Chapter Text
"A picture's worth thousands of words but they don't tell the whole story." Jennifer Brown
-
Had anyone asked you a few years back what the favourite part of your day was, you would answer slightly evasively and yet in a manner that said it all: not mornings.
You were not a fan, at all; your biorhythm was set to being more of an owl. Therefore mornings were destined to be your doom. Mornings were destined to be everything but pleasant.
Then again, living next to Steve Rogers, Captain America himself, made one rethink their stands.
Because seeing him coming back from his morning run at seven a.m. like clockwork was a sight for your sore eyes, more so when he arrived ten minutes later with two cups of coffee from the nearest café. Those mornings, he graced you with your morning fix, a view of his t-shirt clinging to his ridiculously large frame and a million-dollar smile with a teasing edge, because unlike him, you had just barely shuffled out of bed.
Mornings like that were heavenly.
More so, however, living next to Steve Rogers also made one rethink their ways.
An agent operating under the Avengers Initiative for two years now and a former FBI agent for what felt like a whole past life often called for an early morning and regular workout. These two were not mutually exclusive unless you could help it.
You were certainly not a fan of participating in a morning run, but Steve was a very sweet running partner who’d always wait for you and who made for a perfect eye-candy because he’d just do push-ups and such while you were trying to catch up with him and your lungs tried to catch up with you.
Watching Steve was the best motivation; but ogling him was only platonic, of course.
You two were friends – dare to say best friends. Despite your slightly awkward start, the whole co-worker slash neighbour thing worked for you well. For all your knowledge of the human mind, you could only think of one way to describe what happened between the two of you to lead to your friendship: you simply clicked together.
Hence some mornings finding you actually running with him, returning to your apartment building energized and exhausted at once, breathless and with an ache in your feet and a smile on your lips.
Much like today.
Even after an atrocious hour of having to wait up for your ordinary human running – and it was a must for Steve, because that was who he was, he wouldn’t just leave you behind –, he was a gentleman.
Opening the door for you as you were entering your apartment building, he lifted one corner of his lips in a lop-sided smile, which only widened at your quiet thank you as you were still trying to level your breathing.
He followed right behind you to the mailboxes, joining you in your routine of sorting and exchanging mail between the two of you.
Every now and then, a new mailperson would join the post office and inevitably got confused by the absolutely baffling signs on the boxes that made for a lot of Steve’s mail ending up in your mailbox and vice versa.
Some of your neighbours lost patience and added stickers on their own mailbox to clear things up, but not you nor Steve had done the same. It actually became a habit to deliver the mail that ended up in the wrong box straight to each other’s door and have a quick chat in the hallway… or a coffee. Or a breakfast. Or a lazy morning where you convinced him to hang out on his couch and catch up with at least one episode of what you were currently watching.
For most people, getting mail was ought to be annoying, because usually it was either bills or ads or boring adult stuff. But like this? With Steve Rogers, apparently even getting mail could be fun.
“You were pretty quick on your feet today,” he uttered as he reached over your shoulder to his mailbox situated directly above yours, causing your heart to skip a beat at both the reminder of how easily he would able to pull you to his chest and tuck your head under his chin and his compliment. “I barely had to wait.”
“Maybe you’re just getting slow, GG. Your age is catching up to you,” you teased lightly.
“Ha-ha. Just take the compliment, will ya, Sparkles?”
You reached inside the box absentmindedly, glancing over your shoulder, met with the sight of his broad chest first, followed by his raised eyebrow as you looked up. You couldn’t but smile, nodding.
“Thank you, Steve.”
“Just the truth. You’re getting better and better.”
“Must be the right partner,” you shrugged, praising him right back – only to feel your eyes widen when you realized how it sounded.
The right partner.
It sounded like you were dangerously skimming the border between friendship and a romantic relationship – a border you seemed to be pushing more and more these days, even if almost exclusively on accident. Which was probably the only reason Steve let you off easily whenever you did so.
