Chapter Text
Once Steve had woken up from the ice, he had accepted the job at SHIELD that Nick Fury had offered him. So much had changed in the world, and he knew it’d take a little time for everything to sink in, but he wanted to work. Wanted to make the world a better place.
Even though he was still angry that HYDRA was still around.
The one thing Steve didn’t want, however, was to have a room at SHIELD HQ. He was a soldier; that was the one thing he’d always wanted, and he finally achieved that dream and wasn’t going to stop the fight, but he didn’t want to be around his co-workers all the time. He wanted a life, away from all that stuff; away from SHIELD, away from the fight. He didn’t want to be Captain America all the time .
But he was Captain America most of the time. The only time he really wasn’t was when he was in his apartment, but life had been pretty lonely. He honestly hadn’t acclimated to life in the 21st century. He didn’t belong here, and he most definitely didn’t fit in here.
He had a nice place in Brooklyn. He liked it; he liked being home -- even though it had changed so much in the seventy years he’d been frozen. He liked the soft, the quiet; he liked to just be, sometimes.
Even if Natasha did keep on trying to find him a date.
Honestly, he could take that or leave it alone. He wasn’t interested in dating; he’d been on a few blind dates, and they just weren’t working for him. He wasn’t crazy about most girls this century.
Until he met you.
You and your boyfriend hadn’t been in the building long. By Steve’s count, you’d only been neighbors for about three months. He’d passed you in the hall several times, on the way to and from SHIELD, or as you were leaving for work, or even when you were doing your laundry. He also was aware of your boyfriend.
Who, by every standard, was a gigantic asshole.
Honestly, Steve didn’t really know much about him. But he sure heard him.
The yelling, the screaming. The derogatory remarks. The horrible things he’d said to you. The loud noises as he hurt you -- which happened a lot.
Everyone at SHIELD knew that Steve had a crush on someone, but he still wasn’t very good at speaking to girls. When Natasha argued that he was okay with talking to her, he’d often tell her that he wasn’t interested in her romantically . But he wanted to be with you.
However, Steve also knew that whatever hell your asshole boyfriend put you through on a daily basis, there was honestly nothing he could do to help you. You were there of your own free will. Nobody could force you to leave someone you were with voluntarily. There was honestly nothing anybody could do.
And you were probably just as stubborn as Steve Rogers, if not more so.
He didn’t spend as much time at his apartment as he used to. Part of it was because he had trouble sleeping; ever since waking up in this century, Steve just couldn’t get rid of the nightmares. The other part, however, was because he really wanted to save you.
But you didn’t want to be saved.
He often nodded at you when you left your apartments around the same time or would say hello when the two of you bumped into one another in the laundry room. But that’s all. He couldn’t bring himself to sit and really pay attention to the things that were happening to you.
However, that changed one afternoon. When Steve just couldn’t handle it anymore.
***
Steve had declined when Clint and Natasha had asked him to go with them to get a drink. He didn’t often drink, anyway; he couldn’t get drunk, so if he ever drank anything, it was for the flavor. But he got self-conscious when he went out in public, and there were often tons of people asking for autographs.
He just didn’t want to deal with it today.
He thought he heard something while coming up the stairs. Considering you lived on the third floor, the elevator was usually open, but he never used it. He had a lot of things he didn’t do because it reminded him of growing up as weak as he was.
On the second flight of stairs, there you were. Three stairs up. You were dressed in a simple pair of blue jeans and a blank tank top, but your knees were against your chest and your arms were circling your legs. Your head was bent down, and your face was hidden by your knees. He could tell without even getting very close to you that you were crying, and something was majorly wrong.
“Excuse me, miss?” he asked as he came closer. While Steve had super-hearing, he knew that that was not a normal thing. He didn’t want to startle or spook you.
You looked up. Your eyes were all red, the evidence of tear tracks on your face, and you had the same look of a deer caught in headlights.
He tried to ignore the panic in your gaze, but cleared his throat lightly before asking, “Are you alright?”
He noticed the bruise forming around your left eye. He felt his anger start to build up, but he needed to be able to ignore it and squash it down to tend to you.
Since waking up, he’d been pretty good at learning how to compartmentalize.
“Captain,” you say softly. In the three months you’d lived in the same building, Steve had maybe heard you speak only a handful of times. “I’m fine.”
He cocked his head to the side. You probably had a worse poker face than he did. “You sure?”
You lick your lips and then, after a moment, shake your head before nodding.
He couldn’t help it; he let out a chuckle. One of the movies he saw before going into the ice had been The Wizard of Oz , and that looked like it had been taken right out of it. “Why don’t you come inside with me? I can make you a cup of tea.”
You nod your head as you make it to your feet. He notices that one of your ankles is incredibly swollen.
“What happened?” he asked. You were barefoot, so seeing the swelling in your joint was especially easy to spot. “Can you walk?”
“Kinda,” you say hesitantly. “I can, it’s just not easy.”
