Authors Note: I am well aware it has been over a year and all I can say is life is a bitch, oh and writing is hard. But I am back and these boys deserve a completer story. As always drop a comment they make my day!!
I also changed the ending of the last chapter which is now at the beginning of this chapter:
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This cold disdain felt so much worse, it was like Jamie wasn't worth the energy it took to get mad, he was so beneath the Captain that he was like an ant that you didn't even bother to step on.
He wanted to matter. But it looked like his suspicions were right and he would never matter to man like Steve.
Jamie dug his phone out from his bed covers and dialed a familiar number. She picked up on the first wring.
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Steve wandered the streets of Brooklyn. His bare feet padded across the ground as he paced the familiar streets with few familiar buildings. His mind wandered as he walked, not feeling the chill in the air due to his super well everything. He thought about his name and how it had looked so familiar and right on Jamie's skin and yet when he had met the boy's eyes, all he saw was a stranger.
He thought about his mother and what she would say if he brought home a man as his soulmate. What would she have said? How would she have reacted? Would she have welcomed something so unconventional? Something so....wrong?
Not that it was wrong now, but well not based on what the law said. But what about what the Catholic Church said. It was a sin, but like before he thought of all the lives he had taken in WWII fighting for his country. Wasn't that ok in the eye of the law but wrong by the standards of the Bible?
Steve dragged his fingers through his hair, tugging on it in uncertainty. He found his feet slowing and stopping in front of an unfamiliar building. He looked around and realized he recognized an old dilapidated building on the corner of the street that had been brand new 80 years ago. His eyes refocused in front of him. This is where he had used to live for the first 16 years of his life.
He examined the building that had replaced the old one which had been a serious fire hazard. It was taller than the last one that had stood here. He check the alleyway beside it and saw a fire escape he could easily jump up to and climb to the top of the building.
He did so with ease. His bare feet probably received even more damage but he was too distracted to care let alone feel any damage.
Upon reaching the top, Steve could see a lightening of the haze that covered the skyline of New York which he was in the midst of.
His body clock naturally calculated the time telling him it was just past 6 in the morning. He had been walking around Brooklyn aimlessly for the last 7 hours.
The super soldier sighed and flopped spread eagle on his back onto the ground staring up at the dark grey sky above him.
He closed his eyes and immediately Jamie filled his dark vision. The picture of that face and all the expressions he had seen on it thus far.
It was so strange to have someone fill up his brain in such an all-encompassing way. Since the serum, his brain was always doing at least two things at once, but now all that filled his mind was that face.
As he flipped through all of Jamie's expressions he realized something kind of odd. None of them seemed positive. They were all negative or neutral expressions. You would think that when you looked at whoever your soulmate was you would be filled with positive emotions, or at least that's how Steve always thought it would be when/if he found his.
It could still always be a fake.... But no that didn't seem right. There was an instinctual feeling in his gut of wrongness when he tried to picture someone else with his name on their skin. This was all such a fucking mess.
The super soldier rubbed at his eyes. Nothing about this made sense. There were so many questions without answers like why had Jamie kept it hidden? why hadn't he registered? When did he get his soul mark? Was he just human or something more? Why didn't he tell Steve? You would think the first thing you would do if not register was to find and tell your soulmate especially if they were famous.
But the super-soldier guessed it would have been a bad idea if a strange man just walked up to Avenger's tower and stated that he was Captain America's soul mate. The questions, the speculations, they wouldn't have believed him until several different tests were done and Jamie would probably be trapped on the shield hellacarrier's hulk containment unit or worse while they sorted it out.
But then why not approach him after he was an intern. He was very good friends with Lucy why not tell her and then tell him? Maybe Jamie had been waiting to tell him and he spoiled the surprise?
Ugh, this was getting him nowhere but a headache.
Steve opened his eyes and stared at the sky, noticing immediately that it had lightened significantly.
He needed to get back to Avengers Tower. He had no phone, no weapons and even more damming no shirt or shoes. Just a pair of thin sleep pants. He couldn't solve anything looking like this, and he wasn't in the mood for Tony or Bucky to overreact and send out a search party for him.
Steve was not in the mood to run back to the tower so he meandered back lazily, not caring as people stared at the buff, crazy, person. He was an odd sight even for a seasoned New Yorker.
It was almost 10 in the morning by the time the elevator door of avengers tower opened onto the hallway leading to his quarters. If he had been thinking straight, or even being slightly cognizant of his surroundings and not currently caught in a fog he would have seen it coming.