Just like now.
Still. Feeling blood rush to your face with more ferocity than during the run, you swiftly shut the box, ducked under Steve’s tree trunk of an arm and stepped away to make space for him, busying yourself with the envelopes in your hands.
Electricity bill – oh lord.
Water – great, it is that time of the month.
‘Buy yourself a new furry friend’—do not tempt me.
The last remaining envelope was curious to say at least, instantly making you frown; it was rather thick.
Now perhaps that was the curse of being a government agent, paranoia having a grip on you at all times… but this wasn’t just paranoia. It was a gut feeling. A gut feeling screaming at you despite the envelope not being sealed. No sealed envelope meant there were likely to be no explosives.
And yet…
As you pulled out the content carefully, your heart leaped into your throat, your blood running cold – and turning colder with every new image your eyes fell on.
“Hey, you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost and I’m usually the one being followed by those,” Steve joked lightly, an echo of concern in his voice.
You couldn’t find your own voice, you couldn’t find the words; your mind come to a screeching halt.
Distantly, you were aware of Steve looking over your shoulder as he stood behind you, the tower of a man he was, his hand brushing your lower back as if for support.
You knew he noticed how you had stiffened, because it was impossible to miss it. Your body went into complete defensive – and into panic.
Because in your hands there were photos – quite a few photos – and on every single one of them was the man standing by your side. Pictures of him at various times of day, captured at different places he frequented, almost always wearing a different outfit. The only thing connecting the photos was his expression – in most of the photos, he was smiling.
He looked as handsome as ever, but that certainly wasn’t what had your heart beating its way out of your chest.
“What the hell…?” he muttered, so lowly it barely reaching your ears.
Then again, maybe it had to do with the fact that the alarm bells in your head were ringing louder with each passing second.
Because someone was watching Steve.
Someone was stalking Steve.
And they wanted him to know – that much was clear.
What was considerably less clear but possibly even more menacing was the message written in black marker, underlined in red, written over every single photo.
NOT WORTHY
You had no idea what the fuck that meant, but frankly, you did not care.
You didn’t care about anything besides Steve being in danger.
It was that last thought that snapped you from your trance at last, years of training and practice finally kicking in as you spun to face him.
“Okay… I’m gonna go with you and check your apartment. Then, you’ll grab a quick shower and meet me in fifteen minutes,” you ordered mechanically, leaving no room for discussion. “You take a minute longer and I’m barging into your apartment with a gun.”
Your serious eyes met his, widened in shock, softened by the furrow between his brows.
“Come on now, that’s a little-“
“Not a word.”
He opened his mouth to oppose you once more, but you never gave him the chance, shooting him a glare that clearly made even Captain America think twice before crossing you. It kinda reminded you of the one time you stared him down when he told you he never tried pineapple on pizza and he really wasn’t sure it could taste good--- not important.
The clock was ticking.
“Fourteen minutes and thirty seconds left, Steve. You know I wouldn’t joke about this. Whatever your plan was today, it’s just changed,” you said, adamant. “We’re taking these straight to your friends. And I’m not letting you out of my sight until you’re in the same room as Ironman and Black Widow, at least.”
“Sparkles-“
You stared at him, unrelenting and stern even as anxiety weighted a ton in your stomach.
“Fourteen minutes, Steve. Let’s go.”
-.-.-
You almost made good on your promise as you stood in front on Steve’s door, listening intently and watching the seconds tick by, gun ready as well as the two knifes in your calf holster. You would not take any chances – this was Steve.
Just because the lock still looked untouched by brutal force and his apartment had been clean mere minutes ago when you checked it and you both lived on the eight floor and you secured the possible entrances from the fire escape, it did not mean any intruder couldn’t get in somehow.
Twenty seconds remained from the timer you had set and your legs were getting twitchy, preparing to kick the door in and run in, gun blazing.
