Chapter Text
“So I offer you a place to rest and forget yourself
In my arms
Yourself in my arms
Yourself in my arms
A place to rest and forget yourself
In, in my arms tonight”
-In My Arms, Rufus Wainwright
Prologue – Valkyrie Rising
Somewhere in the Arctic Circle, 2011
A chill, cruel wind whipped across the endless plain of ice, stirring up mini-squalls and whiting out the view in three directions. It jostled the truck, wrung crackles and snorts from the dyspeptic engine, seeped through the mouse-bitten insulation straight into Bucky’s bones. He muttered curses under his breath as he burrowed deeper into his parka, refusing to remove the fur-lined hood even though it was rude. The only reason he could see his two companions in the mauve-shaded murk of the blizzard was the sun, a phosphorescent gemstone nestled in a groove in the distant hills. It cast just enough light to silhouette their forms against the windshield. The endless onslaught of snow blighted out everything beyond.
Not exactly how Bucky had intended to spend his Saturday night.
“Sand,” he shouted. He’d quickly learned to be brief—billows of mist underscored his every word, obscuring his vision if he got too verbose.
“What’s that?” Layla El-Faouly, archeologist, explorer, and overall badass, had been excavating a Viking burial site in Iceland when they’d gotten the call. She’d brought along her civvie husband, Marc, a strong, silent type who nevertheless had his fair share of opinions about how S.H.I.E.L.D. was handling—or not handling—this particular emergency expedition.
For that reason alone, Bucky had taken an instant liking to him. Layla, he’d known for years, a frequent colleague who might have become a friend if she spent more time on U.S. soil. Not that Bucky could blame her for that.
“Isn’t sand more your thing?” Bucky asked, mostly to keep his teeth from chattering.
She shrugged. “Sand, snow—not much difference.”
“Tell that to my extremities.”
Marc, behind the wheel, gestured to their packs. “I’ve got an extra pair of thermal gloves. Don’t be shy. Gotta preserve those hands.”
Bucky waved a grateful salute in his direction after Layla dug the gloves out and showed him how to modulate their internal heating system. More accustomed to swatting his way through jungles or spelunking through an underwater cave system, Bucky had thought he’d been prepared for an Arctic assignment. As usual, experience taught him better.
“They give you the full brief on this one, Barnes?” The skeptical brow that Layla raised told him that she and Marc had been relegated to need-to-know.
Interesting.
“No.” Bucky weighed the word even as he said it. “But… let’s just say, I have my suspicions.”
As must Layla and Marc by the twinkle in her eyes. Every adventurer worth their weight in lost Inca gold learned to recognize the signs that they were onto something big. Maybe this wasn’t Ark of the Covenant or Amber Room or Tomb of Genghis Khan big, but agents with their level of security clearance didn’t get a 911 call out to an Arctic excavation in the middle of a rainy Saturday morning jog through Prospect Park without a briefing or an explanation.
A call that had been made not by his superior’s superior’s superior, Agent Coulson, but by Director Fury himself. Bucky had also spotted Agents Barton and Romanoff on the landing strip in Savissivik, and, well…
Well. Any freshman history major worth their snuff could have guessed what they’d found out there in the ice.
Bucky inhaled a deep, frigid breath, hoping the frost had its way with his tear ducts. He’d seen some ugly shit during his time in the service and at S.H.I.E.L.D., not to mention his internship at Kamar-Taj—ethnic genocides, supernatural disasters, possessions gone epically wrong—but the freshman anthropology major he’d once been still lived inside him, and that Cap-worshipping kid would never be ready for this. His senior thesis had been entitled “The Disappearance of the Valkyrie: the Dark Dimension, the Quantum Realm, and other Esoteric Theories”, for fuck’s sake.
How was he supposed to excavate Steve Rogers’ corpse without suffering a total psychological and emotional breakdown?
But even as he dreaded every single thing about this, Bucky also knew he was the perfect person, the only person for the job. He’d treat Steve Rogers’ body with the reverence it deserved. If the top brass tried to pull some fuckshit like preserving him in ice and turning him into some patriotic tourist attraction, Bucky would call in every favor from every wizard and spy and explorer and alien bounty hunter in his acquaintance to swap Captain Rogers out for a dummy and secretly bury him in Green-Wood Cemetery, next to his parents, where he belonged. Hell, he’d once spent a torrid night with a nurse at Gabe Jones’ elder care facility, a connection he’d exploit in any way he could if Fury even thought about dishonoring Captain Rogers.
