I Thought You Were Different: Part 3

Pride

"You find a place in Brooklyn yet?"

"I don't think we can afford a place in Brooklyn," Steve sighed, swiping his thumb across his tablet almost aimlessly through real estate listing after listing, seeing nothing that jumped out as a worthy prospect. "Anything that I like is too small, and anything that she wants is just too expensive."

"Well, you do need like what, fifty bedrooms for all of you to fit?" Sam scoffed, watching the pictures change on the screen as he sat next to Steve. "How about that one?" he pointed, waiting for his friend to flip back a few screens. "That one seems nice."

"Hmm," Steve nodded in agreement, "Five bedrooms...three bath...hey, there's a little backyard...oh, wait, nope," he groaned, "price."

"Seriously, man, just have Stark buy it for you guys. He's only offered a million times."

"I do have my pride, Sam."

"Screw pride. Take the cash."

Steve could only laugh at the blunt honesty, leaning back in his chair with a wide grin, grabbing his chest as he tried to regain his control. The two of you had been under so much pressure in the past few weeks since you had announced that you were leaving, that the break in it all was more than welcome and it felt good to just let the laugh take him over. "It's good to know where your priorities are."

"I ain't gonna lie," Sam went on, "if I were married to (Y/N), I'd take all the perks I could get."

"You mean more than just being married to her?"

Sam's expression dropped and he looked around the room in every direction, turning back to Steve in disbelief and a bit of mocking sorrow, "she isn't even here, and listen to you. Man, she has you trained."

~~~

On the other side of the compound in Steve's office, you were doing a search of your own, but much different than the one that your husband and Sam were taking part in; you were learning everything you could about Stephen Strange and if you would be able to set your own personal feelings aside to look at it all objectively for the sake of your kids. They were practically begging you to let them follow his teachings, even though they hadn't said more than a few words about it since Tony had laid out their punishments the last time he was mentioned; you could sense their apprehension to bring it up again, but it didn't mean that the topic had died.

The only thing that you had known about the man was from when he was still working as a neurosurgeon years ago and he had dismissed your recovery without more than barely a moment of consideration. Looking back, no one had told him that you had far better than average healing ability, and that he likely could have done some good, but it didn't absolve his attitude, and now it was a huge barrier to your seeing him any other way.

"So, how's it going?" Tony asked uncharacteristically shyly from the doorway. "Have you made any decisions?"

"Not really," you sighed, darkening the screen and turning your chair to face him, "but it's not for me to make alone anyway. Steve's looking at houses while I do this, so we're going to meet later and share what we've found to maybe get one of these things settled."

"Yeah, I heard how his search is going. (Y/N), just let me buy you what you want. If you're not going to stay here, I'd rather know that you're all in a home that's safe and that you're all happy in."

"Dad, we've been over this."

"I know," he agreed softly, moving across the room to take a seat next to you, "but I'll keep trying until papers are signed. What's the point of having all of this money if I can't use it for things like this? It's not like I need anything."