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Make You Feel My Love
~Book IV~

Disclaimer: I do not own Civil War or any other Marvel characters in this story. All I own is the story I've come up with and my own characters.

Chapter 26

2 months later

Maria giggled, watching Steve stand there in the middle of their bedroom with a giant smile on his lips. Wanda and T'Challa, the two people who had been helping both Maria and Steve the most with the wedding planning, were standing beside her, smiling as well.

"No, you can't see it. It's bad luck," she laughed, shaking her head.

In his hand, he held her wedding dress, which was wrapped in dark plastic to both keep it a secret, and to keep it safe. He moved to their closet, opening it up only for some of their clothes to fall out.

"That looks worse than Clint's closet," chuckled Wanda. "You two need to spring clean."

Although Maria was very tempted to ask why Wanda had seen the inside of Clint's closet, she kept it to herself - only sighing and helping Steve pick up some of the clothes that had fallen out. Without thinking much of it, Steve moved some clothes out of the way to make room for her wedding dress. In doing so, her sword accidentally fell out of the closet. Maria sighed again, beginning to walk over to it. Though Steve had already picked it up before her.

Upon his fingers touching it, everyone in the room screamed out a "no!". He jumped at the sound, before glancing down at the sword. Quickly he let go of it again, and it clattered back down to the floor. She picked it up with a stunned look on her face, grabbing his arm.

"You did it again; touched it again and nothing happened…"

T'Challa narrowed his eyes.

"I did it before?" Steve breathed out.

"Yeah… During the fight at the airport. Remember?"

"I didn't think much of it…" he said.

"Didn't think much of it?" repeated Wanda with raised eyebrows. "Did you miss what happened to that new boy with the spider fetish?"

Steve looked down at the sword in her hand, his eyebrows furrowing. Then, as though nothing had happened, Steve turned away from the sword and made sure her wedding dress was hanging freely in the closet.

"Steve?" asked Maria.

"I'm sure it's nothing," began Steve before turning back to Maria. "Just gotta remember not to touch it."

"But nothing happens-"

"I know. But it's fine."

Maria glanced over at Wanda who shrugged at Steve's words, unsure of what was going on either. It seemed as though Steve knew something, but did not want to let anyone in on his suspicions. Quickly, Steve walked over to T'Challa and Wanda, changing the subject to the centrepieces they had chosen. Though Maria was not ready to let the subject go so easily. Staring down at the sword in her hand, she promised herself to remember asking Steve about this later that evening.

Later that evening, after Sam and the others had left to go to bed in their own separate huts, and Steve was doing the dishes calmly on his own in the kitchen, Maria stayed put in the doorway, unbeknownst to Steve. Her mind was dead-set on making him tell her what he had been thinking about earlier that day during the sword-incident, though as he stood there with his hands in the water, a pearl of sweat running down his forehead due to the tremendous heatwave that had hit Wakanda that month; Maria found herself only smiling at him.

There was something oddly attractive about Steve – Captain America – standing in the kitchen and doing all the work for her. She found herself understanding why men enjoyed seeing the women in the kitchen, her eyes trailing over his body.

She moved silently around the kitchen until she was next to him. As he was still a super soldier, he had heard her approach him and so he smiled kindly at her when she grabbed a towel and began to help him dry the dishes. These silent moments were something that Maria treasured a lot as they both simply moved in sync with each other, only some fleeting moments of eye contact being needed for either of them to understand what the other wanted or needed.

Steve finished before Maria, drying his hands on a second towel before turning towards her as she finished up with the last plate. A few drops of sweat had appeared on her forehead as well, yet he still moved over to her and planted a kiss to her forehead. She leaned against him as he moved his arms around her body, letting her arms stay free of the hug as she was still drying that one plate.

The baby kicked against his arm and instead of freaking out the way he had done the very first time it had happened, Steve closed the tiny gap that had been between them both and pressed another loving kiss to her head.

With difficulty, Maria placed the plate in the cupboard where it was supposed to go before turning around in his arms and returning the hug. Her belly was showing quite a lot, and hugging was not something easy at the moment, yet they tried.

"Two more weeks… Then I'll finally be rid of the name Dalton."

Steve smiled, yet his smile did not completely reach his eyes. She furrowed her brow, silently asking him what was wrong.

"Over a year ago we were fighting Ultron. Five months ago, we were fighting Tony's team… What I mean is… No matter how hard we try or how much we want to, our lives will always be parallel with that super-hero life. Who knows what dangers we need to fight in a month or two-"

"You're thinking because of the baby, things will be difficult," she deduced.

"With the baby, I don't want to go out there. But people need my help – our help."

Maria nodded. "Honestly, I try not to think about the future… We're not really, uh, family-material. And we won't be able to keep this child safe either."

"I will try my very hardest," added Steve quickly, moving one hand down to her stomach.

"So will I," said Maria quietly. "But… There's gonna be moments of danger. There's gonna be moments of despair. But when they come, we'll deal with them. If we worry about them now, we'll never be able to function."

Steve slowly nodded his head.

"Come on. Let's go to bed," smiled Maria, gently placing a hand against his cheek. "I'm exhausted."

