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The need to leave when he's finally found a place in the world.
He's got his bags packed –he travels light– and he is not expecting anyone to come knocking on his door today.
But here there's Agent Hill, in full S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform barely concealed by a leather jacket. It takes him a bit to place her, because Steve is very good with names and faces but he realizes he has never actually talked to the woman. In many respects, she is his superior.
There can only be one reason why she is here, and Director Fury knows of his plans for a long trip.
`If you are going to try and convince me to come back to work, I'm sorry, Agent Hill. My men have earned themselves a very long rest. And in any case we are not entirely sure we want to come back to S.H.I.E.L.D.´
`That's not why I'm here.´
She pulls out a little plastic folder and places it over Steve's dinner table.
`Credit cards, phone cards, an untraceable cell phone. Driver's license. IDs. Whatever you might need on your trip.´
He looks at the driver's license. It says Steve Rogers but they have bumped his birth a bit.
`We've transferred all that was owed to you into that account,´ she points at the credit cards. `I hope you agree with the sum.´
`I don't want S.H.I.E.L.D.'s money. Not until I know where I stand with them.´
Agent Hill shakes her head.
`This is not from S.H.I.E.L.D. This is for your service in the war,´ she explains. `There's enough so that you don't ever have to worry about making a living for yourself again.´
He thinks: Tony Stark has to worry about how to make a living, Bruce has to worry. Why shouldn't he?
But he figures he should accept the money anyway, if only because he doesn't have a consistent argument he can use against Maria Hill right now, and he has the feeling she is not going to let him twist her arm on the matter.
She looks around his apartment, more in appraisal than curiosity.
`Great choice of residence, sir, if I may´ she says. `Nobody would suspect Captain America lives somewhere like this.´
Steve covers his mouth with his hand, he doesn't want her to think he is laughing at her.
`That's not why I picked it, Agent. I wasn't trying to hide. I liked the place. It feels like home.´
Her whole body tenses, like someone who has just made a mistake in an exam and doesn't have an eraser to do away with the embarrassing answer.
`I'm sorry, sir. I assure you I didn't mean to pry.´
`That's quite all right. You didn't.´
Polite and rigid, she offers her hand to shake. She is at some distance and Steve has to take a couple of steps across the room to comply.
`Have a safe trip, Captain.´
There's an openness in her voice that catches him by surprise. Like she means it and it's not just what Fury's brief tells her to say.
`Yes, thank you.´
For the first time since he came back (and now he realizes it has taken him a long time to really come back, it has taken him much more than being rescued and defrosted) he allows himself to think about Peggy.
Something about this trip.
Something about all the time and all the space in front of him.
Something about being alone out here.
Ever since he woke up the details have felt unclear: her face, the look in her eyes, the memory of her voice. It's like he had purposely blocked any clear images and only now –when he is out of danger, when he is out in the world, when he begins to feel there's room for him in this time– they come back to him with excruciating accuracy.
He was in love and part of him remains that skinny boy who fell in love; the part of him that can't bring itself to believe he is ever going to feel something like that again.
Steve looks at the vast expanse of the desert –rocks smoothly shaped by time into the resemblance of a shoulder, a wrist– and he lets it all wash away, this simple knowledge of love and the impossibility of repetition. He needs this moment of self-pity, this one moment of despair, so that the part of him who believes there are good things on the horizon can breath in the moment after.
He decides it's time to go back.
For a long time the sound of somebody working the ropes in the middle of the night had always been his own.
It's pretty clear Natasha was not expecting anyone to come down to the gym at this hour, much less Steve. She is battling some invisible foe, light on her feet, up in the boxing ring.
`I have a favor to ask, Agent Romanoff.´
Natasha tilts her head.
`Sure, Captain. Anything.´
`You are quite apt at hand-to-hand combat.´
She looks bemused. `Thank you.´
`You've got some moves I've never seen before.´
(Natasha thinks that if any other man said those words to her she'd think it's a come-on line but Rogers means it, in an absolutely professional capacity)
`I thought I could do with a couple of lessons from you,´ he says.
`Lessons from me? Honestly, I think you would knock me out cold at the first punch.´
`It's not about strength, or the stamina. There are other aspects I want to improve. Flexibility. The capacity to react to different kinds of attacks. I need a sparring partner for that. I'm tired of working these bags.´
Natasha looks around the gym, she presses her best hand fist into her palm.
`It'll be fun,´ Steve tells her.
He looks down at the tiny cup of very dark coffee in his hand.
`What is this?´
`It's an espresso.´
Pepper Potts sits by his side on the couch and watches him as he drinks the coffee, looking expectant, waiting for his approval.
`It's very good, ma'am´ he says.
Steve has never got used to being alone with a woman, specially not in her house, it's in his nature to find it odd, but Pepper is a soothing presence, Steve doesn't really feel unnerved like he does with other people. There's a calm and friendliness about her and Steve likes that she feels a bit removed from their world, obviously aware of what's going on but not part of the battles.
`Tony will be down shortly,´ she tells him. `He tends to lose track of time when he's in the lab. Even I haven't seen him in about ten hours.´
`I don't find it hard to imagine he is a man easily distracted,´ Steve says.
`You have no idea.´
He looks away, embarrassed to have assumed he knows anything about Tony Stark –if he thinks about it it's sobering how little he knows– in front of this woman.
`This place looks different,´ he comments.
`Yeah, nothing like having your house destroyed by a mythical god to make you reconsider your taste in interior decoration.´
`It looks better.´
`I think so too.´
`I used to think this building was very ugly,´ Steve confides. `But now I think it's growing on me.´
Pepper gives him a curious look.
`I'm glad to hear that,´ she says.
