Day one was easy, and day five was a bit more challenging; day fifteen had you questioning your decisions, but something clicked on day thirty-one that had you beginning to think that you had a shot at this actually working.

"Steve, throw the damn shield," you breathed out heavily, standing ready for him to move, but growing annoyed that he was hesitating.

"I don't want to."

"I don't want you to either, but you're the one who made this plan for me. So throw the thing already."

He groaned to himself and finally gave in, throwing it with precise aim, but with far less strength than you expected; you easily reached up and plucked it from the air before it could connect with you to do any sort of damage. It also did nothing to test your ability. "Rogers, I swear..." you snapped, pulling back and returning the throw with every ounce of energy you had; it was enough to knock him back off his footing, earning applause from your trainer.

"Nice, (Y/N). I see your aim is still intact," Clint laughed. "I'm gonna get you trained on the bow yet."

"Keep that dream alive, Barton- woah, get down!"

Steve was still being kind, bouncing the shield off the far wall and towards you, allowing you a few seconds to respond, but this time there was no mistaking that he was at his full strength. As the trajectory shifted you realized that it wasn't aimed for you, it was aimed for Clint. You dove forward and threw your shoulder into him, knocking him to the ground before the shield could strike him down instead.

"What the hell, Steve?" you barked. "That was a dirty throw!"

"No it wasn't," he smirked, "you did exactly what I wanted you to do."

"Oh, so now you wanna play?" Seeing the look of recognition in Clint's eyes that he had seen his life flash before him for no real threat, you pushed up from atop him and assumed a fighting stance towards your fiancé. "You really want to do this? If I get my hands around that pretty neck of yours, you are going to sleep."

"Give me your best, doll," Steve growled, lowering himself to match your position. He waited for you to make the first move, his body shifting in anticipation of your attack. He rolled you first, easily flipping you onto your back and pinning you with his legs. "I thought you were ready."

"And I thought you were smart," you smiled up at him, thrusting your head forward to catch him in the jaw and tipping him back enough to get your legs free. He paused to regain his senses with a shake of his head, but before he realized what was happening, you were on his back with your arm tightly around his throat and your legs pinning his arms to his sides.

"Go to sleep, baby."

Steve kicked his leg out to try to jostle you free but to no avail. He managed to stand and stumble back, slamming you against the wall with his weight, but you held firm despite the pain that crushed your chest. You could hear Clint laughing from across the room and glanced up when Tony entered the room.

"You know you can't get out of this, Steve. You never could," you cooed into his ear. "Just go to sleep."

"Is she seriously knocking him out?" Tony gasped, watching you with both complete shock and overwhelming awe at how fast you had regained your skill. "This is fantastic! Take him down, sweetheart!" he yelled out to you with an enthusiastic clap of his hands.

Steve dropped forward onto his knees and you felt him begin to relax beneath you. A momentary flash of worry and a little bit of guilt crossed your mind and you loosened your grip, unsure if you were actually able finish the fight as you had promised. "Bad idea, (Y/N)-" he began, but you quickly tightened around his throat again. It was only a few seconds before his vision began to darken around him and he felt himself tumbling forward.

