The tower was seemingly empty today. Peter had come all the way here to meet with Tony but he and anyone else for that matter was nowhere to be found. He had waited in the lab for ten minutes before figuring he might as well go take a nap in his room in the meantime. The last few weeks had been exhausting and he still couldn't remember the last time he had a good nights sleep. Half way to his room he stopped short when he heard a noise, startled at the realization that he wasn't alone like he thought was. A muffled laugh came from inside one of the rooms. That was when he realized it wasn't just a room, it was her room.
He stared at the door, his hand reaching out for the door knob instinctively. It shook slightly, hovering above the handle wanting nothing more than to open it and see his best friend but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He had barely survived seeing the look on her face when they spoke last without chasing after her and he didn't think he could survive it again. The disappointment, the betrayal, the damaged eyes and the crippled heart... Knowing he had been the one to put it on her face while remembering why he had gone through with it in the first place was enough to keep him frozen in place, not being able to open the door but not being able to walk away.
"That's not her."
Peter turned quickly at the sound of the voice. Nat was standing a few feet away, her arms crossed tightly as she appraised him.
"What?" He asked, arm snapping back from the handle. She raised an eyebrow, still unsmiling. Hm. Busted.
"That's probably one of Tony's cleaning ladies, (Y/n) moved out almost a month ago, I thought you knew."
"Oh." Peter shifted his weight back and forth awkwardly on his feet. So, she had moved out. He had assumed (Y/n) had just made it a point of being out of the tower whenever she knew he was coming over, not that she wasn't living there all together. He had known what he had said would hurt her feelings but he was beginning to think he had underestimated the depth of the damage he had done.
"How is um- is she..." He began, bumbling around the question he wasn't sure he wanted the answer to.
Nat sighed, pulling out her phone from her back pocket and beginning to type. Peter's phone buzzed as she put hers away, and when he looked at the screen he saw a message from Nat.
"What did you send me?" He asked as he clicked the message open.
"Their address. You want to know how she is, go see for yourself." She replied simply.
"Their?" Peter's head snapped up.
"Yea, (Y/n) and Steve."
Peter's stomach lurched at this new revelation. It should have annoyed him that nobody had bothered to tell him that his best friend and one of his teammates had moved out of the tower and shacked up together. It should have angered him that nobody thought this was relevant information to him. Instead the reality of his current relationship with (Y/n) was settling heavily on his chest. He had been pretending to be fine for so long now he had started to forget who he was, ignoring problems of the past in hopes of a brighter future. He should have known it would catch up with him in the end. It always does.
There was a time where (Y/n) would have texted him even the smallest things without question. Pictures of a weirdly shaped cloud, debates over what snacks to buy at the grocery store... Now she was changing her address and moving in with her boyfriend and she hadn't told him. She hadn't told him.
He shouldn't have been so surprised by this. This was what (Y/n) did when she was upset, she left. She was always leaving, always had one foot out the door. At least that's what it had felt like when she ran off for three weeks without bothering to answer a single one of his hundreds of texts and calls. All this time he had blamed her inability to trust for the end of their friendship but he was beginning to question if that was really what had gone wrong here. Had she really run away from this or had he pushed her out the door?
He could still hear the echoes of that day ringing through the living room and into the hallway. Like you said, I'm off the hook, right? He exhaled. No need to pretend that I give a shit anymore. He exhaled again. The words of that day still bothered him even now, but it was the silence that haunted him. It was his silence that he carried with him. She had given him the chance to take it back and he refused. In time the words could be erased, scratched from memory and forgotten but the silence, that refusal to fight for the survival of their friendship would be there forever. He knew (Y/n) well enough to know that. In every silence she would hear his quiet.
"I'm not going over there, Nat. She won't want to see me."
"Can you blame her?" She asked dryly.
Peter's head hung low, staring at the dirt on the top of his sneakers. He heard her take a few steps closer, before she continued to speak.
"Ready for some tough love?"
"Do I have a choice?" He sighed. The last month nobody had talked to him about (Y/n) but apparently Nat was now ready to lift the embargo. Peter did his best to prepare for whatever long overdue scolding was about to come his way.
"So she left. Big deal. Maybe you have a right to be angry with her maybe not but at the end of the day it doesn't matter. She's not the one that ended the friendship, you are."
