Fandom: MCU
Pairings/characters: Steve Rogers x reader, Helen Cho makes an appearance
Words: 1564
Warnings: Sensitive topic

Prompt/summary:
For @cevansgirl​’s 1500 followers writing challenge! I’ve done the prompt “I found home in your arms”.
Just a short story of two people with not ideal backgrounds who have found love and comfort in each other.

It had been a rough mission, physically and mentally. Some old wounds had been... maybe not reopened, but the scabs had been scratched at and drops of metaphorical blood were trickling out. Add to that a black eye, cut lip, sore ribs and jaw, a slight limp, nosebleed and aching limbs, the flight home had been quiet.

Finding a room full of enhanced children was not something Steve and I had expected. We had been there because of an anonymous tip, an old seemingly abandoned apartment building that was really a HYDRA nest. After we had cleared the area, collected all the data we could find and thought we had been through it all, Steve had heard noises. And there, in a hidden room deep in the basement were about twenty enhanced children, all from the age of maybe 4 or 5 up until mid-teens. Locked away to be "rehabilitated" for having powers. We called for backup, needing to get them out of there.

I kept my cool until help came. Talking to the children, reassuring them. The evidence of the "rehabilitation" was visible on them, on their skin and in their eyes. The longer I was there with them, the more panicky I felt. When backup finally came, I rushed out in need of air, only to collapse in the tiny lavatory in our Quinjet, dry heaving and hyperventilating, the nosebleed I got from being headbutted starting up again.

Steve took care of everything and when he came back to the jet, I sat in the co-pilot chair, still panicky and struggling to breathe normally, but also feeling shame for not being able to control myself. Not to mention, my uniform was covered in even more blood than before. Steve didn't make anything of it. Instead he kissed the top of my head, got us into the air and activated the autopilot. Then he found a medkit and knelt down in front of me.

As gently as he could, he cleaned the cut on my lip and the worst of the nosebleed, just enough to last until Helen could take care of everything. When he was done, he laid a hand on my cheek and stared up at me, bright blue eyes telling me everything I needed to hear. I leaned into the warmth of his hand, closing my eyes for a moment. Soft lips pressed against mine, and some of my unease lifted.

He pulled back enough to lean his forehead against mine. "They will be fine," he whispered against my lips. I nodded barely noticeable but felt him smile against me. Then he stood up and put away the bloody gauze and the medkit, and came back with an icepack for his bruised eye and sore jaw and took over the control of the Quinjet again.

In the infirmary, Steve was having his ankle checked by a nurse. It was not necessary in the slightest, he didn't even limp anymore and it was feeling a lot better in the couple of hours it had taken to fly back and would be right as rain in the morning. But he knew it was pointless to protest. And it gave him a moment to look over at Doctor Cho treating the cut on his girl's lip, cleaning it better than he had done and then taping it.

The two women were talking quietly about something that brought a smile to her face and a giggle to come from Doctor Cho. Steve's lip pulled at the corner too. That was a good sign.

That room with the enhanced kids... As an enhanced human herself, her parents had sent her away to be rehabilitated when she was 7. She'd spent a couple of years in a place like that, being poked and prodded, been to "counselling", and basically been physically and verbally abused. Eventually, she and a few friends had managed to escape. A couple of them didn't make it far and that was something she didn't like to think about. She had tried to go home, but her parents had spat insults at her, saying she shouldn't exist, she wasn't right, she'd never be anything, they didn't have a daughter, and slammed the door in her face. Trying to stay under the radar, she and a couple of the kids that had escaped had lived on the streets for a while, until they managed to get up on their own feet. But she had never found her place.

That's how she and Steve found each other. The battle of New York opened her eyes to S.H.I.E.L.D. and she'd enlisted hoping it would give her somewhere to belong. Somewhere where she could use her abilities for something useful. Feel worthy. But it wasn't until she got paired with Steve for a mission and got to know him and bond with him over not feeling like they belonged in the world that things changed. Slowly, they found their place together. She showed him that there was something worth living in the now for, and he showed her that she meant the world to someone. Now, Steve knew he didn't – couldn't – belong anywhere without her. If he woke up in a different world, planet, universe tomorrow, as long as she was with him, he was home.

The nurse declared Steve's ankle well enough to not need a supportive brace, his jaw would be fine and his black eye was already colouring as if it had been days, so he was free to go. She was still being checked by Doctor Cho, who was now poking and prodding at her nose. Steve worried it might have been more damaged than it looked after she got headbutted by that HYDRA scumbag, but he trusted Doctor Cho to fix whatever it was. So, he decided he would go find a computer and write the report so she didn't have to.

I felt restless at home waiting for Steve. The best cheeseburger I knew tasted like cardboard with ketchup and pickles. My favourite pyjamas felt scratchy against my skin. Steve's art on the walls was unrecognizable. The couch felt hard and lumpy.

I wanted nothing but sleep, but my heart rate was through the roof and it was like I had ants in my blood. It was impossible to settle down. I tried my best to watch TV, but my legs bounced, my hands were fidgeting, I wanted to get out. And run, run, run, far away. I kept seeing the children in that room, sometimes they changed into the children I had been locked away with. Everything felt just like it did when I was there. Not belonging anywhere, nowhere to go, nothing. Just get away, away, away.

There was the sound of the door being unlocked and I started, nearly spitting out my heart. It opened and I picked up on the sound of familiar footsteps, breathing with relief. Boots were untied and pulled off. Then the padding of feet across the floor.

"Hi, doll," Steve said, leaning over the back of the couch, still looking dirty and bloody.

"Hi." I smiled, face feeling stiff.

"Smells like you showered already?"

"Yeah. I'll just go take one alone then."

"Dinner's in the fridge."

He grinned. "Love you."

"Love you too." I watched him as he walked into the bedroom, and then I heard him undress and head into the bathroom, starting up the shower. I tuned out the TV and just listened to the water running, leaning back in the couch. Imagining the water cascading down his naked body, blood and grime and soap running down the drain. If I hadn't felt exhaustion starting to pull me down, I would have joined him.

By the time he came back out, I had dozed off and didn't notice that he warmed up dinner, sat down next to me, ate and flipped through the channels. It wasn't until he put the empty dishes away and came back and put one arm under my knees and the other behind my back and pulled me gently towards him as he leaned back on the chaise that I woke up.

"Hi," I said sleepily, leaning into his chest.

"Hi. Some mission, huh?"

"They are going to be okay now." I felt that in my heart.

We sat in silence for a bit, letting the TV do the talking and I marvelled at how grateful I was to have Steve. How I had never felt grounded before I met him, and just how calm my soul was with him. I knew he felt the same about me, and that felt even more comforting to me. Being the man out of time and being reminded about it all the time in so many ways, I knew it wasn't easy. But he showed me in so many ways that I was for him the same that he was for me.

And today it had been my turn to have the old scabs scratched at.

"I want another cheeseburger."

A rumble sounded in his chest, his whole body shaking with laughter, and I couldn't help but laugh too. "You're incorrigible, doll."

"Duh."

Steve tightened his arms around me, still chuckling. Grinning, I took a deep breath, smelling his clean skin, the detergent on his shirt, a whiff of garlic on his breath. I had found home in his arms.