Hey people! Here's an update just for you!

First off, how do you guys like Tom Holland as Spidey?! Personally, I loved him in the Impossible. He seems like a pretty good actor and if the guys up at Marvel think he's good enough for the job, that's good enough for me. To be honest, as long as they give him his lame, yet funny puns when he's Spider-Man, I'm cool with it.

But anyway, enough about Peter, here's Ellie and Steve. Hope this chapter is as satisfying as it was for me to write. Enjoy.

Also, if you want, follow me on Twitter crowfliesmyass for pictures, memes, updates and questions.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

My love, leave yourself behind
Beat inside me, leave you blind
My love, look what you can do
I am mending, I'll be with you

You took my hand and added a plan
You gave me your heart
I asked you to dance with me

-My Love by Sia

When she got back to the Tower, she went straight to her room and paced. She contemplated whether she should go and talk to Steve or wait until morning. She even made it out her room and down the hall before chickening out and going back, deciding that it would be better to just do it the next day. But then, she wanted the weight off her shoulders as soon as possible and forced herself back to his room. She knew there was no getting out of it after knocking on his door. Hell, she wasn't even sure he was awake.

"Steve?" she called out and knocked again when he didn't reply. "Listen, it's me Ellie. I need to talk to you, so could you open the door?"

Still nothing. She took it as him ignoring her. He was probably wide awake, laughing at how ridiculous she sounded, practically begging for forgiveness. She knocked again, more irritable that he wasn't opening. She knew damn well he was inside, just ignoring her. Something even told her to just teleport inside, but she didn't want to intrude.

"C'mon, Cap, open up," she tried again. "Look, I'm sorry. I kind of feel like an idiot standing out here so could you please just open up?"

Zilch.

She gave it another go, only her anger thinned out into something she never would've guessed –hurt. She actually felt hurt that he was just ignoring her. At least he could tell her to go away. "Steve, I'm sorry about earlier on. You were right. I see that now," her voice choked and she pressed her forehead against the door, shutting her eyes. "You're mad, I know, but I want you to know that I'm sorry. And that you are the leader of this team. I had no right to run off so stupidly. Please open the door."

Quietness.

"We can talk about this if that's what you really want, but please just don't ignore me. I know you're in there and if you're trying to make feel like a total douche bag, you're succeeding," her voice softened. She had no anger left inside her to fight. There was nothing besides the growing lump in her throat. "I don't wanna fight with you, Steve, I –," she paused and took a deep breath. "This is so fucking stupid," she huffed, holding the bridge of her nose.

She suddenly kicked the door with her foot, using up the last bit of frustration she managed to scrounge up inside her. She slowly turned around, pushing her back against the door and sliding down until she was sitting on the ground with her knees pulled to her chest. "Goddamnit, Steven Grant Rogers, what are you doing to me?"

Ellie didn't cry. She buried her face in her hands and took another, loud breath, trying to calm down before she kicked the door in or something like that. Finally, she stood up again and faced the door. "You're welcome to come to my room when you stop acting like a fu –," she grunted, but the door swung open in a second, her fist still in midair. Steve's blond locks were all over the place, framing two squinted blue eyes. A white t-shirt clung to his body and ended over the waistline of his red, green and blue boxers. He looked down at her, not saying anything.

After staring at him in shock for a few moments, she closed her mouth, cleared her throat and awkwardly checked her watch. It was 2AM. "You know what?" she gawkily laughed at herself, "I can come back later, really, I don't even know what on earth I was even thinking. I mean, I totally should've checked the goddamn time before banging on your door like a maniac. Jesus, I'm sorry," she began to ramble.

Steve folded his arms and sighed. "Ellie?" he groaned out of tiredness. She had already practically got him up. She might as well have continued and finished. "Did you just get back now?" he asked her, realizing she was still fully dressed as if she'd just arrived. She looked down at herself, then back at him and shrugged a shoulder.

"Listen," she started, "about the mission –I'm sorry. What I did was not okay and I want you to know that what I did was totally irresponsible and you have every right to give me orders. I knew that when I joined," she said, looking down, "Uh, I'm the rookie and I should've followed your orders, so…"

He clenched his jaw as his eyes nonchalantly scanned the hallway behind her. "I accept your apology," he nodded, half-smiling, but then it vanished as he coughed. "But you did finish the mission. Good job. And I owe you one too for what I said."

As he spoke, her smile grew. She shook her head and shrugged. "Don't worry about it. And thanks."

"No problem. Thanks for waking me up."

At least that one got an even bigger grin from her. She looked back at the ground, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Ultimately, she was trying to give herself something to do, besides her skin getting hotter and hotter in pace with her heartbeat, which was rapidly pounding against her chest at the sight of the weak smile placed upon his lips too.

"Goodnight," she scoffed, shooting him one last glance.

He stepped back into his room slowly, swinging on the door. "G'night. Try to get some sleep."

Before anything else happened, she went back to her room, feeling like a naughty schoolgirl sneaking out at night. She closed her door slowly, somehow not wanting to be heard, and stripped down to just her t-shirt and pair of grey cotton sleeping shorts before crawling onto her bed and sat with her back pushed against the headboard, trying not to fall asleep. She knew that falling asleep meant having another nightmare, which eventually added to one of the many incidents that would ultimately require the help of one of the Avengers. Ellie didn't want Steve have the satisfaction of being right about that part, she thought. She didn't want to give him that luxury.

Maybe if she stayed up all night, he'd realize that it didn't happen every night. Maybe then they'd all think that she was getting better somehow.

