america's assassin ➻ steve rogers

seventeen

I'd brought Steve back to my room and taken one look at the crisp white of my clean bed sheets and the dust and rubble we were both still covered in and suggested maybe we should shower first. Alone. I'd told him to go first, to take as long as he needed, but as I looked out to the blackness from my window and heard the water begin running, I started to fidget. I lasted exactly thirty more seconds before I figured what the hell and shed Nat's borrowed jacket, throwing it over a chair and undoing my belt buckle as I slipped through the door to the bathroom.

It had filled up with steam in the literal minute he had been under the water and the mist felt nice on my skin as I shed the rest of my clothing. I opened the door to the shower and slipped in as quietly as I could, silent to a normal human, a whisper of a breath to a super soldier, and pressed my palm against the smooth back between his shoulder blades. He had one hand braced on the shower wall and the second I touched him, it balled into a fist. He didn't turn around straight away and I used the opportunity to step closer to him, take a pump of lotion and run my hands over his shoulders and down his arms, back up and down the smooth planes of muscle in his back. When I moved my hands forward around his hips, feeling the deep vee of his pelvis and the coiled muscles of his stomach, I shivered.

"What are you doing?" His voice was a hoarse whisper as I pressed my chest up against his back. By the way the muscles in his back stretched taut, I thought he might be using all of his self-control not to turn and take me at that very moment.

"I was dirty," I said, pressing my lips against his shoulder blade. A roll of tired laughter shifted through him.

"I know you are," He said. I stepped backwards so our bodies no longer touched and I heard the sharp exhale of his breath. I pulled on his bicep to make him turn to face me and he did as slowly as he could. His face was washed clean of dirt, his hair plastered against his forehead as he breathed heavy, the shower stream leaving droplets running down his face.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" He asked, reaching up to press his thumb against my bottom lip, his other fingers propped beneath my chin. I wondered what my face looked like to him, because I could feel a thousand emotions racing through my chest.

"You nearly died on me, Cap." It had meant to come out as a joke, maybe accompanied by a little smile, but it ended up sounding hurt. Abandoned. Betrayed. The look on Steve's face told me it had hit him right where it hurts and I reached up to fold my hand around the one that still held my face.

"I'm sorry," He said, voice just as low as mine, nearly taken away by the stream of the shower. "This wasn't what I meant when I told you it doesn't have to be like that." With his free hand, he reached up and smoothed my hair back, running his thumb over my temple.

"Like trauma?" I asked, half because I needed to know we were thinking of the same thing and half because I needed him to prove me wrong. The hand on my hair wove through it, the one on my chin pulled my face upwards.

"I'm not really off to a great start, am I?" He said. His eyes were so blue, so open, so ready for anything. I wanted to be like that.

"If you could maybe not come so close to death again," I said, his thumb tracing my lips as they stretched into a small smile. "You're doing perfectly."

"Today really stressed you out, huh?" He asked, searching my eyes for something as he tipped my face further back. Spray from the shower was getting in my eyes but I didn't think that accounted for the tears that burnt the back of my eyelids. I blinked furiously, hoping it would come off as just as the shower, but when he angled the both of us so that my back hit the cold wall and his body sheltered me from it, I knew he knew I was starting to cry.

"Did you really mean it when you said I couldn't get rid of you that easily?" The hand resting on my chin moved to cup the side of my throat. He rested his forehead against mine and I let myself close my eyes.

"For as long as you want me," He breathed. "I'm right here."

I lifted my face to kiss him and I was trembling as my knuckles brushed his jaw, falling to the side of his neck. He kissed me back softly, tiny movements of his lips against mine with audible sighs between us. I didn't have to think very hard to know this was different than before. His mouth grew heavier and yet it was still the most gentle kiss I'd ever been given. His hands were in my hair, thumbs still stroking my temples. His hardness was pressed against my hip and as much as I wanted to press back against it, I didn't dare move and ruin the spell. The kiss slowed into something that was more breathing each other's air than kissing, and for some reason that was what felt like the most intimate thing we had done yet. I opened my eyes and he was staring at me, piercing blue in a world of darkness.

"Is this okay?" He murmured against my mouth, still touching my face, still pressed close but hesitant to press any closer. I wrapped my hands around his wrists, stroking the inside of one with my thumb.

"Yeah," I whispered back.

"If I'm going to do this," He took a deep breath. "I'm not doing it casually." My chest erupted with a thousand nerves bouncing off each other but I swallowed it all down.

"Okay," I said. If he was surprised, he didn't show it.

"I want strings," He added.

"I said okay, Steve," I said, the smallest of smiles pricking at my lips. "I wanted to talk about this first but..."

"But what?" He asked.

"But you nearly died on me," I whispered. He didn't seem to need much more clarification and wrapped his strong arms around my waist, snapping the water off behind me before pulling me from the shower. He used one hand to wrap one of the fluffy towels around my shoulders and used the other to barely dry himself off before he had me up in his arms and over his shoulder, taking me from the bathroom to the bedroom and laying me on the bed with the kind of gentle care he hadn't shown me when throwing me over his shoulder. His body came down softly over mine, running his hands and mouth everywhere they could reach as I sighed and moaned and wriggled under his hold.

"Are you sure this is what you want?" He asked me, face in my neck and hand tracing my inner thigh. I sighed and arched my hips up against his. He reacted with a shift of his own hips against mine.

"Let me have you, Steve," I whispered, nudging his face up with my nose so I could kiss him. He kissed me back, still gentle but letting himself commit.

"I want you, Mia." One of his hands splayed beside my head as the other pressed into my hip. With his knee, he pushed my legs apart and settled between them, waiting for my go ahead.

"You have never asked for this much confirmation before," I teased. "Come on." His laugh was only a breath that tickled my throat.

"You are truly insufferable," He told me right as his hips shifted forward, right inside of me. I gasped, my fingers braced on his shoulder blades as I pulled him forward against me. He started out so gentle, so even, that I noticed every single increase in pace and pressure. I was gasping when he pressed his mouth to mine, kissing me so carefully I felt like a delicate doll.

"You feel..." He grunted against my mouth. "So good." My mouth watered with his words but I knew what he was talking about. This wasn't like the other times, even though they'd been insanely good in their own rights. This was just different.

"I think it's the feelings," I murmured back, kissing him again so he couldn't respond. He kissed me back harder, hands roaming over my body as we came right to the edge together.