Chapter Text
Gun shots rang through the dusty valley where the archaeologists had been focused on the dig, minding their own business. Lily could see people running around and meeting the opposing group in combat, their cries and yells nearly drowned out by the other noise. The country landscape changed gradually as Lily tried to get her bearings into tall buildings, overturned cars and rubble crowding the streets with alien roars that could be heard over the sound of combat.
She was back at the battle.
On instinct, her eyes raised to Stark Tower, where the dark, gaping portal stood open- except, why wasn’t she up there? Shaking her head to clear it, she immediately began looking around for the hovercraft she’d used to reach the beam, her Captain’s voice- while slightly garbled- made sense enough in her dream-state to prompt her into action. She knew she had to get to Stark Tower, and fast- there was something important…
Lily’s eyes flicked up to the portal again and she gasped, seeing more clearly in her dream than in real life the red-and-gold suit of her soulmate as he fell from the portal. She lifted her foot to try to move and tugged desperately when she found she couldn’t. She felt the presence of her other teammates around her, but they seemed to be too far from her reach to help. Her next effort to free herself proved even more useless, as if she were sinking into quick-dry concrete.
Immediately, she knew it was part of the Inhuman change.
She wanted to scream, or cry, or do something , but the stone chrysalis was rising to her waist and all she could see was her soulmate falling, falling, falling, as the heavy weight of her change covered her chest, pressing down on her, making it hard to breathe- it was in her nose now, and she couldn’t even gasp for breath- her eyes unable to tear themselves away from the site of her soulmate’s inevitable end-
Lily woke with a start, breathing heavily as if there truly was a weight on her chest. While she'd grown numb to the fear she felt in her nightmare, it was always impossible for her to fall back to sleep. The room was still dark as it often was these days and the New York streets had yet to wake completely. With a sigh, the blonde woman threw back her covers and swung her legs over the side of her bed.
Spending the waking hours pushing down negative thoughts about anything that had to do with The Battle of New York seemed to work at first, but as time passed, her oppressed thoughts made their reappearance in her dreams. The only good thing that came out of her new early mornings was that she’d started a routine of going for a run before getting ready to teach.
Tony had, of course, offered to have all of her expenses covered so she could live at Stark Tower but after some consideration, she’d decided that living and working in the same place wasn’t the best idea. Besides, Lily wanted to maintain some resemblance of normality.
After completing her usual pre-morning routine, she left her apartment, plugging her headphones into her ears as she began her run. The building Lily lived in was several blocks away from Central Park, where she almost always went on her run, so she considered the “getting there” her warm-up. She wasn’t particularly fast, but she had noticed a change in her physical appearance as she became more serious about working out. Lily had found it was also a good way to clear her mind after her night’s unrest and it made the rest of the day much easier.
A lot had changed in the months following the formation of the Avengers, which she could see on her path towards the park. New York had mostly been rebuilt and the people had returned to their normal lives, although now there was a different sort of air about them, knowing they had the protection of superheroes if the stores showing their merchandise was anything to go by. School groups and tourists alike were common visitors on the first few floors of newly-repaired Stark Tower and a Tony Stark sighting was often considered the highlight of the visits.
All of the Avengers had rooms In the revamped building including Lily, although she almost never used hers. While she, Tony, and Bruce were still trying to figure things out between themselves, she did enjoy spending time with them whenever they had free time which wasn’t as often as one would think, even with only one of them having an actual job.
It was rather frustrating trying to get two geniuses to talk about their feelings, especially since they were scientists and “didn’t believe in that stuff, Lil,” which had been Tony’s answer the few times she got anywhere near the subject. It made sense, really, as even after everything that happened, he still kept to himself and wouldn’t hear any discussion about reconnecting with his soulmates through their bond. Lily suspected he was hiding something but he was about as impenetrable as a brick wall (except for his jokes and light-hearted conversations, of course.)
Bruce was easier to talk to about “that stuff” even if he was also being a stubborn idiot. His claim was that he couldn’t have “romantic relations” because of “the other guy” which, while a valid point, was completely mute in Lily’s case. She’d even tried to explain what had happened on the Helicarrier before Thor had intervened, but to no avail. No matter how attractive she thought he was, or how okay she was with his very large problem, it seemed all she was getting from him was very close friendship, which she would be okay with if it wasn’t for his reluctance to trust the people he was supposed to.
All of this led them to dancing around each other and avoiding any actual discussion on the topic, much to her fond irritation. The only silver lining to their current situation was that at least they were saying more than just “hey” and “see you later” to each other every time any two of them were in a room together, unlike the first few weeks.