A smile that truly did reach his eyes appeared on his lips, "Well we can't have that." With ease, Steve lifted Maria up from the floor, holding her bridal style as she laughed at him struggling to get them both through the doorway.

When they reached the bed, Maria placed a loving kiss against his nose before he gently eased her down to sit on the bed. Still smiling, Steve lowered himself to crouch down in front of her. Seductively, he let his hands trail up her legs, unbuttoning them. Her cheeks flushed and a fire ignited in her lower abdomen.

"Steve…?"

He helped her take her pants off before he moved up to her shirt, gently letting his fingers brush against her skin as he took off her shirt. Placing one soft kiss against her belly, he moved up to her lips, pressing a tremendously passionate kiss there. In the heat of the moment, she closed her eyes, moving her hands over to his shoulders to press him closer against her. However he broke the kiss off. Her eyes were still closed as he moved to stand up though she did not want to let go of him, which in the process caused her to lift her arms up as far as she could before she was forced to let his shoulders go.

Suddenly, the moment was ruined by Steve using the opportunity of her arms up in the air to tread her arms into her pyjama and pull it over her head. She pouted up at him as she sat there, fully dressed in her pyjama. Though he simply smirked down at her.

"You said you were exhausted," he explained, earning another pout from Maria.

"Fine." She let herself fall backwards onto the bed, moving up towards the pillow and turning around onto her side to watch Steve remove his clothes and put on his pyjama. Though before he put on his shirt, Maria protested, "Maybe you can keep that off?"

Steve glanced over at her, blushing slightly at her smirk.

"It's a heatwave out there after all," she smirked.

Steve chuckled, letting the pyjama shirt fall to the floor before he jumped onto the bed, causing Maria to giggle as the entire bed moved and shifted under his weight.

With Steve snuggled up against her side, one arm draped carefully around her waist, just above her belly, the two of them fell asleep.

With the smell of pancakes filling their house, Maria awoke with a smile on her face. Feeling the need to hug Steve, Maria quickly got out of bed, which was not like her as she enjoyed long lie-ins. She put on a thin robe and walked out into the kitchen with one hand over her stomach. Her eyes were still groggy and she was yawning when she entered the kitchen, causing Steve to chuckle at her.

"Good morning sleeping beauty," he commented, causing her to scoff and sit down by one of the counters. She furrowed her brow at the objects scattered on the counters in front of her and Steve turned away from the pancake he was making to explain them to her. "They arrived in the mail. Someone knows our whereabouts."

She picked up a card, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise as she read it out-loud, "Early wedding gift. Congrats. PS, Ross doesn't know. Do we trust him?"

She glanced at the two phones Tony had sent them, picking up the one that had a small shield at the back. Upon watching it, Steve's eyes darkened slightly and Maria knew he was still not a hundred percent sure if he was ever going to lift a shield again to be Captain America. Yet, Tony seemed to think so. A small note was attached to it.

"I don't know. I guess it's his way of keeping track of us. Question is if that's a smart idea for us to let him do," said Steve quietly, flipping the pancake once before turning back to Maria.

The note on the phone read, 'If you need us, just give a call.'

"This refers to your letter, I guess?" asked Maria, earning a nod from Steve.

She picked up the other phone, its case a dark purple one much like her suit. Upon lifting it up, the screen turned itself on. Apparently, Tony had added all contacts she had had from before, meaning also Matt's number.

"To be fair, he already knows our location. This doesn't really change much. We might as well use them," shrugged Steve, this time putting in some new batter into the pan.

"I guess…" said Maria absentmindedly, staring at Matt's number.

"Did you take your shot?" asked Steve, his voice suddenly worried. She looked up at him and shook her head no, causing him to send her a stern look.

"I'll do it, I just need to make a call…"

Steve watched her with furrowed brows as she walked to the other side of the kitchen, pressing a button on her phone before lifting it to her ear. Not forgetting about his pancakes, Steve listened in on the conversation with his super hearing.

"Hello?"

"Hi…" stammered Maria, lifting a hand up to her forehead absentmindedly. "Who is this?"

"Who is this?"

"Uh, Maria Dalton."

Silence.

"The fugitive Avenger?"

She chuckled nervously.

"I'm Foggy. We met once."

"Yeah… I remember. Uh, is-is Matt around?"

"I guess being a fugitive also means you don't watch the news… Uh, he didn't make it."

Maria blinked a couple times before answering, "What do you mean?"

"I mean he did some stuff. Tried to save New York with a group of… friends… They never found his body. I-I'm sorry."

"Oh, okay. Thanks." With shaking hands she ended the call, staring down at the phone afterwards.

Steve had by now actually forgotten about the pancakes, one now burning in the frying pan behind him as he stared at her. She walked slowly back to her seat, avoiding eye contact with Steve and her face paling.

"Maria, go take the shot," he began before Maria began to slump in her seat. With perfect reflexes, Steve rounded the counters and grabbed her, steadying her in her seat. Her face was dangerously pale and one of her hands had moved to her stomach. She let out a soft groan before her eyes shut, her body now hanging limp in his arms.

"Maria!?"