With an angry lurch, the truck veered toward a landing strip made of signal flares. Not that any aircraft would be able to see a trail of pink, glowing lights through the clouds at altitude, let alone touch down, hence the seven-hour trek across the north of Greenland. Bucky nudged toward the center of the backseat to get a better view of their approach. No matter his personal feelings about leaving certain world-saving super-soldiers to their eternal rest, he didn’t want to miss a thing.
The view didn’t disappoint. The snowfall relented just enough to reveal a massive, black, towering disc-like shadow against a veil of white.
The Valkyrie. The motherfucking Valkyrie.
Bucky gave himself three sniffles and a hard swallow as they skidded to a stop about three inches from a pair he’d later nickname Agent Bonehead and Sergeant Chucklefuck as he manfully resisted the urge to sock them in the mouth. Only the thought of how painstakingly Barton and Romanoff would interrogate these military bimbos, and Marc’s stone-cold-killer version of patience, got Bucky through the next twenty minutes of credential verification, then re-verification, then radioing control through a blizzard in the Arctic to confirm that yes, they were the archivists Fury had sent. Sometimes Bucky genuinely regretted his vow to never carry another weapon.
Especially when they got dragged into a tent to assure that nothing on their persons would destroy or in any way negatively impact the site—there weren’t enough eyerolls in all the multiverse for these amateurs. What exactly did they think an excavation team did? The whole point was to preserve the site—anyway. The shield.
Captain America’s vibranium shield sat in a translucent protective case on Agent Darwin-Award-Level Moron’s portable desk, in full view of anyone who entered the tent. Bucky might have strangled the guy with his bare hands if he hadn’t been a-swoon with awe.
“It’s singing,” he gasped, and ten idiot points to him for alerting Marc and Layla to the shield’s magical potential. He felt a surge of relief when Marc nodded.
Huh. Interesting.
“Portal or pocket universe?” Layla asked, moving into a defensive position in front of the shield as Marc chloroformed the two bimbos.
“This amount of trace magic after seventy years in the deep freeze?” Bucky galloped through some mental calculations. “To be honest, neither appeals.”
“I’ve got a black box in the truck,” Marc interjected while rolling the two officers into a thermal blanket burrito.
“Best option.” Not that Bucky liked it much, transporting such a precious object in a mundane, Stark-designed cloaking device. But needs must.
He stole a moment to admire the shield while Mark and Layla fetched the box.
Holy Toledo.
“What’s the plan, Agent Barnes?” Layla asked as soon as they returned from their second trip back to the truck, armed with a murderer’s row of ice picks, drills, blowtorches, cutters, and a medevac stretcher. “Fury said it’s your show.”
Ten points in the Director’s favor for that one. Bucky glanced at the spring-rolled jackasses on the cot in the corner, frowned. “Do we know if they located the… target, or we’re still mining for gold?”
“Only one way to find out.”
Enclosed in an oxygen mask which reverberated with every tick of the metronome of his heart, Bucky timed out his breaths for maximum Zen as they descended into the ship. The spooky, X-Files glare of the lights off the frost-covered beams gave the whole endeavor a haunted mansion feel that Bucky had lots of experience with. He’d explored his fair share of midnight crypts and abandoned ruins, after all.
But he hadn’t felt this kind of weight on his chest since his first expedition, the blood-deep desire to do right by the person they’d come to excavate. As they clicked their fobs off the line and stepped into the staging area illuminated by hover-lamps, Bucky saw that the initial team had carved them out a generous path. And that they’d backed off from a certain area as soon as they’d seen the outline of a body encased in the ice wall.
Oh, Steve.
“Let’s be respectful,” Bucky insisted, more to say it than because he doubted Layla and Marc. They thrilled at the chase, they relished the hunt, but they also understood the gravity of these moments. “The man’s a hero.”
For a while, Bucky distracted himself with logistics. They’d cut him out in a long block, transport him frozen back to the States, where they had better tools to do the delicate work of shaving the ice off his skin and uniform. Then, and only then, would they defrost him. He’d need to be brought up to room temperature for embalming. Bucky blinked that thought away, back into his fortress of professionalism. Captain Rogers didn’t need his cheap sentiment; he needed his expertise.
