AN: Thank you NocturnalRites for the beta work and for all the support! You rock and are very much appreciated!
Thank you everyone who has been reading and everyone that has left comments, favorites and alerts! I love hearing what people think.
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Chapter 19
Felicity's stomach was full of butterflies. She'd spoken up so quickly about getting Steve home and making sure she was OK but she hadn't really thought it through. Would he think she was rushing him and not respecting that he wanted to take things slowly with her?
"You don't have to do this, Felicity," Steve said. "I'm used to taking care of myself."
"You were shot, Steve," she interrupted whatever else he was going to say.
"I've had…" he started to say.
"If you say you've had worse, I'm going to..." she hesitated. What do you threaten a superhero with? "I'm going to think of something very disagreeable you won't like and do that," she finished a bit lamely, glancing over at him as they stopped beside his truck. She liked the crooked half smile and little laugh lines around his eyes that showed his amusement with her.
"I heal fast?" His voice was more a question as he substituted what he'd been about to say. It made her smile this time.
"I know you do, well, I don't know, know, but that's what I've read. Not that I've been doing any more reading or researching you instead of just asking you questions. I remember the healing thing from history class… and that is a really strange thing to say to my boyfriend..." His smile got wider, more warmth to it as she trailed off.
"Boyfriend? I like the sound of that," Steve told her, turning to pull her against his chest carefully. She went into his arms being equally as careful not to put any pressure on anything that would cause him more pain.
Boyfriend, had she said that? Oops,the cart before the horse, Felicity, she told herself, feeling her face getting red again. Damn, this man had that effect on her every time she opened her mouth, it seemed. She wasn't sure how exactly the boyfriend thing slipped out, but his reaction was good. Steve's arms around her always felt good. She hugged him back very lightly, mindful of his ribs.
"I like it, too," she agreed, "but back to me taking care of you. Do you want me to drive you home? Either you can drop me off tomorrow if you're healed or I can have Digg come and get me later if you don't want me to stay. I mean stay to help you. Not that I'm suggesting we-" she managed to stop herself and take a breath before anything sexual came out of her mouth. "You shouldn't be alone. I can at least feed you and make sure you're OK."
Steve stepped back from her and just looked at her for a moment. Had she said too much? She didn't want him to feel like she was pushing him, but he'd had a hard day. She got the feeling he was alone way too much. She didn't want him to be alone right now. After a second, Steve fished his truck keys out of his pocket and handed them to Felicity. "I'm in your hands."
"You're letting me drive your truck?" She looked down at the keys in her hand and back up at him. A guy letting you drive their truck was a big deal. At least it was in Nevada where she'd grown up.
"I can't see any reason not to trust my best girl with my truck," he told her. "You can drive a truck right?" The warmth at being called his 'best girl' slipped a little as she turned a glare on him, but the smile on his face turned the warmth right back up to high.
"Teasing you, doll," he told her quickly, giving her a kiss on the cheek before opening her door for her. She smiled and climbed in the truck waiting until he'd made his way around to the passenger side and gotten in before she started the big Dodge.
Despite how wide Felicity's eyes were as she climbed into the truck or how white her knuckles got as she drove, she'd managed to get them to Steve's house and parked without incident. The fact that the parking lot was mostly empty, the streets weren't crowded and he had off the street parking probably helped, but Steve wasn't going to mention any of that.
The novelty of having someone treat him like a flesh and blood man rather than a superhero who somehow didn't feel pain or need anyone was leaving him a little speechless. Considering his best friend was Natasha these days and the rest of the people he trusted to relax with were the other Avengers, he was used to pain and injury being expected. They all tended to shrug it off unless they were losing a limb or lung or near death.
Felicity had held his hand through the process of Oliver digging bullets out of him and now she was taking him home to make sure he was alright. Her care felt nice. He wasn't going to do anything to mess that up and that included commenting on her driving. Which actually hadn't been bad especially since his truck was much larger than what she was used to.
"What?" she asked as she turned the truck off and handed him the keys. He must have been staring at her too long.
"I'm just thinking how lucky I am," he hedged, taking the keys and holding onto her fingers to pull her towards him. Leaning over, he caught her lips with his. The soft little sound she made in the back of his throat sent a spike of desire through him. He leaned in a little more to deepen the kiss, but a sharp pain as his abused rib pushed up against the seat divider made itself known. He wasn't quite quick enough to stop his intake of breath at the pressure.
"Are you okay?" Felicity pulled back from him and studied his face with worried eyes. "Wait, that's a stupid question," she answered herself. "Of course you're not okay. Let's get you inside and settled," she told him, not giving him a chance to get a word in edgewise.
Steve found himself hustled into his own home and settled on his couch with Felicity fixing sandwiches in his kitchen. He watched her through the arched doorway that separated his kitchen from his living room. It was wide enough for him to see most of what she was doing.
A pang went through him. He liked the sight of her puttering around his home. Hope started to take up residence next the grief he felt about not finding Bucky.
"I can't believe your favorite sandwich is peanut butter and jelly," she was saying as she came back to the couch with a plate of four sandwiches.
"They used to put peanut butter and sort of jelly in our rations in the war. I liked it. Guess it just sorta stuck." He was starving, he realized as he shoved one sandwich down and reached for another.
"Doesn't seem like that would be very healthy for soldiers in the field," she observed.
"Quick, cheap protein when meat is scarce. We were happy to have rations at all. Sometimes the Commandos and I would be out longer than expected and we would have to fend for ourselves. Sometimes we'd give our rations to the people whose homes and towns had been burned." Steve reached for the glass of milk she'd set near him. It was unpasteurized milk he'd found at a farmer's market outside of town. It tasted so much better than the watered down stuff in the stores, much more like what he'd grown up with.
