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bucky-fricking-barnes · 2 years

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I’m Listening (Between The Lines)

Title: I’m Listening (Between The Lines)

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Selectively Mute!Reader

Word Count: 6k

Warnings: Very mild language, mentions of being triggered, symptoms of PTSD and panic attacks

Summary: Y/N is in charge of reviewing the Avengers’ mission reports, and when Steve brings her coffee to apologize for all the paperwork, something more comes of it.

A/N: I hope you all enjoy this fic! Please note that it is a work of fiction and people who are selectively mute may or may not communicate in the ways depicted in this story. Thank you for supporting my work by reading, liking, reblogging, and commenting! I couldn’t do this without you. Dividers are by @firefly-graphics

You’re hard at work on a stack of paperwork from the Avengers’ last mission when Elijah comes by your office with his delivery cart. He gives you an apologetic smile as he slides the second large pile into the only open space on your desk, his face twisting in sympathy.

“Sorry,” he says when your shoulders slump forward. “It was apparently a big one.” You nod and then he’s off again, heading back towards his cart and then to your floor’s mail room for whatever he’s supposed to deliver next.

The extra workload isn’t unexpected; you’ve known it was coming since your supervisor had mentioned off-hand that the team was going out again—something about a terrorist cell in Europe. It hasn’t been on the news, but you have a feeling that the whole thing is being kept on the down-low until all damages and casualties have been accounted for. Fury likes to know everything going into press conferences. In short, you have a long week ahead of you, with probably more late nights than not.

Elijah passes by the doorway a few minutes later with a full cart of parcels and papers, but you pay him no heed as you bury yourself back into your work. The blue light from the computer has most certainly contributed to your headache, and as you read through the mission reports from the mission in Latin America, you rub your temples with your free hand.

“I know that I’m probably the main cause of that headache,” you practically leap out of your seat when Captain Rogers appears in your office doorway, “so I figured I’d bring you a peace offering. Tony said it was your favorite.”

Captain Rogers holds up a brown paper takeout bag and sets it on the small table just inside the door. You give him a tight smile and a nod in thanks. He doesn’t leave, however, and you try not to look too uncomfortable with the situation as he leans against the doorframe. He’s still in his uniform. You’d dimmed the ceiling lights in favor of the lamp on your desk, but you can still see the thin coating of dirt, soot, and blood on his face. It covers the red, white, and blue of the suit, too.

“Hopefully we didn’t add too much work for you?” he prompts, and you reluctantly shake your head. It’s only the normal of work amount for an Avengers mission, which is a lot, but you’ve learned to manage it.

Slowly, you close the mission folder and set down your pen, then push away from your desk. Your muscles are tight but you refrain from stretching while he’s still standing there.

“That’s good,” he says. He pauses, then continues, “Thank you for being so thorough with the mission reports. I know I write a lot, but it’s important to me that everything is recorded. You never know when those details will come in handy.”

You nod again and force another smile. You’re exhausted and starving. You silently will him out of your office, then feel bad for wishing that Captain America would leave. He means well and he’s never been anything other than a gentleman. It’s not even that you don’t like him, because you very much do. He just… lingers. You’re never quite sure if it’s because he’s just curious about you or if it’s something more. Maybe you could ask the other employees in your department for their tricks for getting him out of your office. He never seemed to want to be around them as much as he did you.

Captain Rogers clears his throat and straightens when you approach to take the bag of food from where he’d set it down. When you turn your back to bring it back to your desk, he steps further into your office, following you.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you—”

You turn with eyebrows raised and with the food clutched against you, a little startled to find him this close when you’d purposely tried to create some distance. He’s now within arm’s reach.

“Sorry.” He raises his hands in apology and steps back into the doorway, watching you carefully. When you’ve relaxed a little and set the food down on the corner of your desk, he asks, “Would you want to grab a coffee some time? It can be in the shop in the lobby, if you’d rather not leave the building during your break.”

Confused, you frown at him. He wanted to buy you coffee? Why?

“Or you can tell me what you want and I can bring it to you,” he offers. “As a thank you for dealing with all our shit.”

Captain Rogers gestures to the teetering stacks of papers on your desk and you can’t help but smile a little. Hadn’t Tony mentioned that his teammate was a stickler for clean language?

The room fills with an uncomfortable silence and as the awkward pause seems to stretch on for too long, you reach for the tablet on your desk. He takes that as a sign to bow out while his dignity is still somewhat intact. Panicked, you race to find the button you want. You jab your index finger against the screen when the app finally loads the selection of neat little squares that represents your schedule.

“Tomorrow at 2:30pm Eastern Daylight Time,” FRIDAY reports through the overhead speakers.

You blink when the Captain turns around, visibly confused by FRIDAY’s sudden interruption into his escape. With the tablet still in hand, you press the button again, this time adding on the beginning you’d dropped in order to give him a quick answer.

“My break tomorrow is at 2:30pm Eastern Daylight Time,” FRIDAY says.

Slowly, Captain Rogers resumes his place in the doorway. You can tell he’s still processing your strange way of answering, so you offer him a small, encouraging smile. He doesn’t seem angry that you haven’t spoken aloud, just a little confused.

“Do you want to meet there or do you want me to bring you coffee here?” he finally asks.

You only have to glance at the tablet to input your response for FRIDAY to relay. “Please bring it here.”

“If I give you my number, can you tell me your coffee order?”

This time, you grab a sticky note from your desk and scribble down your order. You’re almost positive that the baristas will recognize it given the number of times you’ve frequented the cafe while working on Avenger mission reports. Captain Rogers steps into the office and takes the sticky note when you hold it out, his eyes crinkled at the corner as he smiles at you.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then,” he says, holding up the sticky note. He backs up towards the door and gives you a small, awkward salute, then heads back down the hall towards the bank of elevators.

Grinning, you plop back down in your office chair and pull the bag of food into your lap. As soon as you’ve got it open, you can tell that it’s exactly what you like to order on long nights like these. The smell coming from the still-hot containers inside is warm and welcoming. Captain Rogers had definitely asked Tony about you. The thought shouldn’t make you giddy, but it does anyway. You try to ignore the butterflies in your stomach as you scarf down the food and hurry to finish up your last set of reports so that you can head home.

