Avengers 1. Budapest

"It really wasn't like Budapest, you know," Clint reminded her for the hundredth time as they sat sprawled across the cushions of the small sofa in one of the countless rooms of Avengers Tower. Natasha smirked and shook her head, rolling her eyes as she absently stretched her legs out over his lap while he laid a warm, gentle palm against her knee, a comforting, routine gesture she'd learned to both enjoy and rely on. He cast a pointed glance her way, one brow raised.

"_At all_," he continued, and she tilted her head back to rest against the arm of the couch, closing her eyes as he began to draw slow, lazy circles over her kneecap. He watched, smiling, as the light from the nearby window lit her fiery hair with slivers of gold, tracing the sharp angle of cheekbones as if he could reach out across the small expanse between them and cup her face in his palm, longing to do just that the more he contemplated the idea. She held up a hand, pointing her index finger toward the ceiling as if it were a meaningful gesture he should instantly understand.

"Ok, there were explosions," she began knowingly, nodding to herself as the light seeped past her eyelids to illuminate the darkness there, "and really irritating soldiers that wouldn't stop shooting at us-"

"Alien soldiers," Clint interjected amusedly, and she held up a different finger entirely, aimed in his general direction. She interpreted the instantaneous bout of laughter, familiar and healthy and _home_, as a sign that she hadn't missed, and continued, resisting the urge to laugh herself.

"There was a blond, muscular guy trying to help us, and a guy with extreme anger management issues amazingly fighting on our side."

Clint cracked a grin as she opened one eye to peek over at him, an imploring glint in her gaze as she wondered if she should go on, and he nodded, feeling that same swelling sensation in his chest at the very sight of her, lithe and relaxed and casual beside him, her red curls framing such a deceivingly innocent face.

She reclined against the arm once more, sighing quietly-a peaceful, happy thing-and proceeding to tell him in painful detail all the ways in which he was wrong. Clint didn't mind, though; he could listen to Nat talk all day.

**Please R&amp;R! All rights go to their respective owners.**


	2. Antagonists Anonymous

Loki, dressed in attire similar to that which he'd worn during that miserable year imprisoned within the dungeons of Asgard, was sulking, arms crossed and emerald gaze icy and trained on Thor, who sat, reluctant, beside him. The metal chairs they'd been given were uncomfortable, and, across from them, Steve sat opposite Thor, nervously running a hand through his tousled hair and gazing down at the floor as Bucky, hunched down at his side, stared warily over at the mischievous god. Bruce, lounging in his rusty chair as gracefully as only Bruce could, stared at them all, huddled in a tight, closed circle of five people.

Dr. Banner cleared his throat awkwardly and nodded to himself, flipping yet another piece of yellow, stiff paper over on his notepad and clicking his pen as Loki took a deep, rattling, unnecessarily loud breath that broke the air of silence and tension that had begun to weigh them down. Bucky blinked stonily, his mouth twisted in a frown as the dim overhead light sent glinting, shivering lines of brightness over the silver of his metal arm, and Loki watched the display with contempt, leaning back in his seat even more.

"At least I didn't work for Nazis," he muttered angrily, and Thor turned a sharp glare on him.

"Loki," he ground out, irritated, just as Bruce murmured, mostly to himself, "We've been over this."

Steve, who had been silent for most of their session (a forced conversation riddled with accusations of mass murder from both sides in a weary attempt to defend their actions), straightened in his seat, blue eyes bright and angry and trained on the god.

"Bucky didn't know what he was doing; _you _knew _exactly _what you were doing and even enjoyed it," he spat, enraged, but Loki merely smirked at his irritation. Bucky, his gaze flicking between Thor and Loki in front of him, tilted his head and, with a haughty, smug grin plastered onto his face, laughed.

"At least I don't love my brother just a _little_ too much," he retorted, crossing his arms over his chest as if he'd just won the lottery, and Loki's eyes widened with barely contained fury as Thor choked on the words he was about to offer. Loki's jaw muscle twitched, almost imperceptibly, beneath his pallid skin, and he mimicked Bucky's own posture, a strange, mirthful light coming alive in his glare. Bruce glanced between them, frowning in concern, and scribbled furiously on his yellow notepad, glasses slowly slipping down the bridge of his nose.

"At least **I** don't speak in homosexual code to my," Loki murmured, air-quoting his next words, "_best friend_."

Bucky's cheeks reddened just the slightest and Loki, in response, snickered triumphantly. Bruce looked up from behind the rim of his glasses, chewing on the inside of his cheek absently.

"I think we need a few more sessions."


	3. Disagreement

"Look at you," Loki drawled silkily as Sif tugged off a rather irritating piece of tattered, bloody legging that had been clinging to her calf all day, "fresh from battle and still as stunning as ever."

Sif, tossing the offending cloth onto the floor of her bedroom, rolled her eyes, unable to keep the grin off her face as she looked to him.

"It wasn't battle; Thor merely found himself on the wrong side of a disagreement." Loki snorted, padding softly across the stone floor to stand just behind her, removing the pieces of armor protecting her shoulders as she simultaneously removed the piece shielding her torso. Loki made a noise in the back of his throat, one that indicated how much he actually didn't believe Sif at all, and smirked.

"A disagreement, hm?" he asked mockingly as he removed the chain mail next, then the pieces folded around her forearms. She nodded silently, watching him in the mirror on the far wall, strands of her dark hair fallen from her pony tail and clinging persistently to the specks of blood on her cheeks as Loki moved to the basin of water at the vanity, dipping a towel in it. He returned and gently scrubbed the blood from her face and arms, waiting patiently as she removed her boots and leggings so that he could rinse them off, as well, and she couldn't help but smile.

Moving back up, he threw the towel on the floor and leaned toward her to undo the strict binds of her hair, watching as the ebony tumbled down around her shoulders. She gave him a teasing look, grey eyes bright in the candlelight, and he sent her his most mischievous smile as he wrapped his arms about her waist, pulling her body flush against his.

She hugged his shoulders, content, and rested her cheek against the soft cotton of his nightshirt, just against his chest, hearing the melodic pounding of his heart beside her ear.


	4. Troublemaker

Since Tony's curious blood ran through her veins, Rosemary often got into situations that weren't easily escaped, and today was no different. Pepper was out for the day, shopping with Maria and Natasha (but Tony suspected that they weren't shopping at all, since Natasha's last 'sneak Pepper out of the house for an illegal night on the town' escapade was now famous around the Tower), and Tony was left alone to look after his daughter.

At the tentative age of twelve, she was just starting to behave, but in the moments that she found herself alone, she felt overrun by the need to explore. Said need usually led her to the familiar depths of her father's lab, with every small thing she was forbidden to touch strewn about the place in one messy heap, enticing and beckoning.

Needless to say, she ended up tinkering with one of the few suits Tony had built after dramatically dismantling them all years ago, convinced she could make it fly faster if only she could just pry open that _one_ panel and flip that _one_ tiny switch-it had been the wrong switch.

And that was why Tony walked into his lab to find pieces of his suit littering the floor, some stuck in the rafters, and some clinging to the fallen form of Rosemary as she sat on the floor, pouting at her failure, while a small fire burned near her, flickering orange and heat just at her back. Tony, upon hindsight, probably could have handled it a bit better than merely standing there in shock, but, thankfully, DUM-E swooped in to save the day, dousing the fire with its beloved extinguisher as Rosemary grimaced at her father in apprehension.

She was going to be in _so much trouble_.

Tony snapped his fingers, seemingly just as he snapped himself out of whatever reverie he'd been in, and descended the stairs two steps at a time, smirking.

"That's the smartest thing you've ever done, DUM-E," he said casually.


	5. Mirror

Bucky often preferred to lock himself up in the room Steve had thrust upon him rather hastily (claiming that since Bucky had nowhere else to go, he should stay with friends), ruminating on his all-too-distant past and all those years he lost, thinking in circles about the new world he'd been thrown into and how vastly different everything was.

He liked to gaze at himself in the mirror (not for self-conceited purposes, which is what Steve would have thought if it were 1941 again) so that he could trace the junction at his shoulder, where metal met skin, so that he could trace the glint of bathroom lighting across the heavy arm that he couldn't ever remember acquiring.

He liked to imagine that, if he tried hard enough, he could remember it all, that he could recall the pain he must have felt when it was attached to him, that he could dig up the memories and relive them just as easily as if they'd only been created hours ago.

He liked to pretend that it hadn't been over half a century, like to think everything had remained the same and so greatly unchanged, but he was wrong, and his own warped reflection reminded him of that, brought a helpful dose of truth to his long reveries when he needed it most.

The metallic shine of it, the ever-constant presence, brought Bucky to a safe corner of reality, and if he was grateful for anything in his new life, it was that.


	6. Games

"So he just spins and hits the crates and gets some apples?" Bucky asked curiously as he turned the controller in his hand to the left, as if doing so could control the way in which Crash Bandicoot turned on the TV screen before them, and Steve, an amused gleam shining in the depths of his blue eyes, smiled, shrugging.

"Yeah, and he kills the bad guys and defeats a boss every now and then, or so Tony tells me. I haven't really played it all the way through." Bucky, ducking just the slightest as an apple was sent flying toward him on the screen, frowned, deep in both thought and concentration as he tried to figure out how to make Crash double jump and avoid an exploding box.

He turned to glance at his best friend for a split second, smiling, but the action cost him, and Crash was killed by a mummy. Bucky tossed the ancient controller down in mild frustration onto the soft carpet and reclined in his seat upon the couch cushions.

"And Tony, he's Howard's son, right?" Steve pressed the pause button on Bucky's controller, stifling his smile at Bucky's failure, and nodded, the shine of memory bright in his gaze as he looked over to his friend.

"Tony had a rough childhood, everybody says, but I can't imagine it. Stark was nice, you know? I mean, you remember him. How could he just treat his son like that?"

Bucky, not wanting to be reminded of a past that was torn from him, and definitely not wanting to ruminate on how he had assassinated said Howard Stark years before, cleared his throat and picked up the controller again.

"People change, I guess. Things happen."

He hit the start button, and they both pretended that Bucky was only talking about their long-dead friend instead of the two of them, and the swishing sound that emitted from the television as Crash spun to face an animated attacker swallowed the surfacing melancholy and brought a smile to both their faces.


	7. Jamba Juice

All lowly muttered comments of 'it's gone, Nat' were promptly ignored as Natasha determinedly sucked every ounce of fruity slushiness she could from the straw stuck in her jamba juice, or what used to be her jamba juice, her eyes closed so that she could ignore the irritated expressions of everyone around her and thoroughly savor and enjoy the taste.

Finally, after the struggling sounds made by her straw, she gave up, and lazily tossed the cup into the trash can, already missing it. Clint gave her a disapproving look and stood to make his way to the kitchen, coming back with another cup of what had previously been his jamba juice in hand, and reached out to offer it to the red-haired spy, who was leveling him with a look of such suspicion that he almost threw the drink at her.

Slowly, she snatched it from his hand, and then proceeded to smile down at the pink slush, perfectly content.


	8. Hairstyles

"So you're still not dating?" Natasha questioned nonchalantly as she munched on a granola bar she'd managed to find in one of the several cabinets of Stark's overly large kitchen.

Steve, sitting on a bar stool with a glass of water held loosely in his hand, sent her a withering stare and sighed. She chewed loudly, mostly just to annoy him, and smirked as he shook his head and stared down into the glass in his grip. Sidling over to take a ginger seat beside him, she inspected the crunchy bits of peanut butter laced throughout her granola bar, busying herself as she caught Steve glancing at her out of the corner of her eye.

In the right light, his eyes shone like oceans, vividly staring at her with all the reluctant gentleness in the world, and she wondered, not for the first time, if his eyes had perhaps been softer before, before the war and before his transformation, before his whole life crumbled and was built anew. She wondered, and longed to see them with that untainted purity she imagined, and was so caught up in her thoughts that she didn't notice how fully he was gazing at her, squinting as the light pouring in from the windows illuminated her features.

She did notice, however, when Steve reached out with strong, steady fingers to brush an errant curl from her face, tucking it behind her ear, and she blinked, startled, but masked it well, masked it as only a trained, conditioned spy ever could, and the corner of his mouth quirked up.

"Your hair looks best curly," he murmured, eyes widening as he blanched.

"I mean-Not that…your hair looks bad straight. It's just…"

Quickly, he averted his gaze, and she felt familiar heat rush to her face as she took another bite from her granola bar to hide the grin slipping onto her face.


	9. Groceries

It all started one cold morning in the midst of winter, when Bucky had the tendency to sleep in rather than get up at the crack of dawn, unlike one Natasha Romanoff. He'd stay in bed for hours, all while Natasha was impatiently waiting for him to get up so they could train together, since he was the only one, other than Steve, who had near-endless stamina and could take her hits and kicks without so much as a grimace, and she was the only one who could often outwit him. In her spare time, Natasha would usually realize the scarcity of food in the tower.

With so many people living there, it was a miracle that the refrigerator stayed fully stocked for even a day, and so she frequently found herself at the grocery store. Pepper was always too busy running the company, and Tony was hardly ever anywhere but in his lab, tinkering and experimenting while Bruce talked about the latest scientific discovery.

Thor seemed to eternally be confused by Midgardian ways, despite Jane's determined attempts to explain it all to him, and Clint wouldn't be caught dead in a grocery store, not since Budapest. Steve, too distracted by his efforts to help Bucky remember, noticed that his comrade slept far too late, and Natasha was getting quite tired of going out into the freezing rain and snow to buy food almost every day.

So, she devised a plan. In the early morning light, she'd sneak into Bucky's room, stealthy and silent, with a handful of letter magnets. Usually, she'd spell out _milk_ and _bread_, and such other simple food items, slowly sticking them to his metal arm and dashing over to throw open the curtains. He'd wake, irritated, and she'd toss away the covers greedily clinging to him, crossing her arms in what was meant to be an intimidating gesture.

"I'm tired of freezing every time I got to buy _us all_ groceries, so you and your super serum-ed self can go do it. You have better temperature tolerance, anyway."

With that, she'd dart out of the room, stifling her laughter, planning all the ways in which she'd relax for the day, since she wouldn't have to be hunting down food to buy. After all, Bucky always listened to her, for some odd reason; she guessed that it was because she scared everyone, even the Winter Soldier, just a little-deep, deep down.

And she always lingered in the hall outside his bedroom just long enough to hear his muffled sigh of both defeat and frustration as he peeled the magnets off of his arm.


	10. Reassurance

In a very specific kind of way, certain and constant, Charles had changed lives. He'd touched Mystique's heart with such a warmth that it could never entirely ice over in all the years after their abrupt parting. He'd picked up their team from the ashes of sorrow and lifted them to the cheer of victory, had saved them all and dusted their shoulders off and taken them in to teach them the ways of good men and good mutants.

He'd lured Erik from the point of no return and had shown him what the sun truly felt like, had shown him how cold and unforgiving the shadows could be, had given him light and hope and friendship in such darkness.

In the end, though, it hadn't been enough, and Charles-good, pure, believing, optimistic Charles-had changed instead. He'd spiraled, had darkened, and in the wake of what Erik had once known to be true was a broken, dreamless, hopeless man, fractured and scarred and bitter. It had crushed him to realize the fact, to be told one day that Charles would never walk again, to know, despite the indifferent front he put up against the outside world, that it was his fault.

He'd let Charles believe that things could improve, that they could be the better men, that everything bad in life could be eradicated with a few bright moments. But Erik wasn't the better man and he'd let everything fall away, had let his anger take over, his lust for revenge, his grudge on humanity. He'd let it destroy him, and in the process had done the same to Charles, who'd never walk, always that sadness in his blue eyes.

It was all shot to hell, really.

So, when Charles at last glanced at him over a rather competitive, intense game of chess, years and years later after the rift had been stitched together and torn anew and stitched again, and smiled in that way of his, all hope and brightness and promises, Erik knew that he hadn't messed it all up as colossally as he could have.


	11. The Winter Soldier

Sometimes, Bucky would glance down at his hands, fleetingly and fearfully, to see them covered in blood.

He'd blink, shocked, and all would be right again, one hand covered in clean, pale skin and the other formed from shining metal that winked back at him in the daylight, as if cheerfully reminding him of things better left buried in the past.

Sometimes, he'd catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror and see a vision of how he used to be, hair cut messily to fit under his military hat, his grin cocky and his eyes bright with excitement. The reverie never lasted very long. Even more frequently, then, he'd hear voices, some pleading, some affectionate, all and none familiar. His mind was a jumble of words and images and sounds, things he was certain that he knew but couldn't quite remember, and it was absolutely maddening.

Cutting his long hair, when at last he did, felt like a balm, a soothing thing to quell the tide of unwanted memories, just another way of breaking away from who he'd become (trying his hardest to return to who he'd been). I

t wasn't easy, not at all, but he was finding that the less he focused on how all of his friends were dead (with the exception of his best friend), how he'd murdered Stark and his wife, how he'd killed countless more people, and how he'd lost so many years of his life, the better it all got.

And the better it all got, the more convinced Bucky became that he could make the most out of the new chance he'd been given, the new hand he'd been dealt, the new life he had yet to live.


	12. New Hope

It was as if his heart had been roughly torn from the tight confines of his chest, as if it had been thrown harshly to the ground and stomped upon right before his very eyes, as if the oxygen was slipping from his lungs just as easily as sand might flow past his fingers. The static was grating, all too loud, and Bucky had never felt a silence so heavy, a silence so thick, as the one that surrounded them immediately after the signal cut out.

Peggy, tears dripping down the pale skin of her face, stared unblinkingly ahead of her, chocolate-hued eyes round and wide as the light shivered against her irises, and he stared down at her, knuckles white and trembling from his relentless grip upon the edge of the counter. His breath simply wouldn't come, and he had to close his eyes against the current of grief threatening to pull him under, lurking just outside his full awareness, prepared to strike and suffocate him slowly.

Carefully, Peggy pushed back her chair and stood, and his eyelids flew open at the sound, watching as she wiped the chilling tears from her skin just as new, warmer ones replaced them, and he noticed how reddened her nose and cheeks were, how sporadically her throat bobbed from the effort of keeping her sobs quiet. It was a small, short-lived comfort to know that someone else was going through the same thing he was; it was something he would have thought of regarding Steve, he knew, and that made his absence, sudden and shocking and hasty, all the more painful to bear.

Honestly, Bucky didn't think he could.

...

It had been two long years since Steve's disappearance, and despite Stark's occasional reassurances that he could be found, they were all feeling hopeless. Bucky had discovered a lone corner within his mind to retreat to when potential news of Steve's status fell through, and Peggy had found a kindred spirit within him, for some inconceivable reason, that kept her going.

Perhaps it was the bits of himself that Steve had left behind, reflected in Bucky's bright gaze and casual habits that she saw, that she clung to; Bucky would never know.

All he knew was that it made her show a tiny smile, every once and a while, when he laid a hand on her arm so that she wouldn't cry, and that it made the dark depths of her eyes dozens of shades lighter when he pulled her close to him to properly embrace her, as he was certain Steve would have done, and he liked to imagine that she herself was pretending that he was, in fact, the man they'd both lost. That was how they coped: friend to friend, comrade to comrade, the suffering to the suffering. And for a while, it was enough.

For a while, it helped, until the light touches upon her arm just weren't enough, until the simple hugs left him yearning to hold her even longer, until the soft curls of her hair, felt against his chin when he rested his head atop her own, began to smell like the sweetest scent he'd ever known. He didn't remember when or how it happened, but, suddenly, she was there before him with that reluctant curl of her lips, as if smiling completely still hurt her just a bit, deep down.

She was there with those wide, imploring eyes, just in front of him as the light danced across her features, and he reached out to trace its path on her ivory, heated skin. And when Bucky, with his breath held and his eyes closed, tilted her chin with two of his fingers in what was admittedly the softest gesture he'd ever shown, to gently press his lips to hers, it was, finally, _enough_.


	13. Certain

Loki, when he thought about it, hated his family.

He hated Odin most of all, for his persistent lies and his blatant abandonment when his support had mattered the most. He hated him for all the times he'd looked down at his two sons and chosen one over the other, hated him for every smile he never got to see while Thor witnessed each one (proud, approving, happy).

And _Thor_, well, he hated Thor, too. He hated him because Loki couldn't _be_ him, could never meet the expectations-set for him as soon as Odin laid his one good eye on a wailing baby in Jotunheim-that Thor so easily soared to reach. He hated his blond, blue-eyed brother because he would eternally be unable to set himself as equal in Odin's eyes, would always be the shadow to Thor's glorious sunlight, would never be anything more than what he already was (abandoned, left to die, Laufey's son). Frigga, then, was another issue entirely.

Loki hated her because she, too, had lied, but that hate was shallow, its reach limited, its grip on his thoughts fluid and easily evaded. His affection for her, though reluctant to be realized, far outweighed his dislike for the woman, and the sting of her memory was still a fresh and deadly thing to him, poisonous and traitorous, just as it was for Thor, who took every opportunity to remind Loki of how dearly he was loved, how high their mother had set her hopes for her wayward son, how remorseful Odin must have been.

It was all monotonous, and yet Loki couldn't exactly dismiss Thor's attempts entirely; such efforts meant that, somewhere in the depths of his heart, Thor cared for Loki, cared for him in ways Loki had been denied by Odin, cared for him like a brother should, and that alone was enough to make Loki hesitate. That alone was what made him think that, perhaps, Thor could be right, and that they could be a proper family again, exactly like nothing had ever gone wrong.

But that was a lie, one of the many Loki had wrapped himself in as of late. Things had most definitely gone wrong and Frigga was dead and they could never be a proper family again. Loki's hands were caked in blood and Thor's heart was fractured in too many places and Odin was a shell of the man he'd once been so many, many years ago, all in the wake of such devastating moments.

So, when Thor next looked at Loki with that imploring, pleading glint in his oceanic irises, Loki turned away, loathe to feel, if even for a moment, what he could never again have.

Yes, Loki hated his family more than anything else in the world.


	14. Visions

In his mind, she was dancing, twirling in that crimson dress of hers without a single care in the world, her ruby-stained lips curved upward in a loving, cheerful smile and her chocolate curls bouncing about her pale face. She was sashaying toward him, her hands outstretched as her slender form waved as if pushed by the wind, fluid and natural.

She was saying his name, and it felt so sweet against his lonely ears, felt exactly like a glass of icy water after a week stranded in the hottest, driest desert. Her touch, velvety at his cheek, felt almost necessary, and he closed his eyes against the current of emotion threatening to pour from him.

How long had it been?

How many years had she lived without him? How many moments had he spent longing to hear her, to see her?

_How long had it been?_

Steve opened his eyes, staring into the depthless, warm gaze of the one love of his life, and Peggy's radiant smile turned sad, a forlorn expression twisting her happy features into a pout.

"Too long," she murmured, and the vision dissipated just as if it'd never been there at all. He was left, both alone and yearning, wishing that he could, for once, get intoxicated, praying that the alcohol would drown his memories and render him empty and thoughtless, safely cocooned in oblivion.


	15. Beginnings

Her hair was all shiny curls and bouncing strands of gold as she turned to laugh at him, running, gliding, really, across the dewy grass as the midday sun beamed down at her, eternally in the spotlight. He tried his best to keep up, gangly legs flying as fast as they could as he ran beside her, and she folded her hand neatly in his; he might have been surprised that her palm felt so natural against his, that their hands knit together perfectly, but Loki wasn't the least bit taken aback by it.

