PEACETIME
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Sadie had never woken up in such a shock, so disoriented, and so... hungry.

The room around her was bright, clinical, the bed beneath her firm and uncomfortable. There were tubes attached to her wrists and Sadie followed with her eyes to find several IVs, all loaded with different nutrients.

Instinctively, despite knowing that she shouldn't, Sadie began to pull at the tubes, frantically. They were suffocating her. Her abdomen was burnt.

"Shh..." the voice that soothed her was one Sadie would recognise anywhere. Smooth, velvety. "Shh, Shelly-girl. You're alright."

"Mama," Sadie cried, beyond relieved to see her mother okay. "Where's Sav, and Dad? Please, tell me they're okay."

"Savannah's got a few burns," Shan said. "But she'll be okay. Your father's with her in the plastics department."

"She had surgery?" Sadie gasped, horrified at the concept of her little sister on an operating table, only fifteen. She sat up abruptly, making to stand, but her mother put her hands on her shoulders and set her back down. "Take me to her."

"Shell," her mother said, slowly and carefully. "Shell, I'm sorry. She doesn't want anyone to see her."

Sadie could read the pretext. Savannah didn't want to see her. She couldn't blame her.

"I only wanted to light a few candles," Sadie said, as her heart tore in two. As the sobs rose up in her chest, her burnt stomach strained, raw and painful. "I never meant for any of this to happen."

"But it did, Isadora-Michelle," a new voice, now. The young voice of her sister, the image of her once beautiful face burned, her entire left cheek and jaw charred down to the bone. "I'm a monster. And it's your fault."

Sadie was shocked awake at that, only to find herself momentarily living her nightmare. No, that was not a nightmare. It was a memory, resurfacing.

The room she was in was clinical and bright, and there were tubes attached to her wrists. She looked around her, carefully removing them as she took in her company. Adrianne, Steve and Natasha sat around a small table, with playing cards in their hands.

"Two sevens," Natasha said, laying down her cards, but not before Sadie caught a glimpse of them.

"Bullshit," Sadie said, her voice hoarse, but she pulled on a smile, pushing the nightmare memory from her mind. The group were quiet for a moment, staring at her in a silence that made her worry. "Go on. Someone take a look at the cards."

"Wow, Agent. Looks like I win," Adrianne chuckled, after flipping over the cards Natasha had laid down to reveal one ace and one jack. "Told y'all she'd wake up, and sharp as ever apparently."

Natasha threw her hands up, taking all the cards from the middle and adding them to her pile.

"How long have I been out?" Sadie asked as Nat shuffled the deck.

"Four days," Steve answered, which explained the look of relief on his face. "You collapsed soon as we landed in Krakow. Seemed like you held out until all your patients were taken care of."

"What you should've done though," Natasha said firmly. "Is stopped using those powers of yours as soon as we were off the city safely. There were medics on that helicarrier, why would you drain yourself like that?"

"There were hundreds of patients, and not all of them were being seen to," Sadie answered truthfully. "We were understaffed, and it was efficient."

"But at what cost?" Steve asked. For some reason Sadie couldn't bring herself to look at him.

"Let's find out," Sadie shrugged. "Adrianne, how was my blood work?"

"Your red cell count was normal. Kidney, thyroid and liver function is spot on," Adrianne explained. "MRI and CT scans came back clear. The main issue was keeping you nourished. You're a little low on vitamin D but, hey, what's new? They administered morphine, glucose, electrolytes and antibiotics intravenously. Watch out for the side affects."

"Antibiotics? These guys are slowly killing me," Sadie said, shaking her head. "Who gives antibiotics when there's no sign of infection? It's asking for a resistance issue. The next time I contract something, nothing will save me. And morphine? There was no pain, I'll become an addict."

"What would you have done, Doctor Moore?" Nat smirked, rolling her eyes.

"Well, I'm glad you asked! I think they made the right call on the glucose and electrolytes," Sadie began, as Adrianne pulled out a pen light and began to check her pupils. "But if I had a patient showing my symptoms, I'd give them time, monitor them from the nurses station, perform neural exams every so often. Maybe give 'em a blood transfusion if I was worried."

"They say doctors make the worst patients," Steve said, shaking his head, but he was still smiling. "How are you this chatty anyway?"

"I won't be for long if I don't get some coffee in me," was all Sadie responded to that. "Someone bring me a cappuccino and I'll love you forever."

"One cappuccino coming right up," Nat grinned, standing.

"I love you forever," Sadie said, sincerely.

"Here, Doctor Smitten," Adrianne handing Sadie a large pizza box. "That's for you. It's kinda cold."