The next day, Captain Rogers knocks on your door just as the digital clock on your desk changes to 2:30. You look up and smile, then gesture for him to come in while you close the report folder and set the papers aside. He’s got coffee cups in both hands and a pastry bag hanging precariously between his left index and middle fingers.

You quickly get to your feet and take the cup and bag and he holds out to you, smiling in thanks. He makes sure not to crowd you as you inspect the contents of the bag and the order scrawled on the cup in black marker.

“Everything right?” he asks, and you look up and nod. “Good. That’s good.”

He pauses, clearly wanting to say something else, so you raise your eyebrows at him expectantly. Captain Rogers glances at your desk and then forces a polite smile.

“I guess I’ll see you around? You look like you have a lot of work to do, I wouldn’t want to interrupt your break if you just want to sit and relax.”

When he goes to leave, you reach out and touch the side of his arm before you thinking twice. The pastry bag bumps against his arm as Captain Rogers stops and looks back at you. Hesitantly, you smile a little and nod over at the couch and chairs situated against one wall of your office. The room is small enough to suit your position at the Tower, but it’s also big enough that Tony had outfitted it with a couch, two armchairs, and a coffee table in addition to your desk and office chair. He took good care of you, and for that you were thankful. You’d yet to find a workplace as welcoming as the Avengers Tower, and that was saying something, given all the danger that surrounded your work. It helped that Tony had known you long before he’d become Iron Man.

The smile on Captain Roger’s face returned, but this time it was genuine. He nods in agreement and follows you over to the sitting area. You don’t fail to notice that he trails behind and lets you pick where you want to sit before taking a seat himself.

There’s a tablet built into the wall off to the side of the couch. You set your coffee and pastry down, then twist in your seat so you can pull the device from the wall. It pops out and the screen lights up automatically, scanning your face before unlocking the app that connects you to FRIDAY.

“Thank you for the coffee,” the AI says as your fingers fly over the screen. “You got everything right.”

“Well, they seemed to know your order as soon as I started reading it. I think I got a few words in before they asked if it was for you,” he replies.

Your cheeks heat up and you smile, ducking your head back down to tap at the tablet. “I go there a lot at night.”

“Doesn’t the workday end at 5:00?”

Nodding, you gesture with one hand at the large stacks of Avenger mission reports piled on your desk. You grab your coffee from the table with the other as Steve’s face flushes. Even his ears turn a little pink. It’s adorable.

“Oh.” He fiddles with the cup of coffee in his hands. It seems so small and you glance between your cup and his, wondering if he got a smaller sized drink or if he’s really just that big. “Sorry about that. Like I said last night, I—”

You hold up a hand to stop him before he can apologize and rationalize his actions again, then shake your head, hoping he understands. Thankfully, he nods and takes a small sip of his coffee.

“What did you get to drink?” you ask via FRIDAY.

“I usually get black coffee with a little bit of sugar.”

Your face must’ve clearly betrayed your thoughts because Captain Rogers laughs. He gestures with his cup at the one in your hands.

“I’ve tried something similar to yours. It was okay. I haven’t seem to find anything I really like, but I will say that even the plain coffee nowadays is better than the stuff we had when I was growing up.”

Smiling softly, you nod in understanding and set your cup down, then reach for the pastry he’d picked up for you. You pull it from the bag and tear it in half, holding one of the parts out for him to take.

“No, it’s okay,” he says, but you push it towards him insistently. Sharing is the least you can do.

Captain Rogers takes it after your push it a second time. You watch as he takes a bite, raising your eyebrows when he looks back up at you.

“This is amazing!”

You nod excitedly and pull up the keyboard on your tablet, typing as quickly as you can with only one hand.

“It’s my favorite. My mom used to get it for me on special occasions when I was little. I was happy when they added it to the menu here at the Tower.”

He’s smiling as he finishes his half of the pastry. You eat your own and you’re leaning forward to set the tablet on the coffee table when FRIDAY chimes through the speakers.

“Miss Y/L/N, Mr. Stark is on the phone for you. Shall I tell him you’re otherwise occupied? Your break is not scheduled to end for another three minutes.”

You tap the “yes” button on the tablet as you set it down and turn your body back towards Captain Rogers. He glances at the tablet, then at you.

“You can answer that if you want,” he says. “It’s probably important if Stark is calling you.”

Knowing it’s not, you shake your head with a small smile. You don’t talk on the phone and Tony knows that. If he’s calling you, it means that he’s somehow heard Captain Rogers is with you and he wants to interrupt. He likes to scare people away if he thinks they’ll be bad for you, and though you appreciate his protectiveness, you can take care of yourself. Captain Rogers is a good man. Logically, he should make you anxious. He’s a large man and he has abilities that would surely allow him to overpower you in an instant, but instead of fear, you feel safe. He would never hurt you and it’s easy to relax in his company.

“Are you sure?” he asks, and you nod again.

FRIDAY interrupts him before he can say anything more. “I’m sorry, Miss Y/L/N, but Mr. Stark is overriding my systems. Apparently it’s urgent.”

You roll your eyes as Captain Rogers raises an eyebrow. Instead of paying close attention to whatever Tony’s rambling about as his voice floods the speakers in your office, you sip your coffee and open up the notes app on your tablet so you can scrawl out a message with the attached stylus.

Captain Rogers is standing to leave when you tilt the screen for him to see. He pauses to read your message and then glances up at the ceiling where the speakers are inlaid. You can see the wheels turning in his head.

“Don’t you need to go help him with OGRE?”

You frown and tilt your head a little, then tune into the sound of Tony’s voice. It’s not hard to track what he’s saying, but you’ve also gotten good at tuning him out over the years.

