Chapter Text
Becca knew Steve was there from the second she woke up. She could feel the warm pressure of his hip bone against her arm, not exactly comfortable, but comforting nonetheless. Also, she smelled coffee instead of the faint scent of laundry detergent or less pleasant odor of sweat, depending on how long it had been since she had last washed her pillowcase.
Instead of opening her eyes to say good morning, Becca savored the moment. She didn’t get to wake up next to Steve often. Ever since he joined S.H.I.E.L.D. and swapped his New York apartment for one in D.C., they saw each other in person once or twice a month, relying on a combination of Skype, long-distance calls, and texting the rest of the time. Which sucked at first. Well, it still sucked, especially during the stretch of two months when Steve had been so busy that she barely heard from him. But, as with most anything in life, she was getting used to it.
She learned to put her fear that Steve would get injured or killed on the backburner – usually; some days proved harder than others – and accept that he was doing an important job that made him feel useful. And just because S.H.I.E.L.D. came first didn’t mean he loved her any less. When they visited one another, he was with her one-hundred percent.
Way back when they had first started spending nights together, Becca had woken up to find Steve in the living room watching the news on low volume. She had made a teasing comment about missing him. Since then, he was always there when she woke up. Sometimes reading or sketching, sometimes snuggled up against her. She considered telling him that he didn’t have to come back to bed every morning, but she liked having him there. So she didn’t say anything.
After lounging a while longer, Becca peeked open one eye. Steve was resting against a pillow, sketchbook propped against his knees, pencil poking out of the hand in his lap. He would usually wait to take a cue from her that she was ready for good morning. He once told her that he knew when she was about to wake up because the news would announce that it seemed like the earthquake had settled down, but he wanted to wait in case another wave occurred (her snoring wasn’t that bad).
However he actually knew that she was waking up, Becca didn’t think he was paying enough attention this morning to notice. Steve’s gaze fixed on her desk, but he had this look like he wasn’t seeing it. A troubled look. No, sad.
Becca opened her other eye. “Hey, you.” Steve flinched, like she had snuck up on him. “Good morning.”
A struggle played out on his face in a heartbeat, and then Steve smiled. “Morning.”
Although Becca didn’t trust the smile for a second, she knew better than to jump on him right away. They’d had a talk about being more open with one another, but sharing the hard stuff wasn’t something that came easy to either of them.
“What’cha drawing?” she asked.
“Uh.” Steve glanced down at his sketchbook as Becca propped herself up on an elbow to get a better look. The page was blank. “Haven’t decided yet. What do you think I should draw?”
“Hmmm…” Becca tugged her oh-so-sexy t-shirt down to expose a shoulder and fluttered her eyelashes at him. “I want you to draw me like one of your French girls.”
Steve frowned, searching her face like he was hoping to find a clue there. “That’s… a movie quote?”
“At least you’re recognizing quotes I guess, even if you don’t know where they’re from. Titanic, I’ll add it to the list.” Becca dropped back onto the mattress, stretching out her legs. Should she have him watch Titanic? She wasn’t sure he would enjoy it. Giving him the basics should be enough to get any pop culture references.
“That movie list must be real long by now. What’s it up to? A hundred? Two?”
Becca shrugged. “I have no idea. I stopped physically keeping track because it was bumming me out.”
“Sorry.” Steve leaned down to kiss her. “I’d say I’d make more of an effort, but seeing you getting all worked up when I don’t know Avatar from Avatar is still more entertaining than a lot of the movies.”
“You’re the worst.”
“I know.”
Steve set his sketchbook and pencil aside and slipped back beneath the covers. With some maneuvering, they got cuddled up, his arms around her, her head resting against his chest.
Once they were settled, Becca had to check, “You do actually know the difference though, right?”
Steve chuckled, squeezing her more tightly against him. “One is that movie we watched with humans going to Pandora. The other is ‘possibly the stupidest movie ever’ and ‘everyone says the TV show is way better.’”
“Okay, good.”
This was the point where they would usually lay there in silence for a couple of minutes, enjoying the closeness that would have to last them over the following weeks apart. Becca liked to close her eyes and let the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest and the quiet thump of his heart lull her to the precipice of sleep, where all thoughts blurred together into a sense of peace. But she couldn’t find peace this morning because her mind raced at a million miles an hour trying to figure out how to bring up whatever had made Steve sad.