"Cold pizza is the best pizza," Sadie smiled, just eager to have something to fill her, even if she wasn't sure she could stomach the whole thing. "God, I should get myself hospitalised more often if it means I'm getting spoiled with pizza, and coffee and- Rogers! What have you got for me?"

"What, for you to you love me forever, too?"

"Yes," Sadie, grinned, trying hard to ignore the butterflies in her stomach. "Name your offer."

Steve only shrugged, leaning back in his chair with a smile. "Got nothing but my company for you, doll."

She pretended to think long and hard, before nodding as smoothly as she could. "It'll do."

Natasha was still smirking mischievously as she turned to Adrianne with a strange look. "Uh, Valentina, you wanna... show me where the coffee machine is?"

"Oh! Yeah, absolutely!" Adrianne said, a little all too enthusiastically. "But hospital coffee is trash, Sadie is my witness. We should go for a wander and get some from an actual coffee shop."

"That's fine by me," Natasha said, and Sadie had a feeling this was planned. "We'll be like... twenty minutes. Steve, you want an espresso?"

"Make it a double," he replied, reaching into his pocket and handing Nat some cash before the two ladies left the room, a little too smugly.

God was cruel, putting Adrianne Valentina and Natasha Romanoff in the same room.

"So," Sadie began, with a grin. "Double espresso. You been up all night worrying about me?"

"No," Steve said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. But she could see his dark circles, so she just raised an eyebrow. "Okay, you got me. But I wasn't just worrying."

Sadie hummed, with a slow and curious nod. "Okay, what else did you do?"

"Nat put on a movie. Didn't pay much attention. And Cho came by."

"She's better?" she asked, beyond relieved to hear it.

"Much better," Steve nodded, pulling his chair over to her bedside. "It's incredible you were able to fix her like that. And all those Sokovians, too. But you really ought to stop when you reach your limit. Especially when you've done enough."

She thought suddenly of Pietro and his healed bullet holes, nothing more than embalming. Had she done enough then? When she'd performed those chest compressions despite being told the boy was deceased? Sadie was only lucky that Wanda hadn't decided to pursue it further- if that had happened in a hospital, she would have been investigated for desecration.

"You still haven't answered my question," Sadie said, dragging her thoughts away from the tragedy of Sokovia. "What did you do while I was under?"

Steve gave her a look that told her he didn't miss her deflection. But he shrugged sheepishly anyway, making her smile. "It's been quiet. I did a few sketches."

"Can I see?"

"The ones I started aren't finished yet."

"Let me guess. You were interrupted by Adrianne asking for several portraits, and you did them for her, because you didn't want to be mean," Sadie grinned. "And they probably ended up gorgeous, but in reality, you just wanted to draw a few stick men, and now your hand is all sore from shading her hair."

"You know, I'm starting to think you were awake the whole time by how accurate that was," he laughed, and she smiled even wider.

"Hey, I'm glad we're talking again," Sadie said. The words came out before she registered them, but it was too late to take them back. Too late to make them more impressive, more funny, more flirty, or whatever else wouldn't make her come across so desperate.

"So am I," Steve responded, much to her relief.

Sadie took a moment to properly take a look at him, scanned demeanour to see if he was still as shaken as he'd been after the battle. That day when he'd barely said a word, and sat completely alone. When she'd used her healing to relax him and in that moment, she'd felt exhaustion and conflict in his mind.

He looked better, if not a little tired. He was dressed comfortably, and it was a relief to see him looking after himself. But Steve suddenly seemed a little hesitant to talk, which told Sadie he was probably about to say something stupid.

"I'm sorry," Steve began, confirming her suspicions. "These past few weeks... I understand if I wasn't your favourite person."

"I've already forgotten about it," Sadie said, taking a bite out of her pizza. "Wait, what even happened again?"

"I feel like I gotta explain myself."

"You don't."

"No, I do," Steve said, his eyes full of an earnestness that Sadie couldn't reject. So she let him talk. "I've been thinking about the world we live in and how I fit. Ultron said I pretend I can live without a war..."

"You can."

"I don't know about that," he said, with a frown of confusion. "We're supposed to fight to end the fight. But I'm not sure I do. I think I fight because it's all I know."

Sadie knew that wasn't true. She knew that Steve knew a lot more than fighting. He knew laughter, and friendship, and care. But Sadie also knew that he would have to realise all of that on his own. She couldn't heal disbelief.

"I've never known real peacetime, Isadora," Steve said. The way he said her name, soft and gentle made her heart ache. "I have no clue what to do with it."

"Hey, that's not-" Sadie stopped herself from saying that wasn't true, because she knew it was. The man in front of her had never had an easy life.

