Make You Feel My Love
~Book III~

Disclaimer: I do not own the Avengers nor do I own the plot of Age of Ultron. All rights go to Marvel.
All I do own are my own characters and their stories.

~Chapter 9~
Awkward

A hand brushed over her cheek, pulling her out of her dreamless sleep. Warmth was wrapped around her, her head resting on her pillow. Someone had covered her naked body with the duvet and as she awoke, she breathed in deeply, hugging the duvet closer to her.

"Morning," she mumbled into the pillow, her eyes opening slightly.

"Morning," Steve replied close to her ear.

Breathing in deeply again, she turned around to face Steve, his arm wrapping around her waist and pulling her close as he placed a kiss on her forehead.

"God, I love waking up like this," said Maria, a wide smile spread over her lips.

"I don't mind it either," replied Steve, his head still resting on his pillow, his thumb tracing circles on her waist. "Stay with me today… Let's just have a nice day to ourselves."

Maria smiled widely, beginning to nod her head as she placed a hand on his cheeks, her fingers softly tracing the outlines of his cheekbones and jawline. However, her smile soon faded and her hand fell down to the space between the two of them as she remembered what day it was. With a shake of her head, she sat up, holding the duvet in place so she was covered.

"I can't… I have to be somewhere today," she replied, rubbing a hand over her face.

A silence hung over them for a while before Steve sat up as well, causing Maria to look at him with sad eyes. "I'm sorry… There's nothing else I would've wanted but to-"

"You don't regret it, do you?"

Maria's mouth hung open for a while, taking in his rushed question as well as the panicked look on his face. He looked lost. So immensely lost, that all Maria wanted to do was hug him and make him feel just how much she loved him.

"Regret? No! I would never," said Maria, turning to him and placing her free hand on his cheek again, the panic in his eyes slowly disappearing. "Steve, you're mine and I'm yours. That's the way it is. What happened last night was…"

"Fantastic," replied Steve, a cockish grin on his lips, causing Maria to giggle slightly.

"Yes, Steve… Fantastic," said Maria before pecking his lips softly. "I really want to stay here today. But I can't… I have somewhere to be."

Steve nodded his head. "You'll be back tonight, right?"

"Yeah," replied Maria as she shifted so her legs were dangling from the bedside. "If I can borrow one of Tony's cars, that is."

"Wow. Eleven thirty," said Clint, looking up from his cup of coffee as Steve entered the kitchen. "I thought you were a morning person."

Steve sighed slightly - not an annoyed sigh, but a happy sigh – as he walked over to the coffee machine and poured himself a cup of his own. He didn't really need it, the coffee that is, since the super soldier serum made the coffee useless. Though he enjoyed the taste of it along with the feeling of being like the others.

"I usually am not, actually. I just have trouble sleeping most of the times," said Steve, sitting down at the kitchen table. "How are you feeling?"

"Good. I can't tell the difference between the real skin and the fake skin at all," said Clint, earning a nod from Steve. "Quite amazing actually."

Steve avoided telling Clint that most things amazed him nowadays, seeing as Clint probably knew and so, he simply continued staring straight ahead of him, a soft smile playing on his lips as he thought about the previous night.

The hairs on his back rose and he looked over at Clint who was staring intensely at him. Steve cocked an eyebrow at the archer, silently asking him what he was seeing that was so interesting.

Suddenly, a grin was plastered onto Clint's lips, his eyes twinkling with amusement before he fist-bumped Steve's upper arm, only confusing said super soldier. "Don't think you can fool me, cap."

"Fool you?" asked Steve.

"Did you see some action last night?"

"I-I don't understand – action where?" asked Steve, earning a chuckle from Clint at the same time as Thor entered the kitchen.

"Is lunch served yet?" he boomed, petting his stomach slightly to which Steve and Clint looked over at him.

"Dude, you gotta make lunch yourself," said Clint before beginning to laugh at the expression on Thor's face. "I hang out with the strangest of people."

While Thor plummeted through the kitchen, trying his best to make something he wanted to eat, Clint turned back to Steve, his expression less amused now after having laughed for a while.

"How are you going to ask her?" asked Clint, earning a sigh from Steve.

"I don't know yet," he replied. "I've been trying to find a perfect moment but it's hard."

"You gotta make your own perfect moment," said Clint. "Otherwise, you're gonna have to wait a long time, pal. It's a full moon this night. How about you take her to some place where you can truly see it and ask her under the moon light? Sounds romantic, right?"

Steve smiled slightly at the archer's words, nodding his head. "It does."