Peter sucked in sharply, the sharp shovel of her accusation digging at his heart. Nat reached a hand out, placing it on his shoulder as he glanced to the side, staring at the wall just to the side of (Y/n)'s old bedroom.
"Best friends don't grow on trees. You were extremely lucky to have found one. And for you to throw one away that the universe tossed at your feet would be the most ungrateful act and the greatest disservice to you and to her. Imagine if something happened to her tomorrow and those were the last words you ever said to her. Could you live with yourself knowing that was how you left things?"
He bit the inside of his cheek hard, too emotionally numb to feel any of the physical pain. He was still angry about the way (Y/n) had left after the fiasco with the contract. He had begged her not to go and she still had. But he was angry with himself too. Angry for saying things he hadn't truly meant, angry for not saying the right things when he had a chance, and most of all angry for allowing himself to take so much for granted when he had always known better. There was something else going on here that he didn't quite understand and he needed to figure it out before it was too late and she'd be done with him for good. If she wasn't already. Turning his head back to look at Nat, she removed her hand from her shoulder, shaking her head slightly.
"Get your head out of your ass and out the door and go make things right."
She left then, leaving Peter standing once again alone in the hallway with nothing but a pit in his stomach, an address, and a choice to make.
_____________
Steve was sitting at a decadent wooden dining table. A crystal chandelier hung on the ceiling above and large cabinets lined either wall filled with what he could only guess was thousands of dollars worth of Fine China.
Flashbacks from his last trip here were running through his mind, threatening to send him running out the door he had so hesitantly entered. But he had good reasons for being here, and those reasons, that purpose, kept him glued to the seat.
At the other end of the table, one of the most intimidating people he had ever come to know was studying him with cold eyes, her fingers drilling lazily into the table one by one. Steve sat there uncomfortably concentrating on the details of the rose petal covered wall paper, swallowing harshly.
"So I'm assuming you came all this way for some reason other than to stare at the wall behind my head."
Steve snapped his eyes to meet those of (Y/n)'s mother. They were strikingly similar to (Y/n)'s and the familiarity of the color, despite the hardened look in them, helped him to push forward.
"Yea ma'am." Steve began. "(Y/n) doesn't know I'm here but I felt like we needed to have a conversation."
She didn't respond, reaching forward to pour some of the freshly made tea into one of the white and blue cups sitting between them. Steve continued resolutely, knowing the sooner he got the words out the sooner he could leave and return to his cozy apartment where (Y/n) was waiting for him. She had been a little quieter this past week and he wasn't sure why. He had guessed it might have something to do with Peter or her mom or maybe it was just some kind of pregnancy mood swings. The good thing was that the smallest of signs of sadness were almost always quickly washed away when he pulled her into his arms.
"I'm here because-" Steve was forced to pause when the spoon in her hand began to make loud clanking noises against the walls of the cup as she mixed the honey into her tea. Steve waited for her to stop before he started again.
"I'm here because I wanted to tell you that I'm going to ask (Y/n) to marry me."
Steve watched her cautiously, waiting for some sort of reaction but the only thing he noticed was the muscles in her fingers tighten slightly around the spoon before she took it out of her cup and placed it gently on the dish in front of her.
"You're going to propose?" She asked her voice bland and almost bored, as if Steve had just asked her about the weather.
"Yes." He replied firmly.
"And what, you're here to ask for permission? Traditionally you're supposed to ask the father not the mother. You see there's a certain way these things are done." She responded, raising the cup to her lips and taking a small sip.
"I'm not here to ask for permission. (Y/n) is her own person. She is the only one whose permission I need."
She placed the cup back down on the table, lifting her lace-lined napkin and dabbing her mouth lightly.
"So then why are you here Mr. Rogers?" She asked, returning the napkin to her lap.
"You know you might as well call me Steve." He said, getting a little tired of whatever game she was playing.
"Why are you here Mr. Rogers?" She repeated, folding her hands together and resting them on the wooden surface of the table.
Steve sighed, shaking his head slightly. He knew she was most likely furious about learning his intentions to propose so quickly and he would rather her just be honest and upfront about it then pretend like it didn't bother her. He would be the first to admit that it was early on his relationship to take this step. It was also early on to be living together and having a baby together. Everything about the timeline of their relationship had been so unorthodox. He had known for awhile now that this was the girl he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Once that becomes something a person knows, they want to start their forever immediately, no matter how rushed it may seem to others. He was always waiting too long for things and he didn't want to wait a moment longer.
