Non-Sequential [Ch. 25]
Pairing: Pre-Serum Steve Rogers/Steve Rogers x Reader
One night, Steve Rogers met a beautiful dame named Y/N. He hadn’t intended on letting her get away. But fate had other ideas. Y/N appeared and disappeared in his life so hauntingly that Steve started to wonder if she was an angel meant to watch over him.
Word Count: 2,100
Chapter 24
2 YEARS LATER - Wakanda
“Y/N, if you don’t stop fidgeting, we’re going to have to do another session.” Even though it was a warning, there was playfulness evident in his voice.
“Sorry…I–I’m just nervous,” Y/N admitted.
To prove the point even further, her chest was rising higher than usual, giving away her heavier and erratic breathing.
Steve did a double take and quickly put down his pencil.
He promptly walked over to the bed.
The bed where Y/N was completely naked and trying to hold the relaxed pose Steve had requested from her just 20 minutes ago.
Steve leaned over her, only looking into her eyes. “You know, you really don’t have to do this.”
It hadn’t even been him that had requested such a thing.
Y/N had offered.
Steve had made a few mischievous and playful comments in the past about having her sit for him. But Y/N finally put together that he would never actually ask her to pose nude for him to draw.
So, she finally just put the offer out there herself.
Despite the fact that Steve had seen her naked hundreds of times and had already memorized every inch of her body, he still blushed like a little schoolboy when she had offered.
“Steve, how many times have we had sex?!” Y/N had squealed, laughing hysterically at his bashfulness.
Steve recovered quickly and didn’t take kindly to her teasing. He grabbed her roughly, pulling her into his lap and playfully biting her shoulder.
But now he sat on Y/N’s bed in Wakanda’s royal palace, her body completely open for his artistic interpretation.
“I know I don’t have to. But I wanted to do something nice for you…”
Steve tilted his head. “What for?”
She gave him a shy smile before saying, “Because I love you, obviously.”
Steve leaned down and kissed her then. He couldn’t help himself when she said stuff like that to him, and in such a way.
When they pulled apart, Y/N grinned at him.
“I happen to know you’ve got quite a good memory. I’m sure you’d have no problem pulling countless images of my naked body from your consciousness.” Y/N added with a cheeky smirk. “But what’s the fun in that?”
Steve allowed his gaze to quickly flicker across her naked body.
A man born in this time would probably tell her how sexy she was or how hard it was for him to give up the drawing altogether and just have her.
Steve wished he could say those things to her.
But that wasn’t Steve at all.
He might have been dropped into the 21st century, pumped full of steroids, with women (and some men) throwing themselves at him any chance they got. But Steve would always been that scrawny, shy, and bashful kid that got beat up in the alleys of Brooklyn.
“You’re beautiful,” is what he said instead.
Now Y/N blushed.
“Just sit still for an hour or so, OK?” He asked gently.
The way he asked made it clear that Y/N was the one in control. If she changed her mind at any moment, Steve would happily stop.
He waited for her to give a shy, but insistent, nod. Then he moved back to his place across the room where his sketchpad and pencils waited for him.
“Have you drawn other women naked before?” Y/N asked.
If she had to sit still for this long, she should at least make him entertain her.
Steve coughed, clearly caught off guard by the question.
He cleared his throat. “N-No. Never.”
“Not even Peggy?” She asked innocently.
“Peggy and I were never…” he paused “…intimate.”
Y/N had always assumed that. It was a different time. They were in the middle of a war. Sex wasn’t tossed around as casually as it was today. Steve was a gentleman, and Peggy had her standards and expectations.
“Really?”
Steve just nodded.
“That’s too bad…” Y/N sighed. “For her.” She quickly clarified.
Steve’s gaze shot up to her. “What do you mean?”
Y/N looked him up and down as best she could with a sly smirk. “She never got to have the…I guess…full Steve Rogers experience.”
There was that famous Steve Rogers blush again.