Despite the technology at their disposal, it took hours before they could slide the massive rectangular cube onto the medevac stretcher. Bucky had been avoiding a direct look at Captain Rogers’ face, not wanting his expression of agony, of despair etched into his mind for all time. He’d already done a mental reconstruction of events. Captain Rogers hadn’t been found in the pilot’s seat, ergo he’d survived the crash long enough to attempt to escape the ship. Damage to the hull had imprisoned him, the rising waters had drowned him.
He'd stared death in the face and accepted his fate.
In the end, Bucky couldn’t resist. He, too, was an adventurer at heart. There was no guarantee they’d allow him to participate in the defrosting—he was an archivist, not a mortuary assistant, though their skill set did overlap a bit. Still, this might be his only chance to see what one of the great heroes of history really looked like. Steve Rogers. Captain America. Bucky dared a glance down…
And there he was. Eyes shut, expression serene. A sleeping beauty.
“We’ve got you, Steve,” Bucky whispered, as he pressed his thermal glove into the ice nearest Captain Rogers’ sallow cheek. “You’re almost home.”
___________________________________________________________________
Chapter 1
Three and a half years later
The zing of the shield as it sliced through the air would forever be one of Steve’s favorite sounds. No matter how knotty and complicated his feelings about war, justice, being a super-soldier, and the perpetual battle zone that was his life became, there would always be something pure, something perfect about throwing the shield. For that reason, training sessions never got old—even when four-sixths of the Avengers played keep-away with the best Frisbee in the world.
Steve stilled, knowing better than to chase between Tony and Hulk as they lobbed the shield back and forth. He bided his time, inching closer and closer, until the Hulk, not exactly known for his aim, threw too low. Steve’s roll and jump would have helped him claim the prize if, at that exact moment, Clint hadn’t shot the shield out of his reach with one of his plunger arrows. But Steve had the speedier reaction time, somersaulting mid-air into a sprint before the others could change direction. His fingers grazed the shield’s rim when Natasha snatched it away.
Outmatched but nimble as heck, Natasha clung to the far end of the shield as Steve attempted to wrench it out of her grasp. Conscious of not wanting to do her serious harm, he tugged and twisted at half-strength. She responded by flipping onto his shoulders to strangle him with her thighs. The maneuver forced Steve to toss the shield away just to pry her off. Natasha and Clint didn’t give him a second to get his bearings, immediately engaging him in some vicious hand to hand. Again, Steve was hampered by the fact that he couldn’t punch them with full strength, but he didn’t mind. Taking on non-enhanced combatants helped him hone his technique, figure out sneakier ways of disarming opponents.
What really chafed his bacon was Tony flying the shield up into the rafters and hanging it like a trophy over their half of the digital scoreboard, a premature declaration of victory. Tony, who without his Iron Man suit wouldn’t have been able to beat Steve at a game of quarters.
Playtime was over for these smart-ass young’uns. With a well-timed crouch, Steve let Natasha and Clint punch each other out, cartwheeled around the Hulk’s fist in a destructive version of Whack a Mole, then raced circles around Tony at full velocity. When Iron Jerk got too dizzy to function, Steve vaulted off the back of the suit, catapulted himself at the scoreboard, and retrieved the shield before… well, leaving a not-insignificant dent and smashing part of the digital screen.
Steve landed in a rain of sparks, smirked. He spun the shield on the tip of his finger like a basketball, then clamped it into the harness on his back. Tony scowled; the Hulk pouted; Clint groaned. Only Natasha grinned, wide and menacing, already plotting her revenge next session. And probably pleased, deep-down—she’d been the first one to criticize Steve’s technique after the Avengers had officially formed in the wake of the Battle of New York, noting that not all of their enemies would be as brute and unpolished as the Chitauri.
Not the first piece of her advice Steve had taken to heart, and certainly not the last.
“You’re gonna pay for that,” Tony groused, because of course he did.
“Put it on my tab.”
“At least it wasn’t me.” The Hulk, uninterested in their after-training socializing, had already given Bruce back the reins. “For once.” Bruce wrapped the big guy’s oversized shorts around himself like a toga—not that they hadn’t seen him naked hundreds of times at this point.
