I hadn't planned a part 3, but parts 1-2 are waaaay back in Book one, sorry!

https://youtu.be/jn40gqhxoSY

Cut me up like a knife
And I feel it, deep in my bones
Kicking it high
But I love even harder
You wanna know?

I just wanna dive in the water, with you
Baby, we can't see the bottom
It's so easy to fall for each other
I'm just hoping we catch one another

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Hmm? Like what?" you asked with a shudder, shaking your body back into the moment and forcing you to turn your gaze away. You had been staring, lost so effectively in your mind that you hadn't even seen Steve looking back though he was lying next to you and only inches away. "I wasn't. I mean...maybe I was, but I was just...I was thinking."

"Okay," he smiled, pushing himself up on an elbow to hold your attention, "so then what were you thinking about?"

"Nothing," you lied, "I uh...I have to go." You knew that he would reach out to try to hold you in place, but you turned quickly so that your arms were free of his intended grip, swinging your legs off the bed and hurrying to stand. Once you were up, however, the outlook didn't get much better for you. "Shit," you muttered under your breath, "where did my pants go?" You dropped to your knees to see under the bed, swinging your arm in the darkness only to find nothing.

"Wait, what do you mean? I thought you were staying?"

"I can't," you continued to lie, feeling worse with each fabrication, "I forgot, I have a...a, uh...a thing."

"A thing? What the hell does that mean? (Y/N), stop," he finally ordered, barking out the command as he stood and walked around the bed to kneel next to you. He grabbed your hands and turned you to face him with a shocking force that had you instinctively pushing your weight against him to throw his balance as if he were a real threat. "(Y/N), talk to me. What's going on?"

"Let me go," you warned, your tone taking a strong shift. "I need to leave."

He didn't release you right away, his stare boring into you as if he could force the answer out despite your insistence that it stay hidden. This was a complete shift in you and in the person he had come to know, but it was strangely reminiscent of your first encounter when you had resisted so much as talking to him as to keep your distance. Steve searched his mind for the past several days of events, desperate to find what it was that he must have done to push you away, but it wasn't coming to him fast enough; your cold glare continued, and he had to release you before this went too far. He reached down and grabbed at a stray piece of cloth peeking out from beneath the bed, handing it to you with a resolve to not meet your eyes again.

"Are you coming back?"

You took your pants from him gently, also resolved to not look back, "I'm not sure how long this will take."

"That's not what I meant. Are you ever coming back? Nat said that this is what you do, remember? Is that what's happening?"

When your fingers just barely grazed over his as you took your clothes from him, it sent a chill through you at the connection; it was something that you and Steve had both felt from that very first day, and it was why this relationship had started in the first place, if you could even call it that. You had never talked about being anything more than friends with the occasional dalliance, especially when you both knew that Nat was so completely against even that much. You couldn't deny that there was more between you, but now that the realization struck you that you might actually love the guy, you couldn't fight the need to run in any other direction.

"I have to go, Steve, I'm sorry," you whispered, your voice cracking under the strain. "I'll call you."

Baby, I think about you
And I feel it, deep in my heart
Maybe we just ain't meant to be something
Maybe we are?

I just wanna dive in the water, with you
Baby, we can't see the bottom
It's so easy to fall for each other
I'm just hoping we catch one another

Once you had escaped and made your way to your favorite rooftop hangout, you thought that maybe you could breathe a sigh of relief. You thought that maybe you could do a little work and get your mind off of Steve and that feeling that was eating away at your soul and gnawing at the back of your mind. You tried to hone in on the city streets around you, desperate to hear someone in trouble, though normally you would never wish for that; you only wanted something to distract you, to regain your center and to stop seeing his dumb blue eyes filled with so much hurt as you saw when you walked away from him.

