Imagine If You Assembled The Avengers: Volume 3

Do I Wanna Know? (Rogers x reader)

Have you got colour in your cheeks?
Do you ever get that fear that you can't shift
The type that sticks around like summat in your teeth?
Are there some aces up your sleeve?
Have you no idea that you're in deep?
I dreamt about you nearly every night this week
How many secrets can you keep?
'Cause there's this tune I found that makes me think of you somehow and I play it on repeat
Until I fall asleep

~~~

God, Steve hated working with you.

But, it wasn't that he hated you; he was your best friend. He loved you.

That was the problem. He loved you, and to work side-by-side was getting to be too difficult for him. You were a distraction. You were a great distraction happening at the worst possible time, and you had no idea what you were doing to him. When you were at his side, his perception was off and the shield was frequently lost to leave the team in the midst of a frantic search. When you weren't there, he was fine, and everyone around him was beginning to take notice.

"Cap, seriously, what's going on with you?" Tony snapped through the comms. "You couldn't hit the broad side of a barn today."

"I'm good, Stark, just mind your own business. Don't you have enough to do up there?"

"I'd mind my own business, but when you ping that damn shield off my head it kinda becomes my business."

"Oh," Steve backpedaled sheepishly now, "yeah....I-I suppose it does. Sorry about that."

"Cap, I could use a hand," you called out to him, breaking into their discussion, "I'm going 2-on-1 over here and Sam's on the other side of the field in his own mess. I'm not sure where Barton ran off to-"

Steve's blood ran cold as he envisioned the battle that you had found yourself in, and the risk of you being outnumbered. He waved Tony off as he flew past in the same direction, wanting to be the one to reach you first and to be your savior, but it was a primal, dominant feeling that he found terribly uncomfortable. You weren't his to protect or save; you weren't his at all. Tony would reach you first, and he had to force himself to feel thankful for the help, when all he wanted to do was to be your knight in shining armor so that you could finally understand.

"I'm on my way," he finally answered once he found his voice again. Steve ran to follow Tony's direction towards you, but when he traversed over the final hill and saw you surrounded and clearly outnumbered just as he had feared, his feet froze in place. All that he could see was you, fighting like he had never seen from you before, skillfully holding your own just as he had taught you and looking beautiful doing it.

"Hey, Cap?" Tony broke in again. "You wanna maybe join in? Your girl is showing you up over here."

The Captain's jaw set tightly, his teeth grinding together at the insinuation from his teammate, and from the clear faux pas; you weren't his in any way, shape, or form. As much as he tried to push the thoughts away and to focus on the job in front of him, you were dominating them and he couldn't shake free. You were interfering with his ability, and everyone could see his incompetence because he couldn't hide it anymore. Without a single thread of rationality, he made it completely your fault and none of his. You did this.

Despite Tony's urging and when Barton finally appeared to try to draw him in, Steve had already decided that he was of no use here. It took too much of his focus to simply turn away and return to the jet, when all that he wanted was to take you away from all of this and have the chance to show you exactly what it was that you were doing to him. What he wouldn't do to have that chance; even if only to find the right words when your mere presence made him mute. Ripping the comm from his ear and tossing it aside, he could do nothing more than to just walk away.