“Baby steps,” Clint quipped, slapping Bruce on the back and steering him to the locker room. “Gotta bail on smoothies. Heading home early for Laura’s birthday.”
“Can we get you one for the road?” Steve offered, falling in with the group. “My treat. An apology for the shiner.”
“You didn’t even punch me.”
“Kinda did. Tactically.”
“Then I’ll be sure to send my dozen angry texts from Laura your way,” Natasha drawled as she rubbed her bruised jaw. “Stark, you coming?”
Tony didn’t tend to descend from the monument he’d built to his own genius, but there was always a first time.
“Raincheck,” he muttered between dictated emails. He’d already folded his suit back into his StarkWatch and gulped down a couple ginger shots from a robot assistant’s tray. “Gotta pick Pepper up in Cali and jet to a tech thing in Singapore. Keynote speech and all that.”
“Bruce?” Steve offered. Out of courtesy, at this point. After a couple of recent unprovoked Hulk-outs, Bruce had been instructed to stay in the Tower except when on missions.
Every time Steve whined about how insular his life had become, he thought of Bruce and… well. Gratitude. Not overrated.
“Teleconference with Wakanda,” Bruce replied, with a genuine smile. He’d been mentoring Princess Shuri for a few months and the two had hit it off, scientifically speaking.
“Looks like it’s just you and me, blue eyes.” Natasha winked up at him as she latched onto his arm. “How many paps you think we can persuade we’re the real deal?”
“Won’t matter,” Steve grunted, his mood effectively torpedoed. “Won’t stop them.”
As he showered and changed, Steve struggled to maintain his earlier gratitude at being accorded freedoms that some of his Avengers colleagues didn’t have. To remember that he’d volunteered for all this, even though he’d had no real idea of what he’d signed up for at the time. Nobody had. He doubted even Erskine could have predicted Steve would become the oldest thirty-year-old man in history on a cosmic technicality and a bizarre turn of fate.
He'd just wanted to live, healthy and strong and without constant pain. Steve had wanted to do his part, to be of service, but he’d never been someone with big dreams. People who grew up in 1930s Brooklyn didn’t have that luxury. He’d worked with therapist-turned-friend Sam to understand that was part of the reason Steve felt so rudderless now. He’d never thought about more, about after the war, about the future, and some days…
Some days Steve wished they’d never found him.
But not today. At the end of their last jog/consultation, Sam had given him a mission: ask someone for something just for himself. Not for the greater good, not to make someone else’s life easier, not out of duty or compassion or caution. Something frivolous. Something decadent. Something that served no other purpose but to bring Steve joy.
Figuring out what that thing was and how to go about asking for it had been so complicated that they’d had an emergency meeting the previous night, in the garden shed behind Sam’s mother’s house in Astoria Heights. There had been pie, though, so not all bad…
~
They’d propped up a few bags of potting soil to use as a makeshift table. Steve had dragged over a piece of burlap to cover the dusty floor, not trusting his weight on one of the lawn chairs. Armed with mason jars of sweet tea and three-quarters of a bourbon pecan pie, Steve put serious odds on Sam passing out in a sugar coma before Steve had to confess that the thing he’d chosen was… well, what it was.
He suspected Sam would be proud of him, if he could get the words out. It fulfilled every one of Sam’s criteria and then some. Worse, now that Steve had got it in his head, it gave him no peace. During his Avengers time, he could compartmentalize, but in his down time… He couldn’t stop.
He. Could. Not. Stop. Thinking. About. It.
Which had led to shoveling the most delicious pie he’d ever tasted into his maw on the dirty floor of a garden shed after Sam had insisted Steve interrupt his cousin’s fortieth birthday party. Also, a look of such patience and compassion that Steve wondered if even those HYDRA goons could have outlasted the empathetic probing of one Samuel Thomas Wilson.
Steve downed his sweet tea in one gulp, set the mason jar aside without shattering it, licked his lips, and met Sam’s gaze head-on. He could do this. He could. But maybe not all day.
“Man, you better tell me soon,” Sam nudged, “‘cause I’m starting to get some strange ideas over here. And given what’s happened to you in the last… forever, sky’s the limit on my imagination.”
“Don’t I know it,” Steve chuckled. It was good to laugh. Kept him from throwing up. He inhaled a shaky breath, held it, blew it out. “So. The thing.”
