A/N: I am SO sorry this took so long! Work has just been taking it out of me and I've been working on an actual fiction story that I want to write.

This chapter isn't one of my best, I had to re-watch Captain America and Avengers again just to get back in the swing of things since I have not really enjoyed the writing for the last two chapters (they were both scrapped several times before I found something I could be somewhat okay with).

I hope that after this I will get back into enjoying it again because I'm really looking forward to things that come after this.

Sorry!

Enjoy!

Chapter 12

Zaria woke with moonlight streaming through the thin curtains. She had been sleeping so soundly for the first time in a long time, and wasn't sure what woke her, and then Steve twitched. It wasn't so much a twitch as his muscles tightened as if they all spasmed at once. She sat up and gazed down at him, concerned that he was still injured from the fire earlier. She touched him gently, his muscles twitched under her fingers and he groaned. Suddenly he jerked up, sitting in a rush, as his fingers wrapped around her neck and squeezed.

"Steve," she wheezed as she struggled not to fight him. "It's okay, it's just me."

"Peggy...?" Steve's half lidded, sleep covered eyes, stared at Zaria, unfocused. He wasn't there in the bed with her, he was somewhere far away. Pain lanced through Zaria's heart at the sound of this other woman's name, a pain that had nothing to do with any physical harm.

"You're hurting me." She answered instead of saying her name. Steve's hands loosened slowly.

"I'm so sorry." He murmured in sleep. "I'm so sorry I missed our date."

"Go back to sleep Steve." Zaria murmured her voice as soft as she could get it without revealing the burning pain inside her. "Everything will be alright in the morning."

Steve lay down in the bed; his eyes closed again, his arms around Zaria. "Peggy..." The name came out like a sigh of a lover, a sound that she had never heard her name spoken in such a way from anyone before.

It wasn't long before his breathing was deep and even again. Zaria carefully extracted herself from his grip before she slipped from the bedroom, shutting the door silently. Standing there in the hall she sighed heavily as she tried to figure out what she should do now. As she stood there, she realized she smelled of sex and Steve, which made her think of what they had shared just hours earlier. She felt sick and wanted nothing more than to get the scent of sex and male off her of her as fast as she could, but she wasn't sure if a shower would wake Steve up.

After a moment she figured out what she was going to do. Padding over to the kitchen, she spotted the land phone and picked it up. Pursing her lips she realized she didn't know the number to dial down to the doorman. Hesitantly she hit the zero key and waited.

"This is Marius." A young male's voice answered almost instantly.

"Marius, hi." Zaria breathed. "I was wondering if you could tell me if there is any gym around here that's open right now."

"You want to go work out at three in the morning?" Marius asked. He must be new at the job, she was sure most doormen wouldn't actually ask why she wanted the information she asked for.

"What can I say, I'm an earlier starter." She answered lightly.

"Well give me just a moment and I'll see what I can find." He mumbled as she heard him tapping away. She wondered if there was a registry that had all the weird information people might request at all hours of the day. "Ah here's one. It's not too far and it says they're open twenty-four hours. Shall I call you a cab?"

"No need, just have the directions for me when I come down." She answered, hanging up before he could protest or question her further. Quickly she backtracked to the bathroom and used the cloth she had earlier to rinse herself off so the smell wasn't as strong when she passed the doorman downstairs. In the living room she dug around until she found some workout clothing that she had all but demanded Samantha let her get and pulled them on before heading to the door. She stopped, groaned, turned around, and headed back to the pile of bangs that belonged to her, where she fished out the purse Samantha had gotten her, the cellphone that she still hadn't figured out, the wallet that had the money and card she had been loaned and the spare key to the apartment. With all in hand she slipped out of the apartment silently, locking the door behind her as she went.

It was weird entering into a private hallway that opened only to Steve's apartment. She was so use to the sounds of other people on her floor that it just didn't seem right here. The elevator arrived quickly, something she also wasn't use to ask she only had stairs back home, and descended in a quiet hum. Arriving in the foyer made Zaria feel underdressed for such a nice apartment building. She even considered running back up the elevator and just using Steve's shower so she could avoid walking through the central causeway, but the young sleepy-eyed boy behind the desk caught her attention, so, instead of skulking away like she wanted to, she straightened her spine and made her way over to the boy.

"Hi, I called-" She started.

"About the gym right?" The boy, Marius, finished quickly. "I figured."

She considered responding but instead just stared at him expectantly.

"Oh!" He said finally, flushing slightly. "Here are the directions to the gym. Are you sure you don't want me to call you a cab?"

Zaria waved the boy off. "No, but if you could tell me if there's a convenience store that's open either around here or close to the gym, that would be great."

Marius looked at her incredulously. Clearly that was one they didn't get a lot. He opened his mouth to either say something or question her, but decided better of it and turned to the computer screen that had been displaying Facebook before he hid it quickly and began the database search.

A few minutes later, and several pieces of paper in hand, Zaria hunted down the convenience store to find some travel sized shampoo and conditioner along with a travel sized sponge, body wash, travel size deodorant, hair brush, toothbrush and toothpaste and a nice travel back to carry them all in before paying for it all and hitting the gym to blow off some steam.