Sif was his best friend, next to Thor, and it was only right that they complement each other, darkness and light, yin and yang. She turned her fierce grey eyes upon him and laughed a tinkling, bright laugh before releasing her hold on him to flit over in her pink summer dress, the ends billowing about her legs in the cool breeze, to the other side of the field, and Loki's own laughter followed. In the daylight, his ivy-hued gaze was vivid, and it was the first thing she made out as he came barreling toward her with his mischievous grin, tackling her to the ground.

They rolled across the sharp blades of grass, wrestling playfully, and Sif, eventually, came out triumphant, a victorious mirth clear in her cheery features as she climbed on top of him to pin his arms to the ground. Loki had known her unusual strength, and determination, from the moment he'd met her, but still found himself surprised at her display of it. He tilted his head, and she watched as his dark mess of hair pooled over the grass below him.

"Have you met my brother?" Loki asked curiously, and Sif made a face, blushing, before shaking her head.

"No…I've heard of him, though."

Loki nodded to himself, freeing his arms from her steely grasp and rubbing his wrists absently.

"I think he'll like you."


	16. Morning

In the lingering darkness of the early morning, Loki could only barely trace the angles of Sif's face: the sharp cheekbones, the arched brow bones, the lush dip above her lips, and the soft curve of her nose. He of course did so with careful gentleness, fingers almost trembling from how much effort it took not to wake her or put too much pressure in his touch.

The silky, heated skin beneath his fingertips, oddly smooth after years of bruises and cuts, felt amazingly familiar, and he smiled as she stirred in the midst of slumber, the sheets tossed from her body so that the crisp air could cool her. Slowly, he reached over to wrap a few strands of her dark hair about his finger, remembering exactly how her hair had once looked in all of its golden glory.

The memory both dampened and lifted his spirits; surely, Sif had not forgiven him for it, but she was learning to overlook his flaws, just as he was learning to overlook hers.

And in the end, all they would ever amount to would be locked away in the depths of memory, trapped within storybook pages crinkling with age at the edges, lurking beneath ink splashed upon paper. He wrapped his arms around her waist and curled his body protectively behind hers, feeling the notches of her spin against his chest and abdomen.

They'd be history, he knew.


	17. Differences

Loki wondered if it'd ever been clear to any other Asgardians that he was a Frost Giant. He wondered, and often thought that they probably hadn't suspected such an outlier in their midst, if it had been so obvious that even Odin and Frigga had flinched at every display of his outrageous differences.

These mysteries haunted him in the dark hours of night and trailed idly after him in the sunlight of the day, and Loki had no respite from them.

It was all a very infuriating, awful thing, and he could barely stand it, especially when his distorted reflection (fractured pieces of the mirror, leftover from the one night that he'd lost his temper and driven his fist into its shining surface) lied to him still, showing him the dark indigo sin of his past, bloodied eyes and tear-stained face. It displayed to him the worst creature of his nightmares, the hideous beast he could not escape, rather than the face everyone else had seen for years and years (the face everyone had looked upon and dismissed, the face everyone had disdained, the face everyone had labeled_ different_).

When those thoughts, poisonous and slithering, sank their deadly fangs into him, he smiled, wishing he could see their faces _now_, as they looked upon him _now_, as they saw the truth behind Odin's horrible lie, just as Loki saw it in the broken mirror.

Deep down, though, he knew what they'd act like, what their expressions would be, what they'd say. It would be the same as what Loki himself acted like (repulsed), exactly the same as his own expression (disgusted). Tired of thinking about it all, and so very tired of staring at himself in the mirror, Loki shook his head at his reflection, grimacing as the eyes caught his attention once more.

His blood, traitorous even as it flowed through his veins, boiled with rage, and he drove his fist in the remaining shards, hearing the satisfying tinkle of glass breaking and clattering to the floor.

It was clear to him now, just as it must have been to others, how vastly different he was, and he hated every second of such an aching revelation.


	18. Admiration

Bucky woke early enough to watch the sun rise and splash vivid, pink and orange colors across the sky, pouring a purple glow onto the clouds hanging, fluffy and suspended, high in the air. He ran a slow hand through his mess of dark hair, remembering the exact way Steve had done it the night before, and let out a quiet, soothing sigh as he glanced down at the slumbering form beside him, all sharp bones and skin, glinting strands of his blond hair basking in the dim sunlight just starting to peek through the sheer window curtains.

Splayed out on his stomach, Steve looked immensely peaceful, and Bucky was glad to see him appearing, for once, healthy-or as healthy as he _could_ appear. The jutting angles of his shoulder blades were obvious as Bucky lightly ran a finger over the edge of one where the cover refused to hide them from view, and he smiled as the man stirred in his fitful sleep, his hands tucked safely under the downy pillows beneath his small head.

Bucky threw his oceanic gaze upward to catch the first glimpse of the sun and smiled that lazy, slow smile Steve had so greatly adored in all their years together. He traced the shy, seeking rays along their path, watching as they slithered over Steve's pale skin and lit it with a golden haze.

He ran his fingertips over the warming spot there, gently moving his touch across the sun-soaked expanse, his heart fluttering within the tight confines of his chest.


	19. Memory

On a rather uneventful morning during the biting chill of winter, Steve found himself in true danger of earning a broken bone after Bucky threw a punch (with his metal arm, no less) as part of their training session, so that Steve could test his reflexes just as Bucky tested his strength; needless to say, Bucky might have hit him a bit too hard, and the force of it sent Steve back at least ten feet, shoes glancing over the mats below before he finally landed without an ounce of grace flat on his back.

He scrambled to his feet, ready to reach up and parry another blow just as he might have done had it been two years ago, if Bucky wasn't really Bucky and was trying with all his might and effort to kill Steve (_you're my mission)_. He didn't, though, and stayed his hand, glancing up through the pain coursing through him to see Bucky, his familiar arm stretched out so that he could help him up, his dark hair cut short, his smile triumphant. Steve smiled, wincing as he took the offered help, and let Bucky pull him to his feet.

"Too much?" Bucky asked quietly, and Steve let out a hearty laugh, nodding as he clapped Bucky on the shoulder, eliciting a reluctant, odd kind of smile he'd only ever witnessed from this new person, this changed assassin that was once, and could again be, his best friend.

Ever since they'd reunited, Bucky had been subdued, withdrawn, as if emotion was foreign to him. It was a genuine pleasure to see him smiling now, even if it was a hesitant one. Steve, after wiping the sweat from his brow, ran a hand through his hair and threw a brief glance out the nearby window to see fat flakes of snow sprinkling from the sky, blue eyes tracing the movement. He thought of winters long-gone, years past, when Bucky would come to his house, carrying a bucket overflowing with those tiny toy soldiers they'd loved so much.

They'd curl up by the fire atop large, cozy rugs and play battle until Steve's mother called them for dinner, and they'd rush headlong into the kitchen with their bright, young faces and hastily stuff themselves with whatever they could get their hands on so that they could return to their game as soon as possible. He could remember how they'd sit, afterward, listening intently to the crackling of the warm fire, watching how the orange light flickered over the windowpane and painted the snow outside crimson.

Steve, snapping out of his reverie, turned to see Bucky staring longingly at the blanket of snow covering the ground, a wistful gleam in his blue eyes, and in that moment, Steve thought that there was something different, that this wasn't a mere training session between two relative strangers, that it was really Bucky who was before him, and the winter soldier turned to stare at him for a split second before aiming his attention back at the window.

"You're a punk," he laughed out, and Steve was so taken aback that he didn't give a response, and instead stared at Bucky with a wide grin.

"Jerk."

And in that instant, all was right.


	20. Activity

Bucky, unsurprisingly, had scars, some even and straight-evidence of a clean slice or stab-and others jagged and rough. Natasha found that she liked the jagged ones much better, enjoyed running her fingertips over them just to see how he'd react, his eyes closed as if he were unable to see her so close to him, her flesh against his after so long without any human contact, as if he were unable to accept that she might fancy him in such a way.

The raised, bumpy skin felt beneath her touch was warm, and she smiled to herself as she gazed up from one of the lines on his abdomen to stare into his blue eyes, glinting like clear ocean water beneath hot rays of sunlight. Slowly, she drew her hand up to run her pale fingers through his tangled mess of hair, glad for once that he'd cut it short, dipping her face down to capture his lips with hers as he slid his arms around her waist and pulled her to the side so that he was on top of her, resting on his forearms and gazing down at her with thinly-veiled lust.

Her hair, flaming strands pooled about her head and against the cotton pillowcase, felt silken as he idly ran his fingers through it, and in return Natasha lazily drew circles around a healed knife wound at his shoulder. He shivered just the slightest and shot a brief glance at the long scar slithering over her abdomen, just above her navel, and she laughed, a deep, rumbling noise that started in her throat.

Bucky smirked at the sound and flattened his palm against her stomach to run it over the scar. The unspoken similarities between them had just gone up by one, it seemed, and he felt immensely satisfied by the thought as he chuckled, ducking down low to pull her into yet another searing kiss, and she slipped her tongue inside his mouth playfully, eliciting a small moan from the former soldier, who ran his metal hand down her thigh, icy fingers sliding over smooth, heated, milky skin, and she sighed into his mouth, wrapping her legs around his tapered waist to hook her ankles on his defined hip bones.

It was Bucky's turn to sigh, and he kissed her again with added fervor as she bucked her hips-once, twice, three times. He laughed against her warm mouth, and in his exploration of her legs he found another scar, smaller, but no less roughened, and he sent her the most wicked grin she'd ever seen in all of her life as he moved low to trace its odd curves with his lips, hot, moist puffs of breath felt against the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, and she gave him a soft smile as she tilted her head back.

He reached up to unclasp the fastenings of her bra in one swift motion with his metal hand, and with the other he hooked his fingers beneath the waist of her underwear to tug them down, and she laughed as he moved over her. She fisted the dark strands of his tousled hair in her palm and her eyes fluttered closed as she craned her neck so that he could trail wet kisses down its side, savoring how deliciously pale and soft her skin felt beneath his mouth.


	21. Melting

Ever since he'd met the young and bright Sif, Loki had always regarded her as tempered, a steady flame, burning up everything around it just slowly enough that notice was only taken when it was too late. For most of the years after, he'd stayed true to that belief, known that Sif was made stronger by whatever she experienced, known that she was the epitome of strength itself. She was to be both admired and envied.

Later, when Loki found himself in the hormonal, stressful throes of adolescence, he realized how wrong he'd been, on a chilly day in the middle of the coldest winter they'd ever had, snow blanketing the ground in thick, fluffy mounds of white. A green scarf wrapped snugly about her pale, ivory-skinned neck (compliments of one mischievous teenager), Sif had been shivering uncontrollably as they took a casual stroll through the nearly abandoned square, the only people out and about in Asgard's roughest winter.

Loki, wearing only his usual leather, had felt completely comfortable in the frigid air, and Sif had eyed him warily every now and then, as if he might turn blue and keel over at any second, and he'd watched as the falling snow dotted the fur of her cloak and made her ebony hair look darker than midnight. Squinting against the blinding light of the illuminated snowfall, he'd brushed a flake from her flushed cheeks and her light gaze had widened noticeably.

There had been flecks of snow on his own face, covering his lips, and yet they hadn't melted against his skin, and he'd smirked, about to wipe them away with the back of his hand. Sif, though, with all of her grace and speed, had leaned up to meet his lips with her own and the heat of her kiss, searing and nearly unbearable, had melted the snow instantly.

When at last she'd pulled away, albeit reluctantly, he'd still had his eyes open, pupils blown large as he stared, and in that soft gaze of hers was a steel he'd never noticed before. He'd been wrong, Loki had realized.

Sif was not a constant, destructive force; she was a wild, untamed thing, and it shone so very vividly in both her sharp eyes and wicked smile.


	22. Lost

"I personally prefer green, since it highlights your hair so well, but red suits you, too," Loki offered nonchalantly as he picked at a speck of dirt beneath his nails, features pulled into a slight scowl as he only managed to drive it deeper into the quick. Sif, throwing her two dresses down in genuine anger, curled her hands into trembling fists and let out a shaky sigh.

"Leave me alone," she spat out bitterly, and he whistled, long and low, as he looked up at her, the indecision clear on her face. Her eyes darted from the emerald dress splayed out on the covers to the crimson, glittering one beside it, both made of the finest silk money could buy, and she shook her head, her dark locks, swept into a classy bun at the base of her skull with curling tresses hanging on either side of her face, shivered from the movement.

Ripples of candlelight reflected against the smooth shine of the strands, and Loki distracted himself by watching it, a tender, odd smile coming to his lips. Sif ran her slender fingers over the familiar material of the green attire, closing her eyes against the wave of memories surfacing at the mere contact. Loki tilted his head, captivated.

"Then again, Thor _does _enjoy red, and if you're going to be courting His Royal Highness, you might want to stick to his favorite color," he continued, and the edge to his voice, the familiar attitude, was lost to the tinge of sorrow Sif detected, and her eyes flew open to meet his own, sad and longing and remorseful, "Jane never did wear the color; at least it won't remind him of the deceased mortal."

She gazed at him for what felt like hours, tears welling in her eyes, and gently felt the soft, foreign texture of the blood-red gown, biting her bottom lip absently. Loki broke eye contact, returning his attention to his irritated fingernail, and Sif wiped away the droplet of water that had trailed an icy line down her cheek.

"Go away, Loki," she murmured hoarsely, and he gave her a hurt look before nodding in reluctant assent, dissipating from the air as if he'd never been there at all, and Sif, with her lonely, melancholic, ancient soul, knew that he really hadn't.

After all, the dead could not converse with the living.


	23. Confident

Bucky had only ever had one true friend, and he'd valued that relationship above all else, knowing that it had been his anchor, a steady, reliable thing to turn to. Steve, on the other hand, had considered that friendship a godsend, salvation in times of great need, a true and merciful miracle.

Throughout all the years after their slow, lazy childhood together, the bond only strengthened, and in the rush of emotion that Steve felt, the coming darkness descending upon them as Bucky's grip on the bar slipped, it all came to him, memories and moments captured within his mind, flashing before his eyes as he watched his best friend plummet into nothingness, helpless to save him, helpless to pull him from the depths as Bucky had done for him time and time again. I

n the silence, the fear and sorrow and desperation, of all the seconds after that painful, awful second, Steve lived half a life, and closed his eyes to bask in the eerie quiet just before the breaking, screeching, dying sound of the plane's crash into the ice.

And in Steve's new life, he'd been even lonelier than he'd felt after Bucky's death, going through the motions and taking his place as a leader and finding, perhaps, a few new friends along the way.

Then, there was Bucky, tossed carelessly into his life like some ironic slap in the face, and Steve was ten years old again, attempting relentlessly to beckon his best friend from his perch atop a rather high tree branch (Steve couldn't climb that high. Bucky wasn't about to move from his spot. It was cold down there in the throes of winter, so cold that Steve wanted to go inside, but not without Bucky).

He was ten years old and praying that Bucky would return to him, but Bucky wasn't himself; he was distant, empty, the shadowy ghost of what he'd once been, but Steve wouldn't give up.

Suddenly, but with certainty, he spotted the familiar, bright glimmer in those blue eyes, dots of light peeking past the darkness, and _knew_.

Bucky wasn't gone entirely, and Steve was absolutely sure that he could get him to remember, that he could lure him back, that his long-time friend could be returned to the world he'd left behind so many years ago.


	24. Trials

The girls of Avengers Tower, though constantly stressed to their utmost point, often did things together, untied by either their own endangerment or that of their significant others and teammates. It was a very helpful thing, mostly, but the men didn't enjoy the clique so much when they were in the middle of an argument, or when suspicion fell upon them regarding who ate the last poptart.

Such situations were made all the more difficult when it was the women against the men, and today had been no different, when Natasha, shrugging on a dark sweater to stave off the chill of the fresh winter, had spotted a small, unsuspecting hole in the wall of her bedroom. Upon further inspection, they'd all decided that it must have been a peephole, and at the guys' denial, and incredulity at such an idea, they'd all forgotten about it and felt much better when Tony had patched up the hole, rolling his eyes.

"Really, Nat," Clint had told her, frowning and shaking his head as she'd looked to him teasingly.

"I bet you did it," she'd retorted, kidding.


	25. Practice

"I am _not_ your dart board," Bucky ground out, annoyed, and stiffened as another knife went soaring past his ear to bury itself in the wall beside him. Natasha, another throwing dagger already positioned in her hand, shook her head with a small smile.

"You don't throw _knives _at dart boards, James," she murmured amusedly, and sent another knife his way. He didn't even flinch when it landed just below the junction between his legs, and she let loose a hearty laugh at the incredulous expression dawning on his face.

"That was rude," he called out, and she sauntered over to him, eyes bright and mischievous as she stopped just inches from his face, leaning up on her tip toes to meet his lips.

"You're _such_ a dart board," she breathed against his mouth, and his laughter, deep and contagious, sent pleasant shivers to her very core.


	26. Passwords

"I bet it's some dumb thing like _America_ or something," Tony offered disapprovingly as Natasha's fingers flew over the keyboard in a hasty attempt to determine Steve's computer password, "or _football_. Try it."

Frowning as she tried both the passwords only to have her access, once again, denied, the redhead sent her teammate a withering stare.

"Why do I even listen to you?" She turned her attention back to the screen, a look of deep concentration on her face as she put herself in Steve's shoes, thinking how he might see the world, how he might think.

With his legs lazily thrown over the back of the nearby couch, Clint munched on potato chips, immensely relaxed as he rested his head against the arm, holding up a crumb-covered hand in his friends' general direction.

"Try _Falcon_," he suggested through his mouthful of chips, and she rolled her eyes at him, shaking her head even though he couldn't see the response, and at the silence he just shrugged to himself and went back to eating.

Natasha typed in _Bucky_, _supersoldier, 1941serum_, and _thelivinglegend_, but came up empty yet again, sighing in reluctant defeat. Tony, who'd been crossing and uncrossing his arms impatiently and sidling over to Clint every now and then in order to steal a few chips, dramatically let out a loud breath and leaned over to type _avengersrule_ into the password space, and smirked triumphantly as the desktop screen appeared.

Natasha, amused, looked up at him with a small smile, and he laughed.

"I'm not the only one that shares the opinion, ok?"


	27. Caught

She liked to imagine that she could see his eyes in the darkness, that she could spot the familiar blue twinkle in the shadows of night. It was a fine sentiment, really, and one she could hardly afford; her life didn't accommodate such things. But Bucky was an exception, really. Hadn't he always been? The thought that blossomed in her mind whenever the word_ love_ was mentioned, the face that surfaced in her mental picture book of images and memories whenever she thought of happiness and all that it entailed.

So, it came as no surprise that she succumbed so easily to him, each and every time, all the while telling herself that it would be the last. It was a very risky and potentially costly lifestyle, she had to admit, but so immensely rewarding.

Natasha smiled as she watched him, bathed in early sunlight, sleep soundly beneath the covers, breathing so slowly, rhythmically, that she could count the pauses in between. It was the kind of peaceful, morning-after scene that you might find in perfect, fairytale-life movies, but she didn't have a single problem with that.

Suddenly, a knock came at the door, and her eyes widened as the knob turned. There was only one person that could be knocking on Bucky's door so early, and Natasha wasn't exactly keen on him seeing them both in bed.

The door swung open and Steve's friendly face appeared, bright eyes rounding in shock at what he saw, and Natasha, one regrettably thin sheet wrapped around her body, shuffled over to him as his cheeks reddened noticeably. He averted his gaze as she slid past him and out the door, giving him a teasing salute before turning to disappear down the hallway, and Steve turned back to see Bucky, still fast asleep in his nest of covers.


	28. Polite

He had once likened the exact color of her irises to a stormy sky, and upon uttering such sentiments she'd slapped him gently on the arm, as if the words could be offensive to her. He'd scoffed, and had spitefully kept any and all compliments to himself, and they'd gone through their days in a steady, warm kind of silence. His willpower, though strong, quivered now, for her eyes were even brighter than they'd been before, her smile even wider and her long locks even silkier.

He ached to comment on them, to watch his words unfurl within her mind, but he stayed his tongue and merely traced her movements as she ran a thin comb through the ebony strands falling past her shoulders. He recalled the day's events, a day which had, for the most part, been completely uneventful, save for the glorious prank he'd pulled on Thor and his mother.

"To be fair, mother started it with questioning the amount of effort I was putting into my pranks," he reminded her casually, and Sif threw her head back to laugh, her lips curled in the perfect way he'd admired for so long, her neck craned at just the right angle that her curtain of hair held the light beautifully, and he smiled at her, unable to resist letting a few kind words slip past. "

I do love your laugh," he murmured sweetly, and she turned her head to stare warmly at him. Perhaps, he thought, Sif wasn't entirely against _all_ compliments.


	29. Desperation

He'd heard the shot, had heard the loud echo and the subsequential silence, and maybe in between the two there might have been a barely audible, surprised gasp, but he'd been mostly ignorant to it. Only when he'd turned to check that Betty was still at his side had he seen it.

A blossoming splotch of bright crimson was spreading at the front of her shirt, the soaked cotton material of her pale violet button-down stuck to the skin of her chest as she stumbled back. She glanced up at him, unblinking and wide-eyed, her rosy lips fallen open in equal parts shock and pain, and the wind rolled across the busy field they were standing in, tossing the dark strands of her hair about her face, cool and comforting.

Her legs gave away beneath her and he rushed to catch her, ignoring the heavy weight of her in his arms, ignoring the frantic pounding of his heart as he pressed his hand against the wound in a small effort to quell the blood, trying to think.

How could he stop this?

A small, timid idea came to him, but Betty's lips trembled just as her touch on his arm, light and gentle as it had always been, wavered. There were unshed tears lingering in her eyes as she gazed up at him, and a single droplet escaped to roll slowly down her pale cheek. Her body relaxed within his hold before his mind could even register what had happened, and he was left staring down at her with a burning in his own eyes, and his vision blurred before him, her still, staring form swimming in and out of focus as the bullets continued to rain down around them.

Bruce swore he could still feel her pulse fluttering beneath his fingertips, but he knew that it was only his desperate desire for it to do so that kept the thought alive.


	30. Losses

Her red curls were made darker by the overhead clouds, swollen and grey with rain, and they made it look as if there was blood running down her shoulders, aged and browning, as she stood in the middle of the neglected road, watching the headlights disappear from view ahead of her.

The tears streaming down her small cheeks mixed in with the bitterly cold rain and she swallowed the chilled, trembling gasps threatening to pour from her lips.

She had to be strong; it was the only way.

It was hard, though, when you're only friend was staring at you from the back windshield as they were taken away, and it was harder, still, to stand so quietly and perfectly and patiently while waiting for someone else to come and take you away, too.

It was too hard, really, and she hung her head, biting her bottom lip to both stop its shivering and prevent herself from crying out. Her eyes, grey in the dreary darkness around her, were bright and reddened with tears, and her shoulders shook from the effort of staying quiet.

She heard a car pull up, suddenly, beside her, caught the sound of the pounding rain against the hood, and steeled herself, schooling her features and hoping that whoever it was would mistake the salty water staining her cheeks for rain droplets.

A hand fell heavily onto her small shoulder, and she raised her head, staring into the distance where she'd once caught the glimpse of a frowning, grieving face.