(she studies his face – she doesn't mean to make him uncomfortable but she can't resist the chance, now that she has him close and they are in a casual environment; she knows the story, she has read the –um, classified but oh well– reports, she would love to pick Steve's mind about what it feels like waking up in this period after so many decades; and there's also the way Tony talks, and not-talks, about him, how there's a bit of old resentment because Steve knew Howard Stark, and how Tony is struggling to let that go; Pepper cannot help it if she finds it fascinating, having a quiet moment with Captain America, she's only human)
`Another cup of coffee?´ she asks, because she can see the silence it's starting to bother him.
`Thank you, ma'am.´
Pepper puts her hand over her mouth, shaking with laughter – it's a rich, warm noise.
`I'm sorry, Steve. Every time you call me ma'am I have this uncontrollable urge to giggle.´
`That won't do, Cap,´ a voice calls from the open elevator. Tony is pointing at Steve. `Don't make my girl giggle.´
Pepper gets up in a hurry and walks to him.
`Your girl? I don't like that.´
`No?´
`No, it's possessive, it's backwards, it's – first of all, I'm not a girl.´
`A woman, then. My woman,´ he tries, the palms of his hands against Pepper's hips.
`No. That sounds way worse.´
Tony winces.
`My Pepper?´
Pepper thinks about it for a moment, slowly putting her arms around Tony's neck.
`The jury will concede that. For now.´
She kisses him and they exchange hellos.
`I can come back later,´ Steve says. `If I'm int–´
`Of course you are interrupting, go away,´ Tony tells him in a voice that makes Steve grin.
`Of course you are not interrupting,´ Pepper says at the same time.
Tony groans.
`First of all. Tell me... how many homely, salt-of-the-earth girls got their hearts broken by Captain America during your trip? More importantly: did you bring me any souvenirs? Did you see the World's Largest Frying Pan? You swung by Iowa, right?´
The last time he talked about this –this being of course, the matter of Peggy, and the bigger question of a part of Steve's life that never seems to start– was with another Stark.
It makes him feel old.
Natasha insists that he needs to change his rhythm; he is relying too much on the set of movements he learned in the Army. He has polished them, perfected them, but they are too restrictive in the long run. He needs to learn to lose balance, she says cryptically.
She plays different kinds of music to teach him how.
`What is this noise?´ Steve asks when the track starts, a low, repetitive drumming with no resemblance whatsoever to music as he understands it.
Natasha laughs.
`Don't be such an old man, boss. This is music. It helps for this exercise. What I was telling you about quick, short breaths? Try to synchronize your rhythm with the music and then attack me.´
`People dance to this? I surely am an old man.´
`Not falling for it,´ Natasha tells him, already adopting a defensive stance. `Don't think that because you could be my grandfather I'm not going to kick your ass.´
Steve grins. Natasha makes him grin a lot, which is somewhat surprising. He is sure she has some screw loose but she is a good kid.
`Well, young lady,´ he mimics her tone. `Don't think that because you could be my granddaughter I'm not going to kick your... mmm, backside.´
Sixteen minutes later she is on the floor; it takes Steve a bit to get used to her rhythm but he always wins. It's not really the point and he can see the streak of competitiveness in her when he manages to reduce her and her eyes shine. She is good and she knows the way he fights and Steve admits she always makes him sweat, no matter the outcome. Natasha uses her small stature to her advantage and when Steve least expects it he finds her curled into the space between his chest and his defensive stance and it's all elbows and knees and it's amazing that she manages to maneuver in such a tight spot but she does. He has never fought anyone like her.
And maybe he wins but now he lies on the ring feeling way more exhausted than she looks.
Natasha tosses him a towel.
`So...´ Natasha says, a glimmer of something in her eye. `Stark tells me you are in the market for some girlfriend action.´
Steve rolls his eyes. He didn't even know how to roll his eyes until he met these bunch of nosy lunatics.
He is normally very protective of such private matters but somehow he doesn't mind Natasha talking about it. Confiding in her feels natural, she is a brother-in-arms. And he doesn't really regret having told Tony the whole story.
`Why?´ He says. `Do you have a friend you can introduce me to? Or a sister? A saner sister?´
Natasha chuckles and sits on the floor with him, her palms open against the dirty canvas. She massages the side of her left knee, the color of a bruise rising from where Steve's ribs proved too strong.
But she is somehow not joking about the matter.
(she feels she wants to be honest with him; there's an undercurrent of something she can't quite name here, in this closed space, in these hours of training – it's something that she has only ever felt around Clint: she feels safe with Steve, like she can relax and let her eyes catch up with what she is really thinking; it's an illusion, she fears all these connections are but for now she indulges herself, looking on Steve like some kind of long-lost sibling she doesn't know much about but trusts implicitly, and she wonders if Steve feels safe with her, and she wants him to)
`Stark believes a healthy sex life is good for us just because his turned out so well,´ she tells him. She tells him what she really thinks. `Not all of us have Pepper Potts in our lives. Not all of us would consider that a good thing.´
`I think Tony's got a point, though,´ Steve replies. Natasha looks surprised. `We have to be heroes, but that's not all we have to be. That's not all we should be.´
`I wasn't expecting to hear that from you.´
`When I was twenty I only wanted two things in the world: to get in the army and to get a girlfriend. One thing has changed: I'm not sure I want to be a soldier anymore.´
Natasha bites her lower lip.
`Yeah, I'm with you on that, Captain.´
She brings her knees up, resting her chin on them.
