Marlena let out a huff as she watched the clock on her computer screen go by another hour. It wasn't even twelve o'clock yet, but she was already craving a midnight snack. Her chin rested in her palm as she finished reading yet another frazzled email from one of her NYU colleagues. It wasn't until a hand rested gently on her shoulder from behind that she realized she was no longer by herself.

"Please tell me you're hungry," Steve's familiar voice was smooth and soft in her ear.

Marlena turned away from the screen but was caught in a kiss before she could say anything; she cupped his scruffy face in her hands before pulling away. Steve smiled as he pushed her glasses back up to the freckled bridge of her nose. She hadn't even realized that over the past several hours they'd slipped farther and farther down her face.

"I am actually."

"Pancakes?"

"I thought I was the only mind-reader here," Marlena chuckled, playing with the small hairs of his growing beard. It'd been years since he'd allowed it to grow so much, and she forgot just how much she loved it.

Steve shrugged in response to her words and took her hand in his, pulling her up from her chair. "I don't need to be a mind-reader to know when you want pancakes..."

He trailed off and Marlena narrowed her eyes at him. "It's because I'm always down for pancakes, isn't it?"

"That'd be correct."

It was then that Jay sat up from the bed behind the computer area, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He had fallen asleep not too long after Marlena sat down. She promised to reply to only one email, but when she realized how much had happened since she'd taken her leave of absence at work, she knew she couldn't ignore her coworkers for another day.

"Like mother, like son—only wakes up when there's mention of food." Steve chuckled as Jay pulled himself down from the bed and groggily joined the two of them in the doorway.

"I had a bad dream," he mumbled, leaning against Marlena as she ruffled his soft hair.

Marlena and Steve exchanged concerning looks, but before Marlena could respond, Steve was already kneeling down to Jay's height. "Why don't you tell me about it, buddy?" He extended an arm out to Jay's shoulder, but he pulled it away when he could see Jay was a bit apprehensive. Just like his mom, he was a bit grumpy when he first woke up.

Marlena looked down at Jay as he peered up at her, almost as if he was asking for her approval to share his thoughts with Steve. So far, the kids had adjusted well to being back in the care of herself, Steve, and, of course, Bucky. However, Jay seemed to have a harder time opening up than Charlie; he was always a little bit hesitant.

"It was Charlie. She didn't mean to do it, but she couldn't help it, Uncle Steve."

Marlena felt a lump form in her throat; Marlena knew all too well how real and scary dreams could be sometimes. Hearing him talk now reminded her of the occasions in which her younger brother Mason had nightmares about her soon after she became Prodigy. She instinctively joined Steve at Jay's level and took her son's hands into hers.

"You don't have to be scared of Charlie; she would never do anything to hurt you—" Steve began, but a cautious glance from Marlena warned him to stop.

Marlena hadn't yet figured out what all Charlie was capable of, but she knew her daughter was very strong and quite possibly very powerful. Though she didn't want Jay to fear his sister, she also didn't want him to have false hope. If Charlie had even a fraction of the power her mother was capable of, and Marlena suspected she did, then she was a force to be reckoned with.

Tonight, however, Charlie was with Bucky. It was just Jay, Steve, and Marlena since Greyson, Miranda, and Mason had left for Washington earlier. If ever there was a time to discuss any fears or concerns Jay had regarding any of the chaos currently going on in their lives, the time to do it was now.

"It wasn't me that she hurt," Jay confessed, looking into his mother's hazel eyes.

Marlena knew her son well enough to know that this wasn't just fear she was looking at; Jay was worried. And he had every right to be, especially considering what he then told them.

"Charlie is more powerful than you, Mom. There is no one we know that will be able to stop her."

Steve looked at Marlena with worried eyes. She swallowed the lump in her throat as she pondered her son's words. This was exactly what they'd talked about earlier in the coffee shop, and Marlena didn't know if she'd ever feel good about it.

"Stop her from what, Jay?" Marlena squeezed his trembling hands.

As she peered into his innocent eyes she could not fathom how big the world must've seemed to him—there was so much that he couldn't possibly understand, yet he understood that he should be scared of his sister. This made Marlena want to burst into tears, but she didn't, she couldn't. At this point in her pregnancy she knew if she started crying it would take quite some time to stop, and Steve had put up with a rollercoaster of her emotions thus far already.

Jay looked down to the floor, his bottom lip threatening to tremble just as his small hands were. "Charlie brings life, Mom. But she is also death."

Marlena sat on the counter with a bowl of whipped cream in her lap, her legs swinging back and forth as she stared at the wall. She hadn't looked at Steve much, but she could see from the corner of her eye that he had tossed a dishcloth over his shoulder and was nearly done cleaning up the remnants of their midnight pancake bar.

