Chapter Text
January, 2032
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“All I’m saying is that jogging’s a great way to build stamina.” Steve’s statement one Saturday morning over breakfast is met by two unamused glares, with neither Darcy nor Joey taking his suggestion seriously.
Okay, he may have made the suggestion purely to see Joey glare daggers at him. He’s got to get his kicks somehow.
“You can jog,” Joey says, shoveling cereal into his mouth. “I’ll work on not setting the backyard on fire, how does that sound?” His control’s been getting better thanks to the work that they’ve been doing, Steve knows, but there’s still a long way to go. Hopefully they’ll still have grass left in the yard by the end of it.
“Jogging is really boring,” Sophie chimes in. She looks up at them with a wary glance, “I don’t think it’s going to help Joey not set things on fire, either.” She frowns again, tapping her spoon against the table. “And how much jogging do you really have to do as a superhero anyway?”
“It can be the first lesson in superhero school,” Joey replies, pointing his spoon at Sophie, “how to run really fast and really far in the opposite direction of the fighting.”
“It, it doesn’t work like that,” Steve butts in. He shakes his head wearily as Joey’s superhero lesson ideas get more and more outlandish, running the gamut from undersea expeditions to being the man on the moon defending the earth from the dangers of the universe.
“That can be your third career,” Joey finishes with a flourish in Steve’s direction. “You know, after the Captain America stuff and the comic books. You can open up a school for superheroes and then train us how to save the world.”
Darcy groans into her cup of coffee. “How about you worry about getting through middle school first before deciding on a career as a professional hero?”
“I can do both.”
“Okay, back it up a second.” Steve sighs, running his hands back through his hair and staring around the table at his family, everyone staring at him expectantly, the motions of breakfast time slowing down as they do. All except for Ben, who’s ignoring everyone in favor of flicking his Cheerios around his high chair tray, giggling every time one of them skips over the edge and lands on the floor. “I’m not going to teach you how to be a superhero. We’ve already got more than a few of them out there, all of whom are much older and better trained than you are. But.” He leans forward, watching as Joey’s eyes track him intently. “But you absolutely need to learn how to control and channel your abilities so that you can use them in a way that’s helpful for both you and others. And if you are willing to put in the work, I am more than willing to help train you with that.”
Joey’s eyes flick back and forth between his parents, and he chews roughly on his lower lip. “You serious?”
“Very much so. What about you, Soph?”
Sophie frowns briefly, her head tilting to the side. “Will it interfere with my karate lessons?” she asks.
Steve shakes his head just as Darcy meets his eyes, and it’s all too easy to read the affection she’s got for all of them in her face right then. “Nope. As a matter of fact, keep doing the karate. It’ll help you with training, actually. One of the biggest things you’ll need to learn to help channel your abilities is self discipline, and karate is the perfect way for that.”
“Good.” Sophie nods, hard, then her face breaks out into a grin. “Then I’m in, too.”
A strange sense of peace settles over Steve, one of those moments where he finally feels like he’s right where he belongs. The last fifteen years have been like that, really, and sometimes he can’t believe his good fortune. “All right,” he says, “let’s do this. I’ll draft up a plan, and we’ll take it from there. Sound good?”
“Yep!”
“Does this mean that the backyard - “
Steve coughs hastily, cutting off whatever Joey was about to say about the backyard, because they’ve both tried their damnedest to cover up the burned bits before Darcy got wind of them and gave them both a (well deserved, admittedly) earful about it.
Darcy, to her credit, shifts her eyes between the two of them, and the look on her face is the one that Steve has learned over the years that says she knows they’re totally full of shit, but she’ll indulge them anyway. “Uh-huh,” she drawls.
“So when’s the first lesson?” Joey breaks in. “Because we can start right after breakfast, I’ve got no plans.” He shovels his cereal in his mouth, messily taking too large bites and sending bits of milk splashing onto the table.
“Slow down.” Steve rolls his eyes and tosses a napkin in Joey’s direction. “Plans first, lessons after. I’m a little rusty with this, so I could use a little time to plan before we begin.”
“Mmm, I’ll tell you what the first lesson is.” Darcy sips more coffee, then looks around the table at her brood, a glint in her eyes with her hair bouncing in its messy bun. “The first lesson is: No Capes.”
“Huh?” Steve’s brow wrinkles as he crosses his arms over his chest and frowns at Darcy. “What’s wrong with capes?” he asks.
Darcy waves her own napkin about, and he watches as it flutters around, the thin edges catching the air and ruffling gently. “They’re unnecessary accessories. They could fly in your face and obstruct your vision, and even one of the dumber bad guys out there could make a grab for it and trip you up.
“Capes do kind of look cool, though,” Sophie points out.
“As cool as it looks,” Darcy says with a head shake and a deep frown, “it will serve no one well if one of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes gets defeated by, like, Paste-Pot Pete because he got glued to the ground by his flappy cape.”
“Well, what about Thor?” Steve asks (Maybe, just maybe, he has a little bit of cape envy, but he will never, EVER admit that out loud. He’ll just draw some extra long capes in his next comic book instead). “Thor wore a cape all the time.”
Darcy’s head drops to her chest with a morose sigh, her chin dragging along the fine weave of her sweatshirt. “Oh, Steve. Steve, Steve, Steve.” She stands up and walks over to him, running her hands back through his sleep mussed hair and cupping his bearded face in her hands. “Steve, you are my soulmate, the father of my children, and the love of my life. But, no matter what universe we’re in, you are not Thor.” She presses a gentle kiss to his forehead, and whispers again, “No capes.”