“How are you the one blushing when I’m the one completely naked and at your disposal?” Y/N cried out in laughter.
Steve rolled his eyes but kept his focus on his sketchpad. “Always such a saucy little minx…” He muttered, just loud enough for her to hear.
It earned him another giggle from her.
—————————————
“Steve, you promised!” Y/ whined.
“OK. OK. OK.” He finally gave in.
“I posed naked for you. Naked! It’s not like I’m asking you to take off your clothes…though I wouldn’t complain.” Y/N had her camera strapped around her neck.
Steve had never been one of her subjects. And she missed taking photos. Despite being in a new and one of the most beautiful countries in the world, she had no desire to blow the dust off of her DSLR.
But now she wanted to take photos. But more importantly, she wanted to take photos of her boyfriend, something he had never let her do before.
An idea suddenly popped into her head. “Wait!”
Then she shuffled around a suitcase that looked like it had exploded. She managed to find a mini-tripod.
Y/N started setting it up on the ground, attaching her camera to it.
“What are you doing?” Steve asked with an amused smirk.
“I’m going to take a picture of us!”
“Us?”
Y/N stopped what she was doing to look at him. “Have you ever realized that we don’t have a single photo together?”
Steve blinked and then his smirk instantly dropped.
He hadn’t realized that.
Y/N watched him, half expecting him to turn down the idea. But he opened his arms where he was sitting on the floor.
“Come here, you.”
She smiled and sat down beside him.
“Nope. That won’t do,” he told her before picking her up like she weighed nothing and sat her right in his lap.
Y/N giggled and shimmied so they were posed right for the camera.
“OK. It’s on a timer. 10 photos. One every 10 seconds,” she explained. “That light will start blinking fast right before it takes a photo.”
Steve nodded, already not paying attention to the blinking light.
He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her shoulder right as the shutter went off.
“Steve! We’re not going to be able to see your face!” Y/N laughed.
“Don’t worry. I have 9 more to mess up.”
Nine photos later, Y/N was flipping through the SD card. Steve watched as she smiled at them.
Y/N slowly looked up at him with a shy smile. “We’re pretty cute.”
Steve chuckled. She was the cute one.
Then she flipped her camera around and showed him a couple of them. The first one was of Steve kissing her shoulder. Y/N had her mouth half open, clearly about to yell at him for ruining the photo. But Steve liked that about it. Another was of them looking into each other’s eyes without even meaning to. Thankfully, there were a couple of them both just smiling at the camera. But those were Steve’s least favorite.
Things had been surprisingly good between them recently. It was almost like they were back in their honeymoon phase from when they’d first found each other in both of their presents.
Steve didn’t want to bring it to Y/N’s attention or ask questions, afraid that it would somehow ruin it or pop the bubble of bliss they were currently in.
“Sure you want to go to this thing tonight?” Steve asked her.
“Yeah, why?”
“I don’t know. Kind of wanted to just spend time alone with you,” Steve admitted.
“It’s the biggest celebration in Wakanda every year. Shuri and T’Challa sounded like they really wanted us to go. And after everything they’ve done for me – for us…”
“You’re right,” Steve said with sudden guilt.
Y/N kept forgetting the name but it was a festival in Wakanda that celebrated the coming of spring every year. There were food vendors, art, music, and peopled dancing in the streets.
Shuri had even given Y/N and Steve customary outfits to wear.
“Did you tell Bucky to meet us here?” Y/N asked him.
“Oh…umm…no. Should I have?”
Y/N titled her head. “Well, I figured we could all go together…”
“Right. I’ll give him a call. Tell him to meet us here in a few hours.”
——————————
Steve and Bucky walked slowly, keeping a few yards behind Y/N.
Both men watched her as Shuri explained all of the things around them. Despite being the royal princess, everyone respected Shuri’s distance. It probably helped that she had six Dora Milaje surrounding her too.
“She seem different to you?” Steve asked Bucky as people danced and laughed around them.