	31. Doctoring

Steve had been sporting a black eye and cut lip for over three hours now, certain that with each passing second he could feel the throbbing of his pulse within the wound with higher intensity, and the small gash across the top of his cheekbone stubbornly refused to be ignored. After a long while spent debating whether or not he should slink home and nurse his painful wounds, the fleeting thought that he'd rather not spend the day alone flitted through his mind, and he squared his shoulders as he walked proudly, yet injured, down the familiar path cut through the heart of the city that would eventually lead him to Bucky's apartment.

All around him, girls clad in multi-colored dresses threw him odd looks, their hair pinned up in elegant buns as the summer breeze lifted their skirts higher than they might have wanted. He respectfully averted his gaze and hurried on, letting his feet guide him to the hall with aging floor panels and dim lighting, directly to Bucky's door at the end of it. He raised his arm, albeit reluctantly, and rapped upon the thin door with his bony knuckles, part of him hesitant to let Bucky know he'd been bested again and the other part eager to bask in his company.

It was always like this, really.

The door swung open only seconds after he'd knocked, and Bucky's friendly face appeared, blue eyes bright in the half darkness and features pinched ever the slightest into an expression of concern; he was always expecting Steve to show up with worse injuries than he usually sustained, knowing that someday it would happen, knowing he'd be unable to prevent it. Steve offered a lax, almost sheepish smile, and Bucky ushered him in hastily. "

You know it'll need stitches, right?" he asked plainly as he closed the door gently behind him, and Steve shrugged, taking a quick survey of the room around him to see if Bucky had made any decoration changes, pleasantly surprised to find a recent photo of them at a diner framed and placed carefully upon the coffee table.

"Good thing you know how to do it, then," Steve returned casually, slivers of evening light sneaking past the almost-transparent window curtains to bathe his blonde strands as he turned to gaze at the man he'd known for nearly all his life. Bucky smirked and vanished down a nearby hall to get his supplies as Steve thought of how familiar he seemed, how easily he could recall the texture of his dark hair or the heat of his skin, how simple it was to remember the exact shade of those eyes-so very like oceans, sometimes.

Bucky returned minutes later with a handful of sutures, a glinting hemostat, hydrogen peroxide, and cotton balls, frowning in disapproval as he approached Steve and set them aside to examine the cuts on Steve's face. He brushed the pad of his thumb over the darkening skin around Steve's right eye, ignoring (and secretly enjoying) how slightly Steve shivered beneath his touch, and he smiled down at him, noticing how his thin shoulders lowered in a kind of defeat at knowing that Bucky was aware of the fact that he'd lost another fight.

The purpling, sensitive flesh felt excessively warm, and Bucky pulled his arm away, much to Steve's inward protest, and retreated to the same hall he'd went down only to return with a small bag of ice that he quickly shoved into Steve's small, slender hands. He pressed it to his eye and watched with his other one as Bucky carefully cleaned the cut on his mouth and cheek, biting his bottom lip absently as he concentrated.

"You've really got to stop doing this, pal," Bucky murmured, more to himself than anything, and Steve grinned up at him, a gesture of equal parts gratitude and mockery, shrugging.

"Why would I, when you'll always be here to make it better?"

He certainly didn't miss the wide, softening glance Bucky threw his way, and decided to pretend that the fluttering in his chest was just another usual, abnormal beat of his weak heart.


	32. Driving

Scott, with his adolescent, gangly limbs, looked so very odd in the driver's seat that his father had to stifle his ill-timed laughter and focus on staring straight ahead. Still unaccustomed to the brakes, Scott was constantly pushing too hard on the brake pad, making the car come to awkward, abrupt stops that sent both people flying a bit forward in their seats. It was immensely irritating, but judging by the way Scott's Adam's apple bobbed sporadically, nervously, his father let it slide and held his tongue, wishing he could ease his son's mind.

As Scott was apprehensively preparing to drive through an intersection, the emerald light turned yellow and he slammed his foot down on the brakes as they both went lurching into the dashboard, and the driver behind them leaned irritatingly on their horn.

Scott turned to glance worriedly at his father, frowning.

"Sorry," he sputtered, and the terrified expression on his face was enough to silence the man in the passenger seat, even if he had just been about to tell his son that he hadn't had to stop, since he'd been so close to passing through anyway.


	33. Similar

She was out of control; he knew that now. Jean wasn't _Jean,_ and her eyes weren't really _her eyes_. Something else had taken hold of her, something that had lurked beneath the surface for years, waiting to strike.

_Jean_ was dead_; Phoenix_ was alive, and Scott intended to kill her.

_Now_, he thought, his finger trembling as he tightened his hold on the gun, the trigger held back and the barrel pressed against the pale skin of her forehead, just above eyes that had once been a deep, soothing brown (now overtaken by swirling shadows as the angles of her face became sharper, more malicious).

He took a quiet breath, tears dripping down his face as he looked at her, her fiery hair grown past her shoulders and whirling about her face amidst the heavy wind she was creating.

_It's now or never. _

But Scott couldn't do it, couldn't just murder the woman he'd loved for so long, the one person he'd shared everything with, the girl with the bright eyes he'd planned to spend his life beside. To lose her, to eliminate the even slim chance that Jean could be returned to them, would be his most unforgivable sin.

He couldn't do it, and that hesitation was all she needed. The corners of her blood-red lips curled up just the slightest, and he closed his eyes, hoping the end would be swift, hoping that whatever might remain of the Jean he knew was still caught in there somewhere, merciful and just and murmuring gently in his head.


	34. Endings

Bruce's hand trembled as he clutched steadfast to the gun, pressing it to his forehead as tears flowed down his face, leaving cold, wet trails on his reddened skin. He'd had enough. It was unbearable, to be a monster. It was horrible, to live in such a constant state of fear and anxiety, and he was done.

The rain outside beat hard against the roof of the abandoned building he'd sought refuge in, and it drowned out the heavy sounds of his breathing as he steeled his nerves.

_Time to end it._

He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, and pulled the trigger.

There was a loud, echoing roar, and a violent sound, akin to that of tearing.


	35. Realization

It was an instinct, really, to drive the blade into the man's chest, a reflex born after long periods of relentless training and hard-earned survival skills left over from a war he couldn't remember. It was natural, then, to swiftly pull the knife back out, warm blood spurting over his hand as he did so, staining the human flesh as his metal hand remained still at his side.

The one before him, blond hair dirtied and messy from their earlier scuffle, glanced up to stare with bright eyes, his mouth agape with pain and perhaps genuine surprise. He was the mission, the unpredictable variable, the man with the hurt voice and sad eyes that looked at the Winter Soldier as if he might be trying to find something he'd lost. He was the one that Winter thought he might have known, once upon a time.

A face flashed behind his eyelids, thin and sallow but smiling just as brightly as he could, his eyes like oceans and his light hair slicked back in the popular style. The rain beat hard against his frail shoulders, covered only by his favorite tan jacket, and dripped down his face enough to make him look as if he were crying.

The image vanished just as the man reached out with a trembling hand to touch the blood that covered Winter's own, a memory trapped in his fingertips just as it was trapped in their heads, and he stumbled for a moment, his breath caught, before collapsing upon the pavement below, the ghost of his touch still lingering on Winter's hand, and as he gazed down at the fallen soldier, eyes closed as a vivid patch of crimson spread onto his shirt, he knew.

_Steve_, came a sudden thought.

_Steve, his name is Steve, and I'm with him…_

Winter lowered himself onto his knees and pressed his metal hand to the wound, hoping that it might help in some way, that he might be able to salvage this, that he might be able to atone for what had suddenly become his greatest sin.

_…'till the end of the line._


	36. Comradery

"You know," Sam murmured, lifting a pan filled with creamy cake batter off of the table and turning toward the heated oven, "if you want to surprise Steve with this cake, that's great and all, but the second he walks in here, he'll smell it baking." He turned to give Bucky-who was quietly attempting to scrape every last drop of extra batter out of the large bowl they'd mixed the ingredients in with a rather large spoon that was far to wide for his mouth, a fact that didn't at all deter him-a doubtful glance, and the former assassin just shrugged and dipped the spoon into his mouth with his metal hand, smiling at the delicious taste as Sam carefully slid the pan into the warming oven, rolling his eyes.

"You'd think you would have had cake batter before now," he mused, and wiped his finger free of a stray droplet of vanilla batter before going over to lean against the counter as Bucky finished his treat.

"I think Steve will like it, the cake and the fact that someone remembered his birthday," he said plainly, a tinge of sadness in his voice, and Sam cleared his throat.

"Or maybe that someone is _around_ to remember his birthday?" Sam asked casually, and Bucky, gazing down into his empty bowl, nodded to himself, expression carefully blank.

"He's been through a lot; this better be the best birthday he's ever had."

That, really, was something they could both agree on.


	37. Deception

His hands, unusually cool against her skin, were calloused in her hold, but she was so used to the roughness that it hardly bothered her, after so many years of feeling them and pressing each finger to her lips as he slept nearby. Thor was, simply, familiar, and it was a nice thing to be, after all. His blue eyes, so very bright and deep like the ocean they'd swam in as children, were only for her, and Sif imagined that he was watching her every movement, every twitch of her lips and every sparkle renewed in her gaze.

Standing before the masses had seemed quite intimidating at first, the thought of being so exposed an intensely foreign and unwelcome concept in Sif's battle-trained mind, but once it was already happening, she thought that it wasn't so bad. Odin, standing before them with such a grand look of approval that it nearly made her blush, had just made their marriage official when Sif thought she saw Thor's eyes change colors.

Staring at him with concern for her own vision and Thor's well being, she squinted and watched as the striking blue melted into a dark forest green, a color so filled with shadows that the light was constantly shying away from it. Sif knew those eyes almost as well as she knew her fiancee's, and she felt the hands wrapped around her own morph into thin, slender ones with pale skin as cold as ice. She pulled herself from his grip with haste and stumbled away just as the broad shoulders grew smaller and the sharp angles began to replace the softly rounded ones of Thor's face. His blond locks were muddied with black, inky strands and everyone around them gasped and backed away, seeking some kind of safety.

_Loki._

His smile was purely wicked, and as Sif glanced down, panicked, at the ring secured about her finger, tears sprang unbidden to her eyes.


	38. Chances

Clint never missed, and he sure as hell never botched missions. He never hesitated, and he definitely never walked away from a job left unfinished.

Honestly, though, there was a first time for everything-and, to be fair, he didn't run into drop-dead gorgeous spies every day, either.

After quickly realizing he'd be woefully unable to take her out from a long distance, due to her seemingly all-knowing nature and infuriating habit of dodging here and there so that no bullet could be trained on her, Clint decided that he needed to be up close and personal, and it wasn't exactly hard, since she apparently didn't see rather handsome looking citizens in her part of town every day (she about told him as much).

The gun was out and pressed directly to her forehead before she could do anything, and her eyes, round and too bright in the shadows of the old warehouse, were filled with what he suspected was genuine surprise and...fear. He saw it there, lurking dangerously, traitorously, and his finger relaxed from the trigger of its own accord. The crimson curls of her hair had tumbled from their bun and framed her pale face, and in the darkness she looked like a fallen angel, in need of saving and desperately longing to save.

He could do it. He could pull the trigger and wipe the spattered blood from his face and go on with his day, back to S.H.I.E.L.D. and back to normalcy.

Or he could take the chance and save this girl with the young eyes and hardened features, the woman with the sharp looks and yearning soul, and take the chance and hope that she wouldn't slit his throat with the knife no doubt kept hidden at her thigh.

He lowered his gun, holstered it, and glanced at her, holding out a welcoming hand. Her expression changed into the most disbelieving thing he'd ever seen, but her eyes-this Clint would never forget-softened as she placed her hand in his and let him pull her to salvation.


	39. Sacrifice

Peggy's wizened skin was soft against his palms as she held steadfast to his hands, cocooned safely and lovingly in his strong embrace as he knelt on the ground at where she'd collapsed.

The silvery curls of her hair, nestled against his arm as he moved it to prop her head up higher, reminded him of all that he'd lost, and the blood coating the front of her shirt, fresh and warm on his skin as it poured from the gunshot wound, reminded him of all that he was losing.

He hadn't known there was a sniper aiming at him, hadn't seen it coming, but Peggy, with her aged sight and fragile heart, must have. She must have seen it.

And so, she was shaking, trembling beneath his touch as he gently stroked her cheek, grimacing as he accidentally wiped a bit of stark red blood on her paling skin. Hot, burning tears dripped from his eyes and made warm trails down his cheeks as he gazed down at her, so different from how she'd been in that picture clipped inside his compass.

She offered him a tender, soft smile, one that spoke volumes of how dearly she'd missed him, one that told of how much she loved him (even still, even after so long and so many memories made without him), one that was falling just as she squeezed his fingers with a strength he didn't know she still possessed.

Then, Peggy's eyelids fell shut and her chest stilled, and Steve hung his head.


	40. Mistakes

Harry had already collapsed upon the concrete before Peter realized what he'd done; it had been necessary, he'd thought, exacting revenge and saving lives at the same time. The bitter memory of Gwen's plummeting body flashed in his mind as he looked at the man he'd once considered his friend, with his blond strands fallen from their usually slicked-back position, his rumpled suit splashed with drops of blood from their earlier fight.

The blue of his eyes, a color Peter could remember being intensely vivid in their youth, was dimmed significantly, and he guessed it was from the transformation Harry'd undergone months ago; the image of Harry's green-gold skin and demented expression still haunted him. He glanced at his hand, still trembling from the effort it had taken to drive the knife directly into Harry's chest, and noticed that the blood, bright red and glinting in the afternoon daylight, was dripping down onto his fingers, small rivers of betrayal.

When he at last returned his attention to his former friend, he realized that Harry was still, glassy-eyed and staring up at the sky, before him, and only then did Peter allow himself to fall at his side. He could hear a young boy's laughter ringing in his ears, and denied the memory further entrance into his mind.


	41. Joking

Steve usually made fun of his unfortunate encounters with the stronger, healthier, more aggressive people that bullied him, and it always irked Bucky to no end. He'd point out the exact spot where he was once beaten senseless as they passed it driving through town, or excitedly tug Bucky out of a building to show him the stain still left over from his major nosebleed after being hit in the face (as if happy he had something to talk about, even if it was negative, and happy to say that he'd fought back, that he was brave and proud of it).

Bucky hated that his friend was always getting kicked around, but could often never be there to help when it happened, and so he didn't think it was funny-at all. But when Steve, his small shoulders looking so ridiculously frail in Bucky's large, roomy car as he sat comfortably in the passenger seat, pointed out another place he'd fought at, he smiled and turned to look at Bucky with very bright, very proud eyes.

"I even got a trash can lid and everything, and it hurt his hand when he punched it."

He laughed to himself, and although Bucky longed to frown and warn Steve against such behavior, he forced a grin and laughed along with him.


	42. Mysteries

Winter didn't know how long he laid there, watching his mission plummet into the water and fall deeper and deeper, down and down, until he decided to dive in after him, his arm throbbing as he forced himself to swim faster and pull the man from his certain death.

He almost seemed familiar, more than ever, with his hair floating all around him and his eyes closed in what looked like a peaceful moment.

_He was young and holding his breath beneath the water, lids fallen shut in concentration and his expression slack, and Bucky thought for a moment that he was dead, his pale hair floating around his head and looking like a discolored halo. Bucky's mother called from the edge of the pool, and he heard her distorted voice from beneath the surface and pulled Steve up with him, both of them laughing as they climbed out. _

It took a lot of his strength to drag him up the bank and deposit him on the muddy soil, ignoring the flashes and images that so frequently took over his mind, and checked to make sure his chest was moving.

It was perhaps even harder than anything else, upon hindsight, to walk away.


	43. Observations

The slivers of moonlight cascading from the nearby windows danced across her pale features and slithered over the bright strands of her hair. Bucky often thought that if he touched the soft, silky curls, he might just burn himself for how closely they resembled actual flames, resting against half of his pillow (she never did keep herself on her side of the bed).

Gingerly, he traced the moonbeams as they bathed her head and neck, careful not to wake her (she was terribly ticklish just across her nose and collarbone, and he'd found it so peculiar upon discovery that he'd pinned her to the bed and spent five minutes tickling her with his metal hand-she'd gotten her revenge the next morning). Her chest rose slowly, soft, deep breathing sounds emanating from her, and the corners of his lips quirked up as he watched her, arms left bare by the sleeveless top she often wore to bed, the milky skin of her shoulders exposed so that he could move to draw lazy circles there with his fingertips.

Natasha stirred, and he froze, propping himself up slowly with his metal arm and holding his breath, and relaxed when she didn't move again. He went back to ghosting his fingers over her heated flesh, wishing he could lean down and press his lips to hers, but knowing it would both pull her from whatever dream she was having and earn him hours of paranoia until she finally exacted vengeance.

So, he settled for gazing admiringly down at her, captivated by the shine of the overhead moon upon her face, content with watching her fall ever deeper into slumber.


	44. Apologizing

Loki wasn't entirely confident in his baking skills, having never before made a cake, and he certainly wasn't confident in Thor's ability to forgive him simply because of a mere dessert. He thought he'd at least try, though.

It had been an accident, truly, to drop the frozen turkey on Thor's foot, and since it was his first Thanksgiving both on Earth and as a reluctantly-welcomed, reluctantly-joined member (helper) of the team, he'd loathed the idea of messing it all up-and he'd done just that.

So, Loki was surveying the fresh cake that had been cooling in its pan upon the table, an icing gun clutched in his hand. He tilted his head and frowned, hoping that his brother liked chocolate cake.

Hours later, when Thor and the team arrived back at the tower, they were all greeted with a lone cake sitting in a container on the counter, and its iced top read:

_Sorry about your foot. -L_


	45. Fondness

It had been a long time since she'd seen him smile like that (a day came to her mind: a snowy sky above them as he toyed idly with a strand of her hair, twirling it about his fingers as they remained splayed out upon the blanketed ground, his grin just as carefree as it might have been if he were still a child).

With his dark hair slicked back in admittedly the neatest style she'd ever seen him with, the angles of his face were more pronounced and the light in his emerald eyes even brighter. Sif felt a similar smile tugging at her mouth as she approached him, and he held out his arm, a familiar and easy joke between them of how the humans often walked with one another in the older days.

She eagerly looped her arm in his and walked with him to the center of the court, aware of countless eyes on her as her silver dress trailed past her, its silken, jeweled designs glittering in the morning daylight. Her dark hair was swept up into an elegant bun that she'd insisted carry some sort of small dagger as its pin-she truly loathed feeling defenseless, and it was nice to have a weapon near, even with a powerful sorcerer such as Loki at her side to keep her safe.

His eyes fell upon the gleam of the knife's tip peeking through her hair as they made their way, and she could have sworn she saw his Adam's apple bob in a desperate attempt to stifle his laughter. He squeezed her arm lovingly, and in that moment she'd never felt more accepted.


	46. Dangerous

Contrary to Bucky's aged admonishment, Steve really didn't seek out trouble; it just had a completely irritating habit of sneaking up on him. The specific trouble sneaking up on him now was a hot, angry, red fire chasing him as he sprinted across the thinly carpeted flooring of some very recently abandoned office level on the third floor of a similarly abandoned building.

Every now and then, during his frantic pacing, a stray flame might lick out at his back eagerly, as if competing for purchase with its fellow fiery companions, and he'd ignore the burn and run faster. He wondered how the office workers ever managed to walk all over the span of the third floor when it was just a single giant room that was impossible to trek across without tiring, but the thought vanished just as another flame lashed out at him, glancing over the surface of his shield.

He unlatched his shield from its place on his back when he began to near the large windows at the very end, remembering how one of the workers had scrambled over as if she might jump from them after seeing the immense fire growing close by. He'd had a hard time evacuating the trapped workers, especially since each floor had housed an unbeatable conflagration, but he'd succeeded, and the very last worker to find safety was out of harm's way now, waiting by the roadside while the police and firefighters anticipated his arrival.

He braced himself with an iron grip on his shield, held before him, and charged at the windows, hearing the crack and shatter of the glass all around him as he was sent flying downward onto the pavement. He landed gracelessly, and slowly rolled onto his back, catching the sound of crunching glass beneath him and wincing with the pain of the fall.

He just had to stop doing that.


	47. Pride

Gwen often entertained herself by watching the little things Peter did, be it around the house or when he was out attempting not to smile as another little boy spoke fondly, as if he knew the man on personal terms, of Spider-Man. Usually, watching him calmed her, filled her with a quiet silence, but now doing so made her heart swell with happiness, for she'd never seen such a beautiful sight in all her life.

There he was, leaning against the door frame of the hospital room as if he might be deciding whether to come in or linger out in the hall, a small bundle of fuchsia blankets cradled gingerly in his arms. Tiny fingers reached out and wrapped securely about his index finger, and he smiled warmly as he gazed down at their daughter with a mix of pride and tearful joy in his eyes. His tousled hair, usually spiked ever the slightest at the front, was flattened from an entire night of sleeping in the most awkward and uncomfortable position in the bedside chair near Gwen, and there was a barely-perceptible shadow of stubble on his face.

He began to talk in soft, low murmurs to the infant in his hold, but his wife, seated atop the hospital bed with her blonde tresses tangled at her shoulders, couldn't make out what he was saying, and she squinted, smiling.

She only hoped their baby girl didn't go climbing up buildings.


	48. Discontent

Fandral often liked to joke about the women he kept company with, commenting on their habits or particularly gleeful behaviors. Loki, completely uninterested with his comrade's endeavors, always cracked a false grin at the stories and quips, knowing that if he ever wanted to keep a friend, he might as well act like one, too.

Thor, on the other hand, always let out a loud, booming chuckle, as if such jests were the most hilarious things to ever be heard, and Loki thought, only once, that he might try that sometime. Instantly, though, he dismissed the idea, knowing that such laughter might genuinely frighten the people around him, for he was the reserved, quiet type-always. Just not around his brother, but that was a different matter.

So, he grinned and laughed lowly, softly, in order to keep their friendship, and it was only years later that he realized the hypocrisy in that situation.

They never laughed at his jokes, and they were most assuredly far better than any Fandral could ever scrounge up.


	49. Accomplice

Sigyn had never been one for his games, honestly, but he'd somehow softened her heart over the years, and now she was nearly just as enthusiastic about his pranks and tricks as he himself was. Loki could recall very fond memories of his wife stifling her ill-timed laughter with her palm pressed to her mouth, eyes wide and glinting with mirth as people around them frantically scurried about in a wild panic caused by the rather abrupt and unexplained appearance of two quite unfriendly snakes at the feast table. It was a moment that never failed to make him grin.

Now, she had become both a supporter and even a planner, and this overjoyed the god of mischief to no end; she was very aware of the fact, and so strove to make him happy at every moment by mentioning his next trick and helping him perfect it. Currently, after a long day of plotting, Sigyn was sashaying across the room in that way she knew Loki was especially fond of, her feet already free of those restricting heels she so detested, which were strewn carelessly into a corner of the room beside the doorway.

She turned her head to cast a loving look behind her, gazing at him as he leaned against a wall with her pale, almost reflective eyes. The corners of her lips curled up just a fraction, and the pale skin of her cheeks darkened as she made her way to the bed and gingerly took a seat at the edge, preparing to retire for the night as she reached up and unwound her hair from its elaborate style.