“—need you ASAP. Dum-E’s mostly just getting in the way today—this is your own fault, you know better than that—and Pepper’s out of the office on some good relations press tour, so you’re really the only person who can come help me sort out this OGRE business. Worry about all those reports later, we’ve got—”

As far as you know, Tony isn’t working on any new projects, secret or otherwise. You can usually tell when he’s keeping something under wraps, though he’s quick to clue you in about any developments in the “secret” projects. OGRE isn’t real. He’s making things up to get you away from Captain Rogers, and that irks you.

You clap twice, as loud as possible, and Tony stops speaking. It’s your surefire way of getting his attention and telling him to shut up.

“I’m sorry, am I bothering you?” he asks.

Huffing, you switch back to your communication app and tap the “yes” so that FRIDAY will relay your annoyance. For good measure, you add the “asshole” button as an afterthought.

Tony chuckles on the other end of the line. Your words are being communicated directly to him through FRIDAY, but they’re not coming through the speakers, and you catch the Captain watching you and the screen out of the corner of your eye.

“Your break ended a minute ago, Y/N,” Tony says, and you can hear the teasing in his voice. “Why don’t you come up and help me? I’m sure Steve has more important things to be working on.”

“I don’t,” Captain Rogers flatly replies. “And we were enjoying ourselves until you interrupted. Why do you need Y/N’s help anyway? She doesn’t work in the science division.”

You try not to seem insulted at his answer. Of course he doesn’t know about your longstanding friendship with Tony, and there’s no way for him to know that you’d been working on a graduate degree at MIT before you’d had to drop out your senior year after everything that had happened. Tony and Fury buried that deep within SHIELD records at your request. You don’t want to be dragged into anything that could possibly trigger you, though you’ve gotten better at it over the years. Tony is careful not to invite you up while he’s working on anything that could be a possible trigger.

As subtly as possible, you tap a few buttons on the tablet screen, letting Tony know you’ll be up in a few minutes. He’s quiet for a moment before FRIDAY informs you that he’s ended the call.

Captain Rogers is frowning when you glance over at him. You reach over with one hand and tap his, giving him a worried look.

“I’m fine,” he replies, shaking his head. “Does Tony always demand things like that during your break? It’s no wonder you’re here so late all the time?”

You pause, wondering how to approach the topic, especially since he’s clearly noted that you often leave late. Has he been keeping tabs on you?

FRIDAY relays your message after you finish pressing all the buttons you want. “Tony and I are friends. We met when I was working on my doctorate at MIT. He’s just trying to get a reaction out of both of us, but he probably also wants my help with something that he doesn’t really need help with. I’m a good sounding board, apparently.”

You offer the Captain a small smile when FRIDAY finishes speaking, and he relaxes a little. Carefully, you set the tablet down aside. He stands as you do and you both tidy up the coffee and pasty trash.

“Thank you for humoring me during your break,” Captain Rogers says as you put the tablet back into the built-in dock on the wall.

Smiling, you glance over your shoulder at him, then click the tablet into place. “I had fun, Captain Rogers. Thank you,” you tap out before stepping away from the device. You grab your coffee from where you’d set it on the edge of the desk, if only to have something to hold so you’re not standing awkwardly in front of him.

“Please call me Steve. Maybe we can do this again sometime?” he asks. After a moment, you nod in response. Steve smiles wide. “Have a good day, Y/N.”

You wave a little and watch in silence as he leaves. The butterflies in your stomach are back, launched into flight by the sight of his smile. It makes you wonder if he had such a winning smile before the serum. If he had, maybe he would’ve eventually been scooped up by some pretty girl who didn’t mind him being on the small side. You definitely wouldn’t have.

Coffee breaks with Steve become a regular occurrence, and it’s one of the best parts of your day. He’s being sent on more missions than usual lately, so after your third break together, he offers his phone number so that the two of you can text. You graciously hand over your phone and hope that he can’t hear your heart as it tries to beat out of your chest in excitement.

It’s on one of the days that Steve is out on a mission with the rest of his team, Tony included, that something triggers you. You woke up feeling a little queasy, but you’d pushed it aside and gone to the office anyway. Now you regretted that decision.

Something one of your co-workers had put in the break room microwave triggered something in your brain. The smell is somehow wafting across the entire floor of offices and cubicles, and you’d seen a few peoples’ disgusted faces before the scent had made it to you. All bets were off as soon as you’d smelt it. Instantly, you were back in the lab at MIT, staring down the man you’d once considered a mentor.

You blink away the memory and curl up on the floor with your back against your desk drawers. The handles dig painfully against your spine but it doesn’t really register as you fumble with your tablet, pressing the button that turns the clear glass wall of your office into an opaque one so that your co-workers couldn’t see you melting down. You manage to press the button to turn on the fans in your office too, hoping that will force the smell away from you quicker. You’re fading fast, and you react on instinct, grabbing your phone and pressing the call button.

“Hey, Y/N.”

When Steve’s voice comes over the speaker on your phone, you’re frantic. Why was he answering? Had something happened to Tony? He sounded too casual for something to be wrong.

“Y/N, are you there?” Steve asks.

You’re frozen in place even though your heart and mind are racing inside of you. How you’d managed to call him instead of Tony, you’re not sure, but you can’t speak over the phone, especially not with him, and you don’t know what to do. If you just hang up, Steve could call back, and you don’t think you have the mental capacity to text right now.

There’s a loud rumbling in the background of the call, but you can hear faint voices as well. Struggling to focus, you shudder and close your eyes, listening carefully to try and decipher what they’re saying.

The first person you can pick out is Tony. His voice sounds tinny and far away, but it’s definitely him. “Is that Y/N? Did she call you?”

“Uh, yeah,” Steve says, pulling slightly away from the phone before lifting it back to his ear. “Y/N, is everything okay?”

“FRIDAY’s sensing something’s wrong. Her heart rate and blood pressure are high and she’s breathing abnormally,” Tony says, and you grimace. Of course the AI noticed your vitals were off. You try to take a deep breath to calm yourself down, but your skin is crawling and your muscles all feel too tense.