For most of the time, she found herself staring into darkness, fading into her thoughts and memories. Some were of the fight she had with Steve –how she could've handled it differently and what she should've rather said to him. Then, it went to the moment they had just shared –the apologies and that stupid smile of his. Others were of if she had just been normal –she would've been living by herself, maybe with a boyfriend in the city, having to wake up at 7am to go to work. No powers, just her. No abnormally skilled training in various martial arts, weapons or even hand-to-hand combat. She would be been a normal adult living a normal life.

Other thoughts were of her seeing her mom again. At that point, she had pulled her knees up to her chest, lost in the idea of reuniting with her mother. The woman who raised her single-handedly, literally and figuratively. The woman who put up with her constant arguing, lying, sneaking out, keeping secrets for all those years. The woman who seemingly loved her for only seventeen years, then everything changed.

It angered her to dig deeper into that idea, so she forced herself to move on and imagine something else. She imagined what it would be like, should she ever be able to master herself correctly. Would she ever be a hero, or would people forever live in fear in her presence? Suddenly, she saw herself, saving the city, saving lives and being praised by the rest of the team. 'Alright, Ellie!' 'Good one!' 'You saved 'em all!' Voices echoing inside her head made her smile at the slight chance of it ever becoming something more than a dream. Her bloodshot eyes slowly began to weigh down.

Then, she switched back to Steve and the fight, only that time, she wasn't mad at him. She was mad at herself for exploding like that on him. He was just looking out for her. He was trying to protect her and what does she do? Curse at him over and over again. His face blew up like a billboard in her mind –how shocked he looked when he said what he did. How he followed her, reached out to her, but she pushed him away. She wanted him to somehow know that she didn't mean what she said to him –all the cursing. She prayed that for any reason, he didn't really regard any of her used words.

Ellie's body had slouched tremendously as she sat and stewed in the shadows. She allowed herself to lie down on her side, promising herself that she wouldn't fall asleep at any costs. But, the more she thought and worried about Steve, the more she stopped worrying about herself. As long as he was alright, so was she. Slowly, the reminder that she needed to stay awake faded. Maybe if she allowed herself short periods of sleep, she wouldn't have enough time to think up a dream or even a nightmare. Maybe if she woke herself up before the time, she'd prevent herself from waking anybody else up.

With her new plan in mind, she settled down and consented to close her eyes and drift away, in hopes of waking up again shortly. The first thing she was going to do in the morning was go boxing, she decided, to let of some steam…

…

Gripping her duvet with all her strength, Ellie started kicking again, screaming aggressively as tears streamed down her cheeks, dampening her pillow and her neck. The blazing inferno underneath her clothes was enough to make her twist her tank top with her fist, trying to get some kind of ventilation into her system. Again, she was being taken away. Carried down a long white hallway. Pinned down by porcelain nurses with undeviating smiles scribbled across their faces. An empty voice, crying for help. But nothing came.

"Ellie."

She shook her head, sobbing frenziedly as she tried to block out the clearest voice calling out her name out of a hundred dolls around her. Suddenly, she felt herself being hurled up, a hand stroking her hair calmly, along with a whispering accent coming from beside her, shushing her softly. There was a hard surface pushed against her face and she started hitting it and trying to push it away as hard as she could.

"Don't…fucking…touch me!"

"Alright, Ellie, it's alright. I'm right here. Just wake up."

That voice.

Snapping awake, her body jolted, panting and wheezing frantically for breath of air, fingers hooking onto the closest thing, which was a shirt. She opened her eyes, immediately meeting a pair of familiar blue eyes, framed by messy blond hair, looking down at her. She pulled up against him tightly, resting her head against his chest. One of his arms cradled her body while his other hand gently grazed against her cheek.

"I'm so sorry, Steve," her voice rasped as if she had lost it like in her dream. Her nightmare. Carefully, she released his t-shirt.

He shook his head, half-smiling down at her. "It's okay. You're okay now."

She read his lips as if she couldn't believe it. After everything –after all the shouting, screaming, cursing and stupid apologizing, he was still there. She sat up, sitting between his legs, and he let go of her. He put a hand on her shoulder, causing her to cringe ever so slightly. "Hey," he said softly, tilting his head slightly. She still didn't look up, even though all his attention was on her. Finally, she slowly looked up –first starting with his lip and gradually moving further up to the two blue eyes that were sill fixed on her.

A small breath broke away from her lips as her eyes traveled back down. In one moment, she leaned forward and surprisingly, he did the same –her hands were brought to caress his face while their lips met. As the kiss deepened, Ellie's hands went back and forth from his cheeks then to the nape of his neck, and after a few moments of sitting completely still, he took her lead, even pulling her head closer at one point.

Just the way his lips connected with hers; it felt like two perfectly matching puzzle pieces. A feeling in Ellie's lower stomach surfaced–something indescribable. Something she'd never felt in her life. Nevertheless, when the kiss broke, she pulled back slightly in hesitation, but Steve almost immediately pulled her back and pushed his lips back against hers. The second time, she looped one of her arms around his neck while his fingers gently tickled the back of her neck.

Slowly, Steve's body started leaning further back; bring her with him as he rested his head on her pillow. The kiss pulled apart. He cradled her head against his shoulder while she rested her hands on his chest, closing her eyes for another shot at falling asleep peacefully. His hand gently brushed through her hair as his other hand supported her body so she didn't fall off him. That night, she fell asleep quickly. He, on the other hand, drifted off into a light sleep. Still, she woke him up again when her body started shaking and she started mumbling small things, but he'd rub her back to avoid starting the entire process again over and over again, until they got it right.

And they eventually did.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx

YAY YAY YAY YAY