As she did so, it fell down her shoulders in long, silvery strands, and Loki remembered how silky it felt every time he carded his hands through it, smiling over at her as the memory surfaced in his mind.

She gazed at him thoughtfully during his reverie and finally stretched out a beckoning hand, smirking mischievously for the first time in what felt like ages, and he quickly made his way to her, taking her hand to feel the familiar, heated flesh of her palm and leaning down to kiss her flush on the lips as she returned the gesture with equal fervor. He liked this Sigyn far better than the timid, wide-eyed girl he'd met all those years ago.


	50. Mending

It had become a thing of the past to them, all that Loki had done, a thing reluctantly but surely overlooked after all these years of repentance, a thing Tony was willing to forget if not entirely forgive-some small part of him would never forgive. He was trying, though, and that was all that mattered to Loki, especially when Tony woke to find Loki's familiar eyes shining like fresh-cut emeralds in the early morning daylight sweeping over their shared bed, or when Tony looked over his shoulder to find Loki dressed in casual, human clothes, splayed out upon the couch and staring transfixed at the television screen.

Loki accepted that Tony would never entirely let it go, but the fact that he was so welcome into the billionaire's life was more than enough, and besides, the god had his own demons to remind him of the things he'd done, nipping at his heels as he walked and burdening his shoulders as he slept.

But with Tony, he thought that they might have felt lighter, somehow, that the demons dissipated just as easily as Tony laced his fingers in Loki's own, and that made it all better.


	51. Damaged

Erik remembered the moment he discovered Charles' condition, the moment he caught wind of a professor confined to a wheelchair because he could no longer walk, and the guilt still burdened him, even after all these years, even after all those nights spent wondering how he was, even after all they'd been through.

And now, it was like seeing a ghost from a past he wanted nothing more than to forget, standing with Charles' angry, hurt face expectantly staring back at him as the plane around the rocked dangerously. Erik could never control his temper, and with Charles so furious at him, it was impossible to calm either of them down. All Erik could hear was the guilt rising up within him, the guilt shining in Charles' painfully familiar eyes, so bright and so blue and as deep as oceans, accusatory as they remained unblinking and glinting in the dim light of the plane's interior.

He was walking, and the elation at such a fact should have been enough for Erik, but it wasn't-it would never be enough. Charles gave up his powers, his true gift, so that he could save himself from the damage Erik had wrought, the chaos he'd wrought on them all, and he'd been shut away in a prison for these past years, safely away from any and all repercussions while his friends and comrades suffered the consequences.

There were tears in Charles' eyes by the time Erik realized there were similar tears dripping down his own face, warm and wet as they left cold trails in their wake.


	52. Frustration

When word of their relationship reached the curious ears of a certain Tony Stark, both Loki and Natasha knew they were doomed. The billionaire irritatingly made it his mission to ensure that each member of the team was aware of the rather scandalous situation, and when Clint finally came storming into Natasha's bedroom with his fists clenched and his eyes bright with rage, it had been nearly impossible to calm him.

She'd mentally cursed the narcissistic Avenger in every language she'd known as she'd attempted to explain to Clint why she was seeing Loki. It had all started innocently enough, after they'd been forced to cooperate with the former prince due to a pressing threat that had required all the help they could get, and she'd really hated him in the beginning, had tried her best to ignore his snarky comments and mocking smirks.

She'd also tried to avoid punching him in the face, but had failed miserably when he'd insulted Clint, both of them standing in a lonely hallway in the middle of the night. She could still remember the raw surprise in his green gaze as he'd rubbed his cheek, grinning widely.

It had all gone downhill from there. Clint, as expected, was both furious and incredulous, rushing out of her room to track down Loki and deliver swift justice.

She'd only barely stopped him in time, and could have sworn she heard Tony's distant laughter as they stood before the door to Loki's room.


	53. Necessity

Clint had always known that he was needed, that this Russian beauty-turned-weapon relied on him more than anyone ever would, and that had always given him a specific kind of comfort. To know that his job wasn't just taking orders and killing and fighting and occasionally basking in the glory of saving people-it was a good reminder that there were bright spots in his life. Natasha was one of them; Natasha was the _only_ one, really.

She was the light in the darkness he'd had to pass through more times that he could count, the smile thrown his way in a somber situation he could hardly handle, the comforting hand upon his own when the nightmares dug their hooks deep in his mind. She'd never survive without him-that is, she'd never be the same. Natasha was, if nothing else, enduring, but if she lost him she'd live her life just like she'd lived it before she'd met him: empty, barely loving, barely alive, and hollow.

It was something Clint was certain of. As time went on, though, as he fought at her side and witnessed her immense capability to raise his spirits and guide him in the dark, as she saved him time and time again, he realized that as much as Natasha needed him, he needed her a dozen times more.


	54. Confusion

There was a lot about Midgard that Thor understood: the technology (an antiquated system that Asgard had used and discarded years ago), the odd turn of phrases, and the strange clothing that he actually quite enjoyed. He'd adjusted well to the realm and its inhabitants, all its culture and everyday objects. There was one thing of Midgard, though, he feared he would never comprehend: the women.

If he hadn't inadvertently insulted Jane yesterday morning by commenting on how he actually liked crispy bacon, he would still have been confused by Natasha's display of aggression as he accidentally woke her at four o'clock in the morning while he was training with Steve.

He couldn't understand it; most people were thrilled to hear you compliment their cooking, and everyone he'd known in Asgard was always awake at that time of night, either feasting, training, or out enjoying the early morning darkness.

He could also never really understand why Darcy felt the need to walk down one of the many halls in Stark Tower with a mere towel loosely wrapped around her frame and a toothbrush stuck in her mouth, her sopping wet hair pinned up close to her head.

Asgardian women clung to decency, always, and never openly displayed their nightly habits to near strangers.

It was a curious thing, indeed.


	55. Double-Take

The first time Loki could remember ever taking a second glance at Sif was during the celebratory feast of Thor's adolescent birthday, when the young prince was just beginning to consider his responsibility as future king of Asgard (and promptly deny its existence in favor of acting reckless, much to Frigga's ire). Loki was only just a bit younger than his brother, then, and far more responsible than Thor could possibly ever be in all his life, or at least that was how the trickster saw it.

Thor was far too busy with maidens and sparring sessions and any and all kinds of behavior that landed him in a spot of trouble, and yet somehow he'd managed to capture the relentless attention of Lady Sif, a young, aspiring warrior around their age. She had long, silky, ebony locks (compliments of Loki himself) and grey eyes that seemed very bland to Loki, having grown up around mostly vivid blue irises for all his life.

Her skin was often pale and she usually wore some article of clothing that was colored bright red, like the deepest crimson, to attract Thor's attention (it was, after all, his favorite color). In all the years he'd known the girl, she'd been pining after his princely brother from day one while Thor remained frustratingly oblivious to the entire ordeal, and nearly every one of her actions outside the sparring court reinforced the idea the she was completely smitten with him.

But tonight, oddly enough, Sif did not don her usual red attire, but instead wore a vibrant green dress made of deep, rich material that Loki had never seen before, hair curled and pulled over one shoulder to rest flat against the emerald cloth of her gown. Her eyes barely ever darted over to seek Thor out, either, as she entered the feast hall, and this surprised Loki.

It was, perhaps, the first moment he realized that not only did Sif look absolutely exquisite bathed in the color that happened to be his most favorite, but she also held a certain beauty about her, a beauty most intensified in those grey, previously bland eyes of hers.


	56. Mourning

Thor couldn't accept it, couldn't come to terms with the reality of it all, couldn't believe that he'd let it happen. He could have done it, somehow, he kept telling himself, could have reached out with his free hand to grip Loki's wrist. He could have pulled him up to safety, could have prevented this tragedy, could have convinced Loki not to throw himself into the dark abyss.

He could have, _should have_, stopped it, but he didn't and Loki was gone and the world was left darker because of it. He could still recall the bright shine of the unshed tears lurking in Loki's green eyes, the pallor of his cheeks as the wind tossed his dark hair all about his head, the sadness in his face as Odin denied him. It caused a cold sting in his heart and a terrible sadness, heavy and unforgiving, to rest upon his shoulders.

It was actually quite unbearable, and Thor would often find himself just barely resisting the urge to visit the spot at the edge of the Bifrost bridge, where Loki had fallen, where Thor's heart had broken. Even Frigga's comforting words and motherly, loving gestures could not quell his grief.

After months of living life without the trickster, Thor soon realized that he'd have no choice but to get accustomed to looking over his shoulder and seeing empty space, that he'd have to simply accept the absence in his life, that he'd have to live without a brother.


	57. Warning

"Don't do it, Clint," Tony warned casually as he threw back another glass of scotch. Pepper smacked him lightly on the arm and murmured, "I really think you should lay off the alcohol with all these superheroes roaming your house, Tony."

He smirked up at her from her odd seat upon the back of the couch on which he was splayed out, while Thor lounged on the other end, resting his eyes. Clint, perched atop a bar stool, was examining an odd little device no larger than his palm, with a clamp on one end and a bright red button on the other. He thought that there might be a vent on its underside as he heard a tiny fan whirring within it, ignoring Tony's words completely.

Natasha watched him with interest as she sat gracefully on the couch opposite the one Tony, Pepper, and Thor had claimed, while Bruce balanced precariously on the couch arm. Steve leaned against one end of the counter that Clint was near, eyeing him and the gadget he was holding warily.

"I can keep an eye on them just fine, Pep," Tony replied lowly as Clint continued his efforts to inspect the mechanism. He glided his finger over the red button and Tony turned to roll his eyes at the archer.

"I wouldn't," he warned a second time, but Clint glanced up at him impassively for a brief moment, blinking, before turning his attention back to the button, which he promptly pushed. Natasha watched as the device lifted out of Clint's grasp, apparently propelled by the fan within it, which was popping out from beneath it as the vents parted to make way for it (it reminded her of the Helicarrier, somehow).

The clamp opened up in Clint's direction as he gazed with wide, surprised eyes, and it moved to attack him, latching on to wherever it could reach as he frantically tried to grab it and toss the offending thing away.

The team watched him struggle for a few moments, silent, before they all began to laugh.


	58. AU

As much as Natasha liked the look of her new heels when she walked down the street, and as much as she liked the approving looks of the men and the envious looks of the women when they cast glances down at her feet, she couldn't stand to wear them and wondered how any other lady in the world could. They pinched her skin and made her arches ache, and so whenever she came home they were the first things to go, tossed carelessly across the room as if she hadn't really paid a large amount of money for then.

She'd plop down on the queen-sized bed she shared with her husband and let the day slip away from her, household chores be damned; it was nice to relax every once in a while.

With her knee length dress fanned out around her, its bright floral pattern standing out against the mellow green of the covers, she reclined her head back upon the pillows, smiling to herself. There were noises in the main hall; she could hear them and yet she remained calm, knowing the sounds by heart. Footsteps softly echoed throughout the kitchen and through the hall leading to their bedroom, and in the doorway appeared a familiar face, dark hair slicked back and blue eyes bright as a smirk flashed across his handsome face.

It had become a routine, sometimes, for him to sidle over to where Natasha lounged and take a ginger seat beside her crossed legs to place a hand on one of her sore feet. He was far too good at giving massages; she always wondered where he'd learned it so well.

Usually, he wore suits to work, but today he had on a grey sweater vest with a white dress shirt underneath and equally grey pants. She smiled up at him as he kneaded her throbbing arches and toes, brining relief with every movement of his fingers.

"You know, James," she murmured sweetly, "you should really go into the massage business." He laughed at her and shook his head, watching the way the evening light pouring from the nearby window bathed her scarlet hair in golden color; it was pinned to her head on one side while the long curls curved atop her shoulder on the other.

"There's no business for that," he returned mockingly, and she rested her weary eyelids, still grinning, to listen to the melodic sounds of his soothing voice as he recounted the day's events.


	59. Haunting

When Steve found himself left alone and unbothered by the everyday trials and pressures of modern life, it took him a long time to realize the peace around him and just relax; it took him even longer to close his eyes and ignore the memories allowed to come to his mind at the lack of something else to be concerned with. They were relentless in those hours, taunting and lurking near him at all times, constant reminders of what he didn't have anymore, of what he'd become, of all that had changed.

More often than not, these moments kept him up at night, and he'd have to rush to the bathroom for solitude, splashing cold water on his face and relishing in the split-second shock it gave him. It was a focus point, really, a distraction from all the things he knew to be gone, from all the ways he knew to be dead and forgotten, from all the different angles and lines on his face that he could map out if he wanted to.

He had to take a slow, calming breath and try to ignore the reflection he saw in the bathroom mirror, water droplets rolling down his face in small streams, blue eyes bright and alert. He had to ignore the memory of Bucky, already fading, and had to ignore the taste of Peggy's lips, still haunting him. He had to ignore the touch of Dr. Erskine's finger against his chest as he'd died there on the floor, had to ignore the rush of icy water and bitter cold as darkness had fallen upon his thoughts.

Steve had to instead focus on Natasha's smile, Sam's determination, and the flash of remembrance in Bucky's eyes.

He had to keep looking ahead; it was the only way to keep himself from being caught in the past.


	60. Steady

Steve was beginning to realize, slowly, that things lost long ago could be salvaged, in some way or another. He was beginning to understand that life wasn't black and white anymore. He was beginning to grasp the idea of loneliness, as well, far stronger than any he'd felt before. All because of a blue-eyed former assassin. All because of a flash of memory that came over his cold features.

All because of a moment on the bank, wet footsteps fading from his range of hearing. But all was not lost, in the end.

It had taken a while for Bucky to come around and finally remember who he was, had taken years to pick up the pieces, had taken all they had to figure out where they belonged in the world. Steve had finally told Bucky all of his worries, all of his revelations about the way life was now, and Bucky had finally released the guilt he'd carried for so long, the burden of blood staining his unwilling hands.

And after all of that, after the freedom and the fading melancholy, Steve and Bucky found a way to be that wasn't reminiscent of the times they'd lost together. Their way wasn't picking themselves up from alleyway concrete and dusting off their jackets, Steve's bloody lips and black eyes and lopsided grin. Their way wasn't a slap on the shoulder and laughs all through the night, staying up on New Year's Eve just to pretend like it made a difference to them.

Their way was burning the cookies Natasha had jokingly given them the recipe for, losing the dog for a day and having heart palpitations every five seconds, blowing out nearly one hundred birthday candles because Bucky thought it would be funny, and breaking half the ornaments because Steve tripped and took the Christmas tree down with him. Their way was truly their own way, not some half-sickly, shunned boy struggling to fit in and a friend going off to war.

Their way was new, and that was all that they'd ever needed.


	61. Dancing

Peggy was all warmth and welcome and love, with her arms wrapped around Steve's neck as they danced in the kitchen, flour dusting her cheeks from where he'd laughingly sprinkled it across her skin. His blond hair was made paler by it, as well, from where she'd thrown it at his face before darting behind the counter in mock fear. He swung her around as they flitted from spot to spot, smiling with their noses pressed together, lips mere inches apart.

She basked in the heat of his skin, the familiar comfort it offered her, and he wove his fingers through the silky, smooth strands of dark hair, moving his head down to gingerly kiss her collarbone as they swayed in time to the music emanating from the radio on the counter. He laughed against her skin and the vibrations sent pleasant shivers through her.

She hugged him closer just before he pulled away, albeit reluctantly, to spin her around, her dress fanning out at the hips. Her laughter, so loving and gleeful, encouraged him, and he brought her close so that he could dip her torso down, hands firmly wrapped around her waist so that she wouldn't fall, her head reclined as she gazed at him with nothing but utter trust in her eyes.

Steve had never felt more love for her than in that moment, and she reached up to lightly stroke his cheek, smiling tenderly, hearts both beating in tandem with the music surrounding them.


	62. Power

After introducing Bucky to the wonders of spray butter and all the advancements popcorn alone had made over the years they'd both missed, Steve sat down with Bucky upon their small sofa to watch yet another 'Star Wars' movie, with the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy sitting in a pile on the coffee table for later.

With full stomachs and undoubtedly high blood pressure, they watched and watched until night descended upon the roomy apartment, content to sit there for as long as it took, both men addicted to Frodo's quest as the moonlight cascading through the slivers of revealed window bathed the living room in a faint white glow.

Bucky, bright eyes wide with captivated attention, was so caught up in the ending that he failed to notice Steve's sly sideways glance in his direction, the small twitch at the corners of his lips, and the tell-tale softening of his blue eyes.


	63. Aftermath

After introducing Bucky to the wonders of spray butter and all the advancements popcorn alone had made over the years they'd both missed, Steve sat down with Bucky upon their small sofa to watch yet another 'Star Wars' movie, with the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy sitting in a pile on the coffee table for later.

With full stomachs and undoubtedly high blood pressure, they watched and watched until night descended upon the roomy apartment, content to sit there for as long as it took, both men addicted to Frodo's quest as the moonlight cascading through the slivers of revealed window bathed the living room in a faint white glow.

Bucky, bright eyes wide with captivated attention, was so caught up in the ending that he failed to notice Steve's sly sideways glance in his direction, the small twitch at the corners of his lips, and the tell-tale softening of his blue eyes.


	64. I Am Groot

Rocket, ever protective when it came to certain trees, had both his arms wrapped guardedly around a potted plant. Now, to any outside onlooker, said potted plant would seem completely normal, a tiny tree just starting to grow amidst the dirt and ceramic, but to the Guardians of the Galaxy and, most importantly, Rocket Raccoon, that little plant was the most precious thing the world had ever possessed.

If one looked close enough, they could just make out small, beady black eyes and a rounded head, could catch glimpses of movement in the minuscule branches (like arms waving back and forth), and might think themselves crazy for seeing such things.

But in reality, that plant was a baby Groot, just starting to grow after sacrificing his life for his friends and comrades, just starting to get bigger and bigger until he'd no longer need the pot to hold him. Rocket would see to it that he was safe, as he always had before, and it was much easier, admittedly, with Groot being so conveniently sized. Rocket would wake up in the morning and hunt down the greenest, brightest leaf he could find hanging from the healthiest looking tree around, sometimes hunting for half an hour until he discovered the perfect one. He'd return to the kitchen where he'd last left Groot and feed him the leaf, enough to fill his small stomach for a long while, and then go about his day, occasionally checking that Groot was comfortable and happy with the music playlist of the day (he was always dancing when Rocket came in to check on him, smiling with those bright eyes).

When the rest of the team was up, he'd bring Groot into the sitting area to be with them all, and when night finally came, he'd carry Groot and his planter, carefully, with both hands, making his way to his room and small bed. He'd set his friend down on the nightstand and play soft, low music so as not to wake everyone else, and he'd fall asleep next to a swaying, beaming tree baby.


	65. Visitor

Steve, having been hunting down Bucky for a long time now, was beginning to feel depressed, as if the entire endeavor wasn't worth it, as if he'd never find his long-lost companion.

It was starting to all feel so immensely tedious and pointless; Bucky was evading him. It had been that way for at least two years now. Steve had almost given up, had almost abandoned the only thing he'd ever known, but in his darkest moment a presence at his door lured him deep from his reverie in the middle of the night.

It was a surprise, certainly, to pad across the still unfamiliar carpet of his still unfamiliar apartment in nothing but his boxers, opening the door with a groggy slowness, his blonde hair mussed from the countless times he'd run his hand through it during the night. And there was Bucky, hair cut shorter and eyes significantly brighter, hands clenched into nervous fists at his side as he stood in the partial shadows of the hall.

Steve's breath left him in a great sigh and instantly, with complete and utter abandon, he smiled, his sorrow melting away; he was home.


	66. Party

Steve couldn't keep the silly grin off his face, couldn't hide the slight mortification shining in his blue gaze, and knew that Bucky saw his efforts to quell his embarrassment, his cheeks reddening as the cake was brought in with what looked like exactly ninety-six candles stabbed into its chocolate-y surface. Steve glanced up at his long-time friend, who grinned teasingly at him and shrugged while he laid the cake and its large platter upon the table.

The rest of the team was distractedly gathered in the living room just beside the kitchen he and Bucky were in, and Steve could hear their excited cheers as they watched a sports game on TV, awaiting the announcement of the cake's arrival. Bucky had been going out of his way to make this a special birthday for Steve-putting those candles on the cake to mock him, decorating the entire house with banners and balloons alike (all with personalized messages), buying Fourth of July confetti to throw once Steve blew out the candles (Steve had seen a bag of the red, white, and blue paper peeking out of Bucky's back pocket earlier in the day and had assumed his plan), and making sure Steve was wearing appropriately dapper clothing for the occasion.

Despite the awkwardness and the slight humiliation at being so heavily fussed over, Steve rather enjoyed his birthday, and he didn't have to worry about his laughter (when Bucky decided to toss up the confetti in his fit of euphoria) being genuine-the contented grin came over his face just as easily as he would have slipped on his favorite leather jacket.


	67. Relief

After the betrayal, after the plunge and the shock and the confession and the tears, Simmons was beside herself with grief and worry, hating Ward more than she ever thought one could hate a person, wishing every cruel, twisted, dreadful thing she could upon him and his traitorous life. That was the least of her concerns, though. Fitz, fresh from his long hospital stay, was expected to arrive any minute, and she stood stock still before the door he'd walk through soon enough, heart racing with anticipation and mind whirling at the possibilities, the awful possibilities, that her beloved Fitz would never be the same after the oxygen deprivation he'd suffered beneath the ocean's unforgiving waves.

The fear haunted her nights and mocked her during the day, distracting her from work, from any progress she might have made, and it overwhelmed her at times. _Fitz_. Fitz who loved her, Fitz who stood by her, Fitz who had been prepared to give his life for her. So caught up in her nearly paralyzing fear was she that Simmons failed to notice a familiar figure pass through the doorway in front of her, limping with a sling hugging his arm and shoulder and several cuts marring his face and hands.

She blinked, pulled from her reverie at the apparently abrupt sight of him, just before her with a hesitant, nervous smile on his face, eyes shining with affection as they fell upon her. She could have sworn her heart skipped a beat, stomach plummeting as her breath rushed from her body.

_That smile, those eyes._

He was alright, she thought.

_Fitz was fine_.

It was instinct to run to him, to wrap her arms around his neck, to hug him-wary of his injuries-with a gentle hold, to press her cheek to his and bask in the warmth of his body, to close her eyes and take in the same scent she'd known for years, even if it was tainted with the faint smell of antiseptic.

Slowly, she pulled away enough to gaze happily at him, and in that moment a blush crept into her face. His smile widened into a nearly-teasing grin and he squeezed her arms reassuringly. Simmons had never felt so at home.


	68. Grounded

In her moments of weakness, on those nights that the blood of battle and the stress of living in Asgard became too much, Sif only had to roll over beneath the warm, comfortable covers of her bed to feel at ease, for there beside her rested a familiar, amazing creation-a resolution to any and all of her problems. He was, obviously, much more than that, but she liked to think of him in the persuasive times of night as her saving grace, her steady, balancing rock, her one and only-and he was, truly.

Thor, her long-time husband, would always be the sun in her eyes, bright and shining and warm, and she imagined that he loved her just as much; after all, he wouldn't have so eagerly and excitedly married her if he didn't.