"Sweet dreams, Captain."

~~~

"Mornin', sleeping beauty," Tony giggled. "How's your neck?"

Steve sat up and coughed a few times, rubbing his hand across the slight bruising that you had left behind. "How long was I out?"

"Only about twenty minutes. Thor carried you out here so you wouldn't be in their way."

When Steve bolted up off the couch, he stood too quickly and felt the sudden rush of the shift in his body and wavered, having to reach out to grab Tony's shoulder to steady himself. "She's good," he groaned, "I don't know why she was so worried about this." When he regained his senses, he spun on his heel towards the gym, anxiously trying to see inside. "They're still working? Without me?"

"Yeah, but Romanoff is in there now too, calm down. I've got your back, Cap," Tony said reassuringly, "they aren't in there alone."

"Thanks, I appreciate that." Now that he felt better about being away from your side, he sat back down and accepted a beer from Tony, still marveling at the soreness from where you had all but crushed his throat. "Tell me something, Stark. What the hell is my problem?"

Tony's face lit up like a child on Christmas morning at the question, his mind immediately racing with a multitude of answers on any number of varying topics. "You're going to have to narrow that down, Cap. I've got days worth of answers ready."

"About Barton," Steve huffed, taking a long drink from his bottle before setting it down on the table in front of him. "I've gotta get past this. I totally trust her, so why can't I do the same for him? It's been months and I can't get my head to move on. She's started to plan the wedding, so really, how much more secure do I need to feel here?"

"You've lost a lot of people in your day, including her for a while. We get it."

"We?"

Tony choked on his drink as he fought back his laugh, setting the bottle down and wiping his chin of the spilled contents, "oh yeah, we talk about you guys all the time."

"That's just great, Tony, thanks. I'm glad to know that we can keep you guys entertained." Steve slapped his hands on his thighs and stood, doing his best to convince himself that he needed to trust that you knew what you were doing and that Clint would make good on his promise to keep his feelings in check, if he were even still having them. "I'm just gonna go see how they're doing." He took only a few steps when FRIDAY's voice jolted him when it echoed blaringly throughout the room.

"Captain Rogers, Mr. Barton requires your assistance emergently in the gym."

~~~

A mere 5 minutes earlier

"This time let's try from a different angle, alright?" Clint panted, leaning forward with his hands on his thighs, trying to open his chest to take in more air after your last hit knocked it from him. "I'm gonna grab my bow and I want you to disarm me."

"We've done this already," you replied, breathing equally as heavily, "twice."

He nodded silently, other than the wheeze you thought you heard with each breath, taking his bow in hand and spinning before you were ready, striking you across the back to knock you to your knees. "Oops," he smirked, pushing his weapon over your head so the bow string was digging into your neck and cutting off your air supply. "What are you gonna do?"

"You smug son of a bitch," you struggled, reaching up to try to slip your fingers between the string and your skin, but he saw this and kicked your hand away. When you landed prone he flipped to his back and pulled you on top of him, continuing tension on the bow.

"I heard Cap needs a nap partner."

You weren't able to answer him anymore, feeling your throat grow dry and tightening under the pressure; you had to save what little air you could to try to maneuver away before you blacked out. He had his legs around yours, pinning them to the floor, with your arms wedged behind you. With a slight wiggle of your fingers, you found the lower edge of his rib cage and hooked them underneath, sharply digging into the edge of his diaphragm; he let out a yelp and released you just long enough to get yourself free. Rolling off and turning to face him, you straddled his waist and pressed the bow to his neck with your knees holding his arms in place.

"Then let's give Cap a nap partner, shall we?" He kicked a few times and bucked his hips to throw you off, but you prevailed, "no, Clint. I've got you. The faster you let it happen, the easier it'll be-" you stopped, releasing him at the shock of Natasha yanking you back by the hair and several feet from him. "What the hell, Nat?"

"I think your session is over," she replied plainly, looking from you to him.

"I don't think that's up to you." You stood slowly and rubbed your head where she had gripped you, "and that was a cheap move. I thought you were better than that."

"I'm really not."

Clint stood quickly and moved to stand just ahead of you as if in a protective mode that you felt he didn't need to provide; you promptly negated that belief and took a stance in front. "Nat, if you have something to say to me, let's have it. You and I have been dancing around each other for a month now, so if you wanna go, let's go."

"Guys, this isn't a good idea," Clint said as calmly as he could. "I think this is all just one big misunderstanding that Nat and I should be working out."

"Since when are you the jealous type, huh?" you goaded, now almost anxious for a fight just to get it out of the way. "It must be a mess up in that pretty red head of yours to convince yourself that your best friend would do that to you. You must be completely disillusioned." The sneer and curl of her mouth at your words set you in place, firming your stance for her attack. If Clint wanted to test you, he was about to see the ultimate final exam. When she lurched forward she clipped your legs and threw you over her head, onto your back with a slam that sent your head spinning.