Yes, perhaps you were being overbearing and took this extremely seriously, but you had a good reason.
Statistics were full of people who underestimated a stalker – and ended up hurt or even dead. Hell, you had lived through one of those cases and the bad ending after bad ending piling up had brought you here, hoping for better outcomes in your new job.
It was naïve to think you would never encounter a case like this ever again; but you had never imagined it would happen to someone you cared about so deeply.
Then again, no one ever did until a psycho made them or their loved one a target, may it be a stalker or another disturbed individual. The victims themselves often didn’t see it coming.
Kyle Meyers sure didn’t.
The life leaving his eyes, eyes accusing you of betrayal because you had promised to protect him flashed behind your eyelids, an image of your own bloodied hands stealing air from your lungs.
‘Please-‘ he had said, one little word, betrayed and yet so trusting, a grown man begging like a child, heart bleeding and vulnerable, because you had fucked it up and swore to keep him safe.
And failed.
Ironically, the authorities deemed you innocent, free of error, allowed you to stay despite the blood still staining your hands.
But the blood was so dark, crimson, so achingly red, red, red-
The timer went off with a vibration on your wrist, snapping you from your horror-like daydream.
Steve was still inside.
The timer went off, but you still had time. Steve was not going to end up like all the people you couldn’t save before.
Bracing yourself, you glanced at the door, muscles tensing, preparing to kick.
You nearly jumped out of your skin when the door flew open.
Steve watched you startled, shield up to protect himself from the gun you instantly aimed to his face – and you lowered it just as quickly, heart having leapt to your throat.
“Jesus,” you breathed out, closing your eyes briefly, gulping. Great, now I almost shot him before his stalker could get to him. “Sorry. I’m sorry, GG. Truly.”
Concern was written all over his face as he let the arm with a shield fall down to his side, engulfing you in a gentle half-hug, doing justice to his nickname of a gentle giant.
It was clearer than day he was more worried about your jumpiness than his own safety and if you weren’t so overwhelmed with just how impulsive you had been, it would irritate you. Steve wasn’t taking this seriously; those of past experiences you had shared with him and which were coming back to haunt you, on the other hand, weighted him down.
“It’s okay. I’m just glad you didn’t shoot me.”
You dug your elbow into his stomach hard, pushing away even if his warm touch soothed your nerves.
Jerk. This was not a laughing matter.
“Let’s go.”
Naturally, you insisted on checking the bike thoroughly; with Steve’s help because you were not much of an expert on motorcycles. Once again, you could tell he thought you were being overbearing, that you were overreacting – but you were taking no chances.
He would have jumped on the bike with no care for the world because they were just a few photos with a little note.
As if… as fucking if.
“Steve, we’re not getting on that bike unless we check it,” you said decisively, not above emphasizing the ‘we’, knowing all too well what you were doing.
Unsurprisingly, something in his blue eyes changed – slight annoyance melted into resignation... and then worry.
It was a low blow to use Steve’s mother-henning tendencies against him but until it got through his thick skull that he was in danger, you were willing to use any means necessary.
“Right. We ride together.”
“I told you I’m not letting you out of my sight,” you reminded him, mindful to sound less biting but no less firm. “For once, I don’t care if you mind having me tag along, because yes, I simply am riding with you.”
With a sigh, he nodded, crouching by the vehicle as you stood tall, sharp eyes monitoring the surroundings for anything suspicious or downright dangerous.
Neither of you found anything.
For now, your mind unhelpfully supplied as you climbed behind Steve, his shield holster on your own back so you could hold onto Steve tight and reach for the weapon when needed. You shushed the pessimistic voice as you pressed to his back and breathed in the scent of leather mixed with Steve cologne.
“Shall we?”
You just nodded against his back.
You trusted him to drive you both safe to the Tower; in return, it was your job to ensure you remained safe from other dangers than traffic.
And damn, you would.
You would keep him safe not matter the cost.