`The problem is that we are too good a couple of soldiers, you and I, Steve. We have been too apt at following orders. We need to learn a bit of disobedience.´
Steve sees it clearly: what Natasha means by that. Of all of them he and Natasha are the ones for whom loyalty poses the most complex questions. Clint never seems to have any doubts, and Thor is not bound to any authority on this planet. Tony puts his faith in something purer than any one government, and Bruce has learned to survive through mistrust. Steve and Natasha, through opposite paths, have both arrived at a fierce sense of loyalty. And now they realize it can only do them wrong. It can only disappoint them.
`Tony talked you too?´ He asks. `Told you to leave S.H.I.E.L.D. for good?´
She shakes her head: `He said it was your call. What do you want me to do, sir?´
Steve doesn't know.
`It's hard to learn a new rhythm.´
When they find themselves again aboard Fury's ship the looks of suspicion and uncertainty directed at them are very real, no longer a matter of Tony's paranoia. He warned Steve this would happen. He has taught Steve that dissent is healthy, but not everyone seems to be of the same opinion.
Maria Hill in particular seems overwhelmingly worried about their presence on the bridge, like her whole body itches just by being around Tony Stark.
`You realize you asked us to assist you, right?´ Tony takes offense.
`Director Fury asked you here. I was against it.´
`What? You mean there are original thoughts in that head of yours, Agent Hill? You need to give me a minute here to process of the enormity of such revelation. Can I sit somewhere? I feel woozy.´
`Hey,´ Steve tells him. `That's not so nice.´
Tony ignores him.
`Also, can you stop that?´
`What?´ she shrugs.
`That thing you do where you follow my every movement with those dead eyes of yours, as if I'm going to snap everybody's necks the moment you take your glance off me, I'm not a ninja.´
`I'm Head of Security of this ship,´ she replies calmly. `It's my responsibility to be vigilant of any possible threat to the safety of my crew.´
Tony winces. Steve would rather not get into this.
`Threat? Really? Okay. By the way, my legal advisors tell me that even though we are in negotiation to separate ourselves from S.H.I.E.L.D. we can still use the name Avengers, as long as we don't say Initiative afterwards. We'll be pursuing this in court. Can you call your lawyers?´
`I can assure you, Mr. Stark, we are not going to lose sleep over a petty matter of brand names.´
Steve intercedes before this escalates completely.
`Relax, Agent Hill. It's just a joke,´ he says.
Maria stops her fervent vigilance of Tony to look up at Steve for a moment.
`Yes, sir.´
`I'm afraid Maria doesn't understand the concept of humor,´ Tony says. `The android-manufacturing company that built her didn't think to include that particular feature in this model.´
Steve grabs Tony's elbow.
`Okay, that's enough. Time out, soldier.´
Tony turns at the sound of his voice. There's this two-second struggle until his face relaxes completely. His glance goes back to Maria but with half the intensity.
`Fine. Can I use your lab? Or is that too dangerous as well?´
A gesture towards the agents by the door. `Be my guest. There's your two men escort.´
`Very nice,´ Tony says, genuinely bright, genuinely pleased. `That's a win for you, agent. I'll come back later and play. Try not to miss me too much.´
His steps out of the bridge happy and springy. Steve enjoys the confusion on Maria's face, feeling a bit bad for it.
`Can't you do anything about him, sir?´ she asks Steve. `He's very disruptive.´
`Can't I do anything? Various shrinks and his girlfriend are already on the case. I fear he's beyond hope.´
Maria Hill doesn't laugh. She doesn't smile. Steve is half-tempted to tell her that he knows for a fact Tony actually likes her, in the way that he likes all obviously intelligent people, but that she also makes him furious, in the way that intelligent people following unintelligent orders tend to make Tony furious. Steve knows, he was on the receiving end once. Unlike Tony he doesn't begrudge Hill her position. Unlike Tony he hasn't given the agent much thought. She is usually just there, like a blur in the corner of your eye. Tony said once that he could tell it wasn't just personal, the reason why Maria Hill was so disagreeable with him.
`What do you have against us?´ Steve asks.
`Nothing, sir.´
`You said you disagreed with Director Fury, you didn't want us on board this mission. There are innocent lives at stake.´
`I am not authorized to voice my opinion on the matter.´
`I'm authorizing you.´
`Sir. I believed our men could handle the situation.´
Steve understands now what Tony meant when he said it wasn't entirely personal.
`You oppose the principle of calling us in,´ an statement, not a question.
Maria swallows before she answers.
`S.H.I.E.L.D. did well on its own for decades. The moment we start relying on people like you as a rule it's the moment we forget that. You come to save us from the monsters because we are ordinary people. But who will save us from you? I've seen what might happen. I'd rather stay among the ordinary people. I apologize, sir, but that is my opinion. If you want to have me removed from this mission I understand.´
`That won't be – I ordered you to answer. Be at rest.´
`Thank you, sir.´
She walks away and proceeds to oversee the ship's maneuvers; this she does every few minutes, methodically, obsessively. As if the ship might drop from the sky for no reason, at any moment. She watched the aircraft almost plummet to the ground once, no one could blame her.
Steve stares at the dozens of people in the bridge, men and women whose names he doesn't know.
Who will save them from us?
He spends a lot of time walking through his neighborhood; sitting in parks, staring through shop windows. His world was lost a long time ago: he doesn't keep a minutiae record of what has changed – here used to be the barber where he got his hair cut, here the butcher, here the block of apartments where he went to live in right after his parents died. He doesn't dwell on the traces of what has remained – the Hasidic school around the corner, the patch of green that used to be and still is an impromptu baseball field.
He doesn't really talk to people much.
He is polite and his neighbors like him, consider him a strange sort of fellow but harmless. He greets people that passed him on the streets. And like when he was young he watches couples walk arm in arm and he sees pretty girls sitting in cafés alone and he wonders when he became so removed from the world, when did he lose his chance at all this.