"I am not jealous. You were taking the move too far."

When she thought you were down and turned to face Clint you stood quickly and grabbed her hair, much as she had done to you, wrapping it around your hand and giving it a strong pull that brought her to her knees. "Don't lie to yourself. I'm sure you would've loved it if he had succeeded in taking me first," you scoffed. "You are jealous, Nat. I'm not sure why, because I've done my best to convince you otherwise, but it's about to completely ruin this friendship. Is that what you want?"

Clint rushed forward to attempt to get between you, grabbing your hand to untangle it from the red strands that were weaved around your fingers. "Come on, (Y/N). Let go."

You obliged and released her, but brought your leg up and kicked her squarely in the back, sending her onto her stomach against the mat. She immediately rolled and took your foot in her hands to flip you to the ground and sit atop your stomach with her forearm pressed into your throat. Once again, Clint attempted to intervene but Natasha kicked him away.

"Wait your turn, Barton," she snapped, "you're next."

Realizing that he was in over his head and not wanting to hurt either of you, he finally gave in and called for help that would certainly escalate this to an entirely new level of problems.

"FRIDAY, I need Steve!"

~~~

Once the gym doors opened, everything happened really fast, with heightened voices filled with vile words, tangled arms and legs, a few cheap shots, and one bloody nose belonging to the one guy who wasn't even really involved. Steve lifted you from behind to carry you from the room, taking care to avoid a strike from your still-swinging arms and legs, while Clint struggled to pin Natasha against the far wall until you were gone, ducking away from her punches.

"There's no way in hell that she's my maid of honor now!" you yelled as the doors shut to finally separate you, now trying to free yourself from Steve's grip, but he wasn't giving up.

"Calm down, (Y/N). What the hell happened in there?" You jostled under his hold but he wasn't letting go without an answer. "Dammit, stop fighting me and just answer! I'm not gonna set you down until you do."

"Romanoff lost her mind, that's what happened! Now put me down!"

"Are you going to stay out here?"

"I'm not a child, Steve."

He set you down gently onto your feet but kept his arms wrapped around you as if he were not quite ready to place his full trust into you yet. The twitching he felt in your muscles worried him that you were saying what he wanted to hear just so you could have a chance to run back into the fight. "I'll let go when you promise me to walk away."

"She started it."

"I'm sorry," he smirked, but with no humor in his voice, "didn't you just say that you weren't a child? Because that's the excuse of a five-year-old."

You closed your eyes and took a few deep breaths, thought they weren't doing much to help calm you. "Steve," you said slowly and with concentration on your choice of words, "I don't want to argue with you too, alright? You can let me go. I won't go back in there. I want to check on Tony." When his arms finally released, you hurried to the bar where your friend was sitting with a towel resting gingerly against his grimaced face.

"Oh, Tony, I'm sorry," you whispered, pulling the towel down to find him still bleeding. You got up and gathered a pile of ice in a new towel, taking a seat next to him and holding it gently against his skin. "Your face got in the way of my elbow."

"Just tell me that you won," he mumbled, "so I can feel like it was worth it."

"No one was going to win, Tony, you know that." You sat still at his side and waited for the bleeding to finally abate, propping him up on a large pile of pillows to keep his head up until you were certain that it wouldn't restart. When the black and blue colors began to form over the bridge of his nose, your guilt really took off and you felt tears starting to build at the regret of his injury being your fault. "This whole thing is because of me. I should've known better than to ask Clint, but I didn't stop to think..."

"Were you doing anything wrong?"

"No."

"Then don't beat yourself up over someone else's misinterpretation. Trust me kiddo, I do it all the time."

You ran your fingers gently over the bruise that was spreading beneath his eye and looked at him with appreciation for what he was trying to do, but in your desire to get what you wanted, you overlooked even your own best friend and what it might do to her to see Clint working so closely with you again. Natasha really wasn't the jealous type, and she was anything but insecure, but there was no reason to take that for granted. There was certainly no reason for this to be the end of a friendship.

"Thanks, Tony. But I think I messed up, and it's for me to make this right."