I PROBABLY SHOULDN'T FALL FOR YOU
YOU'RE PROBABLY GOING TO BURN ME IN THE END
BUT THEN YOU SMILE AND MY REASONING NO LONGER MAKES SENSE
Elizabeth Stark has been talking to this 'he' for a while now. The 'he' that wants her dead.
It started when she first told Tony that her alias during missions was to be Infinity. He was confused but didn't ask nor did he protest and when he left the room, she had looked up at the sky, the way some do when talking to God and had whispered quietly,
"Take that."
Sometimes, when she's on a mission and a bullet whizzes by a little too close for comfort, she narrows her eyes at the sky as if to ask, 'is that you'.
Sometimes when the world is being cruel and she's forced to tell parents that their child isn't going to survive the night, she looks up at the sky and damns him, as if he, whoever he is, is responsible for all her problems.
She pretends that he decides her fate.
Maybe he does.
She knows that whoever he is, he probably cannot hear her. She knows that there is a likely chance that this 'he' doesn't even exist.
She talks to him to quell her fear. She talks to him so that if by the off chance that he can hear her, can see her, does exist, he knows that she's not going to be afraid of him. Her speaking to him is her way of accepting that there might be someone up there that wants her dead. Her way of making the circumstances lean more in her favour. Her way of getting back some control.
And if he can see her, if he can hear her, then she just shows him that she's not going to go down without a fight.
And she knows it's crazy. She knows that she probably has issues that would benefit going to a therapist to talk about. She also knows that said therapist might not know what to say when she tells them that there's someone up in space that put a bounty on her head and that she's been talking to him throughout the day to make herself feel better about it.
And so when Steve Rogers lets go of the beam that's keeping him from falling, the beam that he cannot hold onto because he had taken punch after punch and bullet after bullet in order to protect her from his brainwashed, evil, best friend, she rolls her eyes and looks up at the burning sky as an instinct.
"Out of all the people I could fall for."
And she falls, right after him, feeling the familiar heat surround her body as it did when she fell for the first time in her life chasing two aircrafts that were falling towards Washington. The heat speeds her fall while simultaneously giving her more control and she stretches her hand, thinking of oceans and waterfalls and rain and watches in satisfaction as a large river of water brushes past her and encases a now unconscious Steve Rogers.
She's about to use the rest of her strength to lift them both in the air and get inside the helicopter that hovers above them but then she catches the sight of a metal hand.
James Buchanan Barnes' eyes are wide open unlike Steve's are. He's falling, trying to grab onto something that will break his fall and Elizabeth Stark pauses.
She knows that this was very similar to the way Barnes supposedly died all those years ago, she knows that she'll see his panicking face in her dreams for the rest of her life if she doesn't save him. She feels her empathy rise up and she knows, she knows, that there is no way she could leave someone to fall to their death, especially not a man like James Buchanan Barnes.
With Steve's unconscious form trailing her in the form of a wave of water, she reaches out a hand and manages to get Barnes in one too, just before he hits the ground. Mustering up all the energy she barely has left, she flings the two super soldiers and herself onto the ground, closing her eyes at the impact, only briefly registering Barnes getting up and walking away.
She closes her eyes for a moment, only opens them when she hears her brother calling her name and sees Fury, Natasha, Tony and Hill looking down on her.
She forces a weak smile onto her face to reassure them that she's all right, "That was fun."
He's numb, deaf and blind. There's nothing other than pain. There's nothing other than silence and darkness. And then, flashes of memories. Fury's alive. Hell at S.H.I.E.L.D headquarters. Project Insight. Fighting Bucky. Destroying HYDRA. Saving Bucky. Bucky Alive. Bucky being the Winter Soldier. Bucky trying to kill him.
Bucky.
Bucky.
Pain.
He feels the authenticity of the world as his brain regains consciousness leisurely. The first thing he hears is a slow melody accompanied by a soothing voice that overpowers the faint beeping of monitors. He tries to escape the darkness, tries to find some light, but the pain that follows his attempt to open his eyes is unbearable.