Jay had finally gone back to sleep, this time in the guest bedroom that Steve and Marlena were planning to turn into the twins' temporary room. Now as a family of four with one on the way, they had plans to buy a house, but were impatiently waiting for the chaos to die down.

Steve met Marlena at the counter where she was perched, and he placed his hands on either side of her, "It was just a nightmare, Marlena. You used to have them all the time after—"

Marlena shook her head as she dipped her finger into the bowl one last time, then proceeded to lick the whipped cream off of it. "There are bad dreams and there are visions of what's to come, Steve. I'm afraid he might have experienced the latter."

Steve watched her carefully, but her eyes avoided his as she put the bowl aside and hopped off the countertop. He was forced to remove his hands from either side of her now to release her from his confines, though he didn't like how silent she'd been since their talk with Jay. He was anxious to know what was going on in her head.

"We can't possibly know that what he saw is actually going to happen. I thought Jay didn't have those kinds of abilities..."

"He doesn't," Marlena finally looked at him, but soon turned back to the counter. She removed the dishcloth from his shoulder and used it to wipe down the messy surface, removing any evidence of pancake batter. "But neither did Mason when he was younger, and some of the things he saw happen ended up playing out almost as if he'd predicted them."

Steve frowned and gripped Marlena's hands, removing the dishcloth from them once she'd wiped the same spot about five times as if that would somehow make Jay's dream disappear, too.

"But think of everything Mason was exposed to back then; he was watching a lot of things unfold that someone his age wasn't prepared to see—"

Marlena clenched her jaw. "And how am I supposed to know what my own children have been exposed to for the past five years, Steve? I have no idea what they've seen or what they've been through since they were taken from me."

He could see that she was getting worked up, and he could see that all of her normal efforts to keep calm were failing. Her fingers twitched anxiously and if she bit down on her bottom lip any harder he was sure she'd draw blood.

Steve walked with her over to the living room couch and pulled her down next to him. "Marlena, I know this has all been very hard. We're going to figure everything out. We're going to take care of it, okay?"

Marlena wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and shook her head. "Jay knows Charlie better than I do; they were without me for years and all they had was each other and a stranger that looked like me. I have no idea what my children are capable of, Steve. Charlie is harnessing abilities that took me and Wanda years to tap into. It's been ten years and we still don't know the full extent in what we can do. Do you know how terrifying that is?"

Steve paused and licked his lips as he thought. He could not help but think of all those years ago when Marlena was seriously struggling to come to terms with her new abilities; she was so out of control that Tony and Bruce had specially formulated sedatives to keep her weak. It was a low point in her life, and he knew she would never wish that experience on another, especially not her child.

"Marlena, I promise you, whatever happens, Charlie is in the greatest hands she could possibly be in," he assured her, but he could see she was not hearing him.

"I know, I know. I trust you with all of our lives, Steve, but—"

Steve shook his head. "I'm not talking about me. I'm talking about you and Bucky. She has the most amazing parents in the world, and yes, maybe she'll be a bit...complicated...but so were you." He gave her a comforting grin. "And I like to think Bucky handled you just fine."

Marlena knew Steve meant this in the kindest way possible, and he was right. Bucky went through a lot during his relationship with Marlena. There were so many times in which she thought it would be best if he had just given up on her, but he never dreamt of doing so. Reflecting on this relationship, this unique bond that she and Bucky had developed, was what finally brought her to the tears she'd been fighting off.

Marlena moved to sit on Steve's lap, and he welcomed her with open arms. Steve rubbed her back gently as she cried. He knew she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders, and for that, he respected the hell out of her. He just wanted her to know that she wasn't the only one going through all of these emotions. Bucky coming back to see that his best friend and wife were now a couple brought Steve a kind of guilt he never thought possible.

"He should hate me." Marlena was desperate to let the truth spill out. These thoughts raced through her mind since Bucky had returned, but she never felt it fair to bring them out in front of Steve. The last thing she wanted was for Steve to think she regretted any piece of their engagement or relationship. The truth was, Steve had been there for Marlena during a time in which she was desperate to feel anything but the pain Thanos left her with. He'd brought Marlena endless happiness and peace of mind, and he would continue to for the rest of their lives.

"He couldn't," Steve assured her.

And as the two sat there in silence, the only sound now a muffled sob from Marlena here and there, Steve realized all over again how incredibly lucky he was to have Marlena—not because she was one of the greatest friends he'd ever had, not because of the way she whispered 'I love you,' and not because she was the woman responsible for giving him the family he'd always dreamed of having.

No, Steve Rogers loved Marlena because out of everyone he'd ever known, she cared the most, felt the deepest, and loved the hardest.