Who: Steve Rogers & Daenerys Targaryen What: After wedding mess clean up When: The morning after the Pepperony boat incident Where: Dany’s house in Newport Beach Rating: PG-13 Status: Complete
Dany was more than a little frazzled. Her dragons had broken free from their chains when they thought she left them and went looking for her only to cause chaos at yet another one of Pepper and Tony’s weddings. As far as Dany knew no one had been killed, but they easily could have been. Drogon had somehow gotten himself stuck down in the engine room and was causing a huge mess trying to get out. When Dany found him to set him free he barely recognized her, but luckily fire couldn’t touch Dany. Anyone else who had gone down there wouldn’t be alive to tell the tale. It wasn’t until Dany took out her whip and got Drogon to let her onto his back that things started to calm down aboard the boat. She and Drogon left the boat burning down below her and she could still see Viserion and Rhaegal circling before she passed out atop Drogon from smoke inhalation.
Dany woke up the next morning in the backyard of her home in Newport Beach where she usually kept her dragons. She was surprised to find all three of her dragons there waiting for her to wake up. Her eyes darted from one dragon to the next. She was at a complete loss for what to do. She knew that eventually the dragons would be too large for her to hold down with chains or to keep in her backyard, but she had expected it to take longer than it had. They had only hatched 9 months ago.
Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard a knock at the door. Dany picked herself up off of the ground and showed the dragon’s her hands to let them know she would be right back and then went inside to answer the door. She found Steve, her date to the wedding, standing in front of her with absolutely no idea how she looked herself. The truth was that her clothing was tattered and burned and she had smoke marks all over her body and several wounds that had started to scab over. She looked a mess and she didn’t even know it.
“Steve,” she said, sounding surprised. “What are you doing here?” Okay. Stupid question, but she was trying to stall.
Steve had known that the OC was weird, but lately it seemed to be getting more than a bit out of hand. Especially when it came to a certain couple’s wedding. This time took the cake, though, and only really in the last few hours has Steve been able to even attempt to process it all. He was concerned about everyone involved. But especially Dany. When he decided that he couldn’t not see her, he’d made the trip to Newport Beach.
He took a deep breath as he stood at her door. What was he going to say? How could he ask anything without sounding … Well. A bit rude or something. At the very least, he needed to know that she was okay. Steve knocked and waited, then smiled when she answered the door.
But his smile sort of froze on his face when he saw her.
“Uh. I came to see if - You’re all right. Er. You are all right … Right?”
“What?” Daenery’s eyebrows danced to the top of her forehead as she finally took a second to look down at herself. She realized she looked like she had just been eaten by a dragon and then spit out again which was essentially what had happened. She looked back up at Steve with a sheepish grin on her face. “I’m fine,” she said knowing that she would have to explain further.
“Come in,” she told him and held the door open for Steve. She remember saying something to Steve on the boat about being the cause of what had happened, but they had been split up so quickly she never had a chance to explain. Now was her time.
“Look,” Dany began as she closed the door gently behind her. “There’s something you should probably know about me.... if you haven’t already figured it out. Come with me.”
Dany held her hand out for Steve to take so that she could lead him to her back door. It was one of those large windowed sliding doors that gave a perfect view of the back yard which wasn’t really much of a yard at all. There was a reason why she had bought such a large property in Newport Beach. She needed a lot of space to keep her dragons and that much was apparent upon looking at it.... and them.
“Good.” That was one worry out of the way, then, Steve decided. He followed Daenerys inside a bit hesitantly, still feeling vaguely uncertain about the whole thing. But who wouldn’t feel on edge following whatever had happened the day before.
He glanced at her with slightly raised eyebrows as he took her hand. There was an ominous feeling about it. Still, Steve decided to smile at her. He was hoping to be reassuring, or supporting, or something like that. And he was doing a pretty good job of it, too, until he was peering out through those large windows and at what lay just beyond them.
“Uh. Are those --”
“--Dragons,” Dany finished the sentence for him. Her eyes lifted from her backyard to Steve’s face. She almost smiled at the look he was wearing, but she was too exhausted and stressed out to be smiling about much of anything at the moment.
“They’re mine. I’m pretty sure it has everything to do with the dreams people have around here. In my dreams? I’m an exiled Queen and I have dragons.” She paused and decided to try to approach the explanation another way. “Do you remember that day you saved me from the fire?” She didn’t wait for Steve to confirm or deny. “Well, there were eggs in that fire, dragon eggs. The fire hatched them and I’ve been raising them ever since. They’re grown.... a bit protective of me.”
“And they tried to save you from a day out on the sea?”
Steve blinked to pull himself back to earth. He turned to Dany and stared at her for a moment, then back at the dragons, then back at her.
“You’re raising dragons. In Orange County. Because in your dreams you have dragons.” That was the explanation, right? Seemed … Simple. Nice and easy and to the point. More or less. “That’s. Uh. That’s something.”
