really sorry now that I pushed you away. Then and any other time." She could suddenly see in her head so many times when they'd been so close and yet so far. So much wasted time and opportunities over the years.
"It's okay." He said firmly, taking her hand in his and trying to convey with the firmness of his touch the depth of his feelings. "Somehow we still found our way back to each other."
"Yeah, we did," she smiled softly back at him, feeling mollified and encouraged by his words. "And at least for now I'm not going anywhere." She said, getting up from her chair and coming to sit down on his lap, her hands cupping his chin as she tilted his head and looked into his eyes. "I just want to be here, with you." She said, before she leaned forward and captured his lips with her own in a deep, heated kiss.
Steve really thought that, in the end, that was what mattered. It would be no good to waste any more of their time on past regrets and wondering on would-have-beens. They'd both got a second chance now and would make damn sure to take it and protect it with all they had. No matter where they ended up, as Avengers or trying to live a normal, civilian life, he was sure they'd be alright as long as they had each other.
A.N.: I had most of the dialogue written out for the past two years when I was still writing Lights Will Guide You Home and even before I started To Build a Home, when I was in that post-Endgame intoxicating haze of feels. I somehow went for domestic bliss and calm instead of first date nerves and excitement as it felt more poignant this way. It's the sort of normal they never got to live and never thought they would and it felt like a nice way to close this out. Thank you to everyone who has read, favorited, given kudos or commented!