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"Stand behind me."

Normally a command like this, especially from one of the cocky men on your team, would make you scoff and roll your eyes in annoyance. But as the mission quickly spirals out of control and the number of foes starts doubling by the moment you find it much easier to nod to Steve's request and comply. You don't hesitate in stepping behind his broad back and welcoming the feeling of his arm reaching back to hold your hand. He keeps you in place while his shied is brought up to stop gunfire and shrapnel from reaching either of you.

"Where the hell are you, Stark? Y/N and I are trapped on the roof," Steve speaks into your ear. He lost his communication piece about ten minutes ago. Now he's got to put his lips right up to the side of your head in order to be heard—not that you're really complaining. The closeness of him and his gorgeousness is nothing you'd ever complain about, even while being shot at by robots.

"Coming your way." Tony's voice is unheard to Steve so you fill him in. "Oh, and tell Cap that if anything happens to you up there it's his fault, but he needs to stop holding your hand. It's gross."

You grit your teeth at your older brother's obnoxious chatter. You glance up and sure enough he's already arrived in that red and gold suit.

"What else did he say, Y/N?" Steve asks—hand still clutching yours.

"Nothing important," you reply. Tony scoffs from up above in his suit.

"I see you blushing, sis."

"Shut the hell up and get us out of here!" you yell.

"I can't come down that low. The ledge is too small, anyway." Tony's right. The little corner behind the radiator that Steve has you hidden on is hardly big enough for the super soldier and you together. "You're gonna have to jump."

Wide eyed you stare down the side of the glass skyscraper. "No fucking way."

"What? What did he say?" Steve questions. He grunts as he steadies his arm with the shield against the constant gunfire.

"He wants us to jump." You can already feel your heart picking up speed.

Steve swallows. He does the same thing you just did, glance down the side of the fifty story building, before sighing. "Okay."

"You're both mad!" you screech.

"You're not staying up here! You're coming with me, one way or another." Steve tightens his grip on your hand. "Tell that asshole brother of yours that we're going down."

"I heard that," is Tony's reply.

You sigh—staring down at the dark cement and whizzing cars below. Everyone looks like ants. "I hate both of you."

Steve's smirk is enough to make your knees weak. "You should've told me that before you agreed to marry me, sweetie."

Then, without giving you ANY WARNING, Steve pulls you off the side of the building. He's got his hand latched onto yours as you scream and head straight down. But the fall only lasts a few brief moments before your brother is grabbing onto Steve's shoulders—sub-sequentially stopping your fall, too. Steve's hold doesn't break or weaken on you as you hang midair above the New York City traffic below.

"Like I said," you breathe out heavily with heartbeat erratic and head still spinning. You look up at the men with a glare. "I hate you."

Back down on the ground and nearly five hours later you're sitting at a diner's corner booth with the rest of your team. Everyone's covered in sweat and grime but at this late hour when no one else is around no one cares. Across you Sam has his head laying on his arms in a post-mission nap. Bucky chuckles to himself while using one of his rusty metal fingers to smear whipped cream in a smiley shape on the top of Sam's bald head. Wanda bites her lip and helps the Winter Soldier in decorating the creamy eyes with blue sprinkles from atop her kid's meal pancake stack. Vision is watching them with amusement in his eyes. Weird 80s songs play on the radio while the janitor mops the floor of the otherwise abandoned ma and pop restaurant. Clint plays with his straw that's halfway drenched in strawberry milkshake as he listens to Nat tell a story. Between them is Bruce, who isn't paying attention to anything at all. He just eats his soggy French fries and taps his toes to the music on the radio. Your annoying, sweat-drenched brother is on one side of you trying to school a young Peter Parker on the proper way to order a hamburger (medium well, apparently) while his elbow keeps jutting into your side between every word. You grunt and scoot closer to Steve, who has one arm around the back of the booth and his hand resting on your shoulder. He feeds himself bites of jelly-smothered toast with the other hand and still has some blood high up on his hairline. You refrain from wiping it off because then you'd prompt him to want to do the same to you, and you know it's probably not good manners to be cleaning war wounds at the dinner table.

"You okay?" Steve's voice breaks you out of your trance of staring around at everyone.

You nod and take a drink of your iced tea. You make a face, going to say something, before realizing Steve has read your mind. He's reached over to the sugar caddy and grabbed the specific amount of packets you'll need to bring the drink to your liking. "Thanks. And I'm fine. Why'd you ask?"

