A/N. I hope you enjoy chapter 3 :D

Disclaimer - I don't own the Avengers or Captain America or some of the dialogue from this chapter. If it's familiar, I don't own it.

Chapter Three

Tania had caught Steve lying to her on several occasions.

Whenever he said that he was going for a mission or to HQ, he would be gone for hours and hours. He would leave without his uniform or his shield and he would always bring a baseball cap even though he never wore one in public when he was with her. She found ticket stubs for the Smithsonian in his sweater once when she was doing the laundry. What had he been doing at a museum? She hadn't asked him. She figured that if he wanted her to know, he would tell her.

But he hadn't.

She wondered why he would hide something like that from her. What was at the Smithsonian? Maybe he was embarrassed he'd gone? Whatever it was, she trusted him. Steve trusted her as well.

So when he came home that afternoon looking sufficiently depressed, she waited for him to tell her what had happened. A mission gone wrong, maybe? A phone call from Tony? That always seemed to put him in a bad mood.

She asked him how the mission went and he said that it had been successful. Successful. That didn't mean that it had gone according to plan or that something hadn't gone wrong.

"What happened?" She asked point blank, tossing the dish rag into the sink and walking over to the couch, where he'd plopped himself with a sigh.

"Fury's being difficult," he said, removing his baseball cap.

Finally, they were getting somewhere. It was still vague, but an answer was an answer. She sat down next to him and put a hand on his knee comfortingly. "Fury's an asshole."

Steve chuckled. "Sometimes." He looked more downcast than she had seen him in a while.

"Hey," she whispered softly, caressing his jaw. "What's going on? Talk to me. It's about more than just Fury, isn't it?"

He sighed. "Maybe."

"Steve…"

Why wasn't he telling her? She understood that some missions were classified, but he was just plain ignoring her.

"Please."

"For as long as I can remember, I just wanted to do what was right," he said almost immediately. It was as if he'd been bursting to tell her and only just now decided that the time was right. "I guess I'm not quite sure what that is anymore."

"Steve…"

"And I thought I could…" He plowed on as if uninterrupted. "… throw myself back in. Follow orders. Serve. It's just not the same."

Tania didn't know what to say. She laid her head on his shoulder and wrapped her arms around his bicep. He leaned his head on hers and they sat there, staring at the black screen of the TV in silence.
After a while, Tania found her words. "I think it's not the same… because it isn't. We're not at war, Steve. There's no looming threat. You're not a soldier anymore."

"I'll always be a soldier."

"The world is different now. You know this better than most. But what's right and wrong is essentially still the same. Helping people and saving lives is what you do. That will always be what's right."

"I'm not sure that S.H.I.E.L.D. has the same priorities."

This was news to her. "What makes you think that?"

Steve sighed again and rested his head on the back of the couch. "Things are just so much more complicated now. Morals used to be black and white. Now there's so much grey that nothing is distinct."

"Yes there is. Killing is wrong. Saving people is right. Whatever else changes, that will always stay the same." She had learned that, if nothing else, from the Return of Loki incident.

"Will it? Can you promise me that?"

Tania had no answer. "Why are you such a pessimist today?"

"Maybe it's the weather."

"Steve. It's a beautiful, sunny day. Come on." She stood up and tugged him off of the loveseat. "Let's go enjoy it."

It bothered her that he avoided all of her questions prodding for specifics. It bothered her that Natasha had texted her hours ago to notify her of their safe return. It bothered her that Steve showed up way later than he was expected and he didn't bother to give her a reason.

Maybe it was just stress. Maybe something really awful had happened and he wasn't ready to talk about it. Maybe he didn't think she would understand. Whatever the case, she decided to wait to tell him about Drew. He didn't need this right now and he didn't seem to want to ask how her day had gone.

She took him out to lunch and they had a quiet, reserved little date. It was cute and they exchanged small talk, but there was something simmering under the surface of their words. Tania couldn't pinpoint what it was yet, but there was definitely something there. She hoped it was something good.

"There's actually something I want to do today," Steve said after a lull in the conversation while they waited for the cheque.

"Yeah? What's that?"

"I met this guy while jogging yesterday and he works at the VA."

"The what?"

"Veterans Affairs."

"Oh, he's a soldier too?"

"Yeah. Did two tours before coming here."

"Interesting."

"Anyway, we kind of hit it off and he said I could come visit him any time."

"Are you, God forbid, making friends?" She teased, nudging him under the table with her foot.

He smiled lopsidedly at her. "Maybe."

"That's great! I want to meet him."

"Great. Let's go."

He drove them to the VA on his bike and let her get off first, as per usual. She stepped off the motorcycle and looked up at the building. It was actually quite a nice building. She didn't know what she'd been expecting, but gorgeous architecture hadn't been it.

She followed him inside, where they heard a voice say words of encouragement, presumably a group of people. They peered into the doorway and Tania saw a black man standing at a podium in front of an audience. Steve leaned against the wall and Tania stood next to him, listening.

"Some stuff you leave there, other stuff you bring back. It's our job to figure out how to carry it. Is it gonna be in a big suitcase? Or in a little man purse? It's up to you." There was something about his voice that was soothing. His words were positive, but serious.

Tania wondered how Steve carried his baggage. Sometimes she felt like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. She would do anything to lighten that load. That "stuff" that Sam (or she presumed was Sam) was talking about needed to loosen its hold on her boyfriend. Maybe this was where he'd been going all the time. Had he been experiencing some PTSD? Had something been triggered in him that sent him into panic attacks? She knew he had nightmares; they both did. But they were infrequent nowadays and she had thought…

Maybe she had thought wrong.

