Slow Dancing & Apple Pie

Six

"Who are you?"

Your eyes closed briefly. As the various surviving members of The Avengers filtered into the compound it had become a recurring question. You turned to face the one asking it now. The Asgardian, Thor, looked a lot worse for wear. He was squinting at you over the top of a pair of sunglasses, a beer in his hand. You could practically taste the misery coming off him.

"Oh, yeah, turns out Cap got himself an omega in the last couple of months." Tony tossed in the general direction of you and Thor as he passed carrying more supplies towards the machine he and the raccoon, Racket, were building.

Thor squinted at you some more, his bloodshot eyes seemingly struggling to focus. Finally, he scratched at his stomach and nodded. "Well, you're pretty. Smell good too. Good for him."

He suddenly enveloped you in a hug, your nose wrinkling a little at the smell of him.

"Thor, why don't you go get settled in?" Steve had appeared behind him. Thor pushed away from you, nodding and patting you on the shoulder. He was a little unsteady on his feet as he wandered away.

Once he had disappeared, Steve's touched your arm, asking, "You okay?"

You were still watching where Thor had disappeared. "He's so... sad ."

Steve wrapped his arm around you when you leaned against him, his lips pressing against the top of your head. "Some of us lost more than others in the war with Thanos. Thor possibly lost the most."

"He did?"

"Thanos murdered his brother, his best friend, and half of his people. And that doesn't include the Asgardians lost during the destruction of his planet right before Thanos or the people lost in the snap."

You looked up at him. "Do you mean?"

"Yeah." Steve sighed. "It means even if we pull this off he's still going to have lost tens of thousands of people."

"Oh. No wonder he's in so much pain." You ached for him, feeling the slight prick of tears. Even for an omega, you seemed to have a nearly preternatural depth of empathy. Steve's hand stroked down you back, feeling your distress and doing what he could to help soothe it.

After a while he said, "They're getting ready to do a test run."

A little lick of panic bloomed in you and you looked back up at him. "Are you doing it?"

"No, princess, I guess Clint is doing it."

"Clint?"

"Yeah, c'mon. Let's go see if there is anything we can do to help."

~*~*~*~

The test run was successful, which meant that the next step for them was to figure out how to use the machine to get six separate stones when they only had enough of the particles to do a single round trip per person.

Eventually, you slipped away to the kitchen, figuring that while you couldn't do what all of them were doing–you could at the very least make food. It was almost ready when Steve's scent washed over you while his arms wrapped around you from behind. Your eyes closed and you leaned back into the embrace.

Tipping your head back you asked, "How's it going?"

He rubbed his face against your neck, breathing deeply. "People are reaching the ends of their ropes for the night."

"I made food," you announced.

"Mhm," Steve hummed, kissing your jaw. "I see that, princess. You know you didn't have to, right?"