9. Chapter 9

Steve was pretty sure he was in love with Phil by the next morning when he went down to the medical floor, and damn the consequences. Like everything else he had ever wanted in life, if Steve got a chance at it, he was determined to hold on until he died. The thought made him feel light on his feet, and he bounced on his toes anxiously as the elevator dropped to the medical floor.

He found Phil tottering along the hallway with Natasha helping him. They both looked grumpy and it was easy to see that Natasha did not like playing nurse and Phil did not like needing assistance.

"Mind if a break in on this waltz?" Steve said as he walked towards them.

"I refuse to help again until he's back on coffee." Natasha grumbled as Steve slid into her place, adjusting Phil's hold on him so it was more comfortable. Natasha stepped back and looked at them. "You two have this figured out now?"

"House fully in order." Steve nodded while Phil was still mustering a response. Phil looked up at him for a second then grinned.

"I better go haul Clint in for a sparring session." She sighed heavily.

"I talked to him last night. He seemed okay with, ah, this."

"Oh, he is okay with you two being together. He's not okay with Phil being shot."

"I'm fine," Phil grumbled.

She looked at Phil, and then at Steve. "Was he eating half the kitchen last night?"

Caught out, Steve nodded. "I only saw him massacring the popcorn, though."

"Damnit!" Phil struggled forward and Steve tightened his hold.

Natasha reached out and put her hand on Phil's shoulder. "He's fine. I'll go distract him. You get well." She smiled at Steve with a small nod before turning and heading for the elevator.

"I feel like I'm missing half of what is going on," Phil said, taking a few more steps forward. He was a little off balance, but his strength was coming back so Steve was mostly there to keep him on an even keel. The nurses, having no one else to fuss over, kept a collective gimlet eye on them as Phil shuffled along.

"You probably are. When I was a kid in the orphanage, we used to have proctors. Usually they were older kids who got extra food or treats from the sisters for keeping an eye on us."

"Fury is not giving me treats, I assure you."

"My point is that when one of them was sick or called away, the entire floor was mayhem. Sometimes they figured out everything we got up to, but usually not."

"This is not easing my mind in the least," Phil grumbled.

"Relax, Phil. You've got a snitch, remember?"

"You'd rat out your teammates?"

"Me? No. I was talking about JARVIS."

Phil chuckled as they reached the end of the hall. He stared at the elevator longingly.

Steve leaned down to whisper. "Not yet. But when you leave here, we're going in that elevator to your suite. Together."

Phil blushed and ambled a slow turn back towards his recovery room. "You play a dirty game, Rogers."

Steve nodded, smirking. He wasn't a virgin, with gals or guys, but he was hardly the smooth operator that Bucky had been and it felt like a triumph to get "his fella" a little worked up. When they got Phil back into his bed, though, the thought had shifted back the previous night's worries. "Do you mind if people know?"

Phil frowned, but his expression cleared when he realized what Steve was asking. "Absolutely not. I've been 'out and proud' since my separation from the Army. SHIELD regs are far more relaxed. I need to shift you over to Sitwell as it would be inappropriate for me to continue to mentor you, but otherwise there are no hurdles that I'm concerned about." He sighed, then, and looked over at Steve, who tensed up.

"Steve, you're Captain America. There is a certain mythology attached to you, and you're a very public persona whether you like it or not. If you want to keep, ah, this situation private, we can do that. I would understand."

Steve moved to sit on the edge of the bed and clasped his hands together. Phil shifted around, getting settled, and let Steve have his moment.

"Clint said you're the kind of guy who takes this kind of relationship seriously."

"I am, and I do." Phil nodded.

"I am too, and I know if I were dating someone else, like, uh, Natasha, well." Steve stopped there, hoping his point was obvious.

Phil nodded. "No one would think twice of you dating a woman. A man over fifteen years your senior, on the other hand…" Phil trailed off and shrugged with his good shoulder.

Steve leaned back a little to look at him. "Is that what you think?"

Phil focused on the corner of the room. "You were born in 1918, Steve, but technically you're only 29. I'm 45. But to be fair, I think most people would focus on the fact that you are dating a man, regardless of my age. It's going to be a scandal, though, and our age gap is going to be used as a weapon."

Steve sat with that for a while. Phil eased back fully on the bed and closed his eyes.

He thought about everything he knew, which, given his research on Tony Stark, was a lot. Tony's whole life had been mired in celebrity controversy that would have given the Hollywood gossip rags of Steve's day complete conniptions. Some of that still haunted Tony, even after all his good-will work with the Avengers and developing arc reactor technology. More than a few magazine headlines had been cheap shots at Tony and Pepper's relationship, often dredging up scandalous photos of Tony in compromising situations from years earlier. On Clint's recommendation, Steve had avoided the "Stark sex tape" video links that kept popping up.

And, bluntly put, Phil wasn't Peggy. He was very much a man, a middle-aged man, and no one was going to miss that fact or what it meant. "This could get pretty messy," Steve finally allowed

"A master of understatement as always, Captain Rogers," Phil said, his tone dry. Then he sighed. "We aren't even out of the gate yet, Steve. Let's try this for a while when I'm not in the hospital, and see where it goes. You might get bored of an old bureaucrat like me. And the controversy would not be worth the trouble if you-if we decide to end this quickly."

Steve stared at him. "Bored of you?"

Phil waved a hand around, his ears going pink. "Or not. I just mean anything could happen. Let's take things slowly."

Steve nodded, reaching out to clasp Phil's hand in his own. He was pretty certain it was too late for him to take it slowly, because he had been unintentionally doing just that for nearly a year. Where that thought took him, and how it made him feel to think about spending the rest of his life with Phil, was something he was not too sure that Phil would like as much as Steve did.