Lucy Rogers had never considered herself to be particularly maternal. Then she'd had children. The critically acclaimed doctor had gone from working 36 hour shifts at a hospital, to working 50 hour weeks at S.H.I.E.L.D., to 24/7 care of three small people who needed her to be their mother. She'd chosen to stay at home with them - a choice that had paid dividends when Hydra had seen fit to attack Steve Rogers' family and necessitate a move to Rhy'Din for safety's sake. And then the twins had arrived.

It had been utter chaos in the Rogers household for the first month or so, but now, three months on, Lucy thought she had this under control. It wasn't uncommon to find her with both Sarah and Natalia strapped into the double sling on her back while she played with Jamie, cuddled with Lianne, shared confidences with Martin. Steve wasn't gone often, and he wasn't gone long, but during this particular absence, she had discovered one thing that was seriously getting on her tits every single day. So what had she done" She'd chopped it off.

Lianne had been horrified with her, but was slowly coming around to the decision, especially since it made her unique in the family for a while. But without Martin's exquisite control over the animals and his ambulatory brother and sister, Lucy would quite possibly have torn something more than hair out. To be honest, she couldn't wait for the twins to get big enough to be left in the play pen. Carrying them around all day was becoming inconvenient.

Thus, when Steve returned this time around, it was to find his wife ever so slightly changed from the last time he'd seen her just a few days before. Convenience was all very well, but would he like the change" Would he even notice it, given that she'd fallen asleep on the couch waiting up for him"

Traveling back and forth between Rhy'Din and Earth had proved a lot easier than Steve or even Lucy had thought it would be; hence, he was home for dinner most nights, and when he wasn't, he was usually home by bedtime. Tonight was an exception, as he'd been held up at Avengers Mansion longer than expected, but at least he'd made it home before Lucy had given up on him and gone to bed.

She was curled up on the couch, the TV still flickering but muted, long legs bare beneath her short pajamas. But where he would ordinarily have seen a braid, or a tumble of dark hair ....it was all gone, styled into a pixie cut that somehow made her look startlingly young as she napped.

As observant as he was, he didn't notice the change right away, tip-toeing as he was around the house to get his shoes off and lock up the house. It wasn't until he was settled that he was ready to wake her to take her up to bed. That was when he noticed the change, fingers touching her hair as if searching for where it all went. "Luce?" he whispered, calling he quietly. "I'm home."

She stirred at the brush of his fingers into the short crop of her hair, dark eyes blinking open as she smiled sleepily up at him. "Steve," she whispered, her tone fond. "Welcome home, baby." She pushed up, curling an arm about his neck to hug him close.

"Sorry, I'm so late," he apologized, as he always did when "work" kept him from returning home when promised. That usually meant something had happened - either good or bad - that had required him to stay longer than expected.

Lucy smiled, drawing back to kiss his cheek. "You're not that late," she assured him. "Not too late to go and say goodnight to Martin and Lianne, at least. They've only been in bed about an hour." She kissed the tip of his nose. "That'll give me a chance to warm up your dinner, too."

"You cut your hair," he said, unable to keep that thought to himself any longer, his fingers combing through her short crop of hair as if he'd never seen anything like it before. Short hair on a woman was unheard of in his day, but these were modern times and fashion had changed. He smiled, signaling the fact that he was not displeased with the change. "I like it. It's different." There would be no more mistaking her for Liv, though Steve had never been known to confuse them.

She chuckled softly, enjoying the rub of his fingers through her newly-cropped hair. It was a very different sensation to his fingers running through long hair, that was certain. "I got tired of trying to keep it under control while keeping everyone else under control, too," she admitted. "That, and Natalia threw up on my shoulder and then rubbed my hair in it. That wasn't fun."

He chuckled a little at that, though he knew it probably wasn't very funny at the time. "Sorry," he said, apologizing for something that was out of his control, maybe because he felt a little guilty that he wasn't there to help her as often as he'd like to be. Thankfully, there was plenty of company and help available at Maple Grove, if only they asked for it. "What does Liv think?" he asked, as he helped her up from the couch.

Lucy shook her head with a smile. "Don't be sorry, they're my kids, too," she pointed out in amusement. Being thrown up on was an everyday occurrence for at least the first year, as they both knew. "Liv ....took one look, laughed, said I looked like a boy, and that it suits me. I'm not sure how to take that."

"Take it as a compliment. Might take a little while to get used to, but I like it. What do the kids think?" he asked, as he took a seat on the couch beside her. He still had to say goodnight to the kids and tuck them in, but Lucy came first.

