Imagine If You Assembled the Avengers: Volume 1

Not on My Watch (Steve Rogers x reader)

As you slowly lowered yourself into bed, you grimaced at the pain in your side. Trying to not disturb your sleeping husband, you slid your legs gently under the blankets and laid your head against your pillow, holding your breath as you found a comfortable position.

"Hey, you're back late."

You closed your eyes shut tight and sighed, not really wanting to explain this to Steve. Whispering, you kept your head turned away from him. "Yeah, we got held up a bit, sorry. I was trying not to wake you." Glancing at the clock next to your bed, you were shocked that it read 4am. You had no idea it was this late. "Go back to sleep, babe, we can talk later."

"Mmm hmm." He agreed under his breath, rolling on his side towards you, lazily laying his arm across your side. You sucked in a sharp breath at the stabbing pain in your ribs as his arm landed. "Hey, are you okay?" Steve quickly raised up on his elbow, now fully awake and concerned. He reached down to lift your t-shirt up so he could inspect your injury, but you quickly grabbed his hand to stop him.

"I'm fine, Steve. It just got a bit more physical than we had anticipated."

Slapping your hand away and giving you a stern look, he roughly pulled up your shirt to reveal a large, dark bruise covering your left side from your armpit down to your mid-abdomen. "Are you fucking kidding me, (Y/N)? This needs to get checked out. This looks really bad." Steve rolled to his other side, sitting up on the edge of the bed to turn on the light, preparing to get dressed.

With a deep sigh, you tried to sit up but the pain caught your breath. "Ok, maybe you're right." You tried again to sit, but the tightness in your muscles was too much to argue with. "Hun, could you throw me a pair of sweatpants and my shoes?"

You could hear Steve talking quietly to someone. As he turned around you saw him slip his phone into his pajama pants pocket. He gently pulled your sweats on for you, but skipped the shoes and gently lifted you from the bed. "I called in the team doc. He'll be here in a few minutes." As he carried you to the elevator, he took a deep breath and shook his head. "You can't hide stuff like this from me, (Y/N). This won't happen again."

Closing your eyes and resting your head against his shoulder, you nodded in agreement. If only you actually believed it.

~~~

It took a few weeks for the Captain to assign you to another mission, worried that you would be injured again. You knew that your injury wasn't a fault of yours; you were one of the most skilled members of the team. In fact, your skills were so sharp and well defined that Steve had assigned you to lead missions without him, even over Tony or Natasha. Not everyone was as thrilled about this as you, however, with one particular agent causing a disruption over their attitude towards you. You knew that if you told Steve that your recent injuries were directly attributed to this particular agent's behavior, he would take the matter into his own hands. This was something you needed to figure out on your own if you wanted to maintain his trust in you and your abilities as a leader.

"Alright, team. Move out."

You were lost in your thoughts and hadn't listened closely to the Captain's directions, but this was an easy mission so you didn't feel it was a problem. Grabbing the file from his hands, you opened it to see the team members you would be bringing with you. Quickly closing the folder, you sighed and looked up at Steve, "Okay, Cap. We should be back by dusk."

Steve's posture straightened as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Is there a problem?"

"No. No problem." Giving him a small smile, you tried to reassure him so that he would drop the subject.