And then it happened; the sounds of a nearby fight caught your attention. Hurrying down the nearest fire escape, you dropped to the ground and ran towards the noise, tapping your hands against each weapon and your pack of gear as you ran just be sure that you were prepared. Your mind was such a jumble that you hadn't checked it all before you left, and it flashed through your mind how Steve would have been both disappointed and terrified to know that.

The fight wasn't far away, and it was secluded enough so that you could intervene and leave without too much of a chance of being seen. You were still a vigilante, after all, having never accepted Steve's offer to join the team. You had been too distracted with other things to consider it; too distracted by him. You shook your head to clear him out of your mind, finding it nearly impossible, until you weren't allowed much of a choice. As you came around the final corner to engage the threat, a hand jutted out from the side and clotheslined you across your throat, sending you backwards to the hard pavement with a bang of your head to knock you out cold.

Just be careful
Love ain't simple
Promise me no promises

I just wanna dive in the water
Oh baby, we can't see the bottom
I just want to dive in with you
I just want to lie here with you

Back at the tower, Steve wasn't doing much better, having left his room and the lingering scent of having you next to him doing a very thorough job of driving him crazy. His usual outlet was the gym, as it was the only thing that could stand him at his full strength when his teammates couldn't. He wanted to punch something, to get that energy release of the connection, and he knew that none of his friends would jump up to be the target of that even if it would make him feel better.

"You know, eventually Stark is gonna stop buying new gym equipment," Nat scoffed as she entered the room. "So, whatever it is that's getting to you, lock it down before it comes out of your paycheck."

"I'll pay," was his curt reply, barely acknowledging her as he continued on.

She dropped her bag on a nearby bench and was unzipping her jacket before starting to wrap her hands, but his attitude stopped her, along with the noticeable chill in the air of an otherwise normally overheated gym. He was never a hard guy for her to read, and now he was offering her the easiest view of his psyche yet in all of their years as friends. "Steve," she began cautiously, taking a single step forward, "what happened?"

"Don't know what you mean."

"Don't lie to me."

"Then don't push me, Nat."

Nat was a master at reading a situation, interpreting movements and tones of voice to let her know just how much danger she might be in at any given moment, and this was no different to her than if she were standing in the middle of a mission. Steve's posture was rigid and his punches were sloppy; it was uncharacteristic of him, and the anger he was spewing at her in even those few words had never been directed at her before. Something deeply personal was happening to him, something that hurt, and he was deflecting as he always did. Nothing had happened with the team for as far back as she had time to remember, so there had to be something else...

"Steve, what did she do?" she finally asked, knowing immediately that she was right.

"Leave it," he snapped, but his hands finally halted, grabbing the bag before it could swing and hit his face. "This isn't your problem."

"It is if my sister is messing with your head," she insisted, "and I won't hesitate to haul her ass back in here if I need to. Now tell me what she did before I make you tell me."

"You wouldn't," he gasped, turning to face her for the first time, "would you?"

"Try me." She began to take slow steps towards him, wanting to give him that troublemaking smirk that had become her trademark, but she didn't want him to think that she wasn't serious. She would bend and break him until she had him pinned and telling her anything that she wanted to know; she could tell that he believed her too, when he began to back away with his hands up to try to stop her advancement.

"Nat, now come on, let's just calm down, okay? It's nothing that I can't handle on my own. I'm just having a bad day, that's all."

"Last chance, Rogers. You two are still seeing each other, aren't you?"

"Nat-"

"Steven."

"No," he sighed, stopping his feet, "we aren't seeing each other. She...she took off last night and wouldn't tell me why."

"Last night?!" she hissed, pushing forward with a fire in her eyes. "You are still seeing each other when you both told me that you weren't! What the hell, Steve? I trusted you to do the right thing and stop whatever this is that you're doing! You can't just keep hooking up with my sister whenever you can't keep it in your pants and expect me to-"

"I love her, Nat, okay?!" Steve broke, finally blurting it out. "I love her. I love...her. And I don't care if you like it or not, so if you're gonna kick my ass or whatever it is that you need to do, then let's just get it out of the way. It won't change anything."