He took a steadying breath, straightening in his chair slightly before beginning, carefully picking out each of his next words. This conversation was going to be integral and he wasn't about to screw this up.
"(Y/n) is the single most important person in my life. I thank my lucky stars every day that by some miracle she walked into my life and decided to stay there. She's giving me the chance to be a father, the greatest gift I could ever receive from anyone but that's not why I want to marry her."
The look on her face was still serious as she listened if not somewhat skeptical. He pushed forward, willing her to see where he was coming from.
"She's intelligent, she's witty. She's beautiful and she's kind. I think some part of me has been in love with her since the day we met and each day she's allowed me to spend with her since have been the happiest of my life."
She opened her mouth to speak but Steve held a hand up, signaling he wasn't done. Her eyes narrowed, looking slightly affronted but her mouth snapped shut regardless.
"You mean the world to her. I know she loves her father, but she has a different kind of relationship with you that I won't ever be able to truly understand. I love your daughter and if she'll let me I want to spend the rest of my life trying to make her happy, but I can't in good conscience ask her to marry me when I know the kind of strain it would put on her relationship with you. The last thing I'd ever want is to put her in a situation where she feels like she has to choose between one or the other."
Steve watched as she picked up her cup, going to take another sip of her tea before she seemed to change her mind. She pursed her lips, setting the drink back on the table.
"I know you don't like me much and that coming here was a long shot but I had to try. I'm hoping that even if you hate me that you will at least recognize how much I love (Y/n). If you give us the chance I think you'll see she loves me too and I'm hoping that maybe you can find it in yourself to not come between that."
A heavy silence fell over the room. Steve waited nervously for her to respond but she was just staring absentmindedly in his direction, looking utterly lost and deep in thought. He was slightly alarmed by her confused expression. It looked as if she was reliving every significant moment of her life, playing it in fast forward through her mind, questioning and doubting every decision she had ever made.
The sound of small tapping on hard wood broke the quiet as the King Charles he had met the last time he was here came walking across the floor in Steve's direction with a wagging tail. Steve bent down giving the dog a few pats on the head before it went over to (Y/n)'s mother. She stood up from her chair, picking up the dog with her. Steve stood up too.
"I'm not going to pretend like I don't think you're rushing into things. (Y/n) is still young and you haven't known each other for very long. I don't want her committing to this kind of a relationship before she's ready."
The dog was slipping from her arms slightly and she had to shuffle her hold to keep him from falling. Once she was certain she had a good grip she returned her gaze to Steve's.
"The kind of love you're talking about. I'm not sure-" She faltered for a moment, looking at the ground and swallowing hard. It was the first time Steve had seen her look unsure of herself, even a little shaken. "I'm not sure if it really exists."
She looked back at him and he could have sworn her eyes were watering slightly but the dim lighting of the room made it too difficult to know for sure.
"If I'm wrong, if it really does exist and she thinks she can have that with you, I won't stand in her way. I know what you must think of me, most people think I'm too severe and over-controlling when it comes to my daughters life. I know even (Y/n) must see it that way sometimes too. But every decision I've made, every choice, every sacrifice... it's been for her. It's always been for her."
Steve nodded at her tentatively, and they stared at each other for a moment. The two had finally found their common ground. They may not like each other much or agree on things very often but they were somehow finally able to gain a certain level of mutual respect on the foundation of knowing that they both loved (Y/n). For now, that was enough. She motioned towards the hallway that led to the exit and he walked down towards it, shrugging on his jacket and heading out the door, hearing her footsteps following him all the way.
"If you so much as hurt a single hair on my baby girl's head, I'll have my lawyers bury you in so many court dates and legal fees you won't have the money let alone the time to send that ridiculous spandex suit you wear to the dry cleaners."
She was glaring at him threateningly but there was a small smile on her face. For the first time he saw (Y/n) in her. Not in glare or even the smile but in the fierceness of the way that they love. Steve returned the smile.
"I wouldn't dream of it. Thank you." He said, holding in a chuckle. His heart beginning to pound in excitement as he realized what he was about to do next. She tilted her head his way, one hand still on the door the other holding the spaniel.
"You're welcome, Steve."