And in the shadows of nightfall, in the aftermath of her nightmares and taunting thoughts, she'd reach out to entwine her hand with his, reassured by his protective presence and strong grip as he squeezed her hand, comforting her with a mere gesture. It was enough, then, for her to close her eyes and find solace in the gentle darkness of slumber, with him so near and so loving and so sure of her safety.

With Thor, Sif found peace.


	69. Lovingly

Clint had known Natasha to be a steady presence in his life for many years, the better half of his heart, the helping hand when he knew his own two could not do it alone. She'd been his friend, comrade, companion, and mentor when he'd needed her most, and he liked to think that she saw him in the same light. But there were some days when Nat seemed like _more_, when her grassy eyes shone brighter than they did the day he spared her from a fate he was ordered to deliver, when her lips curled up farther than they usually did whenever he made an offhanded remark, when her skin, so pale and seemingly bloodless (all the more deadly, he'd think), would heat with color when he complimented her ever-changing hair style.

Clint wondered if she ever noticed him staring at the way she laughed down at her feet, on the occasion that he told a joke funny enough to earn such a reaction, and upon further reflection he honestly hoped that she never realized it; it would just be awkward, really.

He was certain she didn't return his feelings; her emotions went so deep that she herself refused to acknowledge them. He guessed that it hurt her somewhere within her soul to remember what she'd done in that bloody past of hers.

But then again, the archer doubted himself when she looked his way with that glance reserved for his attention and his attention alone, when she held steadfast to his hand after hearing him toss and turn in the next room over because of his nightmares (Loki still haunted him, and she'd moved rooms so that she could be nearer to him whenever he needed her), when she tucked an errant strand of crimson behind her ear as she grinned over at him. In those moments, it seemed like she did indeed feel the same, but Clint would never really know-or so he predicted.

Exactly two months and three days later, he'd be proven wrong by the taste of her lips against his, warm and real and smiling against his mouth, the juice from that strawberry she'd eat still clinging to the pink flesh there. He'd be proven wrong by the way her arms would wind about his neck, the way she'd press her body flush upon him, the way he'd feel her heart pounding rapidly in her chest; the sensation would become his lullaby.


	70. Support

"I think he'll come around," Natasha offered solemnly, emerald eyes glittering as she gazed over to Steve, who busied himself with folding his recently washed clothes, "eventually."

Ever since they'd moved in to the Tower, she'd made periodical visits to the Captain's room, wanting to make sure he was handling the situation well. His endeavors to track down Winter had made no progress in recent months and the fact was so obviously weighing him down that she wanted only to comfort him. She hadn't been so desperate to make another person feel better since Clint was brainwashed by Loki.

Steve threw down a partially-folded pair of pants rather roughly atop his bed and sighed heavily, glancing up at her.

"He's made it clear he doesn't want to be found and that he doesn't remember me," he explained, frustrated, "and I don't know how I can convince him." He ran a hand through his light hair and shook his head, giving up on his chore to go sit near Natasha at her perch on the edge of the bed.

"I'm lost here. I want him to come back; I want it to be like it was, but that's impossible."

He closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his noise as if to ward off an impending headache, and Natasha frowned, reaching out to grab his hand and squeeze it reassuringly.

"You'll find him, Steve. You're nothing if not determined, and that's enough," he cracked one eye open to watch her smile, and felt, despite his mood, comforted by her gestures of kindness, "Just give it some time."


	71. OC

He ran a hand through the fiery strands of long hair draped over one shoulder, watching the way the light danced along the path his fingers made. Her head was turned, exposing the pale skin of her neck so that he could see the light dusting of freckles there just behind her collarbone.

With his other hand, he traced the patterns they made with a small, absent smile while she cast a sideways glance in his direction, blue eyes bright in the darkness of early morning.

"Do you think Frigga might be cross with you for your trick last night?" she asked calmly, eyes searching his face for any kind of answer, and he shrugged, removing his hands from her hair to gently wrap his arms around her middle, pulling her close as she hugged his neck. She settled against him, laughing as a few stray strands of hair got caught in Loki's mouth and he made a dramatic noise to alert her of the action. After they had found a good position to sleep in, he sighed against her hair.

"I think she'll forgive me; she always does."


	72. Haircut

He stole into her room like a malicious snake, slithering over the floor and through the familiar shadows allowed by the bright, selective moonlight pouring past the windows, and dashed between moonbeams to make his way over to her bed. Sif was fast asleep beneath her covers, curled in a position of protection as her golden curls rested upon the silky pillows under her head, pale lids closed in slumber as he gazed down at her. She was pretty, with her ruby-tinted lips and dark lashes, and Loki knew that she'd be a true beauty in just a few centuries more, a lady fit for royalty.

He wondered if she'd ever acquire the status, for all of her fawning over Thor, the young king-to-be, and smirked at the idea.

Sif…_queen? _

Fierce, competitive, driven Sif standing at Thor's side as he lounged upon his throne?

Neither of them was meant to be there and Loki desperately hoped it stayed that way. Thor was too arrogant to be king and Sif was to haughty, too determined to best everyone else; admittedly, though, they were perfect for each other, and Loki had to quell that sense of indignation that his thoughts betray him in such a way-for he fancied the young girl breathing softly beneath his green gaze.

He imagined that she could be his friend, in due time, and certainly then something more; whether or not it was destined to happen remained a mystery.

Either way, Loki knew that something had to be done about that vanity of hers, and there was only one thing he knew to do. He'd chop off those lovely locks she adored so much, the very hair he knew she spent at least an hour admiring and perfecting in front of the mirror every morning, the very golden curls many of the Asgardians possessed (his own mother donned the same hair, if only dimmer in comparison to Sif's).

From his sleeve he drew his favorite knife-it was a throwing dagger, really, but it would suffice-and gingerly lifted a few strands of her hair between his fingers with one hand while he positioned the knife with the other. He smirked mischievously and made the first cut.

Mere hours later, Loki would be startled awake by the abrupt and piercing shriek of a fretful young Sif, crying out his name in the early morning darkness with a voice made raw with rage and anguish.

His heart would pound not for the concern of his impending punishment but rather the sound of her voice calling out his name.


	73. Trust

It had taken a while to convince Hela of his newfound determination, his heretofore nonchalance now replaced by a strange, oddly placed devotion; she'd guessed it was a trick, at first.

Over time, though, Loki's daughter had grown to truly care for her father, and on most days he managed to visit her for a few hours, weathering the overall discomfort he felt at being amidst the chaos of her realm and basking in the time he could spend with her. Lounging on a throne made entirely of what looked like bone, she'd watch him, rapt with attention, and they'd exchange their stories and tales of the day, laughing at each other's jokes.

And when Hela laughed, Loki felt a deep, warm sensation in the very core of his heart, knowing, despite the sensation, that it was all in his head, but remaining completely uncaring about that little fact-his love was nearly a tangible thing, spreading through his veins like liquid fire and showering her in the most affectionate light he could see.

Her green gaze, just like his own, was bright, one half of her face all pale, ghostly skin and soft angles and dark, ebony strands of hair while the other side consisted of mere bones, the rest of her body shrouded by a black dress made of wispy material that curled away from the ground when she walked across it. One day, when he was about to leave, she turned to him, pulled from her brief reverie to stare at him blankly, tilting her head.

"You're leaving-so soon?"

He didn't mention that he'd already been talking to her for longer than usual, anyway, or that he had important business to tend to, or that he was a bit tired. He just smiled, nodding to himself, and reclined in his seat, his grin widening as she beamed at him- a rare, precious thing he hadn't seen her do in centuries.


	74. Popcorn

Due to Bucky's increasing desire to bask in every aspect of modern life possible, they had begun to stay up past ungodly hours of the night to explore all that he'd missed. Natasha, known to become quite grumpy when she was deprived of her nightly due, had been trying to find creative ways to quell her mild irritation and avoid taking it out on Bucky.

He'd lately taken a liking to marathoning excessively long movies to pass the time, which was all good and fun until they began to watch movies like _The Lord of the Rings_ and _Harry Potter_. Those absolutely drained the energy right out of Natasha Romanoff, famous spy and relentless Black Widow, who apparently couldn't handle the triviality of movie series at midnight. Bucky, on the other hand, was thrilled each and every time they did anything, anything at all that might bring him closer to filling in the holes throughout his memory.

So, Natasha had to find ways to stopper both her boredom and frustration, and she found such a method in the buttery, salty taste of popcorn. While her eyelids drooped from exhaustion, and while Bucky's eyes widened with shock at some unforeseen plot twist as Harry Potter looked at Snape's memories, Natasha began throwing pieces of popcorn at her boyfriend, smirking in amusement as he tried his best to ignore the light-hearted assault.

Eventually, without ever taking his eyes away from the screen, he began to turn and catch the popcorn in his mouth, and so began the game of '_How Fast Can I Throw This Popcorn Before He Looks Away to Catch It?'. _

They endured nearly ten minutes of throwing before Bucky was forced to make a choice between averting his attentive gaze or successfully catching the popcorn, and as he turned away from the scene Natasha grinned in triumph. He threw her a bright blue gaze of mock ire before returning it to the television screen, but there was a lingering curl at the corners of his lips that made her own smile widen significantly.


	75. Catching Up

Bucky made a displeased expression of concentration when they watched Simba, slung over Mufasa's limp body, cry out with grief, and Steve himself found it hard to hold in his sadness; Bucky seemed intensely focused on keeping his tears in check. The red apples Bucky used to like so much had really gone downhill in the flavor department, and Bucky blamed modern science for it, even though he was clueless as to the true reason; Steve just smiled and chewed a slice of his green apple smugly. The rap music was a terrifying experience. _Star Trek_ kept them occupied for around a month or so, fueled by a lack of sleep, sugar, and their own willpower. The rollercoasters had undergone certain improvements, but the nauseous feeling they elicited definitely hadn't. The popcorn tasted better, but the cars seemed more dangerous and Bucky had trouble quelling his anxiety as they rode in one.

He asked questions, finally, after analyzing nearly every detail of the new world around them, and Steve happily obliged. Why was Steve always jumping out of tall buildings? Why did the people on the news look so angry? What was KFC's secret recipe? Why did every dog in every movie they watched have to die? When did Halloween night get so creepy? As the months went by, his questions became less frequent, and Steve realized that Bucky was quietly observing and accepting everything around him, now, rather than questioning it-and that was perfectly fine. Bucky began to notice small things, the tiniest of details, that made him forget all the years that had passed without him, all the people that had felt his absence, surely, but ignored the ever-dulling pang of grief.

He noticed that Steve's eyes were brighter than they'd been seventy years ago, that his gait wasn't so hunched and sickly and unsure. Bucky had known these things once Steve had been injected with the serum, but so much had happened so fast that he'd barely been able to truly see in what ways his friend was different. Steve's smile was wider, his laugh heartier, his entire demeanor much lighter than he remembered it ever being before.

And once he realized all of those things, Bucky knew that he could withstand all of the realizations, all of the changes, and sit down and watch all the movies in the world, eat all the new food possible, and bask in every day onward-just so long as Steve was by his side.


	76. Jerky

Darcy cast him a sideways glance in the midst of her furious chewing and smirked, biting off another piece of beef jerky that she knew she'd eventually convince Loki to try. He glared at her noisy ministrations and crossed his arms, elbows resting unmannerly atop the table as the dim overhead lights made his hair appear shades darker, painting sinister shadows across the sharp angles of his face.

"You know," Darcy began, swallowing a half-chewed piece of jerky and grimacing as it reluctantly made its way down her throat, "we could have been friends, probably, if you'd come down here with Thor and not been such an asshole." Loki merely stared at her, emerald eyes wide and unblinking, and she frowned ever the slightest.

"…If you weren't a mass murderer, I mean."

He tilted his head at her, pale skin bright in the semi-darkness, and she pushed her glasses up a bit, irritated by them. An awkward, pregnant pause developed between them as Darcy continued her contented chewing, waiting for Thor to return to the kitchen as he'd promised, idly kicking her feet back and forth beneath her chair in an absentminded habit of hers she'd had for years. She ripped off a particularly hard and stubborn piece of jerky with only her teeth and mere willpower while Loki made an unpleasant expression.

"I highly doubt it," he finally replied, and she met his off-putting gaze with a mirthful glint in her dark eyes, grinning like she knew the funniest joke in the entire universe.


	77. Balcony

Loki's lips slid easily over the milky expanse of Sif's throat, skin heated by the throes of passion against the balcony railing as he tightened his arms around her waist. She'd always enjoyed the way he held her close, flush and secure against his own body and intensely cherished, his cold fingers clutching at the shoulder blades felt beneath her skin. He had always made her feel especially precious, though not fragile, unlike so many of the other men in Asgard that eyed her with such blatant, disgusting interest, as if they might wish to purchase her.

She was a lady, ivory skin and blood-red lips, of porcelain and glass to the men at court, an object to be fawned over and a prize to be won. But with Loki, she felt exactly like the warrior she was, and yet he left within her a sense of immense belonging, the idea that he could treat her both as she was and as she might wish to be treated. It was a great comfort, a thing that had initially drawn her to him.

But with one of his hands now exploring the paleness of her thigh while the other wound through her ebony locks, it was rather difficult to focus on the butterflies he elicited.

She kissed him fervently, hungrily, and he smiled against her mouth, laughing as he attempted to tug her closer; she could feel the vibrations from his throat and had to stifle a laugh of her own as she cupped her hand at the back of his neck and pulled his head more toward hers. Sif arched into him, seemingly of her body's own volition, and threaded her fingers through the mess of dark hair he desperately needed to cut as his hand worked its way up past her hip and to her waist, fingers splayed against the skin there, his knuckles straining against the tight fabric of her dress.

It was a new style that had arrived to Asgard, one the older women were reluctant to welcome, but Sif had been glad for the momentary change of attire; wearing flowing dresses to feasts was far less satisfying than wearing tight-fitting material just to see the wide eyes and surprised expressions. She hiked her leg up, against her better judgment (the dress wasn't made for such motion), and greedily hooked it about his hip just as he lifted the dress so that only mere leather rested between them.

She knew that Loki would be quick to remove the offending armor, and relished in the press of his hands against her inner thighs, the oddest, most wonderful sensation pooling at the pit of her stomach.


	78. Need

Simmons' hand felt warm against his shoulder, comforting and soft and simply _there_, a needed reassurance. Fitz had tried to find the words to describe his newest discovery, had known what he wanted to say and been painfully aware of his puzzling inability to form the words, but she'd been there to anchor him, to support him in any and every way she was able, and that was enough to quell his temper, to ease the unrest growing in his mind at his own inadequacies. That's what it was to him: an inadequacy.

To Jemma, though, it was a reminder of what he'd done not very long ago, a constant little murmur in the back of her head that he'd saved her life down there in the ocean, and a sure sign of all HYDRA and Ward had taken from them.

But each and every day brought with it the hope of improvement, of progress, and, slowly, that hand atop her own felt ever more familiar, those eyes shined even brighter, and that smile was less and less confused, less hurt, less troubled.

Slowly, Fitz became more like himself, and, one day, when at last he looked up at her and grinned so proudly, he told her of his latest discovery-no hesitation, no stuttering, no desperate snapping of his fingers. There was triumph in his warm gaze, and she felt a tear roll down her cheek.


	79. Untouched

"Maybe he doesn't want to be found," Tony casually suggested, voice low and careful as he sat near Steve on one of the luxurious couches Pepper had recently bought. The captain merely turned to give him a certain, confident look of disbelief, shaking his head and running a hand through his blond hair, tousled and messier now that he'd neglected to cut if for several months.

Tony's mouth twisted upward and he shrugged, turning away from the guilty shine in Steve's bright eyes. Tony would have pointed out that Bucky left Steve on the bank, left him and walked away with no intention of being found, and would have argued with the man for hours if necessary. He would have, surely, but things were different. Steve wasn't the same injured, lost leader trying desperately to reassert himself into the world that had left him behind. He wasn't the angry, damaged thing Tony had despised not very long ago, and Tony wasn't the same selfish, haughty inventor that liked to light matches in the hopes it would start a fire.

"I can't believe that," Steve murmured to himself, and Tony stayed silent. In this way, they were all changed.

Clint had been so reserved lately, in dark hours of night, staying up away from his nightmares and drinking at the bar, contemplation vivid in his gaze as he no doubt thought about Manhattan. Natasha, though, had seemed more open, less cryptic and more comfortable, joking with Steve as if she'd known him her whole life and hugging Clint when his shoulders grew stiff with the weight of flashbacks. Steve helped him in his own way, knowing the burden of pain and loss, knowing what it was like to be helpless, and, quickly, the trio was an entity of its own.

Thor had his own grief, this they knew, this they could discern from the strain in his voice when he spoke of how he'd left the responsibility of kingship. They never asked, never wanted to dig so deeply, and Tony found that he quite liked the suspense, liked trying to guess at what bothered Thor so greatly. Bruce, on the other hand, seemed more distant than usual, and Tony dismissed it as mere nightmares-after all, each member of the team had them almost every night.

And in the aftermath of such change, Tony ignored the feeling that the worst was yet to come, and he let Steve bask in his silence and his wishes and memories of Bucky's struggling gaze.

He let Natasha ease their guilt with jokes and laughter and friendship, he let Thor have his mystery and his past, he let Bruce battle his own demons, and he let it all pass by.


	80. Angelic

Fitz was captivated by her, long hair cut short and styled in a way he'd never seen it, clothes professional and flattering, so unlike the soft ponytail and lab outfits she used to favor, so unlike the woman he'd been seeing and speaking to for months before her true arrival, so unlike Jemma Simmons. She'd been back with the team for a long while now, back to bantering with Trip and Skye, back to tinkering in the lab and spouting out the seemingly nonsensical science to Coulson and May, who could never understand that it was her one passion in life to do just that, to experiment and observe and learn, to enlighten them, they who would never understand her or the difficult terms she recited to them.

Unlike Fitz.

He knew her, knew the words she spoke, knew the intense, excited emotion behind them, but couldn't verbalize them himself. His disability, still fresh and recent and frustrating, consumed him, consumed the ghost of friendships and love and intellect and all he'd cherished, and yet Simmons didn't see that at all when she looked at him. She didn't see what he couldn't do, didn't see his change, and only focused on his sadness and his pain and his loss-only wanted to help him.

She only saw Fitz, Fitz who befriended her, Fitz who helped her, Fitz who saved her, Fitz who loved her.

And if Jemma had ever been truly honest with herself, she'd known that all along. When he couldn't think of a word fast enough, when it fell from his mind like it had never been there at all, she gently touched the back of his hand with hers and murmured lowly to him, providing hints so that he could eventually find the word on his own. When his temper got the better of him, when his voice and hands shook, when he paced uneasily around the lab, she was there to wrap an arm about his shoulders and ground him, telling him random storied of her high school days that she knew he'd heard a hundred times over, distracting him.

And when Fitz was so caught up in how much they'd both changed, when the silence around them, alone in the lab, pressed in on all sides and brought out the shine of his gaze so greatly, when she saw the guilt reflected there in her own, the tears burned her eyes.

"Fitz," she would cry, wrapping her arms around him, reminding them both of that fateful moment in the ocean, her tears soaking his shirt and her kisses warming his face. She would repeat his name until the words ran together, cheek pressed against the side of his neck, the scent of his familiar cologne embracing her just as his arms came around to encircle her waist, hesitant and unsure and ever-slightly trembling against her back.

She'd feel his smile spreading against her hair and lean back to kiss his face until he was blushing and laughing so fiercely that neither of them was aware of the sadness that had previously plagued their days.


	81. New Beginnings

Besides the wonders destroying the suits had done for Tony and Pepper's relationship, it made them both just generally happier. Pepper wasn't worrying so much about him getting himself killed and Tony wasn't up all hours of the night tinkering with a new modification. It unburdened them, and with so much spare time they were at a loss with what to do with themselves, so they picked up the habit of taking walks around the park, long hours spent strolling over woodland trails and sidewalks alike as Pepper fawned over adorable dogs on leashes and listened to the birds chirping in the odd silence she realized that she rather enjoyed.

_The quiet life_, Tony called it.

It became a very good life for them, and after months of bliss, he considered marriage for one of the first times in his life. He'd thought about it before, when he first kissed Pepper and felt her warmth and her joy, but now it was a serious thing that followed him through his days.

He started to imagine, as she lounged upon the sofa, so caught up in her favorite show, that there was a wedding ring shining on her finger, glinting at him from a distance.

He started to imagine a slightly rounded belly when she turned to look at him, witnessing for a single moment what could be.

He started to imagine streaks of grey in her light hair as she laid her head on his chest to sleep.

He_ wanted_ that, Tony soon realized, and he wanted it _so much_. He could have it, too, he suddenly remembered, without his suits and his danger and his instability-he could have it and live the rest of his life at her side: peaceful, happy, and in love.

And when Tony took her slender hand in his, wrapped in early morning light and thin, smooth sheets of cotton as they rested in bed together, he smiled at her in that way she knew so well and offered her a life eternal. _So_ _tender_, _so unlike you_, she would have said, but in that moment all she could say, all she could think, was _yes_.


	82. Tease

Charles had a death grip strong enough to rival any metal and Erik only realized the fact when he'd begun to rock the carrier they were in, suspended in the still air at the very top of the ferris wheel that he'd convinced Charles to accompany him onto. The fingers of said telepath were digging uncomfortably deep into Erik's arm, and the mutant grimaced in pain before trying, not for the first time, to unlatch Charles' fingers from him, but the man was relentless.

He wouldn't let go, he said, until Erik stopped rocking the carrier, and Erik, of course, wouldn't stop rocking the carrier until Charles let go.

Besides, the uneasiness and discomposed air that Charles was exuding was absolutely hilarious to Erik.

After a moment of increasingly vigorous rocking, Charles decided on a new tactic, begging and attempting to bribe his friend into relenting, but it was a futile effort; Erik had already witnessed the reaction he could elicit. The tips of Charles' shoes weren't supported by the foot ledge at the bottom of the carrier and he could see past them to the ground far below, the wind whistling in his ears and making Erik's motions more powerful, fear striking hard into his heart. His grip trembled, and Erik felt the genuine terror there against his forearm, frowning for a moment.

He tilted his head in thought and finally decided to quell his friend's anxiety. He stopped rocking back and forth to turn to the shaky professor, grinning in that arrogant, teasing way of his, and the ferris wheel was set back into motion as the carriers were emptied out one by one.

Charles rolled his eyes and huffed, crossing his arms; it was hard to stay mad at such a mirthful smile.


	83. Days of Birth

Steve busied himself with scooping out the ice cream, practicing a skill he'd determinedly mastered that involved scooping as much possible ice cream as could ever be scooped into a single spoon, while Bucky strategically placed all thirteen candles atop the small cake they'd scrounged up enough money to buy at the bakery on their way to Steve's house. His mother had been too distracted with work and all it entailed to buy him a cake, had apologized profusely in her hastily written note that said she'd be gone for the better part of the night, and she'd left a present on his bed.

Steve hadn't opened it yet; it was preserved in the wrapping paper she'd carefully and attentively encased it in, and he wanted to keep the image of it, all neat and tidy upon his covers, for as long as he could. Thirteen, Bucky said, was manhood, and Steve deserved "all the stops." It was a testament to their friendship that Bucky had felt the urgent need to cut up some paper he'd had at home into thick strips and tape them together to make banners to be hung about the house, all donning kind birthday wishes in his familiar handwriting; Steve's eyes had watered at the sight.

