steve was far from the sparring partner of your dreams.

when tony had hit you up about joining the team, it had been flattering in a i'm-going-to-fucking-perish way. risking your life to battle the big three (aliens, androids and wizards, obviously) was for the good of humanity, but it also meant copious periods of downtime.

which in tandem, meant you needed to keep active. tony's tower boasted a lavish training room stocked with the latest fight simulation technology—this was tony, of course he was going to be extra.

ordinarily, your training sessions took place amidst a group—hence you could watch the tin man and the blond thundering bombshell attempt to pummel the other's head in without so much as breaking a sweat—but your partner today was none other than the star-spangled man.

steve possessed a humility so irksomely earnest that every unforgiving tumble became all the more galling.

he was a bloody super soldier. sure he'd been encased in ice for seventy years, but evidently, he could do this all day. even if he was struggling with acclimating to the twenty-first century, and the under the weight of america that clung to the stars and stripes he donned, christ, he didn't show it.

"you're leaving your left flank unattended. no wonder that chitauri was able to knock you out cold." rogers, who had knocked you over for the umpteenth time, had the decorum to help you back to your feet. you theorized he did so to hasten the process of causing you as much misery as possible.

while you were an utter wreck, he remained infuriatingly composed, attired in a simple white shirt and trousers that did nothing to obscure the formidable expanse of his shoulders or the unnerving prominence of his biceps—not that you were looking. his hand, which had been on your own a moment prior, was propped on his hip like a disapproving father.

you knew he considered you a liability. he just hid it better than the others. "tony might need to get you a shield too." he added, with a slight quirk of his brow.