New York, 2012. It changed everyone somehow.
It changed Steve Rogers. It changed Tony Stark. Most of all though, it changed Aurelia Stark.
When nothing in Aurelia's world is what she thought it was, how will faces from her past change her whirlwind...
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Jingle bells, jingle bells Jingle all the way Oh, what fun it is to ride In a one-horse open sleigh -You Know The Song
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"I miss you."
"Jesus Christ, it's early."
"Sorry."
"You should be in bed."
"I know, but I just needed to hear your voice."
He lets out a low groan, his voice still deep and gravelly from just having woken up, "Aren't you three hours behind me anyway?"
"Maybe..."
"Ari, go to sleep."
"I can't."
"Ari...". The noise of his head softly hitting the pillow sounds down the phone line, as he yawns softly to himself.
"I can let you go back to sleep if you want."
"No, no, it's fine.", he takes a pause, in which silence engulfs me, "I'm worried about you, Ari. You never seem to sleep and you haven't come to visit or anything. From what I hear, you barely even leave the house."
"Steve, like I've told you, I'm completely fine.", I lie.
"You're not though, and that's fine. Just open up to me, please? I haven't seen your face in five months and all I ever hear from you are brief phone calls chatting about TV or some other nonsense. You can talk to me about anything, I promise."
I pause, just listening to his quiet breathes. I stare at my bare feet, contemplating my words carefully. Through the large windows, moonlights glistens off the tranquil ocean and casts a pale light on my exposed legs. Phone held to my ear, I lay stretched out on the sofa in the dead of night. Malibu is asleep around me and the clock on the wall shows just past two am, as the seconds tick by painfully slowly. My pink silk pyjama shorts are the only speck of colour that I can see in the room drowning in darkness.
