The Fixer

Oh

December 4, 2015 at the Tower

Passing Loki in the hallway to the kitchen Steve gave him a nod of hello, the god gave him polite one back. He had lightened up over the last few weeks once he saw for himself that Joanna and Loki were nothing more than friends. In fact on more than one occasion she had called the Asgardian the big brother she never had. There was no way she would sleep with someone let alone date them if she saw them as a sibling. So he'd calmed down enough to apologize, not only to Jo, but Loki as well.

Not for being jealous per say. More like a blanket apology for being so rude for the last few months. A sort of truce had been called between the three of them much to everyone's delight just before Jo and the brothers left for Asgard. Everything about this whole situation with Joanna was hard. He was acting completely out of the normal from himself. Steve Rogers had never been the jealous type and that was all he felt when it came to any man around Joanna. It felt like they were meant to be together. He knew she felt it too by the way he would sometimes catch her looking at him or how there would be moments between them that had felt like that first night all over again.

Striding into the kitchen he headed over to the fridge to grab an after run snack and a bottle of Gatorade. Taking both over to the counter he pulled out a stool and sat down. He'd taken his run a little harder today like he usually did after having to deal with the press. Thankfully it hadn't been focused on him, but as the team's co-leader and as Captain America it fell to Steve to field most of the questions. He was never good with that whole thing leaving it up to Tony, but he'd had a meeting for Stark Industries and hadn't been able to reschedule it.

Joanna had thankfully stepped in and took over most of the questions when she saw his anxiety flaring up. The press wanted to talk to her and Loki anyway since this was about them joining the team so he'd stepped back and let them have at it. Afterwards he had taken off for the next hour to just run out every bit of anxiety and stress filling him until he was back to being calm. Pushing his empty plate away Steve uncapped his Gatorade and chugged half of it before he heard Joanna scream from down the hall.

Heart pounding he jumped up ready to attack whoever was after her when he saw she was smiling and animatedly talking on the phone. "I can't believe you're here! Wait Mathew.. No, hang on. Give me a minute and I'll meet you downstairs. No because," Laughing she rushed over to the elevator pressing the call button repeatedly. "the head of security for the Tower is extremely anal about the ID badges, especially when it comes to us."

Rushing inside she pressed the lobby button as she excitedly talked to this Mathew guy. Steve watched as she practically danced with impatience at how slowly the elevator doors were closing. He'd never seen her this happy before not even when she'd actually liked him. His stomach tightened in knots as he thought about how special this guy was based on her reaction.

What if this guy was someone she was seeing? He knew she'd been sneaking off for a few weeks for hours at a time and wouldn't say where she was going or what she was doing. Ugly jealousy filled him at the thought that she was seeing someone. Shoving it down Steve sat back down and slumped in his seat. He had no one to blame but himself. He hadn't worked up the courage yet to tell Joanna how he felt about her and was mad at himself for not speaking up sooner.

Playing with the bottle cap Steve hadn't realized she'd come back up until he heard her sultry voice calling out his rank in a way she never had before in excitement. "Hey Captain, there's someone I want you to meet. Matty, this is Steve Rogers." He let out a sigh and pasted on a fake smile as he prepared himself to turn around to meet her new boyfriend. "Steve, this is Mathew, my baby brother."

Oh.

His smile became genuine at her words and at the sight of a young man around Peter's age dressed in a large blue and white knit looking coat who looked similar to the woman standing next to him. Standing up he walked over holding out his hand to snake the kids hand. "So nice to meet you. Jo mentioned she had a brother, but I didn't realize you were so much younger."