The good thing about a mission is that it leaves very little headspace to worry about anything else. To worry about things that, in the face of impending doom and the third alien invasion in a row, don't seem so important.
But obviously some of his companions have different ideas about the imminence of danger.
Thor gives him a pat on the shoulder. Steve has to struggle to keep his balance.
`In Asgard we make gifts of lilies to our women,´ the demigod is saying. `In honor of the goddess Eostre. You should try that, my friend Rogers. I have always found it most effective.´
On second thought yes, Steve actively regrets having told Tony the whole story.
There are many imagined conversations. Every time something from this new time period baffles him, every time something delights him, every beautiful or sad thing he finds on his way makes him wonder: what would Peggy think of this? Lengthy one-sided conversations with a ghost, Steve tells her everything. He fantasizes of the places they'd go together if she was here, all the things they'd tell each other. He longs to tell her that he feels like part of him never made it out of the ice. A vital part of him got stuck back in the days he knew her. Steve tries to imagine her life after he went under. Did she do the same? Did she miss him, imagined what a shared life after the war would have been liked? Did she often ponder what it would have been like dancing with him?
(and Steve can't know but she did; after armistice, after the clean-up in Europe, after all the loose ends, Peggy did not return home – she came here, to his neighborhood, she wandered the places of his childhood, trying to recover memories of Steve she never really had; she haunted him more when she was alive than now; she felt exactly as incomplete)
`Are you okay, Captain?´
She looks at the cut across his abdomen. Steve's head is full of adrenaline and undefined fear. The room is in half-darkness, the emergency power supply a faint blue glow around the paths to the exits. The blocked exits.
He looks up at the broken metal panels in the ceiling. The world has gone strangely quiet and it's possible their attackers believe they've accomplished their goal.
`I'm sorry, Agent Hill,´ he says. `I'm pretty sure that blast was meant for me.´
`I said are you okay?´
Her voice is clipped, urgent, like she doesn't really know how to put the question other than making it a command.
Steve looks down. Blood spreading dark stains across his chest. It looks as bad as he feels.
`I'm okay,´ he says. `It'll heal. I...´
`I know that, sir. Even so...´
She starts putting her hand over the wound, trying to stop the bleeding. Steve can notice the rough patch on her thumb, from who knows how many years of training with weapons. Her eyes are on his face, looking for permission. The wound hurts but he doesn't feel dizzy, he can feel the beginning of the healing process. He doesn't normally have the luxury of feeling the pain seep away in the middle of a battle like this. A rare moment of hysterical calm.
When Maria's hand starts to shake over his skin she withdraws it immediately.
Then Steve looks at her for a long time, with worry. When Maria notices she replies with a hard look, her expression shut down as he has seen many times when she is in control of the bridge.
`I'm not scared,´ she snaps at him, although Steve has said nothing of the sort. `This is not the first time I'm under attack, Captain.´
He nods.
She looks down at her own hands.
Steve remembers how she tried to push him out of the way of danger when she felt the explosion. There are cuts and bruises above her eye, on her cheek, her chin, the curve of her neck.
`Maria...´
She looks up, eyes wild with surprise at hearing him say her first name.
`We are going to get through this,´ he tells her. `But I'm going to need a minute here.´
`Of course.´
`And I'm going to need your help. My shield is somewhere under all this mess. I can't get up right now but if you find it and bring it to me I can get us out of here in a moment.´
`But we don't know what's out there,´ she says.
Steve says nothing but nods, wanting to say it's okay to be afraid, only idiots would be unafraid in such a situation, wanting to say he's glad to be with a comrade.
He is busy taking long, deep breathes while she looks around for his shield. When she finds it she picks it up carefully, surprised by its lightness, unsure how to handle it. She passes it to him holding it by the rim. Steve thinks about how tiny her hands look gripping the metal.
They look at the half-collapsed door and Steve gives their chances a weak smile.
`Also, can I offer a word of advice, Agent Hill? When the enemy is firing at you, you let the serum-enhanced superhero soldier protect you, not the other way around. You got that?´
She shakes her head.
`It's not personal, sir. It's a habit. I have to be in the line of fire. I'm expendable.´
Steve adjusts his shield and gets up the ground, propping himself with Maria's help.
He turns to her before opening the door.
`No one person on earth is expendable, Maria.´
California was meant to be a place to wind down, to let the ridiculous lifestyle of Tony Stark distract him from the memory of recent horrors. He had pictured golden beaches, and brunches (whatever those are) and maybe another cup of that coffee Pepper Potts makes.
He is alive, after all, and he wants a break to just calm down, slow down, and enjoy the simple fact that he is still breathing.
Of course that's what Steve has hoped for.
The reality is that he is being dragged to a party with a very clear objective.
It's the first time he wears a dinner jacket and bowtie. He tries very hard not to feel like he did back in the day when Bucky insisted on involving him in disastrous double-dating plans. But the whole thing has a distinctive nostalgic and hopeless air, with Tony beaming excitedly –we need to find you someone!– and an apologetic-looking Pepper hanging from Tony's arm and throwing mortified glances at Steve as the three of them arrive at the ostentatious reception hall.
`I'm not saying it's a bad idea,´ Pepper is telling Tony, her tone clearly hinting that she thinks it is a bad idea. `I'm saying that you are the least qualified person in the universe to find Steve a date.´
`We have to introduce him to women. You have no idea how urgent this matter is.´
`You know literally two women, Tony,´ Pepper argues. `You know me, and you know Natasha. That's about the size of it.´
`Always underestimating me, my dear. I happen to know a whole total of three women.´
He turns around and so do Pepper and Steve.
Steve sees a handsome blond woman walking towards them.