“So how are you? Last night was such a whirlwind, I didn’t really get a chance to ask.” Becca congratulated herself on the phrasing. Not pointed enough to be obvious, but not subtle enough for Steve to lead a conversation in the opposite direction.
“All right.”
Of course, he could do the usual and deflect the question. “Really?”
“Yeah. How about you?”
“Okay.” Becca decided to put on some pressure. She didn’t often, only when she thought Steve had been bottling something up that was getting to him. “I know there are some things you can’t tell me, but I wish you wouldn’t lie.” She could’ve been more gentle with him, but guilt had proved to be the most effective tool, a sharp blade used to open a wound in an effort to drain the infection.
Becca felt, rather than heard, Steve sigh. “I don’t like lying to you, but I’m not even here three days. I don’t wanna r –”
“Don’t. Talking to me won’t ruin anything. It makes me feel like I’m being a good girlfriend.”
“Seems like it makes you feel upset.”
Becca opened her mouth to argue, but after chastising him for lying, doing the same would’ve been hypocritical.
It wasn’t that she had burst into tears in front of him or anything. If she had, Steve would probably never share his feelings with her again on the chance of setting her off. Besides, how totally selfish would that have been to make his problems all about her? No way. He talked. She listened.
But how could she not be upset? Seeing the guilt in his face when he recalled a mission he had come back from which had gone lethally wrong or hearing him recount a war story that gave him nightmares, that was upsetting. Seriously, anyone with half a heart would feel it begin to break when they heard Steve admit in this tired voice that he wished his mom was still around. He might have this perfect, handsome exterior, but inside Steve was damaged.
Now, Becca harbored no illusions about fixing him. Some of the pain ran too deep, and furthermore, some of that pain made Steve who he was. She didn’t think anyone could be a superhero without learning a couple of hard lessons. But just because she couldn’t wave a hand and make his problems disappear, didn’t mean that she couldn’t shoulder some of their weight.
Becca shifted up onto an elbow so she could meet Steve’s eyes. “Sometimes it makes me upset,” she agreed. “But knowing what’s bugging you, that’s not what keeps me up at night. It’s the not knowing.” She pressed a hand to his lips when he tried to talk. “You’re sorry. You don’t want me to worry.”
Steve’s eyebrows rose at that mind-reading trick, but it wasn’t much of a trick. Guilt was his go-to response.
“Well, I’m gonna worry about you sometimes, and you’ll make me upset sometimes. That’s how it’s gonna be,” Becca told him. “But if I thought I couldn’t handle it, I’d have jumped ship already and swam to calmer waters.” She traced her fingertips from his lips over a still-healing cut. Each bruise and wound hurt her a little, though Steve treated them like they were nothing. “Being in a relationship with you isn’t always easy, but loving you is. I think that’s what matters.”
Steve placed his hand over hers, covering it like he could protect her from pain through physical actions, or maybe he needed to keep her close, her palm pressed soothingly against his cheek until nothing else mattered but her being there with him. Becca wasn’t sure, so she said the one thing that worked no matter what he was feeling.
“Let me help you. Please.”
Her request was met with silence, but the kind of silence loaded with the hundreds of emotions flickering behind Steve’s eyes, too many for Becca to decipher, too many for her to know what he was thinking. Usually he was an open book. God, something had to be really wrong.
“Soon,” Steve replied, much to her disappointment. “Not today. I need some time.”
Becca chewed her bottom lip. She didn’t like this. Waiting wasn’t likely to make anything better. Yet, if she pushed too hard, she would become the nagging, bitchy girlfriend. She had to give him time if that’s what he thought he needed. Not too much time, though. He had until she saw him next, and then she would put her foot down.
“Okay, but I’ll remember.”
“I know. I will too.” Steve grinned. “With my ‘freaky-ass elephant memory.’”
“Bleh.” Becca gave an exaggerated shudder. “So freaky.” She scooted higher up the mattress so she could kiss him.
Although they had pretended to move on, neither of them really had. Becca could feel it in the way Steve pulled her closer, pressing her so tight to him that her full bladder protested. But she didn’t tell him to ease up. She let him keep her locked in his embrace because she hoped that in some tiny way, she was helping him, even if helping him in this moment meant being in pain. She could be strong for him. She had to be. They would make it through this. Whatever this was.