"You haven't eaten anything." Steve watches you carefully while you stir the white granules into the dark, sap colored drink. They float down through the murky glass until they form lumpy little mountains at the bottom where they'll sit until they dissolve.

"Just not hungry, I guess." You shrug and feel Steve's fingertips start to whisper across your bare neck. You let out a long breath. "But thanks, hon."

"Okay, babe. But if you wanna talk—"

"Please don't call my sister that," Tony is quick to interrupt your fiancé. He's turned towards the two of you with disgust clearly written on his goateed face. "It's bad enough I have to live with the two of you—knowing you share a room and do unspeakable things together. You have to use pet names when I'm around?"

"It's not like he called me sugar-tits and I called him daddy," you grunt in reply. Across the table Bucky cackles—waking Sam up. Wilson doesn't notice the whipped cream on his head until it starts dripping down his neck, prompting him to punch Bucky in the shoulder.

Tony pulls a face that reminds you of the one he'd first made when you told him you had a first date planned with Steve two and a half years ago. "That's fucking disgusting."

"Exactly my point. So don't bitch about what we do or I can make it a hell of a lot worse." You can still feel Steve's worried eyes on you so you try and pick up your fork to take a bite of your food. But the mac and cheese just doesn't look good like you planned it would. Nothing sounds good, actually. Your hunger is totally gone.

"Do girls really do that?" Clint questions aloud. "Call their boyfriends daddy?" He slurps down the rest of his strawberry shake.

"Some of them, probably." Sam shrugs.

"Sam wouldn't know because he's never had one," Bucky snorts.

"I don't see you coming through the tower with any girls," Sam retorts.

"I don't like this conversation." Your brother shakes his head and eats another fry from Bruce's platter. Bruce only shrugs.

"One thing we can actually agree on," your fiancé breathes an amused sigh from next to you. He's moved his arm away from your neck and now has that same hand on your leg under the table. No matter where you are or what you're doing, Steve always finds a way to touch you somehow. It's very comforting, especially when he's not with you he always feels so far away. It's a nice reminder to know that he's still there.

"Can someone pass me the salt?"

You're the one to grab at the salt shaker and slide it down the booth to poor Peter hanging off the end. He's got the smallest fraction of the seat. Newbies never have it good. "Thanks, Y/N." He smiles up at you adorably with those dimples and big brown eyes. He reminds you a lot of that puppy you begged your parents to buy for you when you were a kid. Tony never liked the mutt—said it smelled bad and should've been left at the pound. Secretly he was jealous that he'd never gotten one even after years of begging before you were even born. What can you say? You were the baby of the family and your dad's favorite. It's not like you did it on purpose. Nevertheless, Tony still loves you: always has, always will. Sometimes you think that maybe he loves you TOO much, because all that adoration can become slightly overbearing as you face the world as a grown adult. But Tony will never see you as grown, only as his kid sister.

"Wanna try some of mine?" Steve offers you his plate as he catches you zoning out into the distance yet again. One of his blond eyebrows quirks slightly higher in hopefulness as your eyes focus in on what he's offering you. To appease him you take a piece of greasy bacon. Steve knows your game, but he's satisfied as long as you're eating something. He won't stand to see you wither away.

"Did anyone else have to deal with that obnoxious reporter? Or was it just Nat and me?" Clint questions the group.

"No. What'd she do?" Steve asks.

Nat rolls her eyes. "She was everywhere. Wouldn't let us do anything without being right in the way. I had to actually pick her up and move her off the premises one time. It was a complete waste of our time."

"I had an old lady stop me when I was on my way to meet Stark and asked if I could help her get her groceries into her apartment," Peter pipes up.

"Did you do it?" Sam asks.

"Of course I did," Peter almost looks offended that anyone would think that he wouldn't. "She was a little old lady."

"So that's why you were twenty minutes late?"

"No," Peter chuckles with reddening cheeks. "I was ten minutes late because of her. The other ten were because I, uh, couldn't find my suit."

Tony's loud groan makes you peep the smallest of grins. "Again? Kid, you can't keep losing that shit. It's the most expensive thing you'll ever own. Would you lose your house or your car? How about that fancy new phone?"

"No, Mr. Stark. I just—well, I left it in my room and I couldn't remember where..."

"Leave him alone, Tony. I seem to remember another teenaged boy losing his valuables when he was 16," you decide to share.