"There's a perfect balcony at the eastern sight of the building. The view over the city is amazing; breathtaking," said Clint, gesturing with his hands as if he was seeing the view in front of him. "I can't even begin to imagine what it will look like in the moonlight."

"Asgard is filled with romantic places," said Thor as he sat himself down next to Steve. "Why are we discussing romance?"

"Cap's proposing to Dalton," said Clint before Steve could reply, earning a glare from Steve.

"I don't want everyone to know," replied Steve before Thor placed a rough hand on Steve's shoulder.

"Congratulations, my friend," said Thor loudly, shaking Steve's shoulder slightly before he let go of him and began eating the sandwich he had made himself.

"She hasn't said yes yet," replied Steve quietly, looking down at his cup of coffee before him.

"No, but she will," replied Clint. "Now, chicks love it if you give them a romantic memory about the proposal. Just keep that in mind."

Steve narrowed his eyes, looking at Clint suspiciously. "You seem like an expert."

"I've seen a lot of movies," replied Clint, standing up and placing his mug in the dishwasher. "That's all."

"Here she is," said Tony, patting the roof of the red sport's car at the far end of the garage underneath of the Avenger's Tower. "Smooth engine-"

"Tony, remember, I don't care if the car is any good. I just need something to get to Hell's Kitchen in," said Maria, hindering him from saying anything else about the car as she had just listened to him ramble on about his cars during the five-minute elevator ride down to said cars.

"Fine," huffed Tony, throwing the keys over to Maria. "Better not scratch the paint."

"I won't," replied Maria with a sigh, unlocking the car and opening the car door.

Tony watched her as she took off her trench coat, putting it on the backseat, feeling more relaxed to drive without a jacket restraining her movements.

"You, uh, not spending the day with cap?" asked Tony, trying his best to sound casual as he asked her this.

"No. I have to do this first," said Maria before looking over at him. "Why?"

"Oh, nothing," replied Tony quickly, holding his hands up slightly before backing away from the car. "Just asking. Have a nice day."

Maria raised an eyebrow at his odd behavior, watching him walk away, glancing back at her once in a while. She shook her head, sitting down in front of the wheel and immediately feeling overwhelmed by the amount of buttons and advanced stuff there were in there. Luckily, the gas-pedal and break-pedal were where they were supposed to be along with the wheel. Driving the car felt different too, though it went well after a few minutes of getting used to the different noises it made, and before she knew it, she had already arrived at the graveyard. She parked the car and exited, heading immediately for the small flower shop where she bought a bouquet of flowers she knew her grandmother loved. Funnily enough, her grandmother, unlike her mother, adored roses. She wondered if there was a connection between it briefly before she headed out amongst the grave stones.

There was a small pond in the middle of the graveyard filled with all sorts of waterplants, small fishes and lots of tiny fairy statues, making it look as though the fairies were dancing on the water. She smiled at the fairies, remembering how odd she had thought it to be to have such a pond in the middle of a graveyard the first time she had come to visit her grandmother's gravestone.

"Hey granny," said Maria, placing herself in front of the white gravestone, looking down at it with saddened eyes. Slowly, she crouched down, placing the bouquet on the grass in front of the stone.

She spent almost an hour just being there, sitting on her knees in front of the gravestone and just talking. Beside her grandmother's gravestone, her grandfather lay. He had agreed to joining the Miller's when he died only a few weeks before that did indeed happen. It had been during a normal family meal that he had said that, mostly for fun as they had been joking about the strange part of the graveyard where all the Millers were buried. No one had ever thought that a drunk driver was going to make sure that he did indeed get to rest there years before he was supposed to.

She spent some time talking to him too, telling him about what had happened in her life. She hadn't done that before and honestly; she didn't know why she was talking to them at all. They were dead, gone, and couldn't hear her. Yet it felt soothing and less painful to visit their graves by pretending that they did indeed hear her. Luckily, the part of the graveyard where the Millers were buried was far away from where the other visitors were walking around, so nobody heard her talking to the graves.

It was when her stomach started to protest about her having skipped breakfast and lunch that she stood up again, quieting down and simply staring down at the name of her grandmother.

"I'm sorry," she said before turning to the right and beginning to make her way to the car again.

Before truly leaving, she sent a glare towards her mother's grave.

Standing on the balcony Clint had showed him earlier that day, Steve breathed in the city air. It was slightly chilly outside, making the air feel fresh inside of his lungs despite the pollution that filled the air. He still found it odd how much the air had changed from before he went down into the ice. It felt less fresh and warmer, almost thicker. The air was just one of many strange things he'd probably never get used to.