But the slap that cut across his left cheek took him completely by surprise and his whole head cracked to the side. The rest of him didn't move because, super soldier, but still, the shock left him stunned and only able to blink as his eyes focused on the petite and utterly furious form of Lucy standing in front of him.
"How dare you?! How fucking dare you!" Lucy's voice shook with pure rage.
Steve hadn't seen her this angry since Bucky got himself captured and she threatened to shoot the poor man. But even then her voice had never sounded so cold.
"You come back here like nothing even happened. You should be on your fucking knees and begging for forgiveness. You made him cry."
Steve was slow on the uptake after the roller coaster of emotions he had been through tonight but even he could figure out what Lucy was talking about.
Anger started to simmer in Steve's blood. He went to walk past Lucy but she blocked his path and went to strike him again. The super soldier caught her wrist in an implacable grip, not enough to bruise but it was a close thing.
Lucy didn't try to rescue her wrist, she was smart enough to not try and fight a super soldier but her words were her best weapon anyway.
"You know I thought you were great when I was a kid, and then I met you and I just thought he's a little old-fashioned sure but he still represents the purest aspect of what it means to be a national hero. Fighting for all and that shit. But now I know the truth, you are just another homophobic asshole like all the rest. You don't deserve him and never will." She hissed at him the venom coating his skin.
Steve's face remained stone but his heart cracked under the pressure. Her words hit closer to home than he was willing to admit.
The super soldier used his grip on Lucy's wrist to twist her around and shove her away from him so she stumbled before catching herself. By the time she had her balance back he was already gone and in the safety of his apartment.
"Jarvis lock the door. No visitors or disturbances unless the earth is imminently about to be destroyed. I don't care what it is, I don't want to hear it."
There was a pause before Jarvis replied with a shorter than usual "yes, captain."
Steve frowned at the ceiling and then decided fuck it, he didn't care right now.
Steve stepped into his bedroom and headed straight for the shower. He stripped and turned the water on and immediately stepped under the raging spray.
He wondered briefly if it was possible for him to drown in a shower, probably not, though it would get rid of this blasted headache.
Ah well, he should probably think of a game plan on how to deal with this. Alright, first damage control. Jamie would obviously need to be moved into the tower for his own safety, which means he would have to talk to Tony, great. That would be a fun conversation. Another thing he probably needed to do was get some more sleep because of his injuries, and the stressful evening was getting to him. He would start with sleep then go to Tony fresh and prepared.
With decisions made Steve washed his hair and scrubbed himself down. He stopped when he noticed something wrapped around one of his feet. He crouched and examined it, it was the bandage that Jamie has so carefully wrapped around his injured foot that had healed within an hour of the glass being removed.
Steve's stomach made an unexpected swooping sensation that he had rarely ever felt before. It was definitely an unexpected reaction, but it was nice, someone taking care of him like that. Everyone around him just assumed he would heal quickly so why bandage such a small wound. And yet a regular citizen, who even though he was his soulmate didn't seem to have positive emotions for him, decided to take the time.
It was a rather pleasant moment that now that he thought about it, caused not only his stomach to swoop again but his heart to feel...almost fluttery.
The super soldier shook off the restless feelings and carefully unwrapped the bandaging. He turned off the shower and set the wet bandaging on the counter next to the sink. He scrubbed his hair and body down with a towel before wrapping it around his hips and crashing face-first down on his bed.
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Steve snorted his way back to the land of the living. He jerked himself up and stared down at the wet drool stain that covered part of his pillow.
"Jarvis." the super-soldier croaked out.
A pause before the usual response: "Yes, captain?"
"Wha'time is it?"
"3:00 o'clock in the afternoon"
"That's not horrible usually I sleep longer than just 4 hour-" Steve's speech was interrupted by a giant yawn that caused his jaw to crack."
"Captain, I believe it is necessary to inform you that you have been asleep for 28 hours and Sir, has asked me to inform you that you are being a homophobic piece of shit, and need to get your shit together and join the 21st century otherwise Sir will kick you out of his tower and kick you out of the Avengers because he funds them. He will also inform the world what a horrible person you are."
Steve groaned and collapsed back onto the bed, landing in the wet spot on his pillow. Another groan and he rolled onto his back and scrubbed at his eyes, removing the grit.
"Please inform Tony that I am not homophobic, just confused. And this is a personal matter between me and my soulmate, not something that involves the rest of the avengers."
"Sir has asked me to inform you you're still a piece of shit and next time you cause him to lose an employee, he will take the amount of that loss out of your wages."