“What happened?” he asked. He goes up to you, bending down and encouraging you to wrap your arms around his neck so he can carry you up the stairs bridal style. When you start to protest, he shakes his head.
“I can carry a lot,” he says as he makes it up the stairs with you. “Don’t worry, okay? I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
Sighing, you acquiesce, and he sets you down on the couch after opening his apartment door. “Would you like some tea?”
You nod.
While he was in the Army, in the war, he and Peggy had shared a cup of tea more than once. She had a way she preferred it, and it wasn’t too bad, either. It was something that she had once told him was an acquired taste, and he really started to enjoy it after trying it a couple of times. Since he’d woken up in the 21st century, the tea was one of the things that made him nostalgic in a good way.
He made the tea and brought it to you. He sits down on the couch, a reasonable distance between the two of you. You thank him for the tea, and he looks at you.
“You could use some ice,” he notes after a moment had gone by. “You’re pretty swollen. Do you think it’s broken?”
You shake your head. “No. It hurts, but I can walk on it. Not well, but it’s doable.”
He nods. He goes into his freezer and pulls out a blue icepack he keeps in there. He wraps it in a hand towel and he hands it to you. He prompts you to lift your leg, so it’s elevated in front of you. He sets the icepack on your ankle before sitting down again, taking a drink of his tea and looking at you expectantly.
“You wanna tell me what happened?”
“Not really,” you utter. When he quirks a brow at you quizzically, you sigh. “I know how you feel about my...living situation,” you say hesitantly. “I know you hate Caleb. I know how you feel about our...conditions.”
Steve watches you for a few moments in silence. Finally, after a moment, he opened his mouth, “Whether I like the way he treats you or not, it’s not up to me. I’m not here to judge you, doll. I’m just here because it looks like you could use a friend.”
He can see the question in your glance.
“Hey, let me get you something for that eye,” he says after a moment. “I was so focused on your ankle, I forgot about it.”
You continue to stay silent while he wraps a few ice cubes in a washcloth and then hands it to you. You press it to your face.
“Y/N,” Steve says softly, his cup of tea in his hand, “if you need a friend, I’m here, okay? I’m not goin’ anywhere.”
“Well, yeah,” you try joking. “”Cause you’re Captain America . It’s not like you’re gonna turn down a damsel in distress.”
He lets out a laugh. “Even if I wasn’t the Captain, darlin’, I’ll still be here for you if you need me. So you wanna talk about it?”
You take a breath, watching Steve intently. Honestly, you knew the Captain was a trustworthy guy. Every single person in the entire damn country trusted him and he never seemed to betray that trust. However, you knew your boyfriend -- well, maybe it was ex now.
“I’m making the decision to trust you,” you say after a moment has gone by. “Please don’t make me regret it.”
You can see the look in his crystal blue eyes that he’s concerned for your welfare, but he nods curtly.
“We had a bit of a fight,” you admit to him. You scoot over on the couch just a tad so your leg can be stretched out a little more as you talk. You had an ulterior motive for moving; in your entire life, you’ve always been taken advantage of by men and you weren’t about to let it happen again, even if this guy was the picture of honesty and nobility.
When Steve nods, you decide to continue, “We broke up. He left. I’m sure he’ll be back; he usually is. However, after showing me how angry he was, he told me I had half an hour to be out. I don’t have anything besides the clothes on my back, and I have nowhere to go. That’s when you found me. I gotta figure out what to do and where to go.”
“Did he…” his voice trailed off as Steve took a deep breath, trying to keep his anger under control. “Did he hit you? Did he do something to your foot?”
“Steve, please,” you say softly, on the verge of begging. “Please don’t ask me any questions I know you don’t want the answer to.”
You see the question in his blue eyes.
“It’s easy to see,” you mention. Needing a break, you ask him to get you some water, and he nods before getting up to do so. When he comes back, handing you a glass of water, you smile in thanks before continuing, “Captain, you have the worst poker face in the world. It’s not hard to see where your mind or your emotions are.”
Taking a few drinks of your water, you look into his face. “It doesn’t matter what he did to me. None of that matters. There is one thing that does matter, however.”
“What’s that?”
“It opened my eyes. I’m done in this relationship. I can’t do it anymore. Today -- today, he was so angry. I’ve never seen that kind of anger in his eyes before. He could have killed me.”
You see his blue eyes widen, but he doesn’t say anything.
“Don’t worry,” you state after a moment of silence. You take the ice away from your eye so you can look Steve in the eye. “I won’t burden you with my presence here. I’ll find another place to go.”
“I don’t want to kick you out, doll,” Steve says, watching your eyes closely. “I have a spare room. You can stay here as long as you want.”
“I can’t, Steve,” you shake your head. “Caleb lives across the hall. I want to get as far away from here as I can.”
He nods. “I know somewhere you can go,” he states, watching you closely. “The security there is the best in the world.”