“They didn’t understand I was coming back,” she explained. “They thought I had left them.” It was probably a flimsy explanation, but it was all she really had.
“Yeah, it’s something,” Dany agreed. She watched Steve for a moment before adding “You’re completely freaked out right now. There’s a reason I never told anyone about them before. You’re the first to know.”
A crick in Dany’s neck made her flinch and then she reached back to try to massage it out. She hadn’t realized how much pain she was in until just then. She really felt like soaking in a bath, but that would have to wait.
“Like dogs?” Because that seemed the easiest thing to equate it to. Then he shook his head, laughing slightly. “No offence, Dany, but it’s sort of hard to not be freaked out when there are dragons staring you down.”
Steve looked at her with a half smile, then frowned a bit.
“You shouldn’t blame yourself, you know. For what happened.”
“Yeah, dogs that can fly and breathe fire,” Dany replied sarcastically, but she managed to crack a smile at Steve. She knew he was struggling to equate the dragons to something familiar, but he was always so sweet about everything. Even when they had been linked together and had no idea what they had done with each other the night before he had been the perfect gentlemen. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about him if she were being honest with herself. She hadn’t exactly had the time to think about it, but he made her feel safe. She knew that much.
“I know,” Dany sighed and made her way away from the window so she could sit down. She figured Steve would probably follow and you could see the dragons from anywhere in the living room really. “But it kind of was my fault. If I hadn’t gone to that wedding none of what happened would have...” her voice trailed off. “I don’t know what to do here.”
Steve gave another look at the dragons, as if worried about turning his back on them (though he was sure that fear was more or less unfounded), before following Daenerys. He sat next to her and gave her a hopefully reassuring look.
“You couldn’t have known. No one in their right mind is going to hold you accountable, everyone there was a good person. And Tony and Pepper are probably some of the best people anyone could ever meet - Have you, you know … Are you going to tell them? They won’t hold it against you, I’m positive.”
Dany frowned and lifted her shoulders up into a shrug. “I don’t know. What will it help for them to know who was responsible? I remember a couple months back Pepper was furious with Bruce for destroying their first wedding. I’m not sure if she ever forgave him for it and I’m not even friends with her, he is. She has more reason to hate me considering I --” Dany cut herself off. She wasn’t sure she wanted Steve to know she had slept with Tony a long, long time ago.
“I don’t know,” she shook her head. “What do you think I should do?”
“She just gets … It’s her wedding, you know? She’s a perfectionist, but she’s good.” Steve shrugged, too. He couldn’t believe his friends would rain down some sort of wrath on Dany. He chewed the inside of his lip a bit. “It might just get … I don’t know. You might feel better?”
He wasn’t sure. He’d never really had to think about anything like this.
“I think you should. It’ll just be worse if you try to hide it. I’ll even go with you, if you want.”
Dany’s eyes lit up and she moved her eyes from her lap up to Steve’s face. “You’d do that for me?” she asked, preciously perplexed. She wasn’t exactly used to people doing nice things for her just because they wanted to. She was used to people wanting something in return.
“Okay,” she conceded. “I’ll tell them. Maybe you’re right. It might make me feel better, but do you know what is going to make me feel better right now?” Dany picked at her tattered clothes. “A bath. Do you mind sticking around tonight? I’m not so sure I want to be alone afterall.”
Dany quickly realized that probably sounded like a come-on and she jumped to correct herself. “I didn’t mean the bath. I just mean - I’m still a little shaken up. It would help to have you over tonight, that’s all.” Not that Dany wouldn’t go there if given the opportunity. Sleeping with Steve was probably every girl’s dream.
“Of course I would! Anyway, it might make it easier to have, you know, a third party present.”
Plus, he figured he was a good voice of reason when it came to vouching for people. He gave everyone the benefit of the doubt, but he had to be pretty positive to back someone up on something. Steve gave Dany a smile, then laughed.
“Don’t worry - I didn’t think -” He blushed and glanced down, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, I’ll stay. Of course. Just, uh, let me run home and grab some overnight stuff? You can take your bath and relax and then I’ll be right back.”
“It really would make it easier. Thank you, Steve.” Dany definitely had a lot to thank Steve for. She owed him a lot, including her own life. She couldn’t think of a better friend to have.
Dany couldn’t help but smile when Steve blushed. She’d forgotten what it was like to make a man blush. Most men in the club weren’t exactly the blushing type. It was cute. “Of course,” she said. “Just let yourself in when you come back. I’ll leave the door unlocked. I don’t think anyone is going to be coming in here to steal things with the dragons in the back yard.” Dany chuckled softly at her own joke and then go up to walk Steve to the door.
“They’re not gonna, uh, freak out or anything if I come walking in?” he asked. It was meant to be light-hearted, but he wasn’t sure he could take on some dragons if they decided he wasn’t welcome.
Cracking a grin, Steve gave Daenerys a light hug at the door and nodded. “I’ll be back in a bit. Cross my heart.”