Bucky followed his gaze on Y/N, who was throwing her head back and laughing at something Shuri whispered to her.
He couldn’t hold back the shy smirk that grew on his lips.
“What do you mean?” Bucky asked.
“I don’t know. She seems…happier and – I don’t know – lighter.” Steve thought for a moment. “Like she’s not scared she’s going to travel at any moment.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” Bucky challenged.
But in all honesty, he had noticed it too.
“Of course not,” Steve answered.
“Have you asked her?”
“No.” Steve admitted with a little guilt. “I’m scared I’m going to ruin it if I do.”
“Then maybe you should stop being so suspicious of everything and just enjoy it,” Bucky raised an eyebrow, daring Steve to fight him on it.
Y/N skipped over to them. “You guys, you have to try this food over here!”
Steve smiled at her excitement and immediately took her offered hand.
However, Bucky’s reaction wasn’t the same. “You two go on ahead,” Bucky mumbled, only really looked at Steve and not Y/N. But his expression proved there was no room for argument.
Y/N didn’t hide her disappointment, her smile immediately dropped and her brow furrowed. But she still pulled Steve away with her.
“Is he mad at me or something?” She asked Steve when they were a safe distance away.
“I don’t know so.”
“I feel like he’s been avoiding me. It’s been happening for awhile now. Did I do something wrong?”
Steve’s mouth went dry. Because he knew why Bucky would do such a thing. But now he was debating on whether it was appropriate to share that knowledge with Y/N or not.
What was a man supposed to do when he knew his best friend was in love with his girlfriend and the girlfriend didn’t know?
There was no guidebook to this.
“Y/N,” Steve turned to fully face her. “Bucky’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
She narrowed her gaze. “You know something.” Then she let go of his hand. “People don’t realize you’re a good liar. But you’ve never been good at lying to me.”
Then she turned around and started picking at the food she’d been telling him about. She was clearly irritated with him now.
Steve watched her.
His heart was beating faster and he felt sick.
Was he really about to do this? What this even the right thing to do?
“He’s in love with you, Y/N.” Steve told her quietly.
But he knew she heard him because she completely stopped what she was doing and froze. Her entire body was filled with tension.
“You can’t be all that surprised by it, right? You’ve really never noticed?” He tried to be almost joking about it, but it was the wrong move.
“He’s not mad at you,” Steve clarified. “He’s avoiding you because he doesn’t know what else to do. He thinks by keeping his distance, he’s doing good by me – or you – hell, I’m not even sure myself.”
Y/N finally looked at him. “Steve, he doesn’t – there’s no – just…no.”
Then she got lost in her head.
Steve could practically see it. She wasn’t with him anymore.
Then her eyes glazed over in tears and she kept shaking her head. “I didn’t – Steve, I didn’t…”
He rushed forward and gripped her face gently.
“Hey, hey, hey,” he calmed her. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Do you hear me? I’m not mad. Bucky’s not mad. You did nothing wrong.”
Then Y/N was looking around for Bucky. As if just finding him and looking into his eyes would be the final confirmation that Steve was telling the truth.
How could she be so stupid?
Yes, she cared about Bucky. She loved him, as a friend and as someone who was so important to Steve.
Had she led him on? Could she have prevented all of this?
Bucky was nowhere to be found. He had disappeared, leaving Y/N and Steve alone.
Steve was about to comfort her further, but a kingsguard interrupted them.
“Captain Rogers, there was an urgent call for you,” he told Steve.
He nodded. “What is it about?”
The kingsguard passed him a tablet that had a message on it.
Steve’s eyes flickered across the text wildly.
“What? What is it?” Y/N asked.
“Wanda. Nat’s worried. Thinks she’s staying in one place for too long.”
“She’s with Vision?” Y/N asked.
Steve nodded. “I have to go.”
Y/N nodded. Suddenly her problems seemed silly and trivial.
--------------------------------------
Chapter 26
ughhhhhhhh. comment. don’t comment. i don’t even care anymore. i’m so over this series. 😂