The gym was one of those chain corporations that were open to the public at all god awful hours of the day. She paid the surcharge to use the gym for the day before running off to the lockers and stashing her stuff. Walking into the main area of the gym and seeing all the people made her wonder for a moment if this was really the best idea. She didn't want to be around people and she was sure she still smelled like Steve, so she turned on her heel, snatched her wallet out of her locker and hunted down the gym store.

"I need a swimsuit." Zaria stated as she entered the store and located the sales representative. "Something streamline."

With swimsuit in hand, an extremely expensive swimsuit that would have made her sick if it had been her money she was using, she changed in the lockers and found the pool.

To her surprise there was no one at the pool. She had the whole area to herself, just as she liked it. The chlorine would remove any remaining trace of the scent of Steve and it was an excellent way to distress without punching a hole in one of those boxing bags.

She flipped over for what felt like the hundredth time as she hit the end of the lane to swim the other direction when another person entered the pool. She stopped, standing up in the shallow end and pushed her hair from her face, panting slightly.

"Pools all yours." She muttered as she climbed out of the pool, snatched one of the towels from the large stack, and made her way back to the locker room.

At her locker she finagled her phone until the screen light up with the time; 4:30 a.m. She had been swimming for an hour, Steve would probably be waking up soon so it would be best to get back before he did. So she made her way into the locker room, got her stuff from the locker, found the showers, washed, and was out of the gym before the clock read 5 a.m.

At the apartment Marius had been relieved by an older, more proper looking doorman who greeted her with scrutinizing eyes as she quickly made her way through the lobby and onto the elevator. As the elevator began to ascend Zaria's nerves suddenly began to make her jittery as she remembered the incident earlier with Steve

"Peggy..."

"I'm so sorry..."

"I'm not a replacement..." She growled to the mirrored version of herself. The reflective gold walls distorted her features as she stared at it. "I'm not Peggy..."

The elevator dinged and the doors opened to the short hallway that led to Steve's door. With key in hand she entered the swank, impersonal apartment where she dumped her stuff unceremoniously in the pile of her stuff that had taken over the corner of the large living room before routing around in the kitchen for a coffee pot and coffee, which she found still in its box and whole beans frozen in the freezer. Groaning, she then hunted down a grinder, ground the beans, set up the coffee machine, and began brewing something strong for her nerves.

With Coffee in hand she opened the door to the balcony and stepped out. The sky was changing from the rich dark colors to the muted grays and whites of dawn, so, with her hands wrapped around the warm cup to stave off the chill of winter in the city, she waited for the sun to rise as she considered what she was supposed to do. Did she just forget about that other girl Steve had mentioned, or did she ask him about it? Did she want to know the answer if she did ask?

If anyone had asked she would tell them it didn't hurt that he was clearly in love with someone else, but the truth of the matter was that it lanced through her heart like a cold sharp blade that left fragments of ice behind to grown and fracture the heart even more. She could handle physical pain, but pain of the heart was something that she just couldn't deal with. She had had enough of it after her grandmother passed, but somehow she just couldn't avoid it.

The sliding glass door open nearly silently behind her as Steve stepped out onto the balcony with her. He stood there, silently, as they watched the sun sparkle off the glass buildings as it rose for the day.

"I was worried when I woke up and didn't see you in bed." Steve finally said after the moment of silence. "But then I smelled the coffee and figured you would be out here."

"Yeah, I guess I'm just not use to sleeping all night because of my work schedules." Zaria lied.

"You know there's a balcony off the bedroom too. You get a view of Central Park."

"I'll have to do that one next time."

Silence descended upon the couple again as the sun rose higher and the people down below began to head off to their perspective jobs.

"Is there something bothering you?" Steve asked as the silence began to get too heavy.

Zaria turned around to face Steve as she hugged herself the best she could while still holding onto her cup of coffee she had yet to actually drink. She turned her face away from him as she thought about how she wanted to bring it up.

"Who's Peggy...?" She asked as she slid her gaze to Steve's stunned face.

"Where did you hear that name...?" He finally choked out.

"From you," she moved her eyes away from his face again and down to her cooling coffee. "You said it in your sleep. You called me Peggy. So I just wanted to know who she was."

The silence that followed was deafening. After sometime it seemed clear to Zaria that Steve wasn't going to answer her question.

"You don't need to tell me. I just -"

"No, it's alright." Steve interjected. "You know that I am over seventy years older than I appear. She was someone very special to me back in World War II."

"You loved her, didn't you?"

Steve opened his mouth then shut it after a moment, pursing his lips as he did.

Zaria nodded quietly. "Right." She murmured as she slipped past him and entered the house. She sat her cold coffee cup on the kitchen island before splaying her hands out on either side.

The balcony door slid shut and soft footsteps followed as Steve approached. Chilled fingers brushed across Zaria's waist as he wrapped his arms around her gently, and pressed his cheek gently against her hair.

"But I also love you..." He murmured softly as he turned her around to face him. "Let me show you." His lips brushed her gently as he pulled her close to him.

She sighed and gave in to his touch. As her eyes closed a tear slipped between her lashes and fell gently across her cheek.