"To be honest, I don't think Jamie's noticed," Lucy chuckled, leaning into him affectionately. "Martin didn't seem to know what to say, but Lianne was absolutely horrified. You'd think I'd cut off her dolls' hair, the reaction I got."

"She'll get used to it," he said with another chuckle. Her hair was pretty short, but it still wasn't as short as his anyway. "You're still my Luce," he said, leaning close to touch a kiss to her lips to prove he was in love with her, not her hairstyle.

"It'll grow back, eventually," she promised, smiling into his kiss. She'd missed him; she always missed him, but she knew how important his work at A.E.G.I.S. was. Setting up a new covert agency was never going to be easy, especially with Hydra still active on Earth. "Go and say goodnight to your eldest, love. I'll get your dinner ready."

"Thanks," he told her, not realizing how hungry he was until she mentioned dinner. He could go a lot longer than most people without food, but eventually even a Super Soldier needed to eat. He touched another kiss to her lips before moving to his feet. "I won't be long," he promised, though that usually depended on how many questions he had to answer or stories he had to tell.

His kiss left her smiling as she rose with him, heading into the kitchen as he headed upstairs to wish his two eldest goodnight. It was never safe to wake Jamie once he was asleep - the toddler had a tendency not to go back to sleep for several hours - and the twins were only just sleeping through the night, but Martin and Lianne seemed to prefer having their father come in whenever he got home to say goodnight and reassure them he was home safely.

Steve knocked lightly on the door where Martin and Lianne shared a room, before peeking his head inside. "Hey, can I come in?" he asked, as if he needed permission.

The animals were the ones who responded first. Thor just raised his shaggy head from where he was stretched out at the foot of Martin's bed; Cheri rolled over onto her back, stretching her feline paws toward the open door. The puppy, however - Kiki, from Bella's litter - fell off Martin's bed in her excitement, bounding clumsily over to Steve with a yapping bark.

Lianne sat bolt upright, surprised by the noise, and her face lit up in a sleepy grin at the sight of her father at the door. "Papa!"

"Yeah, but that's not what concerns me," Steve admitted. It was one thing if Fury had the scepter, but quite another if Hydra had gotten their hands on it. "If Fury is still alive, he needs to let us know somehow."

She sighed, rubbing a hand through her hair. "Would he, though?" she asked pointedly. "Fury isn't really a team player. If he's decided to drop off the grid, would he really tell anyone on our side what he's doing?"

"What good does it do to drop off the grid?" Steve countered. "If he's worried about safety, we could have kept him safe, but disappearing without a trace" How are we supposed to know what?s going on?"

"What good did it do to keep secrets, to keep the fact that Hydra was still active out of the files and away from you?" she countered. "The man has never had the same priorities. He doesn't share anything he personally doesn't think others should know. He's never been trustworthy, Steve, even if he is on our side."

Steve frowned, not really wanting to believe that. He'd always trusted Fury; he even considered him a friend, but Lucy was right. The fact that he'd disappeared without a trace and had taken the scepter with him didn't bode well as proof of Fury's trustworthiness. "Maybe I should go looking for him," Steve suggested aloud, but looking for Fury would likely be like looking for a needle in a haystack, and if Hydra did have him, then that was exactly what they were hoping for.

"Maybe you should delegate that," she told him, gesturing for him to start eating. "You aren't suited to covert ops and espionage, love, and finding Fury will need both. Maybe you should ask AJ and Meg to make Fury their priority - their transfers across have to be complete by now, surely?"

"You're forgetting the fact that AJ is my double," Steve pointed out, though that could work either in their favor or against them. He picked up his fork, his stomach reminding him that he was hungry, even if his appetite wasn't what it should be.

"All right, ask Clint to do it," Lucy suggested, already knowing he would veto that one on two counts - one, that Fury knew Clint Barton, and two, that Clint had a family.

"I was actually thinking about sending Alyona and Nicolai," Steve countered, in good part for the very reasons Lucy had already considered herself. They were the only two of the team Fury hadn't met in person yet; hence, the only two able to find him without being recognized.

"Does that mean we're moving up the operation on Nicolai's arm, or pushing it back?" Lucy asked, raising a brow. She wasn't going to argue with him on this point; it did make sense, and between them, those two were more than a little terrifying when they focused. Fury would not be very likely to slip through the net if they were the ones closing it.

"I don't think we have time for an operation right now, but I guess that's up to Nicolai," Steve said. He could have issued orders for the pair to go on the hunt for Fury, but he was hoping it wouldn't come to that. With SHIELD slowly transitioning to AEGIS, they were still sorting out who was in charge of what.