The doors behind him opened and he took in a quick breath of air, his heart beginning to beat faster. The small, velvet box he had been holding in his hands, was placed back into the pocket he had been keeping it the past five weeks.

The stars were looking down at them as was the full moon. Her shoulder brushed against his upper arm as she joined him by the railing. When he glanced over at her, he saw her hair flow perfectly down over her shoulders, moving slightly in the chilly evening wind.

"You wanted to talk to me," she said before chuckling slightly. "You know you could've just come down to fetch me. Using Jarvis to call me seems so… formal. After last night, you really don't need to be formal with me anymore."

A blush appeared on Steve's cheeks, spreading down his neck as he swallowed loudly, causing her to chuckle again. She always seemed so calm around him, yet he was always a nervous wreck. Lately, he had actually started to get used to having such a beautiful woman around him, though now that their relationship was moving forward, he became nervous again.

"I know," he said, letting out a content sigh. "I've never gone this far with a lady before. A-A woman."

"It's okay. We'll just move on slowly from where we are now," replied Maria, nodding her head at her own words, as though it was the first time she'd thought like that about their situation and she was agreeing to what she had just said.

"I don't regret it," replied Steve quickly, thinking that maybe she thought he did after what he had just said. "I really don't. But it did make me think about something."

"What?" she asked, her eyes widening slightly and her voice sounding insecure. Steve turned fully to Maria with a shake of his head at her reaction.

"No, it's nothing bad," he quickly said. "It's actually more of a question."

"Oh," she breathed out relieved. "What sort of question?"

"A-A good one," he stammered out.

The velvet box burned inside of his pocket. He wanted to rip it out so badly. Rip it out, show her the ring and then see it on her finger. See it twinkle in the moonlight. Feel the proudness of seeing that very ring on her finger, showing to everyone that she was on her way to fully be his.

"Look at me," said Maria, pulling Steve out of his thoughts. He must've looked very confused and scared, seeing a comforting look on Maria's face. "You know you can ask me anything."

Steve nodded his head, about to open his mouth and pop the question, his fingers edging closer to his pocket.

"Well…" she suddenly said.

His eyes shot over to hers, seeing the doubtful look on her face that quickly turned into one of regret as his shoulders sunk slightly.

"I'm sorry, I didn't want to be like this. It's just that… well, it's the, uh, anniversary of my granny's death…"

Steve's heart sunk, his fingers moving away from his pocket. This wasn't the day for it. Creating his own perfect day hadn't worked. Though he didn't think about that too much as a tear slipped down Maria's face, causing his heart to ache slightly.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know," said Steve, placing a hand on her arm, his thumb tracing circles over the fabric of her jumper, trying to calm her down as best as possible. She sniffed quietly, before brushing away the stray tear from her cheek. "You've never really talked about it to me."

"No…" she mumbled. "It hurt too much to do so. Steve, I pulled the plug."

"What do you mean?"

"I used all the money I could to bribe that doctor. But he just wanted more and more. In the end, I ended up on the streets. Didn't have anything left. Whatever money I could scramble together; I gave to him. You see, they wanted to use the bed for other patients. But I couldn't live without her. And then Artur found me… I didn't live on the streets anymore at least. Four years ago now, I had just joined the Avengers. Four years ago now, I turned the machines off."

"I know what it's like to have someone close to you fading away," said Steve, earning a look from Maria.

"Peggy?"

Steve gave her a surprised look to which she smiled; "I saw the files, Steve. And I understand. You loved her."

"I…" He wanted to say something to tell her she was the one that he loved now. Though he couldn't deny the feelings he had towards Peggy.

"It's okay. It's not like I denied my feelings for Artur," said Maria. "As long as your loyal to me-"

"Always," said Steve, placing an arm around her waist and placing his cheek against hers, feeling the smile on her face against his cheek. "Were you at her grave?"

"Yes…" He felt her smile disappear again.

"I would've loved to meet her. She seemed like a great woman," said Steve, the smile returning again.

"Oh, she would've loved you, Steve. You're just like my grandpa. Sweet, a gentleman and an actual good man," she said, turning in his arms so she was facing him. "True to his own morals. A little awkward."

"Okay, hilarious," said Steve, rolling his eyes as he placed his hands on the small of her back, pressing her against him. It reminded him of last night, the way they now dared to simply press against each other, and it excited him, causing a smile to appear on Maria's face.

"Like I said," she purred, leaning in close to his lips. "Awkward…"

I'm so sorry for not updating any time sooner! Someone close to me passed away and I needed some time to sort things out again and then school got in the way too so... yeah, sorry. But summer break has started for me now so hopefully I'll be able to write a little more frequently now! :) Again, so sorry for the long wait.