He never had the stable environment she had to grow up in, even if she'd known what it was to be poor as a child, she never knew hunger. He'd entered adult life to war, and instability, not the stable country and scholarships Sadie had known. The very reason she had the privilege of knowing Steve Rogers was because of the trials he'd faced. So it was true. He didn't know peacetime at all, not like she did.

"That's not your fault," Sadie said, wishing she had better words.

"It is my fault when I end up isolating my friends because of it," he said. "You didn't deserve that."

"I've got thicker skin than you think. It's alright," Sadie smiled, and she meant it.

"God, look at me," he chuckled, but it wasn't full. "Offloading all this when you're in a hospital bed, and can't run a mile."

"I wouldn't run anywhere even if I could," Sadie said, truthfully. But her thoughts still wandered, and she found herself blurting out a stupid, intrusive question. "What did Wanda show you in that vision?"

He was silent for a long moment, and she was unsurprised when he answered: "She apologised. Said none of it was real."

For a moment, Sadie wished she could mimic telepathy. But as she looked at him- his ocean eyes, his golden hair styled back in that way she loved, and his demeanour so open and vulnerable, that desire to read his mind was short-lived. When it came to Steve, she wanted him to trust her, she didn't want to cheat the system.

She knew she'd have to open her heart to him if she wanted him to do the same. And she did. God, she did. She wanted to know every inch of that golden heart of his, wanted to see if her name could ever be engraved onto it, like his was beginning to indent in her own, like he was always on her mind.

She wanted to know if he could see her.

Stupidly, and suddenly, Sadie was aware that she was staring, and acted on a complete, and idiotic impulse. She picked up her half eaten pizza slice, and shoved the box into Steve's hands. Her sudden movement caused him to jump slightly, making Sadie feel even more ridiculous.

"Eat," she said, as he stared at her, still slightly shocked, and Sadie looked everywhere apart from his eyes that she'd been gazing into so intensely.

"My god," Steve laughed, finally- a hearty laugh that came straight from his belly. "There's never been a truer sign of forgiveness."

Sadie couldn't help but chuckle at that, but Steve's continued laughter was what set her off in giggles herself. It became one of those scenarios where the laughter was funnier than the original joke, and Sadie was stuck in a loop of laughter until she almost slid off the hospital bed and he had to keep her from falling off completely. But like an idiot, Sadie didn't let go of him after that, instead moving up, and patting the empty space on the bed for him to sit on.

It was a tight squeeze, but she didn't mind it since it meant Steve braced his arm behind her, and it eventually ended up snaking around her waist. As their laughter died down, and she leaned her head on his shoulder, they ate in quiet, and Sadie tuned out the sound of the beeping heart monitor and busy hall, and focused in favour of the wind in the trees out the window, and Steve's breathing.

"I'll teach you what to do with it," Sadie promised him, after a moment. "Peacetime, I mean."

"I was just rambling. You don't have to do anything."

"Well, I do. You deserved to get off that rock just like the rest of us," she said. She didn't know why she was reminding him of that fact. Perhaps because she worried he didn't know it. "No objections- I'll help you out."

"I don't have anything I can do for you in return," Steve said. She sat up, and he let his arm fall from around her. She regretted moving.

"You can help me train," Sadie suggested. "Natasha was always telling me that I'd need some, even before Ultron. And now I just think it's time I don't rely on pure adrenaline and these powers. Time I actually knew what I was doing for once."

"Well, I guess Tony was right," Steve admitted, with a grin. "He said that you've 'earned Avenger status', if you want it, Aceso."

Sadie didn't know what came over her. Maybe it was because she'd never felt more at one with her mind and her body than when she'd embraced her powers in Sokovia. Maybe it was because she'd grown attached to this ragtag team of heroes over the past few weeks. Maybe it was just because it was Steve asking.

Or maybe it was because he'd used that name. Her name.

But regardless of the many reasons why, Sadie had lost her mind, and so she settled back down beside him, and answered: "I think I do."

~

Pietro Maximoff's had been the first burial Sadie had been to in years, and she certainly didn't miss the melancholy environment. He couldn't be buried in Sokovia, since Sokovia was buried under itself so Wanda had chosen a place she thought he would like- a cemetery where they would plant a tree for him.

Sadie still couldn't believe the loss of someone so young, even with how short of a time she'd spent with him. She didn't let herself think about it for too long- Pietro and his uplifting humour, his dedication and all that potential she'd seen in him. Anytime she did though, it was only a reminder of what she couldn't do.

