Avengers The Captain's Secret

Part 40: Aftermath

CAP POV

"Oh, my God!"

I had barely gotten into the room before she was checking my injuries. "I'll be okay—"

"I can't believe you did that, I still can't believe you did that." She nuzzled my chest. I hugged her back. She patted the foot of the bed. "Sit."

I obeyed. I was sore. "What?"

"You fought for me," Her eyes locked with mine. "Fought! And thank goodness, you didn't kill Ingemar."

"I didn't see a point," I shook my head, shrugging. ""Ingemar was down, no sense in kicking him."

"Thank you," she said, looking at me. "In some ways I think he has been a prisoner here too." She looked up at me. "You may have to take this off."

I nodded in agreement, and did. Her reaction was mixed. 

"Oh, Steve." Her eyes poured over me as she shook her head with concern. "You should lie down."

"It looks worse than it is," I told her, looking
at my own cuts and bruises. I took off my boots, and scooted back, sighing as my head rested on the pillow. "I'm healing as we speak, I swear."

"You're still beautiful," she murmured as she turned away. I don't think she thought I heard, but I did. She had a bowl of herbs and water with a cloth. She began to wash me down. She was so careful, but her mind seemed elsewhere.

"What is it?"

"What?"

"Something's on your mind," I didn't leave room for objection. "Out with it."

"I just realized that you won." She concentrated on washing me. She had already done my chest, and was working on my arm. Her hands were firm, gliding over my muscles in the most soothing way, and ending at my fingertips. She actually massaged each one.

"Yes?"

"And in the eyes of the Jotun I belong to you." She went back to the bowl and began on my other arm. She wouldn't look at me.

I swallowed hard. She'd been figuring out the whole thing. "Yes, in the eyes of the Jotun you belong to me." I paused.

"Does that mean you have to claim me?"

I took a deep breath at the flurry of words. "Yes." I paused. "Thor was still trying to argue that we don't quite do things like that in Midgard—"

"You've always had me."

My breath caught. "I've always had you?"

She looked at me. "All my life Dad told me about you, like you were the blueprint of what I should look for—"

"I'm not perfect," I warned.

"Who is?" she laughed. "But the things that make you—you?" she smiled, shaking her head. "You're a wonderful person, Steve. You can have your pick of—"

I didn't know if she was starting a let-down or come-on. "Did you want him?"

"What? Who?"

"Did you want Ingemar?" I needed to know this. I had asked this question too many times for my own good.

"I never thought of him that way, really," she shook her head. "I was much too busy thinking about you. I told him about you."

"Oh," I said softly. This must be what Tony called 'friend zoned.' Poor guy. Don't care. Good. "There's something you need to know."

Her eyes were shining. "What?"

"When I decided to be your advocate, I was Captain America," I told her. I saw her eyes lower, so I lifted her chin so her face met mine. "But when I came here for you, to claim you?" I placed my hand against her cheek, and she placed her hand on mine. "I was Steve Rogers." I began caressing her cheekbone with my thumb, catching a stray tear. "Do you understand?"

Her eyes widened slightly. She seemed a bit surprised. "I think I so."

We stared at each other for I don't know how long. I just kept caressing her cheek, unsure of what to do-or how to proceed-next. It was terribly clear that she was inexperienced. I wasn't a Casanova, not even close, but I'd been around the bases a few times. Was it enough?

"So..." she whispered, looking around the room. She was nervous. She had every right to be.

"Come here," I whispered, drawing her down for a kiss. Her nervousness had to go, I thought, making it tender at first, just nibbling her lips, kissing her cheeks, her nose. I heard her sigh, and I pulled her down and across my body, then next to me on the other side of the bed. I stared down at her, and began caressing her cheek, stroking her hair, alternately. I looked in her eyes. She was relaxing, but not enough.

I had read a few romance and smut novels in my time. Traveling across continents on long plane rides to missions gave plenty of time to read stuff the soldiers and nurses brought with them when they tired of military plans and manuals. The point of the leading man was to make a woman forget her nervousness, cast aside her "good girl" inhibitions, and yield...

I could do that. I knew I could for one very good reason: I wanted her.