Steve brings you back to the present when he speaks again. His voice is a little bit softer this time. “You don’t have to talk, it’s okay. Whatever happened, it’s going to be okay. FRIDAY would’ve told us if something was really wrong in the building, so I know it’s not that. I just need to know if you’re safe or not, Y/N. Can you let me know somehow if you’re safe?”

You don’t know how to tell him that it’s all in your head and that you don’t necessarily trust yourself right now, so you stay silent and motionless, curled up in a ball behind your desk.

“Do you want me to send someone to check on you?” Steve asks.

A panicked grunt escapes from the depths of your chest before you think twice, and you grip the phone harder.

“Okay, I won’t send anyone. Can you… Do you think you could clap? Or click for me?” Steve demonstrates, clucking his tongue against the roof of his mouth one time. The ridiculous idea of him making that noise in an airplane full of Avengers loosens the knot in your chest. After a moment, you mimic the sound.

“Good, that’s good,” he soothes. “Once for yes, twice for no, okay? Are you safe?”

It takes you a second, but you click once. Steve’s sigh of relief on the other end of the call is audible.

“Good. Are you injured?”

You click twice.

“Do you want me to distract you from whatever’s going on?”

One click.

That’s all the confirmation he needs, and then Steve is launching into some story about Clint and Tony arguing over the food that they brought with them on the mission. Apparently, they had a rotating cycle of who was in charge, and Tony had somehow found a way to rig it so that he was the person who chose the food for the last three missions. That sounded exactly like something he would do, and by the time Steve has finished the story and moved onto a new one, you’re more yourself.

The noise in the background of the call lessens over time, and the voices of the other Avengers disappear after Steve’s fourth story. You’re enraptured by the smooth, low sound of his voice over the phone speaker. Slowly but surely, you relax enough that your muscles can finally unclench and you move from being tightly curled against the desk to having your legs sprawled out in front of you a little. Your body still feels heavy, though, and you carefully move to lay on the floor on your side. The plush rug you added to your office is suddenly a godsend and you’re mobile enough now to reach up and grab the pillow from your desk chair. It’s normally just a back support pillow, something you’d deemed a necessity after sitting for hours on end, but now it’s a source of comfort as you tuck it underneath your head.

“You still with me, Y/N?” Steve finally asks.

You’re drowsy now that the panic has washed away and the adrenaline is leaving your system, but you cluck your tongue once. You swallow and try to rid your mouth of the dryness. It takes a great effort, but you manage to force out a weak “thank you” in the quiet.

Steve doesn’t hesitate or seem surprised by your response. “You don’t need to thank me,” he says. “I’d do anything for you, Y/N.”

That makes you smile. You put the phone on speaker and set it beside you on the floor, then close your eyes again.

“We’re back at the tower now. I’ll come check on you as soon as I’m cleared by medical. Are you in your office?” You click once in response. “Okay. Tony’s already been cleared so I think he’s coming to find you. I’ll stay on the line and talk when I can, but even if you can’t hear me, know that I’m here on the phone. Alright, sweetheart?”

You click again and listen as Steve goes back to telling his stories. After a while, he stops talking and you can hear someone else, presumably one of the medical team members, talking to him.

While Steve is occupied by one of the Tower doctors, your office door opens and someone enters the room. You don’t need to sit up or open your eyes to know that it’s Tony because he’s muttering about the overpowering smell. Apparently, it’s not just your floor that’s feeling the effects of your co-worker’s horrible meal choices. A wave of the smell enters with him and you have to brace yourself as your mind screams at you, your old mentor’s words banging around in your skull. For a moment, you doubt if it’s really you that’s sitting in your office. Maybe you’re still at MIT and this is all just another experiment being done on you.

“Hey there, kiddo.”

Slowly, you blink open your eyes and stare up at Tony. He’s crouched beside you, one hand braced on the corner of the desk so he doesn’t lose his balance.

“It’s pretty bad out there. I’m sending everyone home early and I turned on the fans in every room on the floor. You hurt?” he asks, though you’re positive he already knows the answer because of Steve.

You shake your head and move into a sitting position. It takes you longer than it should but he doesn’t rush you or seem impatient. Tony understands what it’s like after being triggered.

“I think Steve is probably on the way up. Do you want me to help you back to your apartment after he’s checked on you, or do you want him to help?” Tony asks.

After thinking it over, you hold up two fingers—option two, have Steve help you. Tony smiles a little, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he shifts to sit on the floor instead of crouch.

“You really like him, don’t you?”

You’re very aware that Steve is still on the phone and you glance down at the device, then up at Tony. It’s clear that the genius knew exactly what he was doing and that he already knew that Steve was still present in some capacity. Your cheeks feel hot as you nod.

“Steve and I don’t always get along. My therapist would say that we should find middle ground and work out our issues since we’re both grown adults” Tony begins, waving a hand dismissively. “I trust your judgement, Y/N. You’re smart. You don’t need my permission or approval if you want to date him, but as your friend, I want you to know that if he makes you happy, then I’ll be happy about it. He always seems to be on your best behavior around you, which is good. You’re a lot more relaxed around him than anybody else on the team, besides me, of course..”

Tony has bad timing for heart-to-heart conversations and though you still feel a little bit like you’re in the wrong body and itching to get out, you appreciate that he’s telling you what’s on his mind. He doesn’t often do that, not when other people—like Steve—could overhear. It’s forcing you to stay present with him.

You nod a little and then Tony is producing a water bottle from somewhere and asking if you’d like to have some. He mothers you until there’s a soft knock at the door.

“That’s Steve,” Tony tells you. “You’re good if I let him and head up to see Pep? She’s got an early flight out in the morning and I want to make sure we’ve got time together tonight.”

You nod again and he gets up. He leaves you behind the desk and you reach out to tap the red button on your phone to end the call now that Steve’s here with you. A few moments later, Steve is occupying the spot where Tony had just been sitting. He’s clearly worried, but he’s trying to act casual about the whole thing, and he’s practically doing a whole song and dance to make sure you’re comfortable after what’s happened, even though he doesn’t even really know what happened.