`Ah,´ Pepper says. `Yes, I had completely underestimated you.´
`Good afternoon, Christine,´ Tony says brightly when the woman reaches their table. `Christine, let me introduce you to my colleague, Captain Steve Rogers. Steve, Christine Everhart.´
`I've heard a lot of good things about you, Captain,´ Christine says, shaking Steve's hand.
`I'm afraid I have not your advantage in the matter, ma'am.´
Tony positively lights up, scurrying to Christine's side.
`What did I tell you? He says ma'am. And it's not just special occasions. It never stops. It's hilarious.´
They are led to the best table in the place – of course. There's champagne and music and the ceiling seems high as the sky. Very different from the old places of torture in Steve's youth but he can't help but keep having flashbacks.
To her credit Pepper tries the best she can to keep the conversation going but at some point very early in the evening Tony takes her hand and drags her away and they disappear God knows where – Steve doesn't hazard a guess, he feels he knows them too well to even want to.
He turns to look at Christine and gives him a rather pained smile. Here we go, he thinks. It's 1938 all over again.
`So, Tony tells me you are a journalist.´
`Yes,´ she replies, dragging her chair closer to his. `And I have to tell you up front. You seem really nice and you are clearly very good-looking but when Tony called me here I agreed because I thought maybe I'd could get an interview. You are an amazing story.´
`Oh. I don't really do interviews, Miss Everhart.´
`I know. I was hoping –´ she stops when she sees Steve's face deflate. `You know what? Forget I asked. It was a stupid idea. I can go if you...´
`I didn't really come here for a date. I'm here to have a good time with some friends. Are you a friend, Miss Everhart?´
`I hope so,´ she smiles at him. `Let me buy you a drink, Captain.´
He does.
She is not bad company – it's just that Steve finds it hard, almost impossible to connect with someone out of the blue. Perhaps his limited experience has made him biased but he'd rather know the person first, and he's used to have at least a couple of shared life-threatening experiences before he can decide this is it. Again, his experience is limited to one experiment and if Tony were here in this table now he would probably tell Steve that's not enough data to draw any conclusion.
And it's not like he doesn't know what Tony was trying to do dragging him here (at some point in their last mission Steve was trying, very politely, to thank Tony for saving his life and Tony waved it off with a smirking “we can't let you die a virgin, now, can we?”). But he knows –and he does consider Christine gorgeous, and bright and funny, but she is not part of his life– how this is going to end. All those double dates with Bucky, Steve always knew he wasn't going to walk the girl home at the end of the night as much as he wanted to – and boy did he want to, all those times.
He knows he is not going to walk the girl home at the end of the night this time either. Something has changed: he doesn't want to.
Peggy changed it.
(the thing is: Christine considers the possibility. Really considers it. He is very handsome of course –though not in the way Christine usually indulges in– and he is charming in his own, quiet way. Even if his heart is obviously not in it. But Christine can tell he is looking for something, and not something that's in her hand to offer. And she is really over bedding superheroes, it's not a notch she is desperate to have in her bedpost. She enjoys Captain America's politeness and she flirts in a kind of innocent, relaxed way with him, just to see what he'd do.
She wouldn't mind having his as a friend – and maybe one of these days he'd consider giving her an interview.)
Christine leaves the party early and once again Steve is left without a partner, waiting for his ride home to stop embarrassing themselves in the balcony and come pick him up.
`Hey, Steve, man, what happened?´ Tony sounds happy and drunk. `You didn't dance. This is a great place to dance.´
By his side Pepper snorts.
`I don't know how to dance,´ Steve says.
`You don't know how to dance? I don't understand. You come from the 30s. I'm pretty sure all people did in those times for fun was dancing. Or going to church.´
`I just never found the right person to teach me.´
That's only half true.
That they are not heading Fury's orders right now doesn't mean that Fury is not going to keep calling on them. He still treats them as they were under his orders, as if he was so much smarter than them that they should just shut up and pay attention. This is how he believes Fury would have worded the whole thing, except with perhaps more swearing.
Steve wonders if he has sent Agent Hill now because he suspected there'd be nobody else around, if Fury finds him more reasonable to deal with than the others. Not that he can blame the man: Steve considers himself largely more reasonable to deal with than the others.
He thinks he hears a hint of mistrust in Jarvis' voice when it announces their visitor, but he doesn't know if that's even possible. Maybe he will never get used to a talking building.
`I see you have upgraded security,´ she says when the door opens with a series of beeps of slight alarm. `I'm considered persona non grata now.´
`I'm afraid you always were. Not you. Anyone from your organization. The whole building suffers from acute paranoia, in the same way dogs end up resembling their owners.´
She looks around: `Agent Coulson never had any trouble getting in.´
`Well, that was... yeah.´
They both look away for a moment.
Jarvis shuts down the screens around them. It apparently hasn't occurred to Steve that maybe Agent Hill shouldn't be looking at that kind of information. He promises to be a better guardian of the castle in the future.
`Fury has sent me as liaison between S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers.´
`That doesn't sound like a very rewarding job, I'm afraid. What did Stark think of that?´
Maria Hill sighs.
`Mr. Stark spent twenty minutes willfully misunderstanding the definition of the word liaison in this instance. He seemed disappointed we weren't more in line with the original spirit of the French.´
Steve chuckles. He'd liked to have seen that.
`I'm sorry.´
`Don't be. I've learned to tune down everything Stark says after a while. It's all white noise to me now.´
There's a hint of indulgence in her voice, Steve thinks. Very faint but it's there.
`Is he here?´
`Tony? Sure, but he is in the lab somewhere. We can't locate him right now.´
`You've lost Tony Stark inside his own house?´
Ten floors of laboratory and sure, Jarvis could run a quick diagnostic and find out in a nano-second, but they usually leave him alone. If he misses more than one meal they can normally find him by the loud music coming from his work area, that's quicker.