“The thing.”
“The selfish thing.”
“See, you know I gotta stop you right there,” Sam grumbled. “But you know what? I’m not going to, because momentum.”
Steve nodded. “Momentum.”
“You have it. So use it.”
“Use the momentum.” Steve clenched up, trying to convince himself he was about to take on a bunch of bullies, but… goddamn Sam’s brown eyes. Velvet soft, and able to see right through him. “Gotcha.”
“Steve,” Sam sighed. “Quit stalling. Anybody can see this is eating you up from the inside. That was not the purpose of the mission.”
He winced, bowed his head. “I know. I…” He rubbed the back of his neck, self-soothing, like Sam had taught him. “Okay. Some context.”
“Damn skippy. I can do context.”
“You know how impossible it’s been, since I came out.”
Sam deflated a bit at that, but he didn’t look mad. Just mad at the world. “Of course I do, Steve.”
“I’ve tried everything.” The media circus around Steve’s revelation had been epic and unprecedented, even for a public figure like him. “Dating apps. Going to clubs. Blind dates. Friends of friends. There’s always some asshole with a cell phone trying to get their 15 minutes on TMZ. I can’t have someone I don’t even know if I’m interested in blasted across the internet before the end of our first date. And to be honest…” Steve paused, attempting to calm his heaving breaths, his racing heart.
“Come on. Give it to me. The big truth.”
He forced his tongue to form the words. “I don’t want to date anyone right now.” He exhaled into the listening silence, half-relieved and half-nauseous. “Everything since… since forever, like you said, has been… a lot. It’s been a lot. I need to figure my life out before I can share it with anyone.”
“Baby bird leaving the nest.” Sam pretended to sniffle. “So proud.”
Encouraged, Steve pressed on. “But I still have desires. Like, intense desires. The serum enhanced, you know, everything.”
That caught Sam’s attention. He schooled his features, but he couldn’t quite smooth out the hawkish look he got sometimes.
“So what I’d like to do for myself,” Steve continued, fighting to keep his voice steady. “What I hope you can help me figure out is… a private way that I could take a… you know, a lover. I guess.”
Sam stared at him, intent, vigilant, but with no judgment. Processing, Steve hoped.
“I’d want someone regular, maybe once or twice a week,” Steve explained. “And discreet. I couldn’t relax if I thought… There are no guarantees, I get that. Tony mentioned NDAs once, so that might be something I could explore. Not with him, but… how outraged do you think Pepper would be if…” He started back in on his neck, scraping, gouging the skin. “It’s a lot of risk and logistics for something that might not even be worth it, in the end, but, Sam… I can’t stop thinking about it. I need it. I really need it.”
“Of course you do,” Sam stated, with such gravitas Steve almost gasped. “Of course you do, Steve. And this is where I have to apologize, because I should have investigated this part of your life a long time ago. You never mentioned it, so I thought you were good, but—”
“No, Sam, come on. That’s not…”
“Have you been intimate with anyone since they found you?”
“I have, yeah,” Steve admitted. “On missions, a couple times. Just a night, here and there. This diplomat in South Africa. A general in the Norwegian military—you remember the giant yeti in Oslo last year? It felt safe with them because they couldn’t divulge any details of the operation, and this kind of fell under that. But then Maria Hill spotted me coming out of a Japanese sniper’s hotel room after that sea serpent thing in Osaka… Gave me a whole lecture about international relations, so there hasn’t been anyone since.”
“Okay.” Sam nodded to himself, rubbed his hands together. “Okay. Gotta say, did not expect you to dig so deep on this. Excellent progress, Steve. I’m really proud of you. We’re gonna make this happen, but we need a plan. I’m guessing, Mr. Tactical Genius, you’ve already thought of one.”
“I have,” Steve agreed. “I’m just not sure—”
“Spill it.”
“A sex worker.”
To his credit, Sam did not miss a beat. “Makes sense. If there’s gonna be a contract, you’ll need a professional. And this way you can get exactly what you want. I like it.”
Steve swallowed past the lump in his throat. He had not expected this kind of reception.
“You’re the best, Sam.”
