Marvel Imagines ;)

steve - rebel

"She's unstable, volatile, and doesn't work with the team."

"And you're telling me this because ..."

Steve blinked. "She stole SHIELD equipment, and ran off in an unauthorized quinjet to Germany." Just the mere thought of her doing something so reckless was enough to make his jaw work. God, she was such an annoyance.

"You make it sound like she's just a teenager who ran away on spring break, Cap." Tony eyed Steve in that calculating way of his. "She took down one of the highest ranking generals in Hydra."

"And got shot twice in the process." He still remembered when she called him in the middle of the night, barely able to talk through the blood bubbling up in her throat. He was going to make sure nothing like that ever happened to her again. And if removing her from the team was the only way ... "She doesn't listen to orders. Tony, she doesn't have what it takes to be an Avenger. I don't think she should even be a SHIELD agent."

"Well, then." Steve felt his insides go frigid at the sound of her voice. "I suppose it's always better to hear the truth, isn't it, Captain."

He didn't want to turn and look at her, but knew that he had to. He hadn't seen Y/N since he had carried her from that quinjet, barely alive, covered in her own blood. That image of her had been burned into his brain ever since.

"Y/N..." Steve began as he turned to look at her. She was still wearing her medical gown, leaning against a doorway with her arms crossed (she was always leaning against things). Steve ignored the way his stomach twisted at the bruises colouring the skin around her eyes, and the bandages covering her arms. Y/N had been to hell and back over the last three days, yet she still, somehow, intimidated even him. Captain America. She didn't need to be able to wield a blade; her piercing gaze was enough to make him feel as though he'd been run through with one. "I'm ... I'm just –"

"Just what, exactly?" Y/N pushed off the wall with a grimace Steve almost didn't catch. "Are you jealous, Captain?"

"Hardly."

"Look," said Tony, starting to back away from the snarling pair. "I'd love nothing more than to watch your little ... pissing contest, but I have better things to do."

Y/N never broke eye contact as she nodded, ever slowly, to Tony, before sidling up to Steve. Somehow, even though he was at least a foot taller than her, she looked down her nose at him with eyes of pure flame. They always got into this. This silent battle of wills.

Y/N was, shockingly, the first to break. "I'm not a child."

"Then stop acting like one," Steve snapped at her without missing a beat. Y/N scoffed, placing one hand on her hip.

"You know, Captain, you're the one throwing a tantrum over the fact that I took down the general who evaded you for months." She was close to him now; he could feel her breath barely brushing his lips. If he tilted his head forward just a few inches, their lips would touch, and Steve – who cursed himself silently – felt himself go red. "Maybe you should reconsider who's really being the child." Her words were biting. She said them with sweetness but they were laced with something darker, something poisonous.

"Maybe you should reconsider your position in SHIELD and on this team, because I swear to God, Y/N, the next time you pull a stunt like that –"

Y/N ripped herself away from Steve with a snarl. "You don't control me. You can't. And I swear to God, if you threaten my position here one more time, I'll make your life so miserable that you'll want to leave."

With that, she sauntered off. Steve, even through his haze of pure rage at her hotheadedness, couldn't help but notice the way her hips swayed through her gown.

He hated her. He truly, irrevocably, hated her. But what he hated more was the worry that plagued him in her presence, how he braced himself for an oncoming storm that he couldn't see, but rather felt. He couldn't shake the feeling that Y/N was going to get herself killed, and, in doing so, take a piece of him with her that he couldn't bear to lose.

...

Y/N was fuming with unconcealed rage as she dragged herself back to the lab, where Bruce had requested she returned for a follow up on her gunshot wounds. The absolute nerve of that man. The Captain. He definitely had an intense superiority complex that he used to shield himself. She felt like she had been banging on it with broken nails and bloodied fists for months, and he still didn't listen to her. He didn't even want to listen, seemed inclined to only think of her as some bratty little child. What did it matter if she was reckless? Sometimes, being reckless was what it took to get things done. And besides, she had survived. Her wounds would only take another day or two to heal, but then she would be fine. No scars would taint her body, only her mind. And she could conceal those scars just fine.

"Y/N, how are you feeling?" Bruce. His graying hair was messy, as it always was after a day in the lab.

Y/N was already lifting her shirt up as she sat on the iron medical table. "Fine. Let's just get this over with, Doc."

Bruce's fingertips grazed the skin of her lower abdomen, just above her hipbone. "Sorry about this," he mumbled, eyes flickering away from her own. She knew Bruce was shy, and, truth be told, she found it kind of cute. Most men took what they wanted and damned the consequences, but Bruce ... he was kind.

Perhaps too kind for Y/N.

"S'fine," she said, leaning away from him slightly. Bruce pushed up his glasses as he stood.

"You're healing well," Bruce mumbled, running a hand through his hair and, in the process, tousling it up even further. "Just come back tomorrow for one more follow up, and you'll be good as new."

"I think I'll take a rain check on that," Y/N said as she lowered her shirt and stood. "I've got things to do, enemies to kill. You know how it is."

Bruce smiled. Barely. Y/N took it as a victory all the same. "Sure, sure. You still need to pop in though. Captain's orders."

Y/N felt her oncoming smile come to a screeching halt. "What did you just say?"

"Listen, I know you two don't really get along, but –"

"Don't get along? He hates me! Bruce, he tried to kick me off the team."

Bruce's eyes widened in surprise. So this was unusual for Cap.

"Oh," Bruce replied lamely.

"Yeah. So, forgive me, but I'm not following his orders. Not anymore. See you later, Bruce."

Bruce opened his mouth to object, but Y/N was out the door before he could say anything to stop her.

She didn't understand that man. Sometimes when he looked at her, she could have sworn she saw affection in those blue eyes. But then, other times, they lit up with a hatred Y/N had only experienced in her enemies. So what did that make him? A friend, or a foe? She supposed he toed the line of both. It drove her mad, not knowing what was going on inside his head. Most people were easy to read, like Tony Stark. That man's emotions showed like a damn beacon: impossible to miss, and even more impossible to ignore. But with Steve ... she didn't have a clue. And it was maddening. And the fact that it maddened her made it even more maddening.

By the time Y/N was in her own room within the Avengers Headquarters, she knew there was absolutely no way she would be able to sleep. Not when she felt the pain of the bullet going clean through her every time she closed her eyes, and heard Steve's panicked voice through her comm. Not when she felt herself dying again and again and again –

A walk. She would simply take a walk. Nothing would go wrong, she would just do a lap of the building, and then come back, and go to sleep.

It would be fine.

A/N
Oof this was longer than I meant for it to be. To be perfectly honest, I'm actually really enjoying the dynamic between Steve and Y/N in this story, and I might even want to continue writing it on a larger scale. Lemme know if you want it to have it's own separate story, or wrap it up here with a part 2!