Not as much as the darkness though. It's agonizing, but at the same time frustrating. He gets a glimpse of the light before his eyes shut again. The music is still playing, it sounds louder than before. He's still numb and it's still dark.
Eventually, his eyes feel less heavy, and he opens it. It's a meticulous process, but when he's done, he finally feels like he can breathe again. He still feels numb and frozen, and he hates it; being frozen. He can't move his head yet, but out of the corner of his eye, he spots Sam sitting, reading.
It's probably because of the serum, but Steve Rogers finds his voice faster than he expected to.
"On your left." he rasps out, so quietly that he doubts Sam heard him.
But he did, and Sam Wilson smiles and exhales a breathy chuckle.
He smiles back and feels a hot burst of pain, along with a fresh memory of Bucky, punching him, repeatedly. He tries not to think about it for now. He tries to listen to the music, counts the tiles on the ceiling, regulates his breathing, and finds his voice.
He remembers falling, then blacking out. Remembers the feel of water brushing through his hair, sweeping through his fingers.
Remembers Liz.
"Liz."
"Right here."
His eyes snap open, and he ignores the pain to look at Elizabeth Stark. She has a white coat over her striped shirt and her stethoscope rests around her neck. From afar, she looks as if she was never even in the fight and he wonders if maybe he imagined her participation but when she walks closer he can see the healing bruises and the little cut on her arm.
Still, she's the most perfect thing he's ever seen and he wonders if maybe, one day he'll stop thinking that she's a dream.
She fiddles around with the heart monitor and he croaks out in a voice that is stronger than the one he used with Sam, "You trying to kill me?"
She rolls her eyes even though she breathily laughs, "Not with a witness in the room. I'm better than that."
She adjusts the IV and he can feel the morphine slowly seep into his veins, feels the start of the pain easing away.
He looks at the bruise on her hands and cuts on her face and asks her, "You okay?"
"I'm not the one on a hospital bed, Captain. Does every man in my life need to be a self-sacrificial idiot?"
Steve Rogers definitely blames the morphine when he dopily smiles at her when she calls him a man in her life. Blames the morphine for him wanting her to stay when she turns around to leave. Blames the morphine for wanting her to be with him for a little longer.
"That kid," he coughs slightly but continues, "that kid at the exhibition. Is he still here?"
Her face brightens up at the mention of Owen. Little Owen who would get to live out the rest of his life and get to go to school and get a job and travel the world like he wanted to. "Ya, still here. Only for a few more days though."
"You should bring him by to see me. Maybe tomorrow, when I feel a little less like dying."
And he's surprised when his heart rate on the monitor doesn't fluctuate wildly when she smiles at him as if he'd offered to get her the moon and put it in her hands.
If he could, he would.
"You'd do that?"
He wishes he could blame the morphine for what he does next.
He can't.
"You keep smiling at me like that and I'll meet the devil for you."
He realizes then, as he watches the colour rise to her cheeks, that he's never seen Elizabeth Stark blush before. She's poised and confident, as one learns to be after being in the media and spotlight their entire life. She's received compliments and had to thwart away advances but she's never outwardly blushed.
But Steve Rogers means what he said. He realizes now, after running away from the fight a year ago in SHIELD in order to keep Liz safe, after protecting her against the fight with Bucky, after agreeing to see a boy even though his bones ache and his lungs burn, he realizes that there is very little he wouldn't do to see Elizabeth Stark smile.
She composes herself very quickly, eyes darting towards the smirking man who calls himself Falcon before easing into something more comfortable, something more secure, "Well everyone wants to meet the devil. They're just afraid to admit it."
She walks away this time and Steve lets her. She nods at Sam on the way out.
"Mr. Wilson."
"Ms. Stark."
"It's Liz,"
"Call me Sam."
She laughs at that, ducking her head adorably, before waving him goodbye and disappearing out the door.
The aftermath of the fall of SHIELD brings about a plethora of changes, especially for the team famously dubbed the Avengers. The Starks, who have been living in the newly refurbished Tower in Manhattan, New York, prepare to make room for more residents.
Natasha comes in first. She's riding the elevator when Jarvis does a scan and directs her to the floor named Black Widow.
