it's been a long, long time

chapter 2: a lot to figure out

Steve is an hour and a half late to work.

Everyone is staring at him when he walks in, and even though he knows it's probably because he's never been more than thirty-two seconds late his entire life he can't help but feel like they're looking at him because they know, so he tucks his chin and walks up the stairs as quickly as he can without looking like he's escaping from something. He walks through the doors of the briefing room with his head down, muttering apologies, and as he falls into his chair a familiar cough makes him look up.

His heart sinks as he realizes that the briefing room is completely full, save for the empty chair beside him that he can't bear to look at. The only time everyone comes in to the Avengers facility is when there's a high-profile, super important mission that takes more than a few of them, and as he glances around he silently curses the universe for dropping this on him today, of all days. Steve tightens his grip on his shield and silently waits for instructions, hoping that taking out some bad guys will at least take his mind off the woman who should be next to him, trying to get him to laugh through mission briefings and break his consistently professional demeanor.

The instructions never come. Instead, there's a long silence that Steve hardly notices, until he hears Fury clear his throat and say his name.

Steve forces himself to look up into the face of the man who has been the cause of his pain for the last 13 hours, and with great difficulty, says "Yes, sir."

"What was Agent Romanoff doing at your apartment last night?"

It's the last question he's expecting, and it's the last question he wants to answer right now. There's a quiet, cold fury building inside him, and there is a clear warning in his voice when he says "How did you know she was at my apartment?"

"We have other agents living around the area," Fury says, and when Steve is silent he continues to press. "Why was she there? We asked her to go straight to a destination that she was ten minutes late to, thanks to that little detour. If she's told you anything, leaked any private information—"

"She didn't tell me anything," Steve says flatly. "She just came to say goodbye."

Fury looks like he doesn't quite believe him, but something in Steve's face must keep him from continuing that line of questioning, because he switches tack quickly.

"Then who drove her there? She opted not to take her own car, but none of our drivers took her."

Steve shrugs, and the fact that he really could not care less about her driver, of all things, must show on his face, because Fury's face hardens. "This is important, Rogers. Someone we don't know is driving our agent around. If she's working for someone else, putting this organization in jeopardy—"

He doesn't quite know how it happens, but suddenly Steve is standing with both fists clenched and there's a roaring in his ears that has drowned out the rest of Fury's sentence.

"Don't you dare insinuate—"

"It was me," someone says quickly, and Steve looks down in surprise to see Tony Stark pick his head up off the table. "I drove her."

Whatever answer Fury was expecting, it wasn't this, because he looks more shocked than he did after Bucky shot a bullet through five walls and his back. "You?"

"Yeah, it was me. She called me after your sweet little chat and was practically in hysterics, at least by her standards. Said she wasn't in the mood to drive and asked for a ride. You shouldn't be surprised, you know. I was the first Avenger she knew that wasn't assigned to kill her at first, only I wasn't an Avenger until you couldn't survive without me because I had—what was it? An unpredictable temperament."