It was clearly getting on their teammate’s nerves as well, since any time any one of them came for a visit, the same question was asked, ranging from “have you guys figured anything out, yet?” (that was Steve), to “stop being idiots and just-“ (thank you, Natasha.) In the best case, the question was asked to only one of the members of the trio, to which Lily would answer honestly, Tony would deflect and Bruce would make another excuse. The worst case was when all three of them were together, and then they’d go back to just saying “hey” and “see you later” for another week.
At least Bruce and Tony had science to bond over and they spent long hours in Tony’s lab doing science-y stuff that Lily couldn’t comprehend. She sat with them in the lab sometimes though, which was nice. She liked when they talked science even if she couldn’t understand it because it made them even more attractive when they were talking about something they were passionate about. Both Bruce and Tony’s expressions would be more open as they did something they loved and Lily was content to watch them work, even when she wished she could contribute something besides drawing while they were working.
This prompted her to take advantage of a part of her teaching package that she’d never payed much attention to- NYU offered discounted classes for their teachers to explore other subjects. While Physics and Engineering wouldn’t really be considered “hobbies” to anyone but a genius, this would be the only real way she could connect with them. Starting college classes with no previous background in the field was difficult, especially for someone whose last science class had been in her freshman year of college but one thing Lily didn’t lack was determination. She had no other way of getting close to her soulmates, and as this was her only option, she was going to make it work, dammit.
The upside to this was that it left her very little time to sleep, which helped “improve” her night’s rest immensely. Between her after-school work for teaching, spending a good seventy percent of her day with her “extracurriculars,” visiting Tony and Bruce in the Tower and occasionally meeting up with the other Earth-residing members of the team, her days were chock-full, allowing her to fall into bed around one or two in the morning, only to get up at five or six, depending on when the nightmare hit. With the help of creamy, sugared coffee, this schedule was completely manageable (please note the sarcasm- it wasn’t.)
While Lily did prefer to live in her own apartment, that didn’t mean that she never used her Stark Tower rooms. She usually lived there on the weekends since that was when everyone else was usually there as well. The only problem with this was that it made her new routine harder to hide, since there were several people who got up even earlier than she did or didn’t even sleep at all. Most times, though, she was able to get by her team without a problem and only see them after she’d come back from her run and was completely ready for the day.
However, she was only (In)human and her schedule couldn’t run perfectly all the time.
Lily had been running late when she’d left her apartment on Friday afternoon and she knew Natasha didn’t like to be kept waiting. After the battle, the two women had bonded surprisingly well despite being vastly different and often had dinner out at the end of the week when Lily was done with school. Because of this, she’d left her apartment in a rush and had forgotten most of the items she needed for spending the weekend away.
This wasn’t really a big deal, since Tony had practically forced her to accept a whole new wardrobe that was kept in her room in Stark Tower because it “didn’t make sense for her to pack her bag every weekend, and let me just splurge a little, Lil,” which turned into her owning items that were worth double- or more- than her current salary. While it had been uncomfortable at first since she’d been so used to budgeting, Lily had learned quickly that saying “Tony, no,” would only result in him making an even more extravagant gift, so she’d learned to accept the new circumstances.
It was kind of nice that someone went to those lengths to make sure she was comfortable and he didn’t only do it for her (although she suspected she was the only one who got a whole new set of clothes), so it made her feel better about it. Despite his seemingly self-centered persona, Tony was very giving.
Anyway, in her new wardrobe- which she hadn’t even touched yet and was honestly afraid to- there had not been any workout clothes included, so when Lily woke up at her usual ungodly hour of four a.m. that morning, she sighed knowing that she’d have to go down to the gym to hunt around for something to wear as there were always clothes available to anyone who needed them.
When she arrived at the gym, she wasn't surprised to find Steve already there, steadily making his way through several punching bags. Pausing a moment to watch him, she gave a little smile, “the stock market’s gonna go up with all of the punching bags Tony will have to replace.”
The Captain startled, apparently pulled out of his zone, but relaxed when he realized who interrupted him, “hey, Lily.”
“Hey grandpa. What did those bags ever do to you?” she asked, pointing to the beat-up ones on the floor.
Steve sighed, “superhuman strength will do that,” then his eyes narrowed when he seemed to realize something, “what are you doing up at four a.m.?”
The blonde winced, knowing that he wasn’t going to like her real answer, “can’t a girl just be up early to get the worm?”
His expression didn’t change; if anything, his frown grew more prominent, “you’re a terrible liar, Lily. Even I can see that. You haven’t been sleeping, have you?”