"Thank you!"

"Nat, listen-" he stopped, ready to continue defending himself but shocked when her words finally registered, "what do you mean, thank you?"

"It's about time that you admitted it, don't ya think? Only an idiot couldn't see it, and I can't believe that I had to threaten you for you to."

"Then maybe I'm the biggest idiot of them all."

Promise me no promises
Don't you promise me nothing
Promise me, me, me, me
Just be careful
Promise me no promises

"Oh, I am such an idiot," you grumbled, holding your head as if it would help to take the pain away. "What was I thinking?" Pushing yourself up from the small cot that you found yourself on, you squinted to see in the darkened room as your eyes tried to adjust. The pain in your head was affecting your vision, leaving you seeing double with a pressure behind your eyes any time that you moved them. It felt like the worst hangover ever without so much as a drop to drink to earn it. "Yep, definitely an idiot."

The sounds of a door opening at the far end of the dark hallway caught your attention, but when you tried to stand all you could focus on was the wave of dizziness that washed over you. As if that weren't bad enough, the lights came on around you, a blinding fluorescence that nearly made you throw up from the shock.

"Why the hell did you bring her here? She's an Avenger and was working under my direct order."

"Steve?" you mumbled. You couldn't guarantee that his voice was real or if it was a vivid hallucination, as you were certain that you had a pretty serious concussion at this point. A part of you wanted it to be real so that he could get you out of wherever it was that you were, but another part of you filled with fear of seeing him again after how you had left him.

"We're very sorry, Captain," came another man's voice, "we didn't realize who she was. We found her unconscious in the alleyway without any identification so we had no other choice-"

The voices grew closer, but you couldn't keep your eyes open to see their source. The lights were just too bright. You heard steps stop only a few feet away, and when he spoke again, you were definitely relieved to hear that it was Steve. "Open this door. Now."

"Yes, sir, right away."

Keys fumbled for a few seconds before the door swung open and Steve hurried in, kneeling in front of you and taking your hands in his. There it was again, that connection, and you welcomed it this time; you hated to feel this way, that you needed someone else to take care of you, but you couldn't deny that you did with how your head was spinning. There was no one else that you wanted to take care of you but Steve.

"(Y/N), are you okay? What happened?"

"I don't really remember," you answered quietly, "I think I got knocked out? All I know is that my head is thumping and I can't open my eyes."

"Did they have a doctor look at you?"

"I don't know."

Steve stood up and moved back to the door, poking his head out to look in each direction only to find that the officer who had led him to you was gone. "Okay, well I'm getting you out of here and making sure that you see one." He turned back and slid his hands beneath you, carefully moving you to hold against him. The motion jostled you and sent your stomach flipping again, and when you pressed a hand to his chest to stop him, he waited patiently for the wave to pass. He waited patiently for everything except the question that had been eating away at him unrelentingly since he last saw you. "(Y/N)?"

"Hmm?"

"Why were you looking at me like that? Last night. Why did you leave?"

"Because...I was confused. I guess I saw something-"

"Yeah, and if you would have just stayed like I asked you to, I would've had the chance to tell you that I love you, you impatient jerk."

"Really?" you huffed, managing to open just one eye enough to get a glimpse of him. "That's your play? Insulting me? Do you really expect me to tell you that I love you too under these circumstances?"

"I think you just did," he smirked. "It's the only play that I knew would work with you. I don't know if you've noticed, but you're a little headstrong. Seems to run in your family." He wanted to say more, but your mistake of opening that one eye left you dizzy again, and you had to reach out to grab him to steady yourself before you fell over. "Okay, we're not waiting anymore, doll. I'm sorry," he said softly, again lifting you from the cot, only this time he made it to standing with you firmly in his hold. "By the way, you're an Avenger now, if anyone asks."

"You didn't even ask."

"Shhh, (Y/N), you shouldn't talk. Just rest and let me enjoy how right I am while I can."