"Personally' I'd prefer to push it back until we can get Bruce's input on the proposed procedure," Lucy pointed out calmly. "Use that to keep him on side. He trusts Alyona, and Alyona trusts you. I doubt waiting another month or so is going to harm him in the long run."

"That arm is a weapon in itself," Steve remarked, knowing Lucy had examined it for herself. A weapon that could come in handy, but it wasn't his place to tell the man whether or not to have the operation to remove it for a prosthetic.

She nodded, smiling faintly. "To be honest, I've been hoping he'd change his mind," she admitted. "We've worked up a sheath we can set over the metal to disguise it as human skin, if he needs it, but I can't put my hand on my heart and guarantee that the operation to replace his arm would be a success. It's totally untried."

"A jacket and gloves will do for now," Steve said as he took up some chicken and rice on his fork. "I've got Nat running some intel. If she comes up with anything on Fury, she'll let me know."

"She does know him best, if anyone does," his wife agreed softly. "Has there been any decision on a director for the new operation, yet' Last I heard, Hill's name was being bounced around, and somehow Croft was on the list, too."

"You have a say in this, too, you know," Steve told her, though AEGIS was hardly a democracy. Still, she was not only his wife, but had been a member of SHIELD and he trusted her judgment as much if not more than anyone else's.

Lucy sighed, rubbing her neck. "Hill has always been Fury's creature," she said reluctantly. "Without knowing what his agenda is, I don't think it's safe to put her in a position of sensitive authority. Not yet, anyway. Croft might not have experience in high administration, but he's honest, and he knows both sides of the coin within the agency, background and active."

"Fury's creature or not, if she knows where he is, she's not talking," Steve said, in between forkfuls of chicken and rice. And she hadn't said anything about the scepter either, which could prove dangerous if it got into the wrong hands.

"What it boils down to, Steve, is that you - all of you - need someone you can trust calling the shots," she told him firmly. "I don't think Hill is that person. Whatever she knows, she isn't sharing it, and that could get someone killed."

He considered what she was saying quietly a moment. "We're going to keep it to ourselves that we're looking for Fury," he said. If Lucy's suspicions were right and Hill was in cahoots with Fury, then she would most likely tell him if they were looking for him.

"You'll have to," she said just as quietly. "If there's even a possibility that she's in contact with him, we both know she'll pass on the information as soon as she can. Nicolai and Alyona have been out on ops for several months now - their continued absence wouldn't be unusual."

"But can we trust them?" Steve countered. There were so few he trusted these days, outside of his family and a few close friends. Somehow, Hydra had managed to infiltrate SHIELD, and he couldn't afford for them to infiltrate the newly-formed AEGIS, as well.

"They could have destroyed AEGIS before it even got off the ground by now," she pointed out. "Either one of them could have broken you by hurting me when I was pregnant. Alyona went out of her way to break the conditioning in Nicolai's mind to save your life, as I recall. Nicolai forced himself to recall every mission they ever sent him on, just to fill in the blanks in our files on him. Why would they do things like that, if they were planning on betraying us?"

It wasn't really so much a question of whether they could trust Nicolai and Alyona as who could they not trust' "I know," he admitted with a sigh of his own. He didn't want to admit it, but it had been a couple days since he'd gotten a decent night's sleep, and he was starting to feel paranoid. It was Nat who'd told him - no, ordered him - to go home, get some rest, and spend a few days with his family. There was no question he trusted her, anyway.

Lucy reached over, stroking her fingers through the hair on the back of his head affectionately. "Things will look better in the morning," she promised him softly, knowing the way he had a tendency to run himself into the ground if someone didn't step in and pull him back. "School broke up, so you might end up doing breakfast if you don't manage to sleep longer than me."

The last thing Steve had been expecting was for Lucy to cry, but even worse was the fact that she was blaming herself for being a terrible mother, when nothing could be further from the truth. He knew having five children thrust on her in less than four years wasn't easy and it wasn't something she should have to do all alone. "No, you're not. I'm the one who's to blame. I'm a terrible father. I should be home with you, not off trying to fight a war that's never going to end."

"It's not your fault," she insisted. "I knew when we got married, I knew when we had Jamie, this is the way it would be. I was ready for it. God, I'm so bad at this. I'll get better, I promise. Now the twins are sleeping through the night, I'll get more sleep myself, and I'll have time for them, for all of them, I promise. You don't have to walk away from your fight, Steve. I know you're not ready to let it go."