“Excuse you,” Sam exclaimed, reaching across the soil bags for Steve’s hand. “Excuse yourself for what you just said. Do not thank me for something as simple as listening to your needs and encouraging you to achieve them. You are allowed to act on your desires. You are allowed to be sexual, to be intimate, in private, without the world watching. This is base-level, Steve, not a revolution.”
Somehow, Steve was able to laugh. “You done?”
“Preaching, yes.” Sam doled out two more generous slices of pie. “But I do have concerns. Sex work is like any other job, there’s good and there’s bad. If you get a bad one, nix the next session, and they succumb to the temptation to blab all over the internet and 24-hour news networks, this situation could go nuclear, and that’s the last thing we want. Have you thought about that?”
“Just every single second since I decided this is what I want.”
“Mmm. Figured.” Sam mulled this over, but swiftly came to the same conclusion Steve had. “Natasha?”
“Don’t see any other option.” Didn’t mean he had to like it, though. Natasha had been trying to set Steve up with every homosexual man on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s payroll. The only reason she’d given up was that there weren’t that many, actually. “One of her honeypots would have the skills and the discretion. And she’d have a way for me to pay them without a trace.”
“Extra promising,” Sam grinned. “You ever seen any of them? They easy on the eyes?”
A flush ignited in Steve’s cheeks. He cleared his throat. “Very.”
“Well then.” Sam clapped his hands, enthusiastic. “Walk me through it. How you gonna make the approach?”
~
Steve asked himself that same question as he rendezvoused with Natasha in the elevator bay, armed with nothing more than a tracksuit, a pair of worn-out sneakers, and a baseball cap. Though it had been less than a half hour since they parted ways to shower, Natasha had somehow created a whole new persona for herself, a sort of vintage Hedy Lamarr look with wavy black-brown hair, arched eyebrows, and ruby red lips. She wore a matchy-matchy metallic crimson jumpsuit and spangly sandals, a pair of diamond-encrusted aviators nested at her crown. With a cross-body Fendi bag that probably doubled as a hidden camera slung across her torso, she resembled nothing more than…
“Upper East Side trophy wife micro-dosing on psychedelics while browsing the Saks jewelry department?” Steve inquired. He secretly loved the elaborate cover stories Natasha created for all her covers, hording each one like dragon’s gold.
“Close. Try-hard entertainment reporter on her way to interview the biggest get of her career.” She let out a low, throaty chuckle. Natasha always had a sense of humor about herself—it was one of the things Steve liked most about her. “‘Micro-dosing’? Whose butt did you pull that one out of, Rogers?”
“The New Yorker.” He smiled to himself, tickled that he’d manage to surprise her. “So, David Remnick, I guess.”
“You do read ‘em all,” Natasha quipped as the elevator doors slid shut and they plunged down to the Grand Central concourse.
How Tony kept this particular exit secure when a bevvy of paparazzi camped out around all the others—on a good day—was a mystery that confounded them both, so they used it as much as possible. And it was close to their favorite post-workout smoothie shop. The staff there appreciated their custom so much that they introduced a hero-sized cup and always stocked Steve’s favorite oatmeal applesauce muffins. Also, the management had let Natasha kit out their back terrace with spyware so they could chat without being overheard.
Which was why, after they’d settled into their usual corner where, if you angled your seat right, you got a sliver view of Bryant Park, Steve felt comfortable enough to launch into his whole ‘please can I dip my dick into one of your honeypots’ spiel. Sam had advised him to be direct, so he started with…
“Nat, I need a favor.”
Instead of appearing intrigued—what he’d expected—she frowned down at the plate of treats he’d bought them.
“I knew that was a favor brownie.” She propped her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. “Why can’t I ever be wrong?”
“People are people?”
“You don’t say.” She moved the pastries like chess pieces, stacking her side of the plate and leaving Steve with only his muffin. “Go on.”
“I’d have thought you’d be more curious.”
“That was seven blind dates ago,” she drawled, unamused. “That Natasha—so naïve—probably would have taken a bite out of any carrot you dangled in her face, Rogers. She was the kind of friend who only wanted to see you happy. This Natasha has been there, done that, dealt with the whining and the petulance and the woebegone looks. So, come on, out with it. What house have you set fire to this time?”
“That’s not fair!” Steve protested, to mask his sudden case of the butterflies.
“Then prove it.”
“Prove what?”