“Steve,” you murmur, smiling a little. Your throat is tight and it feels like someone’s scraping sandpaper over the tissue and muscles there as you speak.

He pauses and meets your eyes. “Yes?”

You reach out and take his hand in yours, squeezing once. He squeezes back and you keep hold of his hand as you look up at the tablet on your desk. It’s just out of your reach, but Steve grabs it easily and sets it on the floor between the two of you.

With your free hand, you open the app and tap a few buttons.

“Will you take me to my apartment?” FRIDAY asks.

The AI’s voice comes through all the speakers in the room and you flinch at the volume. You’re not as wound up as before, however, so you’re able to switch the settings on the tablet so that it’s no longer connected to FRIDAY and instead just coming through the tiny speakers on the device.

“Yeah, I can,” Steve answers. He rubs his thumb over your hand in small, soothing strokes. “What’s your address?”

“I live on floor 23,” you tap out. “Unit 46.”

He huffs a little, smiling. “No kidding. We’re almost neighbors. How did I miss that?”

You shrug at him and lock the tablet, then gather up your phone and the pillow from your lap. Steve stands first. He offers to help you to your feet and you nod in consent. His hands are gentle as he guides you until you’re standing upright, and though you’re a little dizzy from not eating most of the day, you’re mostly stable.

“Do you think you’re okay to walk?” he asks.

Slowly, you nod. You drop the pillow back onto your desk chair where it belongs and tuck your phone into your pocket, then adjust the tablet so you can tap on it again.

“The smell is the problem,” the tiny speakers announce for you. “I don’t know what will happen when we leave my office.”

Steve nods in understanding and places a gentle hand on the small of your back. “I’m right here,” he reassures you. “I can carry you or find a place for you to sit if we need to take a break.”

The two of you leave your office and make it to your apartment with little difficulty. You leave the tablet behind on your desk. Like he promised, Steve supports you when you need it, and he slows down after you get off the elevator on your floor so that you can steady yourself.

“You gonna be okay?” he asks as you arrive outside the door of your apartment. The hall is empty of other agents and employees, though it’s close to dinner time, so you imagine that most of them are either out or making their way towards one of the cafes and cafeterias inside the Tower.

You nod and pull out your phone, typing quickly and then showing him the screen.

“You want me to stay? Are you sure?” Steve goes to shove his hands in his jacket pockets. He’s still dressed in his suit from the mission, so there’s no pockets, and his entire face flushes when his hands jab at nothing. He drops them back down to his sides as a giggle escapes you. Though he’s still pink, he grins wide at the sound.

Typing furiously, you tell him that of course you want him to stay. It’s helpful for you to have company to keep you present, and you trust him.

“I’m not exactly good company after missions,” he tells you. “I need to shower.”

You smile in understanding and type out another message. He watches over your shoulder, reading as you go. He seems a little relieved when you reassure him that he doesn’t need to talk if he just wants to relax after his mission.

“Watching movies sounds good. There’s so many I haven’t seen yet. Do you want to pick one of your favorites while I shower? I can come back with snacks.”

The promise of snacks makes you smile, and Steve smiles back. When you nod, he leans down and presses a kiss to your cheek. Your face is warm when he pulls away, and your smile turns shy as Steve backs away from you with a little wave.

“I’ll be back soon, Y/N,” he says, and you nod at him before heading into your room to set up the movie night.

As an afterthought, you pull out your phone and text him a few of your favorite snacks. Steve is quick to reply. He already knows what you like, apparently, and the sweet texts he sends you are enough to make your horrible afternoon feel like almost nothing.

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bucky-fricking-barnes · 2 years

Text

The Safest Hands

Title: The Safest Hands

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Word Count: 4.3k

Warnings: Canon-level violence and weapons, blood, EMS, fluff, angst, and mild cursing

Summary: Steve asks you to trust him, but you can’t, at least not yet.

A/N: My first time writing Steve!! As always, thanks for reading and for your support. I hope you enjoy! A big thank you to @rodrikstark for reading through this and helping make sure my Steve was as accurate as possible. Dividers by @firefly-graphics

“You have to let go,” he urges and you adjust your grip again, your muscles trembling. A bead of sweat is rolling down the center of your back, making your skin crawl even as you try to stay steady. You want to shut your eyes so badly, but you’re afraid that taking them off your hands will force you to let go. You were already tired and this is pushing you over the edge. This wasn’t a part of the plan. Everything is trembling and your lungs burn with every inhale you take. You’re gasping for air and if you weren’t so panicked, you’d probably be embarrassed.

“I can’t!”

“Yes you can, Y/N. You just have to trust me,” Steve soothes. His voice is calm and reassuring down on the ground, yet somehow you can’t seem to believe anything he’s saying.

“Steve, I—” You feel yourself drop a little and you yelp, hauling yourself back up with what little strength you have. The bar creaks underneath your hands and fear curdles in your stomach.

Dropping wouldn’t be so bad, you think, if I’d known that this was coming. Then again, maybe it still would’ve made you want to cry. The distance is daunting.

“You have to trust me!” He’s still trying to stay calm for your sake, but desperation tinges every word. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go, not in your book, his book, or anything other book. He doesn’t want to see you get hurt.

Tears blur your vision as your fingers slip even further. Your muscles are screaming at you and finally, there’s nothing you can do but let yourself fall. You hit the mats with a groan. They barely cushion your fall.

Steve is instantly kneeling beside you, his hands reaching to help you sit up and check you for injuries. Instead, you push him away and roll onto your side so your back is to him as you catch your breath and let the ringing in your ears subside.

“Are you okay?” he asks. “Did you hit your head? Does anything feel broken?”

“I’m fine,” you reply, groaning again as you push yourself up into a sitting position. He’s hovering and you hold back some choice words.

“I would’ve caught you, Y/N. You have to trust me.”

“It’s just an exercise, Steve. We both know that if it was the real deal, I would’ve let go.” You (slowly) climb to your feet and Steve does the same behind you. You can feel his eyes on you as you stagger off the mats toward the benches on the side of the gym where you’d stashed your stuff. The water you’d brought is warm now but you guzzle half of it anyway, panting and wiping your mouth on the back of your hand despite your skin already feeling sweaty and gross.