`Happens with alarming frequency,´ Steve explains. `He'll show up in a couple of hours. Probably.´
The crease over Maria's eyebrows deepens.
`And you ask us to trust you with saving the planet?´
His lips curl in a smirk that is not very reassuring, even if everything else about him (his stance, his clear gaze, the aura of power in calm) screams that yes, they have it all under control.
`So from now all communications with S.H.I.E.L.D. go through you, I assume?´
`Do you have any problem with getting your orders from a woman?´ she asks.
`You don't know how little of a problem I have with that, Agent Hill.´
`Don't presume to know what I do or do not think.´
Something about her tone frustrates Steve. She speaks to him like they have never met before. Steve remembers the bruises on her face as if he was still seeing them. They are not strangers.
`Sorry. I didn't mean to... I do have a problem with getting my orders from S.H.I.E.L.D. though.´
Maria stands down.
`Very well. Not orders. Recommendations.´
`Yeah, that sounds much better.´
`If you tell them you are Captain America I bet you wouldn't have trouble making girls swoon for you. Don't Google yourself, though. Always a bad idea.´
Clint is trying to be helpful and sweet but he really is not. Natasha punches him –hard, Steve recognizes that movement– in the arm.
`Clint, don't even –´
`I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you, sir.´
He sounds genuinely mortified.
`Don't worry about it, son.´
Steve likes Clint a lot. He has qualities Steve has always appreciated in elite soldiers, but without the swagger and arrogance of some of the men that were in the Army with him. And he didn't take it so hard when he and Natasha announced they weren't working on S.H.I.E.L.D. missions anymore. He understood.
`I think we should all leave Steve alone,´ Bruce says from behind his computer screen and his glasses. He looks more relaxed than Steve has ever seen him.
`Thank you, doc,´ Natasha says, sitting at the end of Bruce's desk with a expression that means this part of the conversation is finished as far as she is concerned.
Steve is a bit baffled as to why his men consider they are entitled to discuss matters of his private life so openly. And how it is that everybody seems to be up to speed with every detail.
It bothers him. `I wonder, though. Has Stark sent a memo around about my personal business?´
`Actually...´ Bruce mutters. `It was an email.´
`Really? I didn't receive it,´ Natasha says.
Clint shakes his head. `Me neither.´
`Must have been gone directly to your spam folder,´ Bruce explains. `I mean, it did have the word Penis in the subject line after all.´
Some time after he has officially cut all ties to S.H.I.E.L.D. they send him is old service record. It's part of the clean-up process.
He stares at the three signatures in his original file for a long time.
Dr. Erskine.
Col. Phillips.
And one more name.
Steve closes the file.
Here are three people who can't get drunk no matter how much they wanted to.
When first Tony finally surrendered and transformed his New York tower into a center of operations for the Avengers months ago they had all been delighted to discover the new observatory in the attic. Even Bruce and Steve, who spent a length of time in this building, had no idea it was there. It was something as simple as a warm floor and a glass ceiling, a seemingly endless view. Pity that this city doesn't do stargazing, otherwise it would be perfect.
Steve, Natasha and Bruce are lying on their backs, watching clouds and pollution cover stars they know by heart.
They have a bottle of excellent scotch (excellent, from Tony's secret stash) and they are commenting on this particular superhero hindrance.
`I knew that,´ Bruce tells Steve. `When I was researching why your serum worked in the first place I figured that someone like you could never ever be able to get drunk. Maybe tipsy, if you worked at it very hard.´
`That's inconvenient,´ Natasha says. `I can't get drunk either.´
Steve frowns; Natasha has nothing special about her stamina, other than the strength she has carved herself.
`How come?´
`I'm Russian,´ she states languidly.
`Ah,´ Bruce and Steve say at the same time.
`Clint is hilarious when he drinks,´ she adds. `He gets possessed by a peculiar love of karaoke. Not that I know, first-hand, of course. I've never been to a karaoke bar in my life.´
Bruce sneers: `I'm pretty sure I read some report of a disturbance in a bar in Shibuya years ago. Wasn't that you, Agent Romanoff?´
The sound of an elbow against an arm, and a childish noise rising at the back of Bruce's throat.
`That's classified information,´ she hisses.
`What about you, Bruce?´ Steve is curious. `You said you couldn't get drunk either.´
He notices Bruce hasn't touched his glass at all, while he and Natasha are already in their third drink.
`That's one of the first things I found out. The other guy doesn't like me drinking. If I go overboard he takes control. I discovered that particular fun fact during one hell of a dark night when I thought perhaps I could drink myself into oblivion.´
He and Natasha exchange a glance, like a hitched breath, taken aback by Bruce's words. Natasha gets a very odd look in her eyes and touches Bruce's shoulder, curling her fingers where the fabric of his shirt hangs too loose.
`Hey. Bruce. Be good to yourself, okay?´ she warns him.
Bruce looks away.
`From what I've seen, I'm pretty sure Thor also belongs to our club,´ he says. `He must find our drinks a child's game compared to Asgardian liquors.´
`So you are saying out of all of us only Stark and Clint can get drunk?´
The three of them make a non-committal noise as they think about it; one of the oldest ways of winding down and they are completely shut out of it. It seems somewhat unfair.
Steve thinks back on the night he found out he couldn't get drunk. He remembers the smell of that scotch, the dust of the bombed-out street outside, the feel of the wooden table under his fingertips. He knows he should be remembering the grief he felt after Bucky's death but he can't: all of his memories are of how it felt to be comforted by Peggy, the way she looked at him with pity and faith, the strange mixture of sadness and desire Steve had never felt before, and how much he had wanted to kiss her that night. How he should have.