He sighed. When she put it that way, it sounded like he was obsessed with destroying Hydra. He liked to think he was just doing his duty. It was what he'd signed up for, but even the most dedicated soldiers retired eventually, didn't they' What was it about Hydra that he felt he had to make it his personal responsibility to destroy them' There was what they'd done to Martin and Lianne and Alexei and Maria, for starters. And then, there was everything else they'd ever done from the very first time Steve had learned of their existence.

"It's not about letting it go, Luce," he said, trying to explain and feeling like an idiot. Was it time to hang up his shield" What then" "Tell you what ..." he started. "I'm gonna take a few days off. Stay here with you and the kids. Give me a few days to think it over. See what I can figure out."

"I'm sorry," she whispered again, raising her head to touch her brow to his. "I didn't mean to put this on you. You have nothing to feel guilty for, love. Me not being able to cope, that's my problem, and I'll deal with it. I promise."

"Luce, when we got married, we didn't know we were gonna end up with five kids. We didn't know Hydra was gonna infiltrate SHIELD, and we didn't know Fury was gonna disappear with the scepter." And that was just for starters. They also hadn't known Hydra was going to send an assassin after Steve, either, though that wasn't entirely surprising; and they hadn't known SHIELD would be dissolved with AEGIS taking its place. "I promise, we'll figure it out ....together. Okay?" he asked, touching a kiss to her forehead. There wasn't much he wouldn't do for her and the kids, and he was confident they'd figure this out.

"Okay." She managed a small smile as she nodded, relieved that she hadn't made him angry with her unexpected confession. Leaning close, she wrapped her arms about his neck, holding him tightly for a long time, just breathing him in as she let herself calm down from her agitation and sense of failure. "I love you."

It was hard to make Steve angry, especially when it was Lucy. Even Tony had a hard time making Steve angry. "I love you, too," he told her softly as his arms went around her to hold her close. It was his turn to feel guilty and a bit like a failure, though he was determined to make things work, one way or another.

She squeezed for a moment, pulling back to wipe her face dry. "All right, enough with the weepy," she said, talking more to herself than to him. "Did you have enough to eat' There's meringue pie in the fridge if you're still hungry."

He chuckled a little as she changed the subject to that of making sure he had enough to eat, reaching over to very gentle brush the tears from her face. It hurt his heart that he'd made her cry, but he'd promised to always be there for her, and he wasn't about to break that promise, Hydra or not. "Maybe later," he told her, not really in the mood for pie at the moment. "Right now, I just want to spend a little time with my wife, if that's okay."

Lucy smiled, tilting her face into his touch. "Then we should cuddle up on the couch, because your arse is going to go dead if I sit on you here at the table," she informed him, a hint of her usual self making an appearance despite her slightly shaky composure.

Or cuddle in bed, which is where they ended up, sneaking in a little adult time before falling asleep in each other's arms. With work forgotten for a while, Steve was able to relax and focus on what was really important to him - his family, who seemed to need him far more than he'd realized.

Whether it was holding tight to Lucy, playing with Martin and Jamie, cuddling with Lianne, or helping out with the twins, every interaction with Steve was precious to his family. So precious, in fact, that when the baby monitor crackled in the wee small hours of the night, Lucy groaned in her sleep, holding tighter to him, not wanting that time to be stolen away from her. But it was the babies, and they needed someone, too.

She sighed, forcing her eyes open as she rolled away. "Just my bloody luck ..."

He awoke with her, bleary-eyed, but better able to handle sleepless nights. Of course, it had been a few nights since he'd gotten a decent night's sleep of his own, but he'd make it up one way or another. "It's okay. I've got this," he told her, touching a kiss to her forehead before rolling out of bed and padding bare-footed to check on the twins.

She groaned again, squeezing his hand even as she relaxed back against the pillows. "Y'sure?" she murmured, but he was already out of bed and she was already asleep again before he could answer.

Both twins were awake in their shared crib, complaining because they were lonely, not because they needed anything doing for them. Sarah kicked her feet as Steve came into view; Natalia gurgled. They both recognized their daddy, even if he wasn't around much.

"Well now, what seems to be the problem here, ladies?" Steve whispered as he padded into the room to find the twins wide awake, but not seeming to be in need of anything. Neither was crying, but he checked their diapers, just in case, deciding it wouldn't hurt to give them each a change. Of course, by the time that was done, they were even more awake and not looking like they were going to go back to sleep anytime soon, and so, Steve settled himself in the rocker, one daughter in each arm in an attempt to put them back to sleep.