chapter forty-seven
superheroes that bowl?

𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐍 the kitchen of her New York apartment, watching the eggs cook in the pan, when she felt a pair of arms wrap around her waist. "What are you making?" Steve asked as she looked back at him, kissing his nose.

"What does it look like?" she replied, turning the eggs over. "I'm making pancakes. I thought it was obvious."

Steve rolled his eyes. "Haha. Very funny."

"I thought so," she said with a smile before sighing when Steve stole her spatula. "Since when have you become so playful?"

"Maybe I've always been playful," he told her and she tilted her head. "We just couldn't do anything while living in tents and fighting a war."

Grace nodded, clicking her tongue. "I always thought you said you weren't a ladies' man. And a little birdie told me that you were freaking out before our first date."

"Who told you that?" he asked.

"Who do you think?" she retorted, leaning against the countertop with a smirk. "Besides, we can't do anything. Addy and Sam are gonna be here any minute. Why do you think I've prepared a breakfast feast?"

Steve kissed her neck as she turned back to the stove. "Then cancel."

"We can't cancel," she argued, shaking her head. "You're the one who invited her over. Said that even if she isn't a SHIELD agent, she should still stay in shape."

Steve furrowed his brows. "Then why is Sam coming?"

"I needed the company," she replied with a shrug. She turned back and held up a plate to him. "Here. Eat something so you don't pass out from exercise."

He sighed and took a bite of the omelet. "Happy now?"

"Very."

⸻ ~~~ ⸻

𝐒𝐀𝐌 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐄 𝐒𝐀𝐓 on the couch and watched as Adelaide collapsed on the ground, breathing heavily. "Okay, okay, I surrender!" she exclaimed, throwing her hands over her head while her blonde hair stuck to the back of her sweaty neck. "Why do I keep agreeing to this? Every time I spar with you, I end up regretting it."

"It's good for you to stay in shape," Steve said, holding out his hand for her. She looked over at him with a tired expression. "Okay, I might have pushed you a bit too much."

"'A bit'?" Sam repeated making Steve look over at him. "She started turning into a tomato about four minutes into the workout."

Grace nodded. "Yeah, you are aware that not everybody is a supersoldier, right?"

"Okay, okay, I get it, I make things too hard," Steve said with a sigh as Adelaide pushed herself into an upright position. "I just have a lot of things on my mind."

"Bucky being one of them?" Grace asked softly and he nodded, sitting next to her. "I know that you're frustrated, Steve. We all are."

He nodded and let out a breath. "Yeah. I know. I'm sorry." Grace rubbed his shoulder and hugged him closer.

"Well, the mood in here died quickly," Adelaide said, groaning as she stood up and placed her hands on her hips. "I think this means that we have to do something fun."

Grace looked at her. "What did you have in mind?"

"We're going to go bowling," Adelaide said making the three adults look amongst themselves in confusion.

"Bowling?" Grace repeated.

Sam tilted his head. "What about us says that we'd be good at bowling?" he asked.

"It's either that or you listen to me wheeze from my ridiculous workout," Adelaide told them and Grace nodded.

"Bowling it is, then."

⸻ ~~~ ⸻

"𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐈𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐘 𝐎𝐅 this fun?" Sam asked later that day. He looked up at the scoreboard and saw he was losing for the sixth game in a row. "How are you all so good at this?" He looked at Steve. "Well, you're good at everything, so you don't need to answer that."

"Well, it would help if you didn't aim your ball toward the gutter," Grace replied, snacking on her nachos. "You do know the goal is to knock down the pins, right?"

"Haha," Sam deadpanned with an eye roll.

"Come on, Sam, it's not that big of a deal," Steve told him, his arm dangling over Grace's shoulder. "It's supposed to be fun."

"It would be fun if I wasn't losing all the time," he replied and Grace sighed. "Come on, one more game."

Grace shook her head. "Sam, we've been here for three hours already. I've eaten nothing but junk food. I just wanna go home and watch a movie."

"And something more?" Steve whispered in her ear and she hit him in the shoulder.

"Shush," she said, shaking her head before shrugging. "Maybe."

"Okay, Sam, I'll tell you what," Adelaide said, turning to look at the man. "One more game, you and me. And if you beat me, you can brag about it for the next month."

"Deal."