They stayed until the end of the session and waited until the veterans spilled out into the streets before approaching Sam, who had seen them earlier and was apparently expecting them.

"Look who it is," he said with a smile, reaching for the paperwork on a nearby table. "The Running Man." His eyes slid over to Tania. "Tania Banks, right? The Singing Woman?"

She nodded, chuckling. "That's me."

"Caught the last few minutes," Steve said, leaning on the wall again. Was that his way of trying to be casual? "It was pretty intense."

"Yeah, brother," Sam responded, shuffling papers and pamphlets. "We all got the same problems. Guilt. Regret." He didn't seem to be in a very cheery mood, unlike what Steve had described to her. He seemed to be thinking about something rather… morbid.

"You lose someone?" Steve asked quietly.

Sam nodded. "My wingman: Riley. Flying a night mission. Standard PJ rescue op. Nothing we hadn't done a thousand times before – til an RPG knocked Riley's dumb ass out of the sky." He swallowed. "Nothing I could do." He looked away and Tania's heart ached for him. "It's like I was up there just to watch."

"I'm sorry," Steve told him somberly.

"My condolences," she offered.

"After that…" Sam continued, "I had a really hard time finding a reason for being over there, you know?"

Tania did know. What would it be like to fight without Steve? Without the Avengers? What would it be like to work for S.H.I.E.L.D. without her friends and family? Even if she didn't know, she understood and she sympathized.

Steve fumbled for words for a second. "Well, are you happy now? Back in the world?" That seemed like a loaded question. Or maybe it was just her.

"Hey, the number of people giving me orders is down to about… zero?" He looked around as if searching for a general who was going to kick his ass for not standing straight (except he was, but that wasn't the point). "So hell yeah." He smiled genuinely for the first time since meeting him. "You thinking about getting out?"

Steve shook his head immediately. Tania was confused. Steve wasn't a soldier anymore. He wasn't in the army. Was Sam talking about leaving S.H.I.E.L.D.?

"No," Steve replied. A beat. "I don't know."

"What?" Tania voiced, staring at him in disbelief. "What do you mean you don't know? Why would you quit? What would you do?"

Steve shrugged. "I really have no idea."

Sam made a face that suggested that he had an idea. "Ultimate fighting?"

Steve huffed out a laugh.

Tania's mind was still whirling from the thought of Steve quitting S.H.I.E.L.D. She knew Fury pissed him off, but… leave S.H.I.E.L.D.? Did that mean leaving the Avengers? What was Steve thinking?

"Just a great idea off the top of my head," Sam half-joked, trying to keep the mood light. Tania admired him for that. He eyed her for a second before speaking again. "Seriously, you could do whatever you wanna do. What makes you happy?"

Steve looked over at Tania and she looked over at him. His lips quirked upward. "You do."

Well damn it all if her heart didn't just melt. She took his hand in hers and pressed a kiss to his shoulder. "You're so sweet. But loving me ain't gonna pay the bills."

He chuckled. "No, it won't. I don't really know what I'd do if I got out."

"Draw?" She suggested.

"Personal trainer?" Sam piped up.

"Self defense teacher?"

"Avenger?"

"Go to school?" At that, they both turned to her. "What? It's never too late to get an education. Why not get a degree? Study something you love?" How did she get from "You're thinking about leaving S.H.I.E.L.D.?" to "Leaving S.H.I.E.L.D. is perfectly okay"?

Steve half-smiled at them both. "I'll think about it."

Walking down the steps of the building, Tania confronted him. "How long have you been thinking about leaving S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

Steve pursed his lips. "Not long."

"Were you ever planning to tell me?"

"Not until I had a concrete plan."

"Okay, I can understand that." They came to his bike, but neither of them made a move to get on. "But why would you consider quitting?"

He fiddled with his keys, swinging them around and around and running his fingers along the edges. He was always losing his keys. Tania found the spare ones all over the apartment; in between couch cushions, behind the TV, on the dish rack, everywhere.

"I just… it's not…"

"The same?"

He nodded.

"Steve… it's never going to be the same. But maybe… if you wanted… you could… enlist… if that would make it more similar… I don't know." She felt as if something in her throat had swollen to the size of a golf ball, preventing her from speaking. She hadn't heard from Graham in a while and she worried about him every single day. If Steve was also overseas… she had no idea how she'd be able to live her life knowing that two of the most important people in her life were far away and in danger.

"Hey." His voice brought her back from her fears and his fingers on her chin caused her eyes to flicker to his. "That's not going to fix anything."

"Is something broken?" She whispered.

He shook his head, his hand lingering beneath her jaw. "No. I just… I'm having a bit of a… midlife crisis."

A laugh burst out of her. She slapped a hand over her mouth and forced the rest of them down. "You're only twenty-five. Even if you count the other years, which makes you ninety-five, it's still the wrong time to have a midlife crisis."

"Well, I'm having some sort of crisis and I don't know what to do. I just don't feel like S.H.I.E.L.D. is where I should be."

"Peggy and Howard founded S.H.I.E.L.D."

"I know. That's part of the reason I've stayed. But it's different now."

"There was no S.H.I.E.L.D. when you-"

"There was the S.S.R. which was pretty much the same thing. Look, Tania, I just want to do the right thing."

"No one can tell you what that is," she stated. "What's right and wrong for me could be different for you. You need to figure out what you think is right."

"But you said-"

"I know what I said. Forget that. Like Sam said, do what you want to do and I'll support you."

"Really?"

"Of course."

That didn't mean that she was any happier with him for not telling her anything until it was brought up by someone else. That feeling that something was simmering beneath the surface began to grow hot in Tania's gut as she climbed onto the back of the bike and slid her helmet on.

Something was coming.