Bucky delicately lit the thirteen candles with precision and speed, turning the cake where it say upon the counter toward Steve, who sat, raised above Bucky, on a stool. He coughed weakly into the crook of his elbow, blue eyes bright in the candlelight, and Bucky's concern, so very mature for his young age, was wiped from his expression once Steve smiled reassuringly down at him.

Bucky gingerly patted his back and sang to him enthusiastically, and both boys smiled with a unique kind of happiness as Steve leaned forward to blow out the colorful candles.


	84. Monopoly

They'd been there for hours, frustrated frowning and aggressive gameplay, sitting across from each other at the coffee table with intense looks of concentration painted on their faces. Natasha had refused to leave the spot, even for bathroom breaks, for 5 consecutive hours, her throat parched and stomach growling insistently. Bucky took it far less serious, and had often rushed to grab a quick snack when it wasn't his turn.

Steve, on the other hand, kept turning it over in his mind, pondering the notion of how quickly he could gain back that Boardwalk property and put hotels there. The metal-armed assassin twirled the blue card teasingly in his hand, waving it tauntingly at the captain, who glared from a short distance away; Natasha munched on popcorn with one hand and rolled the dice vigorously with the other, hoping to get a perfect ten and make it to the 'free parking' space that had stubbornly avoided her reach for the entire duration of the game.

It was an eleven, and she made an exasperated noise between the sounds of her chewing as Bucky snickered. He scooped the dice up with his metal hand, the sound of cube against metal-a sharp clinking-loud in the tense silence. His canine playing piece was positioned at the same spot Natasha's had been moments before, and he glanced her way, smirking, before tossing the dice across the board.

The trio slowly looked at the small, black dots scattered over the dice, anticipation shining in their eyes.

_A perfect ten._

Seconds later the popcorn bowl was upside down over Bucky's head and he was laughing so fiercely that he rolled off the couch and onto the floor, holding his side as Natasha huffed at him and crossed her arms.


	85. Phobia

Loki wasn't normally scared of bugs, or anything, really, but there was something about the insects of Asgard that sent chills down his spine. They were far larger than those of primitive Midgard, looming and slowly crawling over the land, odd clicking noises always accompanying their sluggish movements, and a young boy like himself was sure to catch fright. And that's why, at the mere casual suggestion of going on a harmless excursion in the mountainous forest, Loki had shrunken from Thor's eager gaze and shaken his head vigorously, refusing to go.

Thor, though, had strange methods of persuasion that involved prolonged pouting and relentless badgering until Loki had no choice but to accept the idea and go along with his brother, two children about to aimlessly roam the woods. Currently, Thor's small, leather-booted feet were kicking absently at twigs and rocks as they made their way past a dangerous-looking ravine, sidestepping it to avoid breaking their ankles. They climbed over a particularly large boulder in their path, struggling, and Loki made it to the top first, being far more agile than his blond brother, whose blue eyes were bright with effort as he clumsily tried to gain his footing upon the rock's side. Loki stretched out a hand and he took it gratefully, pulling himself the rest of the way up with the assistance, but Loki then peeked over the edge and saw, to his complete horror, a large centipede scaling the other side of the rock, and he nearly dropped Thor's hand in shock.

Green eyes large and apprehensive, he started to back away, trying to climb back down to where he'd started, but Thor held fast to his hand. "What's wrong?" Loki remained silent, suddenly trapped, and slowly shook his head, eyes trained on the edge of the boulder where he knew awaited the ghastly creature. Thor saw the attention he was paying to the top of the rock and, curious, peeked over the edge himself.

The sight startled him, but he was ultimately unafraid, and knew immediately why Loki was acting so odd. He'd been afraid of the insects he deemed monsters for years, ever since Thor could remember, and their mother had often cradled him in her arms after a moment of fear and sung a calming lullaby to him. Remembering this, Thor released Loki's hand so that he could scramble quickly to the ground, and Thor hopped from the boulder and landed a bit unsteadily on his feet, wobbling for a moment, before glancing up to smile at Loki, whose face was flushed with blood from how fast his heart was pounding.

Gingerly, Thor put a calming hand on Loki's small, trembling shoulder, pulling him into a comforting hug as the tension in him relaxed.

"It's alright; it won't hurt you." Loki sniffled against his shirt and he carded his hand through the dark, inky strands of hair as their mother might have done, murmuring soothing words in his ear.

"You're safe, Loki," he whispered softly, "I'll always protect you."


	86. Farm

In the months after Manhattan, Clint was glad to have that vacation, glad to be able to spend some alone time with the countryside, away from the looming skyscrapers and threats from outer space. It was a welcome and relieving change, for a time, but deep down Clint missed the action, the thrill of the adrenaline rush. That's why he'd become an assassin in the first place, and it was a comfort to know that his roots had not been damaged by Loki's haunting intrusion.

But nothing new had happened nothing had invaded his own quiet little plot of green land, so he remained, oddly reluctant to delve into _too much_ action; he would prefer none at all over biting off more than he could chew. Eventually, he found that owning a farm, reserved to an undisturbed life of solitude, however temporary it might have been, was actually quite nice, if only a bit lonesome.

This was his thought one day, sitting on a sunlit section of the wraparound porch that embraced the two story cabin, eating a piece of cold pizza from the night before. The pizza was nowhere near as tasty as that of New York; it was a frozen pizza he'd bought from the run down supermarket in the next town over, but he tolerated its lackluster flavor nevertheless.

In the next moment, there was a rustling in the leaves beside the porch and he turned to glance that way, only to find a skinny dog with a coat of grey, thick fur, ears turned down and head tilted with attention, tail wagging slowly between his legs. Clint raised a brow but made no other movement, not wanting to startle the dog and scare it off, and he whistled to it softly, beckoning it. The dog's ears twitched and his tail wagged faster as he slowly stepped onto the porch, still a little wary.

Clint tore off a piece of his pizza and tossed it quickly down to the dog, who curiously sniffed it for a few seconds before gingerly picking it up between his teeth and eating it.

It was hard to tolerate such low quality pizza, but the dog liked it just fine, and as his tail lifted, wagging at full speed, Clint decided that he liked that dog just fine, too.


	87. Good Things

Several things had changed over the years in the world Steve had once known; the people were different, in a bigger hurry than he remembered, and the air felt stickier, even in the winter. The technology was almost beyond him, at first, and the food tasted both better and greasier. The women were more flirtatious, the men more friendly, and the skyscrapers taller.

It was all a great, sudden change for him, shocking and startling, but there was at least one welcome shift: pizza.

It apparently had made the most advancements, and he often spoke of such thing in between bites to the waitress that liked to come and sit with him in the afternoons at the small pizzeria she worked at. She'd eat in enraptured silence as he told her of the life he used to know, and he'd always wave a polite goodbye to her and go compliment the chef on the delicious flavor before he left.


	88. Rescue

There was a girl, small and slight in front of the fire as her tiny legs carried her away from it, red hair flowing behind her, and Drax was reminded of a little girl so many years ago, wide smile and bright eyes, calling to him from across the table, asking him another of her endless, curious questions. He saw that girl in her, saw his daughter, and felt suddenly afraid that the fire might catch up to her, licking across the ground as she struggled to run from it.

The rest of the team was too busy helping to evacuate the others that they failed to notice her, but she was all Drax could see, and he rushed into the heat and smoke and scooped her into his arms, into safety.

She clutched at him, trembling and weak from the smoke crawling down her throat, and in that moment he was holding his baby girl, keeping her from the danger from which he'd failed to save her the first time.


	89. Shift

Something was wrong with Bruce, Tony had managed to tick Thor off one too many times, and Steve's sadness still lingered in his eyes. Clint was more laidback, more comfortable around them now that Loki was gone, but it was a nightmare that visited him each night. Fury had gone, had left his mark and secluded himself, and Maria seemed less confident because of it, a shadow with no sun.

Everything was different, but Natasha felt the most altered.

She'd been compromised, reached at her deepest level, and had risen a new person, a freer woman. She'd let go of her past, had wiped that ledger clean, but there was something still there within her that was somehow permanent. It was a memory, long-faded and worn, of a small, trembling finger pressed lightly against the trigger of a gun.

But despite the horror of it, she pushed on, managed to laugh with them all and pretend that it was fine; they all did, hoping to never have those secrets revealed.


	90. Tarantula

Apparently, none of the other Avengers liked spiders very much.

When asked about it, Clint would say that spiders were perfectly fine and all-as long as they kept to themselves and as long as they weren't _tarantulas_. Tony and Thor were both highly disturbed by the way Natasha would gently run a finger over her new pet's back, smiling down at it as it sat, comfortable and still, in her palm. Bruce would give her a quizzical look and rush away when she set it upon the floor to scurry around.

She'd tell them that it was a sweetheart, really, but no one believed her.


	91. Reconsideration

Natasha enjoyed a lot of things about Bucky Barnes. She enjoyed watching him tap two metal fingers against the table in some kind of rhythm only he knew, enjoyed tasting the wine on his lips after an especially filling dinner, and enjoyed the way he carded gentle hands through her hair to soothe her after a particularly trying mission. She enjoyed kissing the corner of his mouth to steal the residual chocolate from his lips, enjoyed watching his eyes light up whenever Steve and the team came to visit, enjoyed the rumble of his laugh deep down in his throat when she made some joke about how old he was.

She was also beginning to enjoy, oddly enough, all the ways in which she was changing. She'd never been so openly romantic as to declare her love before dozens of people, but the alcohol at the Avengers' Christmas Party had convinced her otherwise, and she'd never kissed anyone under the mistletoe, either, but Bucky's smile had persuaded her. She'd never considered marriage, had never thought she'd be the type to leave a life of secrecy for one of comfort, had never for once even fancied the idea of Bucky.

_And yet._


	92. Flirtation

He imagined that he could reach out and run the back of his hand over the stubble on Bucky's cheeks, present only because they both had forgotten razors in the rush to pack for their vacation. He imagined that he could trace the light illuminating Bucky's skin that came through the bedroom window, bathing his face in golden shades. He imagined that he could scoot ever closer and capture his lips, waking him with a welcome surprise.

Yes, Steve imagined, but he didn't dare; he could never wake Bucky in such a comfortable position nor fitful sleep, but the reluctance wasn't too costly.

He could still admire his lover all he wanted.

The dark strands of hair Bucky had heretofore neglected to cut draped messily over the pillow cushioning his head, and his bare chest, exposed by the sheets he'd kept persistently pulling down throughout the night, rose and fell evenly with the flow of slumber. Steve smiled as he laid his head back against his pillow, trying to avoid making any noise or movement that might disturb Bucky.

His metal fingers suddenly curled absently around Steve's hand beneath the covers, and Steve, startled by the biting chill of the metal, jumped up just fast enough to wake the perpetrator, who began chuckling with his mouth pressed against the pillows, a muffled sound of entertainment that made Steve grin despite his slightly annoyed change of mood.

"You weren't asleep, were you?" he asked knowingly, trying to stifle the smile from his voice, and Bucky raised his head haughtily, still laughing.

"I've been awake for hours," he mumbled proudly, turning to sit up and lean against the headboard, and Steve followed suit.

He gave the former assassin a half-heartedly cross look and shook his head, blue eyes vivid in the light.

"When we get out there, I am definitely pushing you into the snow; I don't care how fast you're skiing when I do it, either."

Bucky cocked a brow, a challenge sparking in his eyes, and he reached out to gently entwine their fingers with his unaltered hand, smirking.

"_I know you_. What if I hit my head on some buried rock or broke my arm? You'd be catering after me hand and foot for weeks, apologizing left and right," he murmured, all the while leaning forward into what seemed to be the undeniable ring of gravity surrounding Steve Rogers at all times, "and who wants that? Do you really want to have to give me a bath because you caused me to break both my legs in a horrible skiing accident?"

It was Steve's turn to offer a smug grin, and he nodded slowly, putting up the façade that he was seriously debating the matter in his head when in reality he was imagining what it would be like to bathe Bucky. He turned, sighing.

"I guess you're right; I wouldn't want you to get hurt."

Before Bucky could give a teasing retort, Steve hooked a hand over his shoulder and drew him forward to embrace him, pressing his lips against Bucky's mouth in a fervent kiss, smiling as he did so. Bucky pulled away for a moment, wide eyes bright with surprise and pleasure, and Steve shrugged.

"But that doesn't mean I can't give you a bath anyway."


	93. Awakening

They'd preserved it, he realized, standing atop the landing just in front of that old, worn door. They'd kept any later potential tenants away from the place, had discouraged vandalism and welcomed visitors (none of which hardly ever came anymore), implying in some small way that this piece of history, this then-insignificant, run-down home of the patriotic captain was a monument in its own right. They'd even kept the door blessedly silent, he discovered as he turned the knob and pushed his way through with gentle, hesitant steps.

It flashed before his eyes, a soppy-haired blond shaking the water off his shoes at the doorway rug, thin shoulders shivering from the bitter cold just outside.

He shook his head to clear it. No, he didn't know that man, the frail, skinny ghost of the one on the bridge, the one he'd saved from drowning, the one he'd left on the bank, the one that haunted him still.

He didn't know him; Winter knew no one.

_And yet_, murmured a small, hidden part of himself, _you do_.

That was a piece of him he hadn't known, and had failed to recognize, for decades-he'd never realized that part of him even existed. But it spoke loudly next, disagreeing with him.

_I'm here_.

The scene before him vanished, and he was left staring at the thin film of dust resting over the coffee table he thought looked a bit familiar. There were faint rings left on its surface, and suddenly he was there, running a hand through his hair to make it look tousled as he lounged on the small sofa in front of the table. He looked younger in the vision, less rugged and far happier, crossing his legs up on the tables as he set a bottle of Coke down. That same man rushed in, then, admonishing him for not using a coaster, and he shrugged. The man's lips moved in a familiar way, forming what Winter knew now to be a name: _Bucky_.

_Bucky_, he said, and the young, relaxed version of Winter smiled dazzlingly, tossing his hands up in a careless, friendly gesture. _It's not like it'll stain it, Steve_. The pair vanished, and he was left to stare at the furniture, covered carefully with a layer of plastic; the rug on the wooden floor littered with specks of dust; and the lonely walkway that lead into what he thought was the kitchen.

He knew it was the kitchen. He didn't know how he knew, or perhaps he was afraid to acknowledge how he knew. It didn't matter to him, really, either way.

The tiny Steve tapped him on the shoulder and he turned, surprised, to find the man looking at him excitedly. _What are you doing here so late?_ His blue eyes were brighter than Winter remembered them being; what had happened to dim them so drastically? Not that he cared. Not that it mattered.

Steve vanished, and Winter turned back around fretfully, his heartbeat quickening like it hadn't in years; his body was conditioned to be a constant, reliable entity all on its own, but now that training was failing him.

_Bucky_, Steve shouted in concern between his small fits of laughter, leaning against the archway of the kitchen that overlooked the living room as the younger Winter sat flush upon the hard floor, legs stuck out uncomfortably straight, a shocked look on his face and slick streaks covering the floor from where he'd slipped on the water stuck to the soles of his boots. Bucky looked up and gave Steve a lopsided, goofy grin, breaking into his own familiar, warm laughter.

Winter took a slow, cleansing breath and watched the scene disappear. He expected another vision to overtake him, but none ever came, and so he wandered about the house, visiting long-abandoned halls and opening long-neglected door knobs to enter strangely familiar rooms and touch his fingertips to messy, ever-inviting beds, to ghost his palms over fluffed-up pillows that he could have sworn smelled exactly like Steve-but he hadn't ever known the captain's scent, he thought. He hadn't ever known…

_Bucky_, moaned a tired, sluggish Steve as he rolled over across the pillows that were barely flattened by his scant weight, his hair mussed about his head and his blue eyes so vividly gazing at him from his perch on the bed's edge. Winter took a step back, reeling.

_Bucky_, _don't leave_. Bucky chuckled, a sound created in the back of his throat, a sound Winter knew Steve loved to hear. He watched Steve smile crookedly, contentedly, as if it might just be impossible to contain the joy on his face, and plop back down into the warmth of pillows and sheets and a single comforter he'd hogged throughout the night, despite the unforgiving chill of winter Bucky had complained about incessantly.

_I'm signing up today, you know that. _He watched Steve give him a sideways glance, his face buried in the pillows all except for the sliver of bright blue that caught the light and was made shades lighter.

_I know, I know_. _It's your duty_. _It'd be mine, too…._ Bucky reached out in a moment of sympathy to run a hand gingerly down Steve's exposed back, fingers exploring the raised bumps beneath the skin, the sharp edges of shoulder blades and smooth hills of vertebrae.

Winter remembered how it had felt against the skin of his fingertips, and blinked away the image, shaking. He rushed through the house, then, ignoring all signs that he'd ever been there, ignoring everything. He made it to the front door and hastily walked through it, reaching the railing of the porch and leaning against it for support. His breaths were shaky and shallow, and he pushed the hair out from in front of his eyes-the hair he knew Steve would have pushed behind his ear, the hair Steve would have tried to cut while he was sleeping, the hair he would have grown even longer just because it annoyed Steve.

_Steve._

The name resonated within him and sent shivers all through his limbs. He bent over to put his head in his hands as the memory began again, the same one that had plagued his mornings and his nights and every hour in between.

_Bucky?_

_Who the hell is Bucky?_

No longer did his face not have a name, no longer could he glance in the mirror and be unable to think of his own name, no longer was he merely Winter.

His name was Bucky, and the memories that had been kept from him were swimming wild and rampant in his head, unchecked and free, and they all lead him to one person.


	94. Purr

Steve started to notice a strange odor in the house, accompanied by strange scratching noises echoing from the kitchen at night, and it caused him to wonder at his sanity for quite a stretch of time, leaving him perplexed after each fruitless search throughout the home he and Tony shared.

It would never be obvious that they shared it, though; Tony was always either at work when Steve managed to slip away from his constant barrage of missions to get a bit of sleep at night or he was attempting to make what seemed to Steve (based on the mess often left in the kitchen) a breakfast fit for five people in a coffee-induced, early morning rush.

Because of this near-constant coincidental separation, Steve found it difficult to understand the sticky notes left about the house, stuck to various pieces of furniture with Tony's familiar scribbling across them all.

_ Litter. I mean, a box._

_We need a box._

_It probably needs some Friskies._

Steve didn't know what Friskies was or why Tony needed a box. The handwriting got messier, no doubt due to Tony's determination and frustration at something Steve obviously didn't understand.

_Is it even alive still?_

_Do you hear it Steve?_

_Honestly…_

He did hear it, eventually, after the usual round of mysterious scratching in the kitchen: a timid _meow_.

He not only heard it, but he took it to bed and let it sleep with him, its warm, furry little head tucked up by his ear.


	95. Rained In

Tony had convinced Steve to stay inside on what was likely to be the last rainy day before spring, and he'd tried his best not to consume the alcohol they were both confined with. He'd tried-really. Steve had tried especially hard, too. _…Really hard._

And yet, their resolve had crumbled and they'd ended up laughing until the pain in their sides brought tears to their eyes, tickling each other like children might do and tossing pillows into each other's faces to drown out the sound of the droplets beating hard against the rooftop. Steve had suggested body shots, and Tony, although surprised that Steve would suggest it, ignored his initial shock and delved deeper into a drunken, semi-lusting stupor.

He was lucky Steve was such an impatient person, or he'd have gotten far too drunk to even get out of bed the next day, for Steve pulled him up by the collar just as he was chewing his fifth lime to kiss him square on the mouth, the alcohol burning their insides just as Steve's skin, warm and smooth as Tony brushed his fingertips against it, burned Tony far greater than he thought fire ever could. After they broke apart, his lopsided grin initiated another pillow war, and neither noticed that the rain had ceased.


	96. Cursed

Bucky would often entertain the thought that he and Natasha had met somewhere else, in some other way, that she'd been a starlet on the big stage in 1940 and he a love-struck onlooker that paid extra for front row seats.

Sometimes he longed for the chance to tell their grandchildren that they'd bumped into one another at the Stark Expo and she'd been intrigued by his military uniform and gangly companion.

Sometimes he wanted so badly for her to have been a waitress at his favorite diner that he bantered with each weeknight, or that she'd been a dancer or a painter or a singer or anyone he could have admired whole-heartedly.

Anyone.

Anyone but who she was, who he was.

Sometimes he wished they hadn't been born in blood and raised in chaos. Sometimes he wished she didn't have that code name. Sometimes he wished he didn't have that metal arm. Sometimes he wished it would work out, in the end.

He wished and hoped and dreamed.


	97. Corn

"Stop it, Nat," Clint whined between a poorly-stifled grin, batting away the bits of corn being flung his way. Natasha, the culprit, smiled and shook her head, kicking her feet back and forth as she sat on the kitchen counter, her back to the main part of the kitchen. Clint lounged on a sofa in the connected living room, attempting to produce a convincing frown.

"Wow, Clint. You don't like corn? And you call yourself a farmer…" Clint sighed, pretending to be irritated, and she heard the amusement in it, her heart beating faster with joy.

"I do not, nor will I ever, call myself a farmer." She raised a brow at him and gestured to the house around her.

"What's all this called?" He rolled his eyes, a smile slipping past his efforts and peeking through.

"A farm," he answered quietly. She pretended to be surprised, putting a hand up in front of her agape mouth, eyes wide and round.

"Oh, so you're not a farmer? Well you must be, since farmers own farms."

He started to say something, but at the challenging glint in her eyes he shrugged and, defeated, collected the small pile of corn that had been created near him and chucked it all at her, delighting in her squeal of laughter.


	98. Decoration

"Don't be a dweeb," Steve teased as Tony stepped down from the step ladder he'd hauled over to the tree, turning to face the captain with the sassiest expression on his face.

"I'm sorry, are we still living in black and white or is it the 21st century? Who even says dweeb…_you're_ a dweeb," he muttered as he closed the now-empty treetop angel box and threw it in a nearby storage bin. Steve chuckled and grabbed a handful more of ornaments, wanting to decorate the tree as much as possible. He examined one that was made of glass, stripes of bright glitter twinkling back at him beneath the shine of the overhead lights.

"I'm surprised these don't hover nowadays," he said absently, and Tony shrugged as he plucked it from Steve's palm and hung it on the tree.

"I'm surprised you didn't hurt your back lugging that tree in, grandpa," Tony retorted mockingly, and the most wicked grin passed over Steve's face.

"That's not what you were calling me last night." Tony's episode of loud, side-splitting laughter echoed throughout the room and was only silenced when Steve hung the mistletoe above them.


	99. Expecting

After enlightening Thor on human Christmas traditions, since he'd never spent a holiday on Midgard, Tony and Pepper clinked their wine glasses together (though Pepper's was filled with water) and hoped that, after so much curiosity, Thor wouldn't ask any more questions. The snow drifted lazily outside the wall of windows and Pepper lounged on the arm of the couch Tony was seated at, while Thor paced back and forth across from them, mind turning over the new concept.

"If this Santa gifts children, and Santa is only a man pretending to be him, can I pretend to be Santa and gift your child?" Thor asked excitedly, turning to the couple just as Pepper choked on her drink for a moment, eyes wide and shocked. Tony laughed, not seeing her expression.

"Sure, Pointbreak. Like ten years from now, knock yourself out," he murmured between chuckles, but soon the laughter faded as he took in Thor's expression.