Grace leaned her head in the crook of Steve's neck as the two watched Adelaide and Sam switch off bowling. As time went on, it was clear that Sam was not going to beat Adelaide. She was simply too skilled for his lack of experience.

"Ooh, maybe I should consider a career in bowling," Adelaide said once the game was over and she walked back to the group. "Do they make good money playing professional bowling?"

"I have no idea if that's even a thing," Steve replied. He looked down at Grace to find her playing solitaire on her phone. "And I think that's our cue to leave."

"Does that mean we can watch a movie when we get home?" Grace asked him as they separated from Adelaide and Sam, the former telling the latter that she would not play another game with him.

Steve sighed, opening the door. "Is it gonna be Disney again?" She shrugged and he let out a breath. "So long as no wooden puppets are turning into a real boy, I'll watch it."

⸻ ~~~ ⸻

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐕𝐈𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐁𝐄𝐄𝐍 playing for approximately twenty-three minutes by the time Grace had fallen asleep, snuggled under a blanket. Steve had been confused by the fairies' decision to bring Aurora back to the castle on her sixteenth birthday that he hadn't noticed she wasn't paying attention.

"If the point was to keep her from pricking her finger, why did they bring her back on the day that she was supposed to prick it?" he asked. He looked down when he didn't hear any chuckling. "Gracie?"

She snuggled further against his chest and he smiled softly at the sight. He wrapped the blanket more securely around her shoulder and took out the claw clip she had in her chocolate brown hair. He turned his attention back to the movie, seeing Aurora crying at her vanity.

"Oh, come on, you've known him for one day," he said with a sigh. "How heartbroken can you really be?"

By the time the movie ended — which Steve found off ("She's unconscious, why are you kissing her?") — it was almost ten o'clock. He gently shifted on the couch but Grace didn't wake up. He carefully picked her up from the couch and carried her into the bedroom, setting her down on the bed and laying the covers over her.

"It's a good thing you're always wearing comfy clothes," he said to himself as she adjusted her position on the bed when he heard a knock at the door. "Who visits this late?"

He gently closed the bedroom door behind him before walking to the front door. When he opened it, he saw Adelaide on the other side. "Hi," she said. "I know it's late, but my apartment is really empty and there are weird shadows on the walls."

Steve raised his eyebrows. "You helped take down HYDRA but you're afraid of shapes in the dark?" he asked.

She nodded. "Things in the dark are much scarier than in daylight," she replied, shifting her bag on her shoulder. "Do you mind if I stay the night?"

"Well, I'm not going to send you back to your scary apartment this late, so I guess not," he said, stepping to the side and she walked inside. "You can take the spare bedroom. I suppose you already know where everything is since you practically live here."

Adelaide smiled at him. "Thanks." She paused at the doorway of the spare bedroom and looked at the soldier. "I just wanted to say... when we were on the Helicarrier... I'm really sorry that I froze." He furrowed his brows. "If I kept running at him, maybe Bucky wouldn't have shot you and you wouldn't have almost died."

Steve sighed. "Addy, if there is one thing to know about me, it's how often I put myself in danger and almost die because of it," he told her. "If you had kept going, then Bucky might have shot you and I couldn't live with myself if something happened to you because I couldn't do anything to stop it. It was my choice to do what I did on that Helicarrier. Not Gracie's, not Nat's, and not yours. Just mine. Okay?" She nodded wordlessly. "Come here." He wrapped his arms around her upper body, resting his hand on the back of her head and she laid her head on his shoulder. "You're a good kid, Addy. And I appreciate that you worry about me."

She shrugged as she pulled away. "It means that I finally have people to worry about," she said quietly. "Goodnight, Steve."

"Goodnight."

Steve watched as she walked into the bedroom and closed the door behind her. He walked back into his and Grace's bedroom and quietly slipped into bed. Grace turned over and snuggled against him. "Who was at the door?" she asked tiredly.

"Just Addy," he replied, kissing her forehead. "Go back to sleep, sweetheart."

She nodded. "M'kay. I love you."

"I love you, too."

⸻ ~~~ ⸻

an: flirty steve is kinda
fun to write...

my sweet addy having
a heart to heart with
steve melted my heart

and with this, act three
is officially done! off
to act four and some
happiness followed
by pain...

if you know, you know...