These are the Hands of Fate - Steve Rogers x OC

Five: The Jury's Out But My Choice is You

April 14, 2020

From where she laid on the couch in his room, Maggie peeked over at Steve again from behind the pages of the novel she was only half-paying attention to. Though her eyes had followed the lines of printed words, her mind was preoccupied with other, maybe more pressing, matters. Tony and Pepper were still unaware that she and Steve had become an item and it had been well over three months since they'd become exclusive. Twelve weekly dinners had passed with Maggie dodging topics and responding to innocent questions with roundabout answers; it had quickly become exhausting.

After several weeks of debating, she'd silently come to the conclusion that the possible fallout from an implosion, far outweighed the tiring mental gymnastics that she'd had to perform in order to not raise any suspicion with her godfather and family. It was a bandage that just needed to be ripped off and sooner was far better than later. Sitting up, she carefully marked the page with a bookmark, knowing she'd need to reread the chapter anyway, and set the book aside.

Maggie stood, crossing the room to where Steve sat at his desk, pouring over some papers that Rhodey had sent him earlier that evening. From behind the rolling chair, she leaned down and slipped her arms around him, pulling a fraction of his attention away from his work at hand. Absentmindedly, he tilted his head down and pressed a soft kiss to her forearm. Continuing to read distractedly, Steve spoke slowly, "Everything okay, sweetheart?"

With a small nod, she pressed her lips together before finally deciding to bite the bullet, "I want to tell Tony and Pepper."

"Tell them what?" Steve murmured unaffectedly, not yet looking up; he had just one last paragraph to glance over but his brain stuttered when she gave her quiet response.

"About us."

"Oh." At his one word, slightly surprised, response, Maggie unwound her arms from around him, worried that she'd opened a can of worms that she hadn't entirely been prepared for.

Turning in his chair, he opened his arms for her to come to him and she felt the apprehension quickly evaporate from her body. Ever the perceptive one, Steve had picked up on Maggie's anxiety that had come in like the tide as she danced around the issue at hand. Though she was skilled at masking her fears, she knew it was no good when it came to him.

Sighing softly, Maggie sat sideways across his lap, her head resting comfortably against his shoulder. The silence between them wasn't expectant but her constant need to overexplain herself took control and she swallowed the lump in her throat before carefully choosing her words, "I know that I will never understand everything that happened between you guys."

Neither Steve nor Tony had ever discussed the departure from their friendship with her. She hadn't approached the topic, steering clear anytime they got too close, but she'd be remiss to say that a part of her didn't want to know what exactly had occurred all those years earlier. What had struck a nerve deep enough within the two men to completely cut their ties?

Clearing her throat and sitting up, she avoided Steve's eyes as she continued, "But I love you and I just—," She shook her head, feeling silly when the words quickly spilled from her, "I feel like I'm keeping this big secret and I don't want you to be a secret. And I know that, if my parents were still here, I'd want to tell them all about you but since I can't do that, I know that I could at least do this."

Although Maggie knew that if her parents were still around, she'd likely never have met Steve, the sentiment still remained. If they hadn't been in their office that afternoon, if different stars had aligned and they'd lived and she'd somehow still found her way to Steve anyway, she knew that her parents would have adored him beyond belief; even more than they had from afar. He'd been her dad's childhood hero and her mom had referred to him as a 'strapping young man' on more than one occasion despite his fifty-year seniority.