“Would you have?” he asks, still standing on the mats. His balance is steady on the cushion and you send him a sideways glance, secretly wishing he’d lose his balance and topple over like a normal person.

You ignore his question. “Are we done?” you ask instead.

Steve sighs and looks at the clock embedded into the far wall of the gym. The two of you have been training for just under three hours now. First it was cardio, then strength, then sparring, and then the obstacle course. He knows you have other things on the docket for the day, but you know that he doesn’t really care. Steve’s job is to help you get ready for anything that could happen on a mission, physical or otherwise, and he sees that as the utmost priority. Forget about testing Stark’s new tech or making sure you’re up to date on all your vaccines—you need to be able to run, jump, climb, crawl, and shoot in every environment. You’d squeezed yourself into Stark-issue workout gear more times this month than you have in any year prior. You’d also considered yourself fairly fit until he’d taken your training into his hands. He was tougher on you than any other rookie, at least according to Clint, and that alone was enough to make you loathe your daily training sessions. If it weren’t for that, you’d probably enjoy spending so much one-on-one time with him. Steve was one of the best people you’d ever met.

“We’re done,” he concedes, and you hold back a sigh of relief. You know he’d give you a look and maybe a rousing patriotic lecture if you did, so you simply stuff your now-empty water bottle into your bag and slip your sweatshirt over your head. It didn’t matter if you got sweat on it, you needed to do laundry anyway.

“Same time tomorrow?”

He nods in response and you grab your bag, walking around the mats to get to the doors that would spit you out in the hallway closest to the residential wing. You’d stop and take a quick shower before heading down to the lab to see Bruce. He wanted to talk about your blood test results before Helen left for Korea.

As you’re leaving, Steve’s voice echoes in the gym, making you flinch in surprise.

“FRIDAY, play my workout playlist.”

Immediately, a song you remember showing him during your first week of training booms over the speakers, and you can’t help the small smile that spreads across your face. He’d dismissed the music as having “too many drum breaks”, but this wasn’t the first time you’d caught him listening to it.

“Change the song!” he quickly orders as you push open the doors. You hold back a laugh.

The hallways are surprisingly empty as you walk back to your tiny apartment. Tony had promised you a bigger one after the construction was over, but you’d waved him off, knowing that the space suits you just fine. You didn’t need much before you’d become part of the team, and you didn’t need much now. You’re just happy to be here.

You’re almost to the door when FRIDAY’s alarm system kicks in. Red lights suddenly flash overhead and the doors around you hiss as they lock into place with the extra security measures. The AI’s voice resonants in the empty halls.

“This is a code red evacuation. All non-essential personnel, report to evacuation exits.”

The message repeats on a loop as you toss your bag to the floor against the wall and drop to your knees, ripping open the zipper. You’d been assigned an evacuation exit on your first day, but you also knew that you weren’t considered non-essential personnel, at least not anymore. All that training had to count for something, right?

“Come on, come on,” you mumble, digging through your gym clothes. Finally, at the bottom of the bag, you find what you were searching for.

The case is no bigger than the one you use to charge your wireless earbuds, and you quickly flip open the lid to pull out the comms. You press the button once, then hold it until the light turns green, and then you shove it in your ear. Steve’s voice rings against your eardrum as soon as you’ve got it situated.

“—west corner of the third floor. At least three hostiles with unknown tech, one possibly enhanced.”

“One in the south stairwell,” Natasha grunts, and you hear a sickening snap over the comms. You grimace. “None in the south stairwell.”

Your handgun is at the bottom of your bag, too, and you grab it before heading towards the western stairwell. It’s the closest to you, and if that’s where the intruders are, you can at least hold them off until someone else arrives to help Steve. You know that you aren’t the best one on the team, but you’ve trained hard and you’re capable of holding your own. Clint wouldn’t have convinced the others to recruit you if he thought you wouldn’t be a good addition to the team.

“Heading to the third floor now,” you say, your finger pressing against the comms unit as you take the stairs by two.

Steve’s command makes you falter, your foot missing a step, and you grab onto the railing with your free hand to steady yourself. “Negative, Y/N! Head down to the lawn with the rest of the personnel.”

His words sting and you clench your jaw, resuming your trek down the stairs. No one else chimes in in your defense, so you hold down the button again.

“With all due respect, Captain, I will not be doing that.”

“Two more heading your way through the windows,” Clint reports. “Tony, there’s a helicopter due east, is that one of yours?”

“No, but I can definitely make it one. I’m on it now,” Tony replies.

“Y/N, stand down!” Steve orders.

You burst through the third floor door and the smell of blood immediately makes your stomach roll. The wall across from you is smoking, bright orange flames licking their way up towards the ceiling, and the flash of Steve’s shield being slung down the hall forces you to take a step back into the stairwell.

“Y/N!” he shouts. “I told you to stand down!”

The shield flies back through the air and hits his gloved hand with a thud. He grunts as you lift your gun and shoot at one of the hostiles. They’re masked and dressed in all black. The bullet only bounces off their chest, but it gets their attention. The agent lifts their gun and you barely have time to process the muzzle’s strange purple glow before Steve is pushing you out of the way and the stairwell door disappears from thin air.

You gape at it, your breath stuck in your lungs. “What—”

“I told you to get out of here!” he grinds out, and you both clamber to your feet as the second assailant shoots the spot where you’d just been. The ID card that had been in the pocket of your workout pants is vaporized.

“I can help!” you reply. Steve flings the shield again, knocking the man to the floor, and then Bucky appears at the end of the hall. Gunfire bursts out as you reload and shoot in their direction as well. The first man falls and you duck forward, rolling past to grab the gun before his partner can. Even through his helmet you can hear his angry growl.

“Y/N, watch out!”