He doesn't know how much he spends looking up at stars he can't see, thinking about that night seventy years ago.
When he finally tears his gaze from the sky he finds Bruce giving him an amused, warning glance and gesturing towards Natasha's body between them.
It takes him a moment to realize –because it's such a rare sight– what has happened: Natasha has fallen asleep.
Bruce props himself on one elbow, giving her sleeping form an unreadable look.
`I thought master assassins were supposed to be more alert than this,´ he comments.
`It means she feels safe with us,´ Steve grins. He likes that. He has seen Natasha in missions, he has seen her in training, how capable and focused. Even when at rest there's a readiness, a contained energy about her. He has never seen her like this. Steve thinks that he, too, would be able to trust his sleep to Bruce and Natasha if that was the situation.
But Bruce doesn't seem to find it natural.
`She shouldn't,´ he mutters almost inaudibly, almost fearful. `I mean – I...´
He lies back again.
Steve repeats Natasha's words in his mind: Bruce, be good to yourself. He wants to tell his friend again.
`I wish we could see the stars, though,´ he explains instead, wistfully looking above them.
`Oh,´ Bruce sits up once more. `I think I can help you with that, Captain. Jarvis!´ he shouts to the room. Natasha doesn't even stir. `Override protocol one-thirty. Show us the real sky.´
`Real sky coming, Doctor Banner,´ the robotic voice tells them.
Then little dots of green light start appearing above them, perfect in size and distance to each other. Almost enough to make Steve forget about the clouds in the actual sky. He thinks about Tony installing this feature in the room and how much it says about the man. He watches a simple joy wash over Bruce's face.
`I like it,´ Steve says. `They are fake stars, but I like them.´
He decides he might be getting a bit too used to all the insanity. Because Tony Stark is probably the last person on earth Steve should be asking advice from; he is also probably the only person he can ask advice from. The only person he actually thinks of.
There's a whole country between them. Steve guesses it's early morning in California.
His opening gambit it's to remind Tony he comes from a different era.
`How does it work, these days? If you like somebody. What's the next step?´
To Tony's credit he doesn't laugh too much when he hears. There's the weight of sleep in his voice.
`Why? Do you like somebody? When did this happen? You never tell me anything,´ he replies.
`No, it's not that at all. But I wonder what happens in this period. When the moment comes, I want to know the protocol.´
`Protocol? So romantic. Are you asking for my opinion? Because I have to warn you, Captain, I'm recording this conversation, for posterity, and I will probably make copies for everybody and throw parties at my house every year in the subsequent anniversaries – of this conversation. This is priceless.´
`Tony...´
`Okay, fine. What did they do in your time?´
`I don't know. I never got around to doing it.´
`Mmm, let me see... my own personal experience about liking a girl involves a very complicated decade-long plan. Like a tortuous Stalinist development. But I'm sure you'd appreciate something a bit more short-term. I believe these days you ask the girl to have coffee with you. I can wake Pepper, maybe she knows for sure.´
`A coffee. That's it? It doesn't sound too difficult.´
`Nope. The theory is pretty simple. But I'm a scientist, I know things could go terribly wrong from theory to practice.´
`That's very encouraging, thank you.´
`Why are you getting so paranoid about this now? You know we like to tease you about this –I might have even started a charity in your name– but that's only because we are... well, idiots. We are dicks. You have to make it in your own pacing, Captain. Anyone would understand if you are too busy saving the world.´
Maybe he has caught Tony before he has time to drink his morning coffee because he is being overly honest and not-horrible about the whole thing. Steve would appreciate it if it didn't freak him out so much.
`I was too busy saving the world last time, too, Tony.´
There's a long silence on Tony's side.
`Is this about Peggy?´
`No,´ Steve says. `Well. Maybe. Yes. It's about regrets. I have some regrets. I should have done more, said more. I should have had more time but I didn't. If I'm ever so lucky again, I don't want to make the same mistakes.´
`Life is so short,´ Tony comments in a distracted voice.
`Exactly.´
Tony clears his throat. `Well, this was depressing. I'm gonna go wake up Pepper now. Don't ever call me again so early.´
He hangs up on Steve.
Natasha's knee is pressed under his elbow and her fingers crook around his wrist and pull back until Steve sees white dots of pain under his eyelids.
`You know what's your problem?´ she asks almost too casually for a woman who weights roughly a third of what Steve does and yet has him kissing the floor, her whole body propped against his left shoulder-blade.
`My problem is that you are about to break my wrist with that lock. Where did you learn that movement?´
`Istanbul. But no, your problem is that you obsess too much about the outcome. This is going to sound like a cheap self-help manual but you need to put yourself out there, Cap.´
`Okay, okay, I surrender, you win this round,´ he pleads and Natasha gets go of his arm. They sit on the floor, and she looks so smug while Steve rubs his wrist in pain. `What's a self-help manual?´
`Ask somebody out. I'm sure they'll say yes. And if they don't... well, you don't have to be terrified of rejection. You are not Stark, you are a proper grown-up, you can handle rejection.´
`Well, it is terrifying to ask. Have you ever asked?´
`No,´ she admits. Then she frowns, a pensive look on her face. `I haven't been asked many times, either.´
`Do you want to be asked?´
She lies back on the ring, trying to even her breathing. Steve can almost feel the heat emanating from her, obviously it took all she had to defeat him today.
`This is getting a little too personal for me, sir.´
`You are allowed to feel lonely, Natasha.´
He says it in his best concerned team-leader voice. He has been noticing the changes in her.