Tony scoffs. "That's hardly the same."

"Not as far as dad was concerned."

"Dad was concerned with everything I did."

You shrug. "You were a concerning child."

Tony points at you and looks around to the group. "Don't let this one fool you. She was a bad kid."

"Really? I have a hard time believing that," Vision says with a slightly tilted head.

"I don't," Steve knowingly agrees. He takes another bite of toast.

"She'd sneak boys into her room all the time! Go to parties, have me pick her up when she was drunk..."

"You did the same things! Only at a younger age and an earlier year than I did." You cross your arms and state your case firm enough to leave your brother no room to protest.

"You went to parties?!" Peter peers around your brother to get a better look over at you. "What kind of parties?"

"Don't encourage her, kid." Tony snorts and takes three more of Bruce's fries. Banner still doesn't care; he's on his phone now and ignoring everyone else at the table.

"Just your typical college house parties. Nothing wild and extravagant like the ones Tony throws now."

Peter frowns. "I've never been invited to one of those."

"Well, that's changing now. You'll be my date to the next one whether Tony likes it or not." You grin as Peter's smile grows larger.

"Really?! You'll take me to one of the Stark parties?!"

"Sure, kid," you laugh.

"I didn't invite the kid because he's a kid," Tony gripes. In his seat Peter starts to frown again.

"And he's saving the world right alongside you, Tony. Let him live a little. If you're gonna drag him along for the dangerous stuff, ya gotta let him have some fun." You finish with your brother and then smile back at Peter. "I'll let you know when he's gonna have the next one."

"Thanks, Y/N! You're totally my favorite."

"Hey!" Sam gripes. "I thought I was your favorite!"

"And why the hell would you be his favorite?" Tony laments. "I'm the one who made him the damn suit."

Growing bored of that topic of conversation you let your gaze slip back to Vision and Wanda across the table. Sam still argues with Tony so you ignore them, but Wanda is eager to have your attention and starts telling you a story the moment your eyes meet with her hazel ones.

"Y/N you'll never guess who messaged me last night," she hisses at you from across the table—lifting up slightly so that you can hear her properly.

"Who?" you fake like you don't know even though you have a pretty good clue.

"Paul! From the labs!"

You gasp (even though you predicted this happening the moment she opened her mouth). "No way!"

"Yes way!" Wanda's grin nearly splits her pretty face into two. She's ecstatic, and you're thrilled for her as well.

"Who are we talking about?" Vision questions—eyebrow raised high. He looks between you and Wanda with confusion on his face. "Who's Paul?"

Wanda gracefully settles back into her seat—smoothing out her jacket. "Just a guy."

"A cute one," you add with a wink: making Wanda's cheeks blush bright red. You see Vision's jaw tighten just slightly but he hides his aggravation rather well. Too bad that Wanda's brimming with excitement over the prospect of Paul now or she'd be able to see how jealous Vision's grown just by his closed-fist reaction. You shake your head with a tender smile and share a knowing glance with Steve, who has been watching the whole encounter secretly over his coffee cup.

With everyone else now properly engaged in other conversations (or in Bruce's case, a cell phone app), you find it appropriate to slink into Steve's side and rest your head against his shoulder. With your eyes closed you don't try to block out their voices. In fact, you swim in their song: happy to be hearing their chatter and laughter amongst the clattering of dishes and a throwback 80s song.

"Babe? Do you wanna go home?" Steve whispers in your ear. Softly his hand runs up and down your leg before latching onto your knee to give you a little squeeze. "I can take you back if you wanna."

"No, no." You open your eyes and shake your head. You take one final look around at your team. It's been a long day; hence your tiredness and slightly groggy mood, but it couldn't have ended any better. Everyone's alive, Steve's happy, and you're all together. Now Bucky badgers Sam some more with a syrup-soggy fork while Wanda gets lovey-dovey eyes at Vision that she's somehow too blind to see. Nat finally drags Bruce away from his phone and gets him to laugh at a joke she makes at Clint's account, only managing to make Hawkeye laugh the loudest at the table. Peter and Tony no longer bicker but instead talk about Peter's new classes at school and which ones he's going to need tutors for (which of course your generous brother have offered to pay for). It's the perfect little scene really: greasy flapjacks and stale toast included.

So with a smile on your face, tired but strong, you finally respond to your doting fiancé. "No need to take me home, Steve. I'm already here."