Once she'd recovered from her burn out, it was like Sadie was given all the bad news at once. Banner had gone missing, the death count of the Battle of Sokovia (that was what the news reels called it) was one hundred and seventy seven civilians, one seventy eight including Pietro, and Thor had taken off into the galaxy- Steve had said he wasn't sure they could expect him back any time soon.

But despite it all, the New Avengers continued with business as usual, beginning with the tedious move upstate.

Although it hadn't been too long since she left, Sadie didn't feel like she'd been back in New York in ages. And even now she was back, there wasn't a single day off during the move, as she and a healed Helen Cho worked together to move some the U-Gin and Stark Industries equipment to none other than the New Avengers Facility.

Some of the equipment was a very important distinction, as they did not move all the equipment. Which meant that for Sadie, her work would be annoyingly split between the Stark Industries Lab, Avengers Tower, and upstate.

The upstate facility was primarily a training compound, according to Tony, who still insisted that he didn't make this decision on a whim. And according to Tony, training meant injuries, and injuries meant they needed a clinic.

Sadie definitely thought this was, in fact, a decision made on a whim, but she couldn't really argue, since she'd spent so long sleeping off her burnout in hospital. But the four day rest had only left her feeling groggy, as if she'd overslept (which she had), and the jet lag didn't help. It wasn't a good feeling, and it lingered even a week later.

But despite the many cups of orange juice she drank and the supplements she had to take to make up for her poor diet, being back in work- being a doctor again- had made Sadie feel more herself than she had in a while. That didn't mean she wouldn't take advantage of every break she had.

Sadie sat on a bench outside, opposite the green acres where agents did drills and moving vans still unloaded. She had just gotten off the phone with her mother; one of the few times Sadie had been able to speak to her since arriving back in the US, and it was a relief to hear her voice each time. Although, it had taken a lot to explain to Shan how Sadie had gone from never touching her powers, to casting forcefields abroad on the news.

"You know I have always supported who you are," Shan had said, and Sadie could have sobbed, because it was true. "I'm only happy you've finally accepted yourself. Although I wish it didn't mean you put your life at risk."

Her mother had also told her she had a surprise for Sadie, although she couldn't for the life of her guess what it could be. The sky above Sadie was scarce for clouds, and yet her heart felt heavy thinking of her mother, alone in New York Pres until Sadie could get home. She'd have to visit her tonight, find out Strange's progress.

"Tony's talking about upgrading your suit," Natasha's voice almost cause Sadie to jump out of her skin as she sat down beside her, two cups of water in hand. "You're going to need it if you're always gonna be tagging along, helping people like an idiot."

The two ladies ended up laughing at that for a moment, Sadie coming to the conclusion that Natasha Romanoff definitely had a point. Still, she wasn't too sure about a new suit when her current one had been worn so few times.

"Honestly, I don't want him spending any time or money on me," she shrugged, taking a drink from one of the glasses.

"He has time and money to spare," Natasha said.

The agent's focus drifted then, as she stared at the grass, and Sadie knew exactly what was on her friend's mind. Ever since Bruce had gone missing, Natasha had a certain tired energy about her.

"Banner will turn up," Sadie said, weakly, unsure if her words would be of any consolation. Probably not.

"He wanted us to go away together," Nat admitted, and Sadie was surprised to hear it. "I betrayed him for the mission. So, he won't turn up. He'll go like he said he would, and he won't come back."

"You don't need him to," Sadie said, honestly. "He's a good guy, and I was rooting for the two of you, but you don't need him, Nat. You're one of the most amazing women I know. If anything, he needs you."

"I know," Nat shrugged, standing from where she sat, and Sadie worried she'd said the wrong thing.

"But it would've been nice?"

"Yeah," Natasha smiled sadly. "It would've been nice."

...
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so Sadie is struggling a little and so is Nat and so is Steve and so is pretty much everyone which is lovely!!! but also, she's definitely catching feelings too so like... we getting somewhere!!

Ngl I kinda really struggled with this chapter, structurally to begin with, like I was so torn for what order to put everything in and like , scene dynamics, settings etc but I think I got through it alright! That said, if you notice any inconsistencies let me know, since I moved things around so much it's incredibly likely that there is some, although I did my best editing!

I think the aftermath of these things are the parts I enjoy exploring the most, as opposed to the action sometimes, because there's more room in the narrative for stream of consciousness which would usually slow down an action scene. But I do like to use that style LOT,  although I kinda subvert it a little too because I haven't mastered how to make fully uninterrupted thought flow engaging- if you have any advice or tips then please let me know!

I really hope you enjoyed this chapter! Please vote, and comment your thoughts as you already know that I literally live for your feedback guys!

-Amber.