Unleashed {Marvel} ||3||

3. "It's Been A Long, Long Time"

Truthfully, I was used to Steve's absence in the apartment whenever he left for a mission. I couldn't deny that I hated it, I was so used to having someone around at all times here. It was times like this when I wished we invested in a pet, like a cat or a dog. Though, with how hectic our lives could easily get, maybe in retrospect that would be a terrible idea.

While the hours ticked away and the sunlight grew fainter, I messed around with Steve's phonograph (believe me, it took me a while to understand what the thing was exactly). It was huge, and it reeked of him so much that it wasn't even funny. I'd teased him about it the first night I'd been staying in here.

But, like everything else about his place, I'd come to like it.

~*~

"Your definition of dance and mine are probably very different," I said as Steve took a circular, black, thin disc and put it on the phonograph's body. "Besides...shouldn't this be something that you and someone else share instead of us?"

Steve looked at me oddly for a second, and then the realization settled in his blue eyes. He'd brought up how he'd missed out on that dance with Peggy in the midst of the war. It was a touchy subject to me, because I felt that I was tramping the moment that he should've had with her.

"Maybe this wasn't a good idea," I said evasively.

"Kiara," Steve pleaded.

I looked at him mournfully, crossing my arms. "You know I don't have the right to do this with you."

With tender eyes, he approached me, taking me into his arms. "It's in the past." He had trouble managing those words out of his mouth. "This is the present. As much as the past wants to hold me back, I can't let it. This is what I have now, not what-could-have-been."

I swallowed, nodding. "I still say our dancing differs."

"Well, I'm sure Asgardians don't have choreographed moves like humans do."

"Not true," I said, easing back into conversation. "We have what humans would consider 'ballroom dancing', I believe. We're more graceful with our bodies. We hold them highly."

"Then show me."

"I'll end up stepping on you, or the other way around."

"We're both tough, we'll stick it out."

Steve led me to the middle of the room. He put the needle on the record, and a tune that could only fit his era played in the apartment. The combination of instruments warmed me inside, and Steve took quick advantage of that. We were a bit awkward with our footwork in the beginning, which caused us both to screw up and laugh at each other and ourselves. Eventually, we settled on a smooth rhythm.

"We danced in better clothing too," I noted. "More like your ball gown clothing, although the men don't wear the suits that you do here." I wrinkled my nose. "They wear armor." I tried to now picture Steve in such armor. Captain America would certainly get a new look, and probably more women at his feet.

"Oh, no, I don't do armor," Steve said quickly, catching on to my look.

I shrugged. "It'd probably suit you."

The woman began to sing, and it almost transported me back to Steve's era. I pictured myself in Gods knew what clothing women wore back then. I pictured him in military attire, and the thought made my heart gallop.

We were cheek-to-cheek as a saxophone followed the woman's last bit of singing. I caught the rhythm of the song and found myself humming it under my breath. I yelped, but then laughed as Steve gently nudged me away from him, still holding onto me by one hand. We were spread out as far as we could be without breaking our hands apart.

Almost as if on natural instinct, I found myself spinning towards him, with him catching me perfectly. He threw me aside for a dip, so low that the top of my head barely kissed the ground. And when he pulled me back up for our faces to be close together, the song concluded.

"Perfect timing," I crooned.

"Wasn't so bad, was it?"

I stuck my tongue out at him and had barely enough time to stick it back inside its home before Steve kissed me. I smiled against his mouth, and we were in our own world, completely ignoring the noise of the phonograph as the needle kept making odd sounds, signaling the end of the record.

~*~

I checked the record before I played the song. Thanks to my phone, I'd found the title: "It's Been a Long, Long Time". The song was beautiful, and it made me wish I was born in Steve's era. I kept the volume a bit lower than normal so as to not disturb the neighbors or make my ears bleed.

I had to find something to busy myself. What is there to do? I'm not hungry. I could take a walk, but I'd have no idea where to go. I'd get lost. I could always practice. If only I'd gotten the mission's location, then I could've easily made myself useful. I doubted there was any point in contacting Natasha at this point, they were probably already knee-deep in the mission.

I brushed my hair behind my ears, thinking. I didn't feel up to a trip to the Smithsonian again. What purpose did that serve me, anyway? It wasn't like they had an exhibit on the Avengers, although I wouldn't be terribly surprised if that happened in the future.

Deciding out of boredom, I grabbed my phone and browsed the Internet. I couldn't help but Google news about the Avengers. You'd be surprised at what I found online. From YouTube videos, to edited pictures (some looked too amazing to be real), magazine articles, Facebook posts. And then you had your stories. And then the message boards, the debates about who was the best Avenger. Who should be together and who shouldn't. You named it, it was probably online.

Like the nosy being I was, I looked for anything about myself or Steve. Some people questioned why I was an Avenger ("Yeah, she's cool, but does she match the level of Iron Man or Thor? I don't think so."), but then you had others who were the opposite ("Her and Black Widow inspire women to be strong and fight for what they believe in."). I was flattered to be considered a role model. But these people only knew the surface about me, nothing beneath that, like my past with Thor or Loki.

Would they see me differently had they seen me in my possessed state? Would they want my head on a stick? I didn't see any footage of me acting out of character, so the world wasn't aware that I had lost myself for a short time.

Focus on the good. As Tony said, "haters gonna hate." I laughed to myself. He didn't seem to care what people said/thought about him. That was one of the things I admired about him, as childish as he could be sometimes. I kind of missed him, and Pepper Potts. Especially Pepper, as I didn't get to talk to her as much. She was too busy running Stark Industries, travelling for business trips. She was a superhero, in my view, without the funky super suit. To manage a company and Tony Stark, that was a huge feat to accomplish. You had to have a superpower to deal with all that and still keep your sanity intact.

I bit down on my thumbnail, feeling the hairs on my arms stick up. I clicked my phone off, peeking out one of the windows in the apartment. Nobody seemed to be watching me. Nobody that I can see, anyway.

The setting sun was in my eyes, and I moved away so I could see properly. You're alright, Kiara. Steve's going to be fine. He'll take care of himself. He'll come home. My fingers found the shield charm. He'll come home.

My stomach rumbled. Before I went away to fix myself something to eat, I checked all the windows, made sure they were locked. Even if they get in, I'll light them up.

It wouldn't be the first time I had to fend myself off from an intruder.

**I know, I know, so feelsy, right? [sighs] 

Oh, and Kiara's reluctance to dance? Well, in another Marvel fanfic I'd written, someone voiced their opinion about how they would feel it wasn't their right to dance with Steve since that right belonged to Peggy originally. I kind of wanted to play on that, since, you know, Peggy was Steve's first love.

If you remember in Ablaze, Kiara had her reserves even then, more so.

And now with Endgame...God damn it, I claimed this song in the name of Stiara long before they used it for Peggy and Steve.**