You hear Bucky’s shout the same time you feel the impact against your chest. In the rush of your arrival, you’d forgotten about the third hostile Steve had mentioned, plus the two more Clint had said were heading your way. There was no way to know who it was, but a blast of bright purple energy hits the center of your chest, burning against your sternum and knocking the air out of your lungs. You’re flying across the floor and your feet have no time to find purchase on the slick tile of the compound before your back is against a window. Bullets find the remaining enemies and they collapse to the floor. Bucky’s slumped against the wall, too. Glass cracks underneath your weight and you look up with a whimper. There are bullet holes surrounding you, connected by a spider web of cracks, and the ceiling is caving in, taking the window with it. Before you can even process what comes next, you’re falling.

Someone shouts and you scramble, grabbing onto whatever you can, and suddenly you find yourself dangling three floors above the ground. Your handgun and the strange energy gun both fall and hit the dirt. Purple energy shoots across the compound lawn, vaporizing a tree on the edge of the forest.

Déjà vu, your mind helpfully provides, and you grind out a silent command for it to shut up.

The bar you’ve managed to grab is steel, part of the window you’d been shoved up against by the blast. Broken glass digs into your fingers and your chest and arms ache from the impact as you continue to hold on for dear life. Your mouth is open but nothing comes out as the pain flares hot in your veins.

Before you’d fallen, you’d seen Bucky unconscious against the wall, but Steve had been nowhere in sight. You don’t dare let go to press the button on your comms to call for help. Your best bet is to hang on until someone finds you, or hope you don’t die upon impact.

“Help!” you shout. Your lungs are burning. “Steve! Somebody help! I need help!”

His voice answers, not in your comms or from the floor above, but from the ground so far beneath your aching feet.

“It’s okay, Y/N! Let go!”

You squeeze your eyes shut. There’s no way this is really happening to me twice in one day.

You’ve created a mental block for yourself, you’re well aware of that. Even though your fingers are slipping and the glass is slicing through your blood-slicked skin like a thousand knives, you still can’t make yourself let go. When you go to adjust your grip, the pain flares again and you cry out, tears slipping down your cheeks. You kick your feet, scrambling for purchase on the bar and desperate for anything that will keep you from falling.

“Y/N!” Steve shouts, and his voice is no longer the calm, controlled one you know from your training. He’s well and truly panicking, and the sound makes you cry even more. “Y/N, you have to let go! You have to trust me!”

“I can’t!” you scream. “Steve, I can’t!”

“Yes you can! You know you can trust me. I would never let anything happen to you, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart? That was new and you open your eyes, taking in a gasping, stuttering breath. Everything hurts.

“Steve, I— I’m scared!”

“I know you are, it’s okay! I’m going to catch you! I promise I won’t let you fall.”

The blood from your hands is running down your wrists now, soaking into the sweatshirt where the fabric touches your skin and rolling farther down your arms where it doesn’t. Your muscles are trembling with effort and you know it’s only a matter of time before you’re forced to let go. You weigh your options, which is pointless, though it calms your racing heart by a few beats. If you wait, you can’t control where you fall. If you let go now, you can at least try to adjust where you land.

Inhaling as much as your lungs will allow, you close your eyes and release the bar. The feeling of weightlessness only lasts for a few moments before you hit something. Instead of the hard, packed dirt outside the compound, however, the ground beneath you cushions your fall, contouring against the curve of your back and underside of your knees. Your head snaps back but there’s no impact there and even though the air is knocked out of your lungs for the umpteenth time that day, you still manage to open your eyes.

Steve is the first thing you see. His cowl is long gone and his hair is a mess, but his eyes are focused solely on you and filled with concern. His lips are moving and you blink at him, unsure of what he’s saying. Your ears are still ringing from the alarms and your comms unit has somehow managed to get shoved even farther into your ear.

“You caught me,” is all you can say. “You caught me.”

“—hurt?” Steve’s voice finally makes it through all the static in your head and you’re still repeating your mantra as he turns around, calling for the medical team. He holds your gaze and your hand even as you’re loaded onto a gurney. He doesn’t seem fazed by your blood covering his hands.

The team, dressed in their official compound EMS uniforms, starts to wheel you back to their makeshift med unit. Steve’s hand starts to slip from yours and you reach out, a desperate cry leaving you as you try to sit up.

“Steve!”

He’s back at your side in an instant. “I’m right here,” he says, and the paramedics clear a spot on the side of the gurney for him as they walk.

“You caught me,” you repeat, tears pricking your eyes. “You didn’t let me fall.”

Someone pries the comms from your ear and suddenly the noise around you feels so much louder. FRIDAY’s alarms are still going off and someone somewhere is shouting orders, but all you can focus on is Steve. A paramedic is probably questioning you, judging by the way he’s glancing up at the people on the other side of you.

“No, she’s not allergic to anything.” Steve looks back down at you, taking the hand they’re not cleaning. “Of course I caught you,” he soothes. “I’ll always catch you. I won’t let you fall.”

You swallow thickly, trying to get rid of the taste of iron that has managed to coat your dry mouth. “I was so scared. I couldn’t do it.”

He shakes his head, a watery smile on his lips. If you’d been more coherent, you would’ve seen the tears in his eyes as he smoothed your hair back with his clean hand.

“But you did do it, honey. You did so good. You did exactly what you needed to do and you’re okay now. I’m so proud of you.”

His words strike a chord inside of you and you relax against the gurney. A paramedic appears beside him and he’s forced to let go of you so they can clean your other hand, but Steve doesn’t go far. He stays at your side, speaking softly and reassuringly as they work. Whatever personal barrier the two of you had put up while you were training is long gone, and now the thought of Steve being any farther from you than he is now makes your chest feel tight.

Someone hands him a wipe to clean off his hands and you're stunned at the blood covering it when he tosses it in the biohazard bag they hold out. You hadn’t realized how injured you truly were and a shiver runs down your spine.

“You’re okay,” Steve says, his voice soft and smooth.

You blink and he’s sitting beside you now, a paramedic checking him over as a second covers you with a blanket. Logically, you know you’re probably in shock, but the smile Steve gives you chases that thought away.