“That you’re not here to waste my time.” She puckered her cheeks as she took a long draught off her straw with the verve of a ‘40s femme fatale.
“Fine,” Steve almost spat. His chest heaved and his pulse raced—both tells that Natasha would have picked up on, probably from before they met at the elevators. But Steve Rogers had never backed down from a challenge in his life, and he wouldn’t start now. Not when it meant disappointing Sam. Not when it might cost him so much. “Fine. Okay. I’m not, just so you know.”
“Time will tell.”
“It’s sensitive, is all.” Though Steve guarded his tone, he suspected some petulance had snuck through. “And I know how you get.”
“How I get?” She raised an imperious brow.
“Yes, you,” he shot back. “For someone who hides her own sexual entanglements under layers of access deeper than a nuclear silo, you sure are set on getting everyone else involved in a white picket fence scenario.”
“Huh. So this is about sex.” He’d expected her to object, but instead, she pivoted. Classic Natasha. “All right, you’ve got my attention.”
That didn’t mean Steve wasn’t startled by the about-face. He stammered, wrong-footed, flushing under her cool green gaze. “I-I thought you might be able to arrange a meetup with one of your people. Not in a romantic way. Just… just physical.”
Natasha stared at him, unblinking, until Steve felt his blush seep down to his chest. But he kept his eyes locked in on hers, summoning up every last bit of his stubborn. He wanted this for himself, and he would have it.
Hopefully.
“You better start from the beginning,” Natasha advised, nudging a date square in his direction.
He did. Not just of his discussion with Sam, but all of it. Another of Sam’s golden nuggets: Don’t skimp on the honesty. You want this? Tell her why. Paint the picture, full-color, down to the minutest detail. Steve went back to his late teens, alone for the first time in his life. Full of grief and need, he’d found solace in fleeting gropes in back alleys, in sneaking into forbidden clubs, in kneeling on dingy dressing room floors. Then, after the miracle of the serum, how he dealt with a bottomless well of a libido, both on the USO tour and in the army. How the loss of certain Howling Commandos had been more gutting than others.
“You meant well, I know you did, trying to find me a Mr. Right,” Steve assured her. “It meant the world to me, Nat, that you bothered. That there was someone looking out for me. I know I gave you a hard time…”
Natasha scoffed. “Understatement.”
“I didn’t know how to tell you that I wasn’t ready for that,” Steve continued, “but I do now. I just want someone to make time with now and then. Nothing serious. Nothing personal.”
He explained his criteria, as he’d done with Sam, and how he came to the conclusion she was the only one who could help. The more he elaborated, the sharper the glint in her eye, already scheming her way through a plan. She really was the best—though Steve knew better than to say it out loud, now.
Still, Natasha made him sweat for it. Even a spymistress liked to be wooed.
“Let me get this straight,” she announced, once his tale was told. “You wouldn’t put in the minimum effort to seduce any of the very worthy candidates I laid out for you on a silver platter. Instead, you want to borrow one of my most skilled employees to do, what… charity work?”
“Of course not!” Steve exclaimed, mortified. “I’d pay them. Of course I’d…” Natasha didn’t have many tells, but the way she held her jaw when she was trying not to laugh was one of them. “Ugh. I can’t even be mad. I probably deserved that.”
“You definitely did.”
“So you’ll help me?”
“I will.” She let out a soft chuckle, snatched the favor brownie off the plate—her finder’s fee. “But, Steve…” Natasha fell pensive as the chocolate yumminess melted over her tongue. “These kind of arrangements never turn out how you expect. If you’re determined, I’ll do everything in my power to find you the right person, but… be careful with your heart.”
In the moment, Steve shrugged her wisdom off. Natasha understood him better than any of the other Avengers, had been the only one to take time to befriend him outside of work. But no one in his modern life could really comprehend what he’d been through—the changes to his body, his desires, his perspective, his world. Some days, Steve barely recognized himself.
He needed a constant. The promise of something good, once a week, waiting for him on the other side of whatever hardships and horrors he confronted. Something that belonged to him, so that he could continue to belong to the world.
Still, Natasha’s words haunted him as he walked her back to the Tower, fetched his bike, and rode back to Brooklyn. But right or wrong, he wouldn’t stray from the path he’d chosen.
Steve Rogers’ stubborn knew no quit.
End of Chapter 1