Thor and Pepper had locked gazes, and it seemed like the god was attempting to send some telepathic message to the redhead, no matter how impossible-such was the strain and confusion upon his countenance. Tony glanced to Pepper, brow raised. "Ten years…right?" Pepper laughed a tiny little bit and shrugged, hurriedly downing the rest of her water and getting up to get a couple more bottles of wine for the men, wishing she could have a bottle or two herself.


	100. Miraculous

She really was the most important child in the world, red curls bouncing at her back as she ran after the stray dog they all knew they'd be "adopting" soon; it was impossible to say no to such a cute face. Bright eyes and wide grin, she giggled as her legs tirelessly carried her over the grass, and her squeals of delight could be heard from inside the house when the dog sniffed her ear.

The rest of the team, joining Natasha and Clint on a much-needed vacation, laughed and cooed and entertained the girl as much as they could, adoring her, and Clint felt like the proudest parent in the world. Natasha teased him about how goofy he looked with that stare and grin and odd expression, but he knew she felt the same.


	101. Aspirations

Steve wanted to serve. He wanted to prove to his country, his friends, and those that mocked and degraded him that he could rise up to the challenge and defend the things he cared for most.

He wanted to save them all from harm. He wanted to make it clear that his ability wasn't hindered, that the guy who got beat up so often in back alleys wasn't helpless. He wanted to take down the real bullies, the enemies, the ones that oppressed, belittled, and hurt others.

He wanted to do what was right and take the fear from everyone's hearts. He wanted to do whatever was necessary, pay whatever cost, for freedom's sake.

Yes, Steve wanted to serve. He wanted everything that entailed.

And so was the look of dejection present ever-frequently upon his face after each failure, after denial, after each harsh stamp upon that small piece of paper, telling him he could never be a soldier.


	102. Meeting

He got knocked on his ass the moment he took off the mask. It was broken anyway, useless, and so he'd angrily ripped off the metal and tossed it to the cracked pavement below, only to fall flat beside it seconds later as what they'd all been fighting sped toward him in a blur of motion and grey color.

The flash wasn't everything they'd been fighting, though. The woman in red-well, Tony knew there was something up with her, something he didn't want to mess with.

And then there was Ultron, of course, but this guy had been constantly knocking Tony every which way since the fight began. He had half a mind to blast the man into the next realm, but he figured that he'd need Thor for that and the god was currently occupied with helping Steve battle something just out of Tony's field of vision.

Tony had had enough of the guy still fighting him, and he sighed loudly, dramatically.

"Hey, speedracer, are you going to run circles around me all day or what?" The man stopped before him and grinned, as if impressed, and Tony shrugged, exhausted.

He assumed it was a nice change, and the guy didn't look too intimidating when he was just standing in place. The woman who Tony really didn't want to cross had snuck up and stood beside the man Tony'd been talking to, eyes wide as she raised a hand, red wisps of _something_ floating around her hand.

Tony guessed it was magic and sighed.

_Great._

But the man beside her put a hand on her arm and stopped her, smiling.

"I think I like this guy," he murmured to her, and she cocked her head, brow arched in curiosity.


	103. Test

"You've got it down?" Tony asked skeptically, remembering the outburst in the Helicarrier as Bruce sighed for the hundredth time that day, nodding.

"Down pat, I promise." Tony came around one of the metal prep tables with a thin, long taser in his hand, waving it about like some wand as Bruce watched warily.

"So if I zapped you real quick you wouldn't blow a gasket?"

Bruce stared, deadpan, and rolled his eyes, leaning back down to where his research was spread across the table in small stacks. He had a mystery to solve, and here Tony was badgering him.

The billionaire set down the taser and picked up an open package of crackers off the table and plucked a saltine out of the wrapping, holding it aloft for Bruce to see.

"What if I ate all your crackers?"

"Then I'd be irritated while I went to buy some more," Bruce murmured in an increasingly aggravated tone.

"What if I just keep talking?" Tony smiled, the kind of silly, knowing smirk that deflated any anger one could hold against him. Bruce sighed once again, laughing.

"I won't listen."


	104. Beagle

When their friendship finally morphed into a long-awaited release of kisses and tightly held hands and shared covers, Clint and Natasha had been a little new to the romantic side of their relationship. Sure, he'd had his flings, and of course, she'd been known to seduce a man or two, but they'd never really delved too deeply into what they hadn't even been certain that they'd wanted for themselves.

But soon they discovered that a romance was something they'd practically been living all these years, and that it was pointless to continue to deny themselves.

It happened when Clint leaned in to press his mouth to her cheek, unable to keep from smiling against her heated skin, and it started when she decided to kiss his lips in response. They were simple like that, just the two of them basking in the knowledge that they trusted one another completely, just the two of them against anything that could come.

That was their "mushy" phase, as Natasha would later coin it.

Their next phase looked a lot like their friendship had been before they'd furthered it, jokes and teasing and pranks and late nights spent watching suspenseful movies Clint would regret watching when he went to bed. Besides the obvious similarities to their previous bond, this new stage shared another commonality: Natasha punched Clint in the face (on accident, again).

It had been one of those late nights where they'd decided to watch a true horror movie and had both regretted it immensely, deigned that getting drunk whilst watching was a very good idea, and had both nearly gotten sick from all the popcorn they ended up eating. Natasha had eagerly gone to bed and had been unfortunate enough to wake up after Clint, who, in his still-drunken stupor and clumsy manner of sneaking about, had concocted this plan to scare Natasha with the giant plastic spiders that Tony kept in one of his many closets for Halloween (a spider that looked eerily similar to the one in the movie they'd watched the night before).

It had seemed like a solid move to Clint, but when he'd tripped over one of her shoes and made a startled noise as he nearly collapsed onto her bed, giant spider in hand, the spy had bolted upright and knocked him flat with one of her notoriously painful punches. The spider had gone sailing across the room and she'd been laughing at the sight before she'd even registered that her closest friend was sprawled across the floor with an indignant, pouting look on his face.

Phase three went a little differently.

It was the final stage where, after serious consideration, they'd decided to take on some responsibility together-test the waters, so to speak. It went without saying that putting their lives in each other's hands on a near-daily basis was no small responsibility, but this next stage was a bit more…domestic.

It was a Beagle puppy, with large floppy ears that felt warm and silky to the touch, small whiskers poking Nat whenever it laid its tiny head affectionately against her arm. It seemed like its tail was always wagging, and every now and then it would climb onto Clint's shoulders and sniff loudly into his ear, eliciting laughs from them both. It seemed a common happiness in their life, a simple joy away from the hectic life of superheroes and aliens and killer robots.

It was a plain, honest thing that brought them closer, but it hogged the bed on most nights as it slept noisily between them, small paws twitching with dreams, sleepily yipping occasionally and sending the both of them into a fit of late-night laughter.


	105. First Date

I could tell he was a little nervous from the way his hands shook as he quickly took a sip of water; he'd refused the wine the waitress had attempted to convince him of purchasing, much to her ire. I was pretty anxious myself, wary of bringing my hands up past the table for fear that he'd see the same jittery movement in my fingers. It would be completely embarrassing.

Dark hair looking pleasantly messy, plaid scarf slung over his shoulder, and coat folded neatly over the back of his chair, Loki looked more handsome than ever, his green eyes darker than I last remembered them being as he glanced curiously from across the table at what I could only assume was my very obviously –staring expression. My heart fluttered and I swallowed thickly, a laugh escaping my throat in the hopes of easing the nervous tension. He smiled tenderly and took another sip of water, and the heat flaring across my cheeks heightened in intensity.


	106. Parenting

Peter had certainly been a handful, with the diapers and the wailing and the sticky hands, and then he'd been a different kind of handful, the thought of his ever-nearing birthday that would mark him able to attend school a stress-inducing one for his already stressed parents, Steve and Tony. They'd deliberated long and hard about his future, about what he might turn out to be, about how he might look when he was older.

And then suddenly there was the matter of a second child, a sister; it was Tony's idea that it be a girl, so that Peter could look out for her and in turn she could give him a specific insight neither of them would be able to offer. It was a conversation topic they'd pondered over for months, unable to decide.

But one day, while shopping at the store, Steve wandered into the clothing aisle, near where the baby outfits were displayed, and absently ran his hand over a yellow onesie that had baby elephants patterned across the cloth. His small smile as he gazed down at it snapped Tony out of the swamp of indecision they'd been swimming through for months, and Peter banged his tiny fists excitedly against the shopping cart handle, as if sensing his parents' big revelation. It was decided.


	107. Before

In the moments they'd consider rare in only a few short months, the Avengers spent time lounging happily in the tower Tony had completely renovated to cater to their needs. They talked and laughed and drank and had prank wars that left at least one member of the team eager to seek out revenge a few weeks later in an unexpected surprise attack. It was all good fun, really. Nat even set up a profile on an online dating site for Steve, and Tony helped her perfect it and keep the secret from him. Thor and Clint discovered that they really enjoyed playing Mario Kart together, getting far too worked up and competitive, and Bruce realized that he preferred tinkering in the lab with Tony, laughing as Tony excitedly and nonsensically talked about A.I.s and the future and something that Bruce could never quite remember, something he vaguely thought started with the letter _U_.


	108. Reality

For a moment Peter didn't think he could save her, didn't think he would be enough to keep her from danger, didn't think he'd be able to keep her father's dying wish. He could see her plummeting, coat billowing and curling in front of her waist as her blonde hair flew past her face, her eyes bright with panic as they stared up at him, perhaps hopefully-or maybe that was just what he wanted to see, instead of the despair creeping into her gaze. His web was around her, a quiet embrace that he prayed would be enough until he could reach her himself, painfully aware of the ever-nearing concrete below them as they both dropped through the air.

He could just barely hear her scream being stifled into a small gasp that felt too final.

Peter's eyes flew open, his heart pounding violently against his sternum, sweat dripping down his face and neck as he bolted upright, panting heavily.

Beside him, a hand snuck out from under the covers and curled loosely around his wrist as a bright pair of blue eyes and a mess of blonde curls popped up, head tilted in curiosity. Gwen smiled, groggily rubbing at her eyes with her free hand.

"What's the matter?" Peter remembered that she'd spent the night at his house after staying up far too late to go home, and the relief that coursed through him was so profound that he lunged forward and swept her up into his arms, feeling her, flesh and bone and heat and laughter against him, so real next to him.

"What's this for?" she asked between giggles, and he buried his face in her hair, sighing.

"Just a bad dream," he murmured, grateful that a nightmare was all that it would ever have the chance to be.


	109. Baby Steps

Fitz was different, that much was for sure, but Jemma wasn't about to lie to herself and believe that she hadn't changed after Ward betrayed them, either. She wasn't about to trick herself into thinking that Fitz could ever be like he was again, that they could go on like they had before, that she could look him in the eye and forget about his final confession, his sacrifice. She wasn't about to kid herself and believe that she didn't love him in return. But now he was keeping secrets, she was certain of it; it felt connected, somehow, to the underground city and what he'd seen there.

Perhaps it was something having to do with Mack, or maybe Skye, or maybe even Ward-she could never figure it out.

Despite their problems, though, and despite the way he seemed to being growing ever-distant from her, she found herself trying harder than ever to reach him. She made his tea just the way he liked it and left it steaming on Mack's workbench where she knew he'd find it; he and Mack were close friends nowadays. She sat near him whenever the chance arose that they could be in close proximity, never speaking but always around so that he could speak to her if he wanted. She made him lunch every now and then, setting it on Mack's workbench with a small, encouraging note slid under the napkin. She got used to his random fits of self-frustration, where he'd slap the table or his thigh or the wall, and stopped flinching at each outburst. She got used to him, this new Fitz, and found that she loved him all the same.

Her only moments of sadness were induced by the thought that he regarded her as a stranger, or at least acted like it. Until one day he didn't. Until one day, she found a tray of her favorite lunch in her quarters.

Until one day, she found steaming tea upon the counter of the lab.

Until one day, she felt a hand on her shoulder as she sat in the otherwise empty lounge. She glanced up, the boredom in her expression erased by pleasant surprise. Fitz smiled down at her, his palm against her shoulder warm and familiar. It was the first time she'd felt at home in months.


	110. Martinelli

Living with Angie was an experience. Explaining the situation Peggy had found herself in to Angie was an experience. Realizing Angie had many quirks was an experience. Angie herself was an experience. It was something Peggy was learning very quickly.

The woman was always ready to gossip about anything she'd seen or heard that day, always ready to eat an entire pie (by herself, if she had to), and always ready to drink herself into a ridiculous stupor with her roommate. She was up at all hours of the night, slinking into the dark kitchen to pour some wine and nab a piece of cake from the refrigerator; the noise always woke poor Peggy. She often interrupted Peggy's sleep to jump on the bed and excitedly chat away about some story on the news or some distant explosion she'd just heard or some conspiracy theory she'd just thought up that she guessed could benefit Peggy and her work.

She was eager to drag Peggy to nearly every new movie that came out, and enjoyed walking down the crowded sidewalks at nightfall, her high voice echoing down the street. She especially loved starting food fights in the kitchen and pretending like Peggy had killed her each time anything hit her face, ever the actress.

Yes, Angie was an experience, but most definitely one of the best experiences Peggy had ever had.


	111. Lifetime

Peggy was waiting with tear tracks painted across her reddened cheeks, arms eager to wrap around his broad shoulders. It was a relief to fall into her embrace; Steve was home.

Angie teased him about when he'd propose, nudging him with her elbow when Peggy walked into the diner for the date he'd set up the day before, the ring in his pocket brushing against his leg. He swallowed nervously, feeling like that kid from Brooklyn all over again.

He wondered how she got her nails to looks so fierce, and she laughed when he asked her.

Howard finally perfected his hovercraft and insisted that they fly off in it after the wedding.

Steve felt the overwhelming urge to kiss her before the ceremony had even ended, and she squeezed his hand gently, sending a knowing smirk his way as Howard no doubt planned some grand display of celebration from the front pew.

Angie opened the wine with a specific Angie-esque flourish and yelped in surprise when Jarvis got hit with the cork from across the room, and Howard laughed so hard he nearly fell out of his seat.

Steve kissed the bullet scars over her shoulder blade and she shivered, smiling as his hands found their way around her waist.

Angie was relentless. She kept mailing them pacifiers and slipping Peggy not-so-subtle hints about how to increase fertility. Steve was the one blushing, though.

Peggy was vomiting and Steve had launched out of bed to aid her, only to find her leaning over the bathroom counter with her hand clutched to her stomach, eyes wide. He hadn't expected her to be smiling when he walked in, but there she was, beaming at him.

She had dark brown curls and vivid blue eyes and Steve liked to carry her around on his shoulders, explaining that he'd always wanted to be tall and wasn't about to deprive her of the luxury.

The next pregnancy, not even a year after the first, was a set of fraternal twins that liked to chase each other in the yard and see who could climb a certain tree the fastest. They liked to swing higher than their older sister, who'd given up trying to beat them at anything for watching her mother don her makeup and knives and guns, for watching her father tug on his suit and secure his shield at his back and playfully salute her before bending down to kiss the crown of her small head.

Angie watched them when Peggy and Steve couldn't, and Jarvis and Howard pitched in, as well. In that way, they learned a specific kind of endurance, humility, and intuition, and they adopted the values of their parents, although it wasn't so obvious right away.

Only when they were teenagers did Steve and Peggy officially retire.

Each year on the anniversary of Steve's return from defeating Red Skull, Steve took them all out dancing.

The children grew, and they found themselves in an empty house, only occupied by more than two people on holidays and whenever the kids would think to drop by.

He aged just a bit slower than she did, and it earned them odd stares whenever they'd walk hand-in-hand down the sidewalk, but they didn't care. He only wrapped his arm around her waist and kissed her cheek, smiling against her face.

...

She had wrinkles and silver hair and his own hair was greying in places, his own wrinkles forming, and he woke one morning, startled from a horrid dream wherein he'd died all those years ago and Peggy had mourned him and moved on and grown old without him there at her side. He'd jumped up a little and disturbed her slumber, and she turned to cast her sleepy gaze upon him with curiosity and just a hint of concern.

"Steve?" Peggy asked, and for a heart-stopping moment Steve was reminded of how she'd said that very thing in his dream, looking exactly as she did now, as her mind cleared itself of the conversation they'd been having, as her memory of him was wiped only up until the moment his voice had become static. She'd been just like that, _just like_ _that_, during an episode of forgetfulness that he'd felt break him somewhere deep inside.

Peggy blinked at him, reaching out to stroke his cheek with cold fingers, smiling.

"Bad dream, huh?" His breath left him in a rush of relief and he nodded, trying to shake off the imprint of his nightmare. He brought her hand up and kissed each knuckle, and her laughter, so familiar and sweet and ultimately _Peggy_, calmed the fearful, frantic pounding of his heart.


	112. Bye Bye, Bikinis

Steve watched as she swam, red strands floating around her head like small lines of fire beneath the clear surface, eyes bright in the summer sunshine. He could just make out the outline of the puckered, jagged scar on her side, partly shrouded by the waves she made with her swinging arms as she approached him, mouth beneath the water line curved up into a sly smile.

"Like what you see, Captain?" Natasha teased as she surfaced, folding her arms upon the warm concrete at the water's edge, and Steve, lounging on one of the chairs a few feet away, chuckled, running a hand nervously through his hair.

"Maybe," he murmured, trying to come off as teasing instead of serious, for he was certainly enjoying the view but didn't want to make it so obvious. Her bikini was a dark green two-piece that left nothing to the imagination, and he was glad none of the other Avengers were there, or they would have been laughing and mocking him for the blush that crept into his cheeks.

Natasha threw her head back and laughed, and he tried to ignore the milky expanse of the skin stretched taut over her jawbone and neck that was revealed in the movement, swallowing thickly.

"Oh, right, I forgot. You're ninety-five, not dead," she returned huskily, and kicked off from the pool wall to perform a haughty flip beneath the water, her familiar face popping up a few moments later, one eyebrow cocked, as if challenging him to respond in an even more blatantly flirtatious manner.

He smiled down at his hands.

"You definitely look terrible in a bikini."

He couldn't tell if she'd heard, but she splashed him all the same.


	113. Differently

The snow was soft beneath his small feet, and Bucky felt as if he might be walking atop clouds too far in the sky for him to spot so late at night. As he strolled along the white-dusted street, he noticed the old woman swearing in Russian at the dog that had snuck into her trash bins for what she swore was the last time, her fist raised in anger as she chased it away down a back alley near where he stood.

Bucky, small fists curled within his gloves as he tried to conserve his body heat, arms held tightly to his torso under the winter coat his mother had just bought him, almost laughed at the sight, for the old woman was merely in her nightgown and was being assaulted with the heavy, cold flakes that poured from the dark sky. She hurried inside, rubbing her arms, and he would have kept going on his way to his home; he was far past curfew and his mother would be furious.

But Bucky heard a small, soft noise, almost like a sigh.

He turned to look down the alley that the dog had been chased into, and when he saw a small mound of darkness laid over the white snow, he decided to investigate. When he finally made his way over, he shielded his eyes from the glare of a nearby lamppost at the corner of the alley's opening, squinting.

There, trembling weakly against the chill in only a thin jacket, leggings, and mittens, rested a girl not much younger than Bucky, her red curls splayed about her head in a vivid resemblance of blood. Small cuts littered the paling skin of her face and there were smudges of dried mud spread over her tiny nose, and her eyelids were closed and fluttering with dreams.

Tentatively, Bucky reached down and brushed aside a crimson strand of hair that had fallen across her cheek, and his gloved fingertip brushed the cold skin there. Slowly, despite how startled she must have been, her eyes opened to reveal a reddened, green gaze staring groggily up at him, but she didn't move. He crouched near her, looking around to see if she was alone, and at the confirmation he glanced down in sympathy.

"I'll get you somewhere warm, alright? You're safe now," Bucky murmured gently, smiling, and moved to scoop her small body up in his arms. She didn't resist, and instead laid her head against his chest, sighing in the same way he'd first heard her.

As he walked home, he asked her, "What's your name?"

He felt her hand, nearly frozen within her small mitten, curl slightly around his arm, and she snuggled deeper in his hold.

"Natasha," she murmured softly, her voice worn and hoarse, and the boy felt his cheeks warm, despite the cold.


	114. Discovered

They'd searched for months, asking people if they'd seen him, which Natasha had explained was highly unlikely, since he'd evaded the public eye as an assassin for decades, but Steve was nothing if not persistent. They'd stayed at hotel after hotel, hardly getting any sleep each night; Natasha would throw a pillow at him when the light of his computer screen in their shared, dark room became too annoying, and he'd reluctantly end that day of researching news articles and close the laptop with a frown.

It finally occurred to Steve that he'd been looking in all the wrong places; Bucky would likely go where he knew best, and there was no place Bucky knew better than Brooklyn, his hometown. The two visited the site of that old movie theater Bucky would drag him along to, that abandoned field where they'd play baseball with the other kids who couldn't ever quite tolerate Steve's inadequacy long enough, the old alley where Steve had received many a punch, the place where Bucky's house had once stood, and, finally, Steve's old home.

They climbed the rickety wooden steps and Steve felt as if he could hardly stand the moment of tense patience he had to endure, the restlessness and the eager way his eyes glanced above each new step in front of him, hoping desperately that Bucky would be standing there.

Eventually, they reached the door-still unlocked after all these years-and quickly opened it, aware of its abandonment. Steve doubted anyone would have wanted to live in a place that now seemed haunted with memories and years of loneliness. And then there he was, sitting cross-legged upon the dusty, torn rug by the hall entrance, his gaze cast blankly down at the cracked hardwood.

He had a baseball cap wrung in his hands, and his hair was shorn roughly, a mere imitation of how it had once been so many years ago. Bucky glanced up slowly, blinking, startled, at the sudden appearance of light coming through the open doorway, and he saw a ghost from his dreams standing with the most open expression of hope and sadness he'd ever seen.


	115. Recover

Bruce tried to ignore the glint of guilt in Tony's eyes, tried to pretend that he didn't notice the heaviness of Tony's sighs when he couldn't figure out how to undo his mistake. Ultron was the threat Tony had created for them, but Bruce didn't blame him; no one did, really.

Bruce knew that even approaching the topic of how Tony shouldn't blame himself would end in frustration, might even get him kicked out of the lab for the night, and so he never tried, but he wanted to each time he saw Tony put his head in his hands when he thought now one was paying any attention to him.

Bruce could only hope that the gesture of patting Tony's shoulder could ease his conscience, that it could reveal all the hurt Bruce wished to wipe from his friend's mind.


	116. Let It Slide

The chess pieces were metal, Charles was realizing. They didn't appear metal, at least, but each time Charles glanced away from the board to grab his wine glass for a necessary sip and turned back around, he could swear that one of the pieces had moved in Erik's favor.

After one of the students had accidentally broken Charles' beloved chessboard during a heated argument with a classmate, Erik had gone out and bought a surprisingly similar one that they'd taken into the study to promptly play; Charles should have suspected, anyway.

And if Erik's small, teasing smirk cast behind the rim of his wine glass was any indication, Charles chose to let his old friend cheat, regardless.


	117. Trick

Peggy could dance, that was a concrete truth; she could twirl and sidestep and spin around Steve while he just watched her, amazed and amused at the teasing, playful look in her eyes.

She couldn't teach anyone to dance, though.

