Man Out of Time - A Captain America / Avengers Fanfiction

Chapter 36

Chapter 36

Bernice lay in her bed, trying her best to pretend she was going to sleep when her mind kept replaying everything that had happened that night. She had work tomorrow, so she should sleep. She needed to sleep. The moment she got to work, she had a gazillion ideas to throw out to her engineering buddies to see if any had merit. But sleep eluded her. Until she heard Steve's voice and heard, for herself, that he was okay, the only thing she accomplished by going to her room was making sure she didn't prevent Jacquie from sleeping.

She felt as though she had run a marathon. Exhausted, and yet she felt exhilarated. An electric buzz making her entire body tingle and come alive. As though she were part of a bigger adventure. A superhero sidekick, perhaps? No. She was nothing like this friend Bucky Barnes he sometimes spoke of, his eyes wistful as he described the friend who had fallen to his death. Bernice was many things, but she did not consider herself to be brave. A supportive role, then? Like Abby Scuito in NCIS? Or Penelope Garcia in Criminal Minds? Yes! That was it! She would be the Geek Girl behind the brawn. Kind of like Miss Potts was for Iron Man. Although Miss Potts was definitely no geek.

The door buzzer rang. Bernice leaped out of bed, certain it could only be one person. She crashed into Jacquie in the living room, nearly knocking her over.

"Who the hell could that be at this hour?" Jacquie groused, rubbing her eyes.

"I've got it!" Bernice shouted, her voice a little too excited even to her own ears. It had been the ring of the telephone she'd been expecting, not the doorbell. But she'd take it! She pounded down the steps, forcing herself to feign calm as she undid the deadbolts to the street. Him! It had to be him! She opened the door casually, as though she really had been asleep, and lost it when she got her first look at him.

"Steve!" she exclaimed in horror. "What happened to you?"

He stood resplendent in his armor, glorious even though he was filthy and stank of smoke. He stumbled forward, mumbling something about needing to tell her something, and pinned her to the wall in a hungry kiss. This was not the gentle, artistic Steve she'd been getting to know over the course of many dates, nor even the more exciting side she'd glimpsed when he'd kissed her on Liberty's torch before running off to take on the aliens. This was a stray, hungry dog someone had left tied to her doorknob and rung the bell, emaciated and begging for scraps.

She moaned, her hands shooting around his neck and melting into him, the kiss arousing a happy buzz in her feminine core that screamed 'at last!' Adventure was an aphrodisiac, and right now Steve was so strung out on adrenaline that his quaint, 1940's-era moral code that said women should be treated like ladies and men shouldn't press for sex until they were married was dangerously close to getting tossed into the toilet.

She'd better get him inside, quick! So she could have her way with him before he changed his mind…

"I'm sorry," he mumbled when they were finally forced to come up for air. "I had to see you."

He stood, his forehead pressed against hers, panting as though he couldn't get enough air into his lungs as he gripped her face, warming up for another kiss. His eyes were haunted, as though the ghosts of Christmas past had visited him all at once tonight and compelled him to do something. Death. Steve didn't fear death, having been dead once already, but he'd damned near bought it twice tonight, and those were just the times she'd seen first-hand. How many more times had he come close to getting killed once he'd disappeared inside the ship, down where she couldn't see him?

He moaned in pain as she gripped his arm, her foot accidentally knocking into his splinted leg. The whimper which escaped his lips was not the bluster of a superhero, but an ordinary man whose frail mortal shell had seen more action in one night than anybody had a right to ask their body to endure. The only reason he didn't fall over was because her position with her back against the wall gave her enough leverage to catch his greater girth before he dragged her down with him.