“You’re safe now. We got them all.”

Nodding, you watch in silence as the paramedic cleans his hands a second time and puts a few butterfly bandages over the cuts on his face. They’ll heal within a few hours, maybe less, but she does her job anyway.

The alarms in the compound turn off, leaving a strange silence that echoes, as the medical team finishes their work on you. Soon after, you’re cleared to go back to your apartment. Steve helps you off the gurney and wraps his arm around your waist. Whatever pain medication they gave you is working overtime and it takes you a few seconds to get your bearings.

“You okay?” he asks, and you nod, licking your lips.

“I’m fine now,” you reply.

Slowly but surely, you and Steve make your way back into the building. Tony has sent the rest of the employees home and by the time you make it to the residential wing, the hallways are just as empty as they were after your training session. Your bag is still on the floor where you left it, untouched, but Tony is waiting for you by your door when you arrive.

He gives you critical once over, taking in your ragged appearance. “How’re you feeling?” he asks.

You give him a tired smile. “The pain meds are kicking in, so pretty damn great. I’m surprised I’m still conscious.”

“I heard you had a bad fall.”

Steve shifts his grip on you so he can reach down and collect your gym bag from the floor. “Do we know who that was?” he asks, and Tony shakes his head. He’s got a tablet in hand and within seconds he’s pulled up a 3D model of the gun. You recognize it as the ones the hostiles had shot at you, and you grimace at the memory of the purple blast.

“What were those things?”

“Not sure yet, FRIDAY’s running an in-depth scan,” Tony replies. “I just came to check up on you. How’d the sweatshirt work?”

You frown and glance at Steve, who appears just as confused as you. “Sweatshirt?”

Tony gestures to you and you look down at yourself, then back up at him. “Sweatshirt. It’s cotton woven with vibranium, meant to absorb energy upon impact. Think of it as a better, cooler, more comfortable bulletproof vest. The security footage shows that it works, but I need to check that there aren’t any flaws or lingering side effects before it becomes standard issue for compound employees.”

You blink at him. Your brain is barely processing everything that just happened, and now Stark wants to ask you if the sweatshirt he’d given you had any side effects? You could barely wrap your brain around the fact that it wasn’t even a normal sweatshirt. You’d spilt spaghetti sauce on it only two days ago.

“I think that this conversation can wait until Y/N’s feeling a little bit better,” Steve says. He holds out the bag and you take it, gingerly holding it against you with your wrapped hands.

“Come by my lab tomorrow,” Tony answers, and after a beat he adds, “I’m glad you’re okay, rookie.”

The nickname makes you smile a little. “See you tomorrow, Tony.”

FRIDAY unlocks your door and Steve holds it open for you as Tony heads back down the hall, already talking to the AI about the repairs that need to be done and the improvements to the security system he wants to make. You drop your bag just inside your room, glancing over your shoulder to make sure Steve is still at your side.

He shifts uneasily as the door shuts behind him. “I can go, if you don’t need my help anymore.”

Quickly, you shake your head. “No, Steve, I—” You freeze, stopping yourself before anything embarrassing can come out. He meets your eyes, trying to decipher what you mean, and you try again. “I want you to stay.”

“Then I’ll stay,” he replies after a moment, nodding once. “For as long as you’ll have me.”

A small smile is all you can manage as you limp over to the edge of your bed and start to pry off your shoes. Steve unhooks the shield from the back of his suit and leans it up against the wall, then kneels at your feet. He grabs your shoe, one hand at the heel and one hand at the toe, and looks up at you for permission. When you nod, he carefully takes it off your foot, then removes the other before placing them neatly against the wall.

“Sweatshirt?” you murmur. Anything else would feel too loud and Steve nods again, helping you out of the garment until you’re just in your workout clothes. You feel practically naked as he folds the sweatshirt and sets it on top of your dresser across the room, even though you’d been wearing this exact thing in the gym with him only an hour before. Hell, he’d even seen you in a swimsuit and this still felt more vulnerable.

Steve starts to strip off his suit and you look away, giving him some privacy. Finally, he’s standing at the foot of the bed, clad in the black sweatpants and skin-tight gray shirt he’d been wearing earlier.

“How does your suit even fit over that?” you muse, and you feel your cheeks go warm when Steve raises an eyebrow at you. You hadn’t truly meant to say that aloud.

“They cleared you to sleep, if you want,” he says in response.

Nodding, you swing your legs up onto the bed and crawl under the covers. Steve stands in place, looking altogether uncomfortable in your room. You smile again.

“Steve,” you say, and his eyes instantly meet yours, “just come lay with me. It’s okay.”

His shoulders drop as he nods and comes around the other side of the bed. Slowly, he pulls the covers away and climbs in under them. The bed felt much bigger before he was there, and suddenly you’re all too aware that there’s only a few inches of space between you and him.

Sleep weighs heavy on you as the heat from his body warms you more than the blankets ever did. You stare at him in the dark of your apartment, blinking slowly as your mind filters through the events of the past few hours. The pain medicine makes it all a little hazy, but it’s very clear that something has shifted between you and Steve. You’d been adamant that you wouldn’t catch feelings for him, or for any of your new teammates for that matter. You’d failed at that.

“You caught me,” you murmur, and he sighs across from you.

“I told you,” he says, “I’ll always catch you.” He lifts his hand and smooths it over your hair, making you close your eyes. You let out a shaky breath. “You’re safe with me, Y/N.”

You smile a little, not looking at him. “I’ll let go, then, as long as you’re there to catch me.”

Maybe you’re already drifting off, but you swear you feel him press a kiss against your forehead, followed by a whisper of, “I will be.”

Thank you for reading! If you liked this, please consider reblogging my work so that others can enjoy it too.

If you want to support me further, consider buying me a ko-fi! My ko-fi is also under my SPN fanfiction blog, but I promise it’s me.

If you would like to be added to my tags, please send me a message or an ask! I tag for Everything, Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Thor Odinson, and Peter Parker.

Tagging people who might enjoy: @lipstickandvibranium

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