She gives him a defying look, one that says, at first, something like yeah, I don't do lonely, like this supposed character from a spy movie some people mistake her to be. Steve has never made such mistake. Maybe that's why she lets go off that look and allows her face to relax.
`I've been thinking about it lately, a lot,´ she tells him. `I hadn't thought about it before. Or at least not in a long time.´
Steve wonders, it's not the first time he sees that faraway look of hers. He tries to place it but he can't.
`It's not me, is it? Because I'm flatte–´
`Don't get cocky, Rogers,´ she laughs at the idea. `You are like a handsome older brother to me. I see why girls would want to go there, I don't see the appeal personally.´
There's no disagreeing with that; Steve feels something akin. He stands up.
`Ready for another round?´
Her whole body groans in pain.
`It will kill me. But sure, let's go.´
`Come on,´ he helps her to her feet. `What else did you learn in Istanbul?´
It's Saturday in Brooklyn.
He often wonders at how new and clear the world seems after a battle. Like somehow it all becomes precious and invaluable. It's been days and Steve still feels like that; he can't stop walking through these streets without finding every ordinary thing beautiful. He is aware of every nerve in his body, the way sunlight touches his skin. Life is so short. He stares at the brownstone houses and the sycamores.
He walks, aimlessly, distracted, his mind blank in a good way, when he bumps into a familiar face coming out of a shop.
He almost doesn't recognize her out of her S.H.I.E.L.D. clothes.
Maria Hill looks around when he reaches her, like a covert agent whose cover has just being blown, looking stunned and out of her element. He notices her hair falls over her shoulders.
`This is my neighborhood,´ Steve says, as if she were trespassing.
`I know that.´
`Of course.´
`But this is the only place I can buy 78rpm records in a decent...´ she gestures towards the music store behind her. He looks at her, confused. `I have a record player at home. Very retro, I know, but I like it.´
She looks away, as if she thought her use of the word retro might offend Steve. He is not offended.
`Yes? What do you have there?´
`Oh, I –´she pauses before showing him the contents of her shopping bag. `A couple of Duke Ellingtons with Billy Rayhorn in them, and some Earl Hines with Wardell Gray and Dizzie Gillepsie. Basic stuff, I know, but I don't normally stretch as late as the 1940s –´
`Duke Ellington,´ Steve cuts her, excited. `That one I know. It was all the rage in my time. Never really got into it, I thought it was too modern for my taste.´
`Too modern,´ Maria Hill laughs. It's a first.
`Yeah, I know what you are thinking. Ridiculous.´
`No, I was thinking you were – what? Twenty-two around the time? This should have been your stuff.´
Steve grins, hands in his pockets, `What can I say? I was born old-fashioned. Ironic, right?´
`Just a bit.´
They both laugh. Maria's eyes are suddenly very bright, like pavement after a rainstorm.
`Well, sir, I think I should go.´
Steve steps back so she can pass.
She hesitates before going and it's that moment of hesitation, half a heartbeat, really, that does it. Something leaps inside Steve.
He calls out to her.
`Do you want to have a cup of coffee with me, Agent Hill?´
Steve can tell she immediately understands what he is asking.
Now there it is, back in place, the expression he has seen many times on the bridge, collected and blank. The Maria Hill he knows.
`That would be very unprofessional of me, Captain,´ is her non-answer.
`I'm not part of S.H.I.E.L.D. anymore.´
`It would still be very unprofessional.´
That's it, he decides. There's no point in pushing it. A part of him is confused. He thought... whatever he thought he was obviously mistaken. He allows himself to remember Peggy's voice: you don't know a bloody thing about women. He remembers Peggy's voice clearly, without bitterness.
`I see. I apologize,´ he says.
Well, that was terrifying, but he is alive. It's not the end of the world.
Maria Hill is saying nothing, her face betraying nothing, and it's unnerving him. He has to go.
`Then I guess I'll...´
He turns to leave but Maria stops him. She places her hand on the crook of Steve's elbow. Small hands. Steve remembers them holding his shield once, he remembers her frightened and brave. He's been remembering that moment all this time. This is, too, the Maria Hill he knows.
`It's not that I don't want to,´ she says, chewing on her lip. `I want you to know that.´
Steve's world brightens a bit.
`Are you saying that maybe –?´
`Yeah...´
`– one day?´
`One day.´
Steve searches her face; she's turned away from him, hiding a hint of embarrassment. He gets it, the shape of her answer. There are things she needs to do, there's the world they need to save, in their own different ways – so many things are a mess now, her and S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers, and everything, Steve understands her answer.
He touches his fingertips across her hand. When she doesn't move away –rather, he thinks, there's the faintest trace of her welcoming the touch– Steve slips his fingers between hers. She has cold hands, but he already knew this.
`Great,´ Steve tells, deciding. `I'll ask.´
Maria moves her head from side to side.
`No, Captain. Sir. I'll ask.´
Steve thinks: I'm going to like that.
The ghost of a smile, but it's definitely there, it's hers and it's definitely because of him. And that's enough for now. All the things he had been telling himself were enough until now – that was a lie to comfort himself. This is enough.
He lets her hand slip free, her fingers brushing the lines on his palm.
`One more thing. Do you know how to dance?´
`No, sir, I don't think so. Why?´
`No reason. It doesn't really matter... actually.´
He smiles, realizing it's all right, they can learn together.
She has time to call him “sir” once more before she leaves his side.
She walks away. He watches a gust of wind play with the edges of her long winter coat. Steve doesn't wait until she is out of sight to turn around and continue on his way. It's still Saturday in Brooklyn. The street is full of ballpark noises and families walking to lunch. Steve has places to go, errands to run, people to see.
He has a whole life to live, finally unstuck.