"So in the middle of fighting you had to also take care of finding your own meals?" Felicity was picking at a half sandwich she'd made for herself.
"Sometimes," he answered. "If we got in a bind, Bucky and Jacques were good at finding food. Bucky could shoot the ears off a field mouse at 100 yards and Jacques could cook anything and make it taste good. Dum Dum was a pretty good cook in a pinch, but he didn't hold a candle to Jacques." It felt good to share some memories that didn't have so much pain attached.
Felicity put down her sandwich and turned to him. She reached out and settled her small hand on his arm, pulling his eyes to hers. "I looked at the intel that the Black Widow sent to Tony about your friend," she told him. "Tony gave it to me and asked me to see if I could find anything that might have been missed since it was all processed so quickly." Steve stilled, his smile fading. Had she done exactly what he asked her not to do and gone out searching for Bucky? His heart twisted to think of her on HYDRA's radar.
"Relax, Steve," she told him rubbing lightly up and down his arm. "I didn't go out on the internet and look at anything. I promised you I wouldn't and I'm not going to lie to you or break a promise." Relief coursed through him. "I just dug through the information already sent. Apparently it was so time sensitive that the Black Widow..."
"Natasha," Steve corrected. He hoped the two woman would like each other. Might as well get Felicity more comfortable with meeting her if he could.
"Natasha," she corrected, "didn't have time to go through everything in the time frame she had to get the information to you and still have it be useful. I started looking at the file before I discovered the problem with the computers and got side tracked." She paused and leaned forward, laying a hand against his cheek.
"The one thing that was becoming clear to me before I got distracted," she told him. "Bucky isn't being hunted by HYDRA anymore. The last few months, they've been trying to protect against him. He's been hunting them." Her words sent a shock through him. They gave him hope at the same time as the fear stabbed at him.
"Bucky's hunting HYDRA?" He asked her.
"From what I could see, he's destroyed labs, bases and killed top HYDRA agents and scientists. I didn't get a chance to see if there was a tie between any of his targets or if it was just enough for them to be HYDRA, but I can go back and look or maybe Natasha can tell you more."
Steve wasn't sure what to say. Bucky was attacking HYDRA so he wasn't back under their control. That was a relief. That was one of Steve's biggest nightmares to think that his brother in everything but blood needed him and he couldn't find him.
"He's wiping out their ability to control him or reprogram him if they get him back." Steve looked at Felicity's face. She looked at him quizzically. "It's what I would do," he told her. "If I didn't have the resources to totally destroy them then I'd make it more trouble for them to hunt me than it was for them just to leave me alone. I'd destroy everyone that was a part of the program and the equipment necessary to keep me in line." He had a thought. "That means that Bucky knows he's not the Winter Soldier and is ensuring that he won't ever be that again."
"I hope so, but those are a lot of assumptions I'm not sure the information supports."
"Did you just tell me that was a big leap?" He chuckled, suddenly feeling lighter than he had since they'd taken the ship and found no Bucky. He picked up his glass to wash the last of his sandwiches down.
"Do you need any more to eat or drink?" Felicity had noticed the empty plate. "What else can I help you with before we go to bed?" Steve's head popped up at her words. She probably didn't mean it the way it'd come out, but he couldn't help it when his ears got a bit warm. "I mean, put you to bed, not that we will be going to bed like that. I mean I hope we will, but it doesn't have to be now... " Steve smiled. He loved when she did that to herself.
"Would it be okay if it was now?" he found himself asking before he could reconsider the words. This woman made him feel confident. He suddenly found himself holding his breath for her answer.
She didn't say anything right away, just searched his eyes for a second, then she was in his arms kissing him. He let his hands slide to her waist as he kissed her back. Felicity licked into his mouth, flicking her tongue across his as if she was daring him to join in.
Steve didn't have to be asked twice. He slid a hand into her hair and the other at her hip so he could pulled her across his lap. She settled into straddling his lap. They both moaned at the same time. "Now is good," she whispered against his lips when they broke for air.
"Now is very good," Steve agreed, catching Felicity's ass and holding her to him as he stood up from the couch. Felicity nodded and slid her arms further around his shoulders to hold
herself better. Her position was putting a little strain on his still healing rib, but he was prepared for it and ignored it until Felicity's hand rubbed over the bandage on his back.
"Wait," she startled, suddenly trying to hold herself away from him slight. "You almost made me forget you're hurt."
"I heal fast, sweetheart," he told her, finding it hard to concentrate with her in his arms. He started to kiss down her neck when it occurred to him that he was covered in things he really didn't want next to Felicity's soft skin. "But I could use a shower." He kissed her on the nose and set her down. "By the time I take a shower, I'll be ready for you to take the stitches out of my back, then maybe we could continue this." He felt himself go red as he waved his hand between them.
"I think that sounds like a perfect plan." She told him, standing on tiptoe to kiss him again. "I brought my tablet." She reaching into her purse. "I'll check emails while you shower."
Felicity waited until Steve had kissed her one more time and headed up the stairs. She had trouble containing a squeal. Thinking about all the hard muscle she'd felt under his clothes and seen when they'd been treating his wounds was enough to make her hot, but the way he kissed really sealed the deal.
All the speculation she'd read in the tabloids about Captain America being a virgin… she chuckled. The way that man kissed was not the way a virgin kissed. Neither was the barely contained passion he touched her with or the way he'd rolled her hair around his fingers to pull into a kiss after she'd told him about her involvement with Arrow.
Felicity touched her lips where they were swollen from his kisses. She had only meant to take care of him when she'd come home with him, but there was no way she was going to turn down being in his bed. Steve made her feel lighter and happier than she could remember feeling in a very long time.