There was a knowing sort of look on his face that made her uncomfortable, “um…” she said, trying to avoid answering, before an idea occurred to her, “you wanna join me on my run, grandpa? I’ll probably slow you down, but it seems like you could use a change of scenery.”
Steve hesitated, probably wanting to press the issue, but then he sighed and nodded. Lily beamed at him, “great! Let me just go change and I’ll be ready in two seconds.”
It took a little longer than that, but in no time they were heading out the door of Stark Tower, the blond man turning to her, “where do you usually run?”
“Central Park,” came her prompt answer, “it’s not too far from my place and the paths are great.”
He nodded, readying himself to start towards their destination as Lily put her earbuds in- those, luckily, she hadn’t forgotten- when a sudden thought occurred to her, “hey,” she said, “have you had time to catch up on modern stuff?”
He shrugged, “sort of. The internet’s been very helpful and I have a list.”
“Do you have any music on there?”
“Some, but not a lot. Mostly whatever Stark listens to is what I get.”
Lily wrinkled her nose, “that’s not music,” she informed him (she and Tony had very different tastes), “I’ll find a spare Stark phone and set up my playlist on there so you can get some more variation. Tony thinks he has a good taste in music, but don’t let him fool you.”
Steve gave her an amused look, “and what if I don’t like your music?”
“I can bring the phone tomorrow and then you can tell me whether or not you don’t like it.”
“Sounds like a plan,” he agreed, “now, shall we start?”
Lily grinned at him, inclining her head, “ladies first.”
He let out a laugh at that, “alright, but you’re going to regret your generosity.”
As they returned to Stark Tower, she and Steve stopped at a nearby coffee place to relax after their run. Since it was still relatively early morning, not many people were out and few drew their attention towards the supersoldier, leaving the pair relatively alone. True to her word, Lily had held Steve back, and after reassuring him she wasn’t going to be offended if he left her, the man had lapped her nearly twenty times and barely broke a sweat, leaving her extremely envious of his fast metabolism. He’d probably waited nearly thirty minutes for her to be even mostly done with her run so they could meet up to get coffee after.
Lily was glad she’d pulled her hair completely up and away from her face because otherwise it would have been a sweaty, gross mess. She hadn’t even been trying to keep up with him, but she’d gone faster than she normally would anyway. The coffee was a relief after her unusually intense workout.
She could feel Steve’s eyes on her as she turned the sugar shaker completely upside down, patiently waiting as the granules emptied into her nearly-white coffee, “yes?” she asked, amused.
“Do you want some coffee with that?” he answered teasingly.
“No thanks,” Lily responded in the same tone, “I just like cream and sugar with coffee flavoring. I mean, it’s way better than that black stuff you and Tony drink. A little sweetness won’t make you soft, you know.”
Steve shook his head, “how’s that going, by the way? You and-“
The amusement faded slightly from her face as she put the sugar down, “not well. I know you guys keep asking out of concern, but… maybe it’s just better this way.”
His eyes narrowed, “you don’t believe that.”
“I don’t,” she agreed, “but what choice do I have? Talking to them doesn’t work and I really don’t know what else to do.”
“Maybe talking should be step two, Lily,” he suggested and with a little smirk said “back in my day, we had the saying ‘actions speak louder than words.’ Maybe you should show them how you’re feeling first?”
The woman sighed, not picking up on their recurring joke, “I tried that, too. I haven’t mentioned this to anyone, but I’ve started taking a Physics and an Engineering class to try and connect with them. It’s probably folly anyway since any material we cover could never be enough to help me out.”
Steve’s expression softened as he watched her stir the contents of her cup absentmindedly, “you really care about them, don’t you?”
Lily nodded, “sometimes… sometimes it just hurts so much, you know? I just- I just want to be with them, and they keep throwing up all of these walls, and I know their lives haven’t been easy, but what’s the point of soulmates if you can’t- if you can’t rely on them?” her voice cracked a little towards the end and she glanced down into the milky contents.
“I know,” Steve said softly, “I’m not sure how to make it better, but I’m here to talk, if you need it.”
Lily gave him a small smile, reaching out to gently place her hand on his arm, “I know, Stevie. This goes both ways, you know?”
He relaxed at her words and nodded, and Lily wondered about his soulmate situation. He’d been under the ice for an entire lifetime, was his soulmate even still alive? Lily’s heart twisted in her chest at that thought, of waking up in a new century, a new life, without the person- or people- you’re supposed to have by your side, and suddenly her soulmate problems seemed insignificant as she looked at him in a new light, “what about you, Stevie?” at his confused look, she nodded to his wrist, “how do you feel about… about everything?”