That had become quite clear when they'd collapsed, breathless, onto her sofa, chuckling and grinning with their cheeks warmed by the rush of blood; they'd given up halfway into the lesson due to Peggy's inability to avoid stepping on his foot for more than two minutes.

It was the middle of July and Peggy's curls were frizzing in the humidity, her skin glossy with a thin sheen of sweat as she absently fanned herself, leaning comfortably against his shoulder.

"I'm quite awful at lessons," she murmured laughingly, turning to gaze back at him.

Steve didn't tell her that his mother had taught him how to dance when he was a child, and he definitely didn't tell her that he'd been covertly placing his foot in her path for the past twenty minutes. He only nodded and moved forward to plant a quick kiss to her soft, heated cheek, smirking against her skin.

"The worst," he replied.


	118. Patrick Stewart Voice Acting

"Name?" the hotel receptionist asked routinely, her gaze dull and uninterested as it fell upon Fitz, who stood before the desk with tense shoulders and stiff fingers wrapped around the handle of his suitcase, an uncomfortable smile stretched thinly across his face. He opened his dry mouth to reply-

Jemma's arm was around his waist before he could even smell the tell-tale scent of her shampoo, which had always announced her arrival to him in the past, and he had to stifle the urge to jump. She felt so warm, so close to him like that, and he loosened both his smile and his shoulders, attempting to feign nonchalance, attempting to fool himself into believing that she had no effect on him, that they'd been like this, married and comfortable, for years.

"Andrews," Jemma chirped politely, leaning into Fitz with her head resting gingerly upon his shoulder, her smile so kind and happy. He had to take slow breaths to calm his racing heart; it was all part of an act, anyway, he had to remind himself.

All part of an act.

…

By the end of it, Fitz was thinking that being Jemma's husband wasn't such a bad thing, and he was definitely becoming accustomed to the way her hand wound around his whenever anyone asked how long they'd been married. And certainly, he was enjoying the kisses she planted on his cheek, even though she'd done that a mere handful of times during their normal friendship.

This was different, though; this _felt_ different.

Jemma didn't have to laugh at his jokes when they were walking alone down the sidewalk, arm in arm, and she didn't have to touch her soft fingertips to his cheek when he was distressed over a close encounter with death that they'd both experienced quite a few times, and she most definitely didn't have to press her lips to his when they were alone in their hotel room after a long day of espionage work.

It was all part of an act, until it wasn't.


	119. Old Habits

Gambit didn't like to sleep with the lights off; it was a strange habit that Rogue never could quite figure out. He always had a deck of playing cards with him, as well, and the Professor once commented on Gambit's oddities by saying that old habits die hard; Rogue didn't understand.

He didn't like the lights turned off because it reminded him of dark alleyways, and he was always prepared for a swindle or an escape route, prepared for children's eyes to fill with wonder when they saw his trick.

Eventually, though, after Rogue finally discovered his reasons, she began to sleep beneath the covers at his side, with the lights turned off-and Gambit forgot his fear of the alleys for his delight at her being nestled close to him. He started carrying around an extra set of gloves for her instead of his cards, in case she ever needed them; it was one type of security traded for another type of security. Rogue became his anchor, and, soon, his old life was forgotten.


	120. Concern

After Ultron, Tony often worried far more than he was accustomed to; he would worry that the world was constantly being watched by those who had witnessed his mistake, that there was a looming threat just around the corner. He worried that Vision saw nothing of what they'd been through when he looked at him, that he didn't remember.

He worried that Bruce was out there, lonely and lost, that he might not even return. He worried about the distraught look in Thor's eyes when he'd decided he needed to return to Asgard and what exactly that meant for them. He worried that Natasha and Clint were growing distant from them.

Above all, though, he worried that Steve might not come back from a mission, that Steve might smile at him only one last time, that they might not get to see each other after another battle.

But Steve always came home, always laughed with the team as they sat down for a needed lunch, and he always smiled at Tony the most.


	121. Snowball

"Don't you ever get cold?" asked Sif rather enviously as she trudged through the thick snow, her boots growing heavy with water. Beside her, Loki laughed, knowing that she was attempting to stifle the sound of her chattering teeth in any way that she could; she was prideful like that. The warrior maiden was bundled in three layers of fur and gloves he had magicked to keep her fingers warm, while Loki was in his usual leather attire, his boots sopping wet.

"I don't mind it so much," he murmured teasingly, and she kicked up a bit of snow in frustration, hoping to kick it into his face. He smirked and quickened his stride so that he could rush in front of her and scoop up a handful of snow; she came to an abrupt halt and gave him a cool look of warning, jaw tense from how fiercely she was trying to steady the movement of her teeth.

Loki patted the snow into a ball and held it aloft; she glared. The snowball hit her directly in the face, and that was all it took to start a snow war.


	122. Mini-Golf

There was a line of twelve people behind them, twelve frustrated peopled. Thor had broken his putter three times, once out of sheer annoyance, and Vision had cheated twice, despite Wanda telling him that floating to the hole and placing the ball inside was _not_ how to play mini-golf.

Tony was getting way too cocky, and Natasha had made consecutive hole-in-ones to bring him down a peg. Clint was encouraging his children, guiding their arms and becoming wrought with excitement when they did better than Bruce, who smiled as brightly as the children. Steve misjudged his ability to swing and sent the ball flying three courses over, murmuring his apology to the stunned family of four he'd nearly knocked unconscious.

Sam and Rhodey were having a heated competition that apparently only involved them, and Wanda occasionally tricked everyone into thinking she'd won on the first try; Vision smiled at her, but kept the secret.


	123. Swept Up

The first thing they did was go dancing. Everyone there knew who they were, and gave them incredulous, grateful stares the entire night, but they took no notice.

Steve only saw Peggy, coming alive in his arms as he twirled her around on the dance floor, the click of her heels becoming a rhythm all its own. He only felt her body against his, her laughter in his ear when she leaned in close to kiss his cheek. He only knew the light in her eyes, the flush of her cheeks, the red of her lips as they curled into a familiar grin.

Peggy only saw the healing cut on his brow, reminding her of what she'd almost lost. She only knew the way his voice shook with laughter when they almost tripped over one another in their frenzy. She only felt his arms around her waist when the songs slowed, the swaying of their hips, the movement of their feet, perfectly synchronized.


	124. Return

When Bruce came back, Tony put him to work. Together, they cleaned the wreckage of the lab, spruced up the bar, swept up all the metal and glass, and replaced the furniture. It took weeks, and they worked quietly, with only F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s accented voice and the occasional ACDC to fill the silence.

They didn't talk about Ultron or Bruce's decision to leave; by the end of it, after everything in the tower was set right again, Tony sat next to Bruce on the sofa and placed his arm consolingly around the doctor's shoulders, tapping his foot to the beat of the song playing overhead. Bruce offered a small smile and his foot started moving just the same.


	125. Joined

All Wanda remembered was the warmth of her mother's laughter, the strength of her embrace; all she could recall of her father was the way he'd nuzzle his cheek against her own when she was a toddler, how he'd lift her on his shoulders and show her the world from six feet up. She remembered their love, and their familiarity, and the way they danced in the living room when they thought Wanda was sleeping-a scene she witnessed from behind the stair railing.

But, as much as her parents made up the memory of childhood, so did Pietro. He was a constant presence, a murmur of sweetness when she fell and scraped her knee, a nudge in the ribs when he wanted her to chase him; he'd always enjoyed running. Pietro was twelve minutes that she'd proceed to ignore for the rest of their lives, a warm hand on her shoulder when her pet died, a gentle shake to wake her from nightmares when her parents didn't hear her distress.

Then, there was the destruction, the moment of silence just before their apartment became obsolete and dust and bits of concrete that held her down. They were pulled from the wreckage, miraculously alive and largely unscathed, but sometimes Wanda felt as if they'd only salvaged her body. Pietro felt that way, too.

They didn't even have bodies to bury; they visited markers that rested above empty graves, set down flowers that had already begun to wither, and stood without umbrellas in the cold rain-together.

And, years later, after living in run-down apartments, barely making it from check to check, and pretending they weren't two scorned children who'd lost something vital, they approached a man named Strucker with hard gazes, holding each other's hands tighter than ever.

They knew who had to pay, and they'd deliver justice in the same fashion with which they'd done everything: together.


	126. Kindness

The team had indulged in the finer aspects of Stark's wealthy lifestyle, having drunk themselves into a slumbering, quiet stupor just past midnight after throwing a party to celebrate their latest victory over in England. Vision hadn't had the taste for alcohol, despite nearly every member of the Avengers attempting to coax him into drinking just a bit, if only to see how he might react. Wanda had smiled, sober, as everyone had fallen into their dreams around her; later she'd gently draped soft quilts over them as they'd lain in their unique spots around the room.

When morning finally came, she suggested to Vision that they make breakfast, and Vision, completely uncertain about what pancakes even were but not wanting to appear ignorant, agreed. A few minutes later and he had almost burned five of them, but Wanda, from her place beside him, paused in making scrambled eggs to smile kindly over at him, reaching out to steady his hand as she guided him on how to most effectively flip the pancakes and avoid charring them.

...

Sometimes, Clint slipped up. Sometimes, he mentioned Pietro, grinning as he recounted some story about the battle in Sokovia to his children when they all came to visit. Sometimes, Wanda could pretend like she hadn't heard it, and even rarer were the moments she could laugh along with the rest of the team. Vision never laughed, though; he only gave her a concerned stare while the rest of the team ignored the memory of her brother's death, while they pretended that he was just away on vacation and all the quips he'd said as he'd blurred past Clint were just things he'd done only a few weeks ago.

They told stories as if he might return, as if the conversation wasn't bittersweet. Sometimes, though, Wanda couldn't pretend that she hadn't heard, and she couldn't laugh with everyone else; sometimes, she felt the small tremble in her lip and knew that in the next moment she would break down sobbing in front of a room full of friends. She could never keep that grief at bay, couldn't quell it.

But Vision, as of late, had started taking a seat directly beside her when they had their group meetings, and the team was always so busy laughing with one another that they hardly ever noticed. Just at the moment that she was certain she could no longer refrain from crying, a warm softness would come and rest atop her knuckles, a gentle touch that had become familiar. Eventually, her eyes would dry, her flushed cheeks would pale, and her fingers would stop trembling.

Her smile, when it would finally cross her face, was more genuine in those small moments of salvation than it had been in a long time.


	127. Similarity

Occasionally, Natasha thought of what they'd done in the Red Room, and sometimes that anger and indignation and grief clawed its way to the surface and overwhelmed her for a sleepless night spent lying still in the dark. Unwelcome memories of blood and bullets and screaming filled her mind in bright flashes, and sometimes she could get up out of bed and pour herself a glass of something strong and wash it away; often, it didn't work.

She'd slink back to bed and slip beneath the sheets, tossing and turning and unable to find slumber, and a warm arm would snake around her waist. A face would appear beside her, emerging from the shadows, a presence that she'd been needing all night.

Bucky would nestle in close to her and rest his chin on her shoulder, softly kissing her neck and smiling against her skin, holding his embrace until long after she fell asleep.


	128. Plan

He'd gotten a lot of lasting, puzzled gazes, standing in the check-out line with a buggy full of birthday decorations and cake ingredients. He'd called every contact in his phone and they'd called every contact in their phones; he wanted the whole top floor of the tower to be full of people. He'd spent a good two hours on the cake, meticulously placing each candle and writing each letter of icing after it had cooled.

Sam had helped him put up the paper mache banners and Natasha had passed around party hats with a teasing smirk, totally under the radar. Her plan was to put them on just before Steve's friend arrived, so that Steve wouldn't realize that the guests all had them until it was too late.

He had someone stationed outside the tower to alert him of her arrival, and when his phone buzzed in his pocket, he hurriedly shushed everyone and flicked off the lights, making sure everyone was in an adequate hiding place before ungracefully diving behind the couch at the last second when he heard the doorknob turn.


	129. Anything You Can Do

Natasha moved quickly, dropping down and landing solidly upon the man's shoulders and sending a startling jolt of electricity through him. He toppled to the ground and she caught her footing, standing behind Sif as the warrior maiden turned in surprise. She took one glance at the unconscious enemy, another glance at the railing overhead from where Natasha had jumped, and grinned with both gratitude and amusement as she leveled Natasha with an appraising gaze.

Offering her arm, Sif nodded, and Natasha, aware of the custom because of Thor's easy friendship with the boys, gripped Sif's forearm with as much casual strength as she could muster, grinning proudly. She had to admit, it was nice to have the approval of an ancient alien from space.


	130. Childish

They all quickly learned that, even reduced to the size, spirit, mentality, and likeness of a small child, Steve was righteous to the core. When Clint's children were over, small, stumbling, sickly little Steve would reprimand the siblings for arguing in the way that all siblings did; he'd force them to make amends and smile a tiny grin of pride, sending the whole team laughing. In the months it took them all to figure a way out of Steve's de-aging, he'd gotten them into several tricky situations.

The media had questioned them about Captain America's absence and had given the child with a familiar face a quizzical, hard look; it had been a nightmare trying to shield him from the cameras. Sometimes, he'd run off and hide somewhere in the tower, playing a game no one wanted to play; it always took hours to find him. He would then ask after his mother with an increasingly worried frown.

Only Bucky, with a friendly voice and familiar face, if only vaguely, could ease Steve's concern and lie smoothly about the whereabouts of the nurse he'd known long ago.


	131. Half-Hearted Theft

Wanda, unfortunately, liked cereal. She'd buy a box of her favorite brand and store it away on the top of the refrigerator, already eager for the morning to come. She woke early, too; she could never quite sleep very soundly, for all the noise in her head. And when she woke early, she tiptoed into the kitchen so as to not wake anyone and made haste. She got the bowl and the spoon and the gallon of milk, set it all out with a flourish of happiness, pure joy to have the simple things in life back now that she was an Avenger. She'd pick the box up and find that it felt lighter; puzzled, she'd open the box and discover the cereal, usually in its bag, completely gone. There was only a note, a familiar piece of handwriting, an apology.

_Sorry, sis-metabolism._

It was Pietro's excuse, anyway.

Unfortunately, he liked cereal, too, and liked the exact same brands as she did.

He would wait for her to come from the store with however many boxes (for she started buying multiple boxes in the hopes that he would only eat one box and she'd have some to herself-it was a foolish notion and Pietro was only encouraged by her hopefulness) and he would sneak into the kitchen in the dead of night and all but inhale the food. The faster he moved, the more food he needed to compensate for the calories he burned, and so it became a never ending cycle of annoying Wanda as any brother would, if he had the ability of super speed.

Wanda didn't mind as much as she let on, though; sure, it was irritating to never be able to sit down and have a peaceful bowl of cereal (except that one time when he left half a bowl's worth for her and she tossed it at him laughingly), but what was more important to her was the fact that he was even there to be back to his old antics once again. What outweighed her infuriation was the sight of him, breathing and blinking and so clearly_ alive_; relief could soften any heart.


	132. Counting

Fitz couldn't keep track of how many times he'd gazed at Jemma and thought, briefly, that they could be something amazing. Jemma couldn't count all the moments she'd found herself looking to him for comfort, for familiar solace. But both of them could count on their fingers how many dates they'd gone on; both of them could recall each kiss on the cheek, each hesitant, shaky interlacing of fingers.

He couldn't figure out when he'd started to fall for her, and he couldn't pinpoint the moment he'd realized how vital she was to his very existence, but Jemma could remember the exact second that she'd truly understood how deeply he'd burrowed into her heart, how completely interwoven they were. Both could count the times they'd dreamt of a future with one another; both could look back and know the exact amount of times they'd almost taken their relationship to a whole different level.

It was all very confusing, trying to think back on those crucial beginnings and knowing now that they had actually acknowledged their feelings and gotten past it, gotten past what each of them had been clinging onto for so long. For Fitz, he'd been holding onto his hesitation and his nervousness and his doubt. For Jemma, she'd been holding onto the idea that he could only ever be a friend, that the idea of falling in love with someone who'd been at her side for years was an impossibility-if it had been possible, it would have already happened, she thought.

Neither of them, though, could count the kisses they'd shared. But then, after one night filled with buttery popcorn and movies and laughter, filled with a warm arm laid over her shoulder and a hand on his own, they both went to sleep, finally able to count out one single moment.

Jemma felt quite the fool for refusing to believe in the impossible, and Fitz felt a little silly for waiting so long to tell her how he felt, for waiting until he could use what almost was his dying breath to speak words of blessed cataclysmic magnitude that would be the beginning of her lips against his, her face awash with television light as they sat in the semi-darkness with their arms wrapped around one another.

They both slept happily, slumped cozily on the sofa, hoping that, soon enough, they'd lose count of their kisses, as well.


	133. Not a Stapler, at Least

Sometimes, they weren't put on the same mission; sometimes, Steve and Peggy were forced to go their separate ways and hope the other made it back in one piece. Once, Steve had returned to base only to find that Peggy had gotten there before him, sitting stiffly on a metal table while a medic sutured a long, jagged laceration running down her calf; concerned, he'd rushed to her and filled the room with questions about the mission and her wound, and she'd sighed languidly, smiling as she recounted her adventure.

Steve's concern had melted away when he'd heard the triumph and pride in her voice, and he'd smiled as she'd told him what she'd done to the _other guy_.

It made him wonder what random household object she'd defensively use next.


	134. Awash

There was rarely a night when Tony didn't wake too soon in the dark hours of night and sit up in his bed, chest heaving. There was rarely a moment, with Pepper sleeping soundly by his side, that flashes of New York and the scepter and that endless void of space didn't overtake his mind. He'd want to go in the next room and talk to JARVIS, want to call Rhodey up in the dead of night and strike up some random conversation to chase away the streaks of vivid blue light that shone in the darkness behind his eyelids, wanted to wake Pepper and ask her to tell him a childhood story that he'd probably already heard.

Usually, he went and got a glass of water-or maybe scotch-and sat in the dim, empty kitchen until the screams and explosions sounding in his head died away to merciful silence.

And usually, there was an arm that came to loosely rest over his shoulders, and a warm cascade of soft cotton washing over his back that he knew to be Pepper's favorite blanket. The scent of her hair would overwhelm the crisp, burnt smell of battle, and her face, cast in shadows as she leaned past his shoulder to gaze fully at him, would overpower the vision of smoke and dust rising in Manhattan's sky.

Her smile and the way she rubbed his back in small, comforting circles, the way she soothed him with reassurances, was a far better release than alcohol.


	135. What a View

Thor felt his face fall when Steve managed to nearly lift Mjolnir, and he felt his heart leap with relief when Steve's exasperated sigh signaled his resignation from the attempt; Asgard didn't need a different ruler. In fact, Asgard didn't need Steve at all, but maybe Thor did. Maybe Thor needed his companionship when the two of them were tossed into a world so different (an antiquated memory for Thor, a new age for Steve), and maybe Thor needed the rush of battle all the same as Steve. There was, though, a difference between them, and they both felt its strength very keenly: Thor basked in the atmosphere of early morning and Steve…certainly didn't.

Steve groggily (and grumpily) walked into the overly-spacious kitchen one bright, warm summer morning, running a hand through his hair and rubbing his eyes with the other, to the sight of Thor standing in front of the stove, making scrambled eggs in one skillet and pancakes in the second, tapping his bare foot against the tile to some imaginary beat that only he could hear. Steve, despite his aversion to mornings, lowered his arms and smiled.


	136. The Good Life

When they all suggested a road trip, Bucky thought that it would be some crazy, extravagant time that he'd never forget, some joke or prank that Natasha might be overly proud of, some memory Steve might tell to his children one day, some stories Sam might take back to Rhodey for a good hour or so of laughter. It wasn't an attempt to wildly reclaim lost time, though, and it wasn't all that exciting. Steve drove most of the time, reluctant to let Natasha at the wheel for fear that she'd do something hilariously illegal, and Sam kicked his feet up onto the back of the console, in between the front seats, despite Steve's half-hearted protests; Natasha, from her seat beside Sam, reminded him that they owned the car, this time.

Bucky, seated comfortably in the passenger seat, gazed out the window, smiling as they all jokingly bickered with one another, watching the trees and fields blur past as they flew down the highway. The window was rolled down, and the sunlight glinted down against the metallic surface of his arm, winking up at him as the wind whipped through his short hair. He cupped his metal hand and let it hang loosely out the window, mesmerized as the breeze caught it easily and lifted it up and down. He was mesmerized by such simple things, nowadays; perhaps it was the relief, or maybe the joy, or even a mixture of all the emotions he hadn't been able to truly feel in so long.

Bucky was satisfied with the road trip, with its long, uneventful drives and fancy hotel stops and pool splashings. He was satisfied with being at peace.


	137. Adjustment

Steve wonders how Vision managed to lift Mjolnir, and he spends his time talking about the world he used to live in to a person with JARVIS' voice and mechanical-looking eyes that stare curiously at him, almost eager to hear his stories from the 40's. He realizes Vision's worth and, more importantly, spirit far before he expected Tony would ever be able to.

Natasha wonders if, like Tony, JARVIS-er, Vision-is one for jokes, but he seems more calm and collected in their talks and meetings and casual encounters. It's only when they're fighting off some threat, some person hell-bent on causing trouble, that the tiniest, snarkiest Tony Stark shines through. It always makes her smile, seeing that part of Tony in a whole new way. Soon enough, though, she starts joking with him herself, trying to pry that reaction out of him, and he eventually catches on and banters with her for hours.

Sam wonders about the limits of Vision's powers, and constantly tests them when they're out on missions. He dares Vision to do something one night when they're all relaxing at the tower, and he jokingly implies that 'even Vision' probably couldn't do a certain thing to see if he'll rise to the challenge. It's only at the encouragement of the rest of the team that he does in fact rise to the challenge. The exception happened to be when Sam voiced his serious contemplation about if Vision could run faster than Steve and, when Steve seemed almost reluctant to say anything, Vision stood from his seat on the couch and challenged Steve to a race. Later, it was definitely the funniest thing either Sam or Natasha had ever witnessed, if only because of the sight of Steve's expression of dawning realization that he was losing.


	138. Helping Hand

The sensors told him that there was a threat at the window, and so Tony, donning his armor, stalked up to the window and peeked warily over the sill to find a lone parrot pecking slowly against the pane, resting its heaving body on the small ledge just outside. Dismissively, he lowered his shoulders and turned to leave, but the faint sound coming from behind the window filled him with hesitance and guilt. Slowly, he turned back around to find that the bird was looking right at him with those colorful, shining eyes. He sighed, shaking his head. What else did he have to do today?

He'd spent his time talking to it, searching through his playlists trying to find all the bird-themed songs he could to annoy anyone in the tower that might overhear, and making adjustments to the tiny, robotic wing that would replace the bird's mangled excuse for one. Since he'd scooped it up and laid it on his work bench, the bird's melancholy mood had changed to one of curiosity and friendliness. Tony assumed that it knew what he was doing for it; it made pleasant little noises and nudged his hand as he tinkered with the wing, and he'd occasionally run a finger down its spine as it explored the table, wobbling like it did.

After he'd finished and attached the wing, he gave the bird a gentle, persuasive nudge to see if it move around the room with the contraption and, after a long while of adjustments and getting accustomed to it, the bird seemed to be fine. Tony, smiling, fed it a cracker ("for the road," he'd jokingly commented) and opened the window. The parrot, not one to linger, gave him one last look that he liked to think was filled with bird-level gratitude and took flight into the open sky.


End file.