There is a gym and a kitchen, along with a large bedroom that houses no furniture except for a bed. The room at the far end of the floor holds several suits and weapons, all technologically advanced and detailed to the last wire.
Elizabeth and Tony Stark walk in an hour later to find Natasha immersed in the several weapons that are apparently meant for her.
"You can decorate the room however you like," Liz tells her, handing her a tablet with her room on the screen.
They tell her that the floor belongs to her, she doesn't say anything but grips Tony's hand and hugs Elizabeth and she doesn't remember the last time someone apart from the Bartons gave her a home.
She learns that her floor is directly above Bruce's, under an empty floor. She spends her day lounging with the doctor, watching movies and teaching him how to fight.
Clint comes by very often. In the beginning, it was to check up on Natasha, make sure his old friend was doing well. Eventually, he starts staying in the tower much longer, waiting until Tony and Liz come back from work. He and Tony spend a day in the lab designing arrows. Natasha and Liz had to drag the two of them up to eat.
Tony ends up extending Natasha's floor in order to create another bedroom for the days Clint ends up staying over. Liz paints the walls green and hangs Robin Hood posters, buys Leoglas figurines and finds a hunger games bed set. Clint doesn't find it funny but sleeps in there anyway. The next day, after he has left, Liz finds the figurines and posters gone.
Thor, after receiving instigation from Liz who had heard the God was staying on Earth, visits them as well. Bored out of his mind when Jane leaves for work, he hangs out at the Tower, so much that Tony and Liz end up building him a floor as well. Liz and Natasha stock the place up with Poptarts and whatever furniture they could find that resembles Asgard while Tony and Bruce, with the occasional help of Clint, build a room in where Thor can freely use his hammer and lightning without destroying the house.
They all have dinner together. They each have kitchens in their floors but Liz can't cook and so she makes Natasha do it for her in the main floor and then somehow Bruce is there and Tony smelt something nice and Thor brought Jane and Clint would never miss Natasha's cooking and they're having dinner. Sometimes, Liz sneaks in Fury, Maria is there as well, they're laughing and joking, and all is well in their little world.
It becomes a routine. They are assigned chores. Some wash dishes, some clear the table, some cook. Sometimes, they watch movies. Tony had put on Robin Hood one day, just to rile Clint up a bit, but it ended up with all of them squished on a couch, trying to answer Thor's practical questions.
"Do you have talking animals on this earth?"
"Except for Tony, no."
"You know what Romanoff."
Tony extends the living room the next day, buying more couches and a bigger tv screen.
Steve comes in last. He spent months looking for Bucky and was futile in his efforts.
Steve comes in last as they're having dinner, laughing about Tony trying to make a new flavour of ice cream and they act as if he were always there.
"Steve, you have to listen to this."
His name is on the holographic list that outlines everyone's chores. He's choosing the movie today, making dinner tomorrow. He chooses the Princess Bride and Liz squeals, settling herself beside him and telling him that she hadn't watched the movie in so long.
This time, it's Steve and Thor asking questions and the rest of them are answering at once, it's a loving kind of chaos and Steve wonders why it took so long for him to come home.
He's making dinner in the large kitchen the next day, Liz sitting on the counter, swinging her legs back and forth, trying to steal shrimp from the pan. He swats her away but secretly puts more in so that she'll be able to eat. He teaches her how to dice onions but she nearly cuts his hand off and he lifts her onto the counter again, despite her protests that it isn't a good idea to manhandle her.
Her smile tells him otherwise.
They get a call from Fury while they're having dinner that day, a location for one of the Hydra bases. They suit up and get into one of the Stark Jet, making their way to Germany.
It's not a hard battle but they recognize they could have done better as a team and so training becomes a part of their routine. Tony and Bruce create holographic villains resembling Hydra agents and the Avengers suit up and fight for at least three hours every day.
And as she's having dinner in the tower now belonging to all of them, after beating Steve Rogers' ass to the ground during training, watching them laugh and joke and tease, Elizabeth Stark looks up to the sky. Looks up to that invisible 'he' that may or may not even exist and smiles victoriously.
"Screw you."