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“Natasha. Status.”Steve’s voice was low as he called out through his transmitter, a husky whisper in your ear that made shivers run down your spine, even though he was crouched right beside you. Not that you weren’t used to being in close proximity with the Super Soldier, but it was the first time you’d been paired with him on a mission, and his navy blue tactical suit, stretching in all the right places was giving you all sorts of ideas that had no place during a stealth and extraction op.“Quadrant seven’s clear,” Natasha’s sharp voice snapped you back to attention. “Trackers in place.”“Sam?”“Tagged three heat signatures in quadrant five. Two armed.”“Bucky?”“I got eyes on them.”“There’s two agents out front, three more in the back,” you alerted the rest of the team. “Guard switch coming up in five.”There was a pause before Steve spoke again.“And then we’ll do it to ‘em.”Sam groaned in everyone’s ear, while you sniggered, Steve shooting you a grin. “What, did I say it wrong?”“Y/N, what did I say about teaching memes to grandpa?” Tony’s annoyed voice rang out through the comms.“It’s not in me to deny a veteran valuable education, Tony,” you said, smirking to yourself, and glancing at Steve, who shot you a wink that almost made you lose your footing.You weren’t sure when that had started; the awkward glances, the sultry stares, the quickening of your heartbeat whenever he found an excuse to stand next to you during briefings. When you had spied Steve a few weeks ago trying to work out what BuzzFeed was or how Twitter worked, you never imagined you’d be joining him daily in his morning ritual of perusing through the Internet over a warm mug of coffee, or the late night deep dives into YouTube’s black hole, or texting memes and jokes back and forth whenever a mission called either of you away.But as endearing as you found him trying to clumsily insert pop culture references into everyday Avengers life, the others were less than amused at your efforts.“Can we talk about this later?” Bruce chimed in, holding his position back at the quinjet, tracking your activities. “Counting down… 9 … 8 … 7–”“Wait!” Sam’s urgent whisper made you sober up instantly. “There’s something… moving fast, but it’s scrambling Redwing’s signal…”“What the hell is–” but Bucky’s voice was cut off by Steve.“Watch out!” he yelled as he tried to pull you back, but all you did was fly across the air, the ensuing blast making you lose sight of your vantage point as you were thrown backwards, surrounded by a dark cloud of smoke and dirt. All you could to was brace yourself before you bounced off a tree branch and slammed down on ground.Coughing violently, you rolled painfully on your side, a glimpse of navy blue-clad legs sprawled a few feet away from you.“Steve!” you shouted, army-crawling towards him. “Steve, talk to me!”“I might have fallen,” his voice groaned out, his legs slightly stirring as you got closer. “And I can’t get up.”“Ok, Life Alert,” you sat up in a crouch, trying to pull him up. “Let me look at you.”But the instant he was sitting upright, his eyes widened and he grabbed you by the waist, twisting around to cover you, as a second blast exploded the ground around you.Your face firmly pressed against Steve’s chest and eyes shut tight, you both held on to each other amidst the cacophony, and you heard Tony’s flight thrusters whooshing by and land between you and a looming figure emerging from the dust and smoke.“You two ok?” he asked over his shoulder, battle stance at the ready.“Are you?” Steve murmured, and you could barely contain yourself from blurting out how okay you were wrapped in his arms.“Hmm-mmm” you managed to utter, as he pulled you up to your feet, his concerned blue eyes on your face, and his hand lingering on yours as you both turned to face what was coming. You couldn’t help but squeeze his hand slightly at the sight of Emil Blonski, or rather Abomination now, his body contorted to three times his size and his face warped beyond recognition.“Bruce, you wanna smash?” Steve said, making you snort at the absurdity of his statement in the face of danger, finally letting go of his hand as you heard confirmation from Bruce in your ear.“Rogers, leave the one-liners to me, ok?” Tony begrudged him, his pulse blasters gearing up and shooting down four agents flanking Blonski as he growled at the three of you. “It’s all I got. Besides, you’re not very good at them.”Steve threw out his shield and knocked out three more coming from the east, while your knives found two more targets from the south. Both of you quickly moved in to flank Tony, as Blonski bared his teeth… when a flash of green, accompanied a loud thunderous growl, landed between the three of you and rushed at Blonski. As Bruce’s hulked-out form relentlessly attacked Blonski, drawing him away from your path, Tony, Steve and you continued to bring down the remaining approaching agents. Natasha, Sam and Bucky would have already infiltrated the bunker, and were most likely flushing everyone out.“I guess I need to work on my timing,” Steve said, glancing sideways at you. How did he even have energy to flirt in the middle of a fight?“Maybe Bruce can help you with that,” you said, a smile on your face as more knives flew out of your hands, and Steve bounced them off his shield, rerouting them to the final two targets, and making them drop to the ground.“I’d rather stick with the curriculum,” he smiled, but a sudden thought sobered his expression. “Unless… you don’t… I mean,” he stuttered, suddenly flustered as his hand found the back of his neck and his eyes darted from your face to the ground in embarrassment. Your eyes went wide.“I– no, I’m…” Shit. You hadn’t meant to make him doubt himself, and now, adrenaline washing away from the fight, you found yourself lacking in your own confidence. How had that even happened?But Natasha’s voice in both your transmitters left no time to dwell on the sudden awkwardness. “Gamma energy cores are secured, let’s go home.”***Your suite at the Compound was dark; you hadn’t bothered to turn on any lights and the night sky was barely illuminated by a waning moon outside. Your lay in bed, wide awake on your back, a slight pang hitching in your chest at the memory of Steve shuffling away from you during debriefing, and the way he had rushed out of the meeting without even a glance your way.Had you ruined the beginning of something there? Was this the end of morning coffee and obscure references, and the sweet looks from shining blue eyes…?You closed your eyes, letting out a long exhale. It’ll be ok. It wasn’t the first time you’d pushed someone away. You’d survive… you hoped.You thought you’d imagined the soft knock, until a slightly more confident one made your eyes snap open. “Y/N?”You sat up in a flash, your heart fluttering at the shyness in Steve’s voice.“Y/N, are you ok?”You looked at the clock. 1:30am. You’d missed dinner, he’d probably worried.“Did I…”You slowly stood up over the edge of the bed, tentatively tiptoeing across the room.“Did I do something wrong…?”Your heart clenched at the self admonishment in his voice. Your hands touched solid wood, and you pressed your forehead on the door, trying to absorb whatever guilt he was now carrying along with him.“No, no you didn’t,” you said, just as softly, though you knew he’d hear. “I thought… I thought I did…”You heard him sigh on the other side, and you wondered whether it was relief or frustration.“Does the ‘last two brain cells’ thing apply here?”Unable to suppress a laugh, you swung the door open to see him leaning against the frame, an earnest smile on his face, and the twinkling blue doing its best to almost keel over on the spot.“You still got a long way to go, Rogers,” you said, folding your arms, and his eyebrow twitched upwards as he held out his hand towards you.“I got time.”