The bad guy isn't always so easy to spot. A villain, the very last person anyone expects.
Steve stands, looming larger than life over the disused conference table. Five years of recently unearthed dust still visible on the far corners. Brittle paper rustles as he unfurls an antique, camel-colored map, apparently routing modern comparatives. It's just him, a screen, and some papers. Despite that, the room feels full, fit to burst. I opt to leave before it does. Turn tail, spin on the ball of my foot, and leave him undisturbed.
"Nope," I say, pursing my lips and shaking my head as I return to where Nat sits, legs up and feet crossed on her table across the compound.
"No?" She says, surprised and speaking a little slowly around a mouthful of peanut butter. "He won't do it?"
My face scrunches up; eyes close, not wanting to see her reaction. "No, uh...nope. I sorta couldn't ask him to." It sounds more like a question. One eye peeks open while the rest of my face probably looks like I've sucked down a crate of lemons.
She plops her half sandwich down dramatically, makes a show of brushing crumbs. "You know," she begins, eyes twinkling, "I once watched him microwave a can of tomato soup. In the can."
"I fail to see how that's relevant here." It was probably right after he first came to this century, too, I think defensively on his behalf.
"I'm just surprised you're intimidated."
I scoff. "I am allowed to be intimidated. For crying out loud Nat, he punches aliens."
"I punch aliens." Her eyebrows lift in challenge, enjoying this too much.
How long has it been? Years since I met him once in passing. Never any real interaction. He may not even recall my name. Sporadic appearances in heavily-crowded rooms, and no mutual dealings before...well, before half of everything went to Hell.
Not much opportunity now, he lives off-site, always gone leading therapy groups and the occasional mission. Still, every time the past few years I've heard Nat mention he's come around the all-but-deserted HQ, butterflies.
Lost in thought for a moment longer than innocent, I spot Nat smirk knowingly.
This is when I decide shit needs to change. Steve Rogers needs to notice me.
"Fine!" I head back out, arms waving near my head in mock surrender.
Striding up behind him in the conference room, I clear the nerves from my throat and, from the subtle flex near his shoulder blades, it's clear he knows I'm there - that someone is there - but he's unfazed. He certainly doesn't notice me. Being unnoticed by Steve Rogers is a skill I've unwittingly, unwillingly mastered.
In fairness, he notices me as much as he would most everyone else that's left. No one's exactly sneaking up on history's greatest soldier.
I suspect it's more of an instant evaluation and subsequent, triaged dismissal: Nondescript person. Location appropriate attire. Behavior within expected parameters. Sufficient security clearance relative to location. Threat level low.
Surely, I'm no threat at all, to him. To myself...jury's out.
"Captain Rogers?" I step across the table from him.
He looks up, briefly. Enough to be courteous but remains focused on his project. "How can I help you?"
Suddenly, my lips dry despite the strawberry Chapstick they're always coated in. "Nat wants me to find out if you've made a decision about helping escort the groups next week?"
He leans slightly and braces both arms on the table. Not looking up, he sighs out, "I want to help, but trotting out Captain America doesn't seem like the way to do it."
Without thinking, I say, "Hadn't really been looking for a super soldier to take a bus load of orphans to the museum. Just Steve Rogers: Certified Driver's License holder."
A ghost of a smile. He looks up. "Fair enough. Count me in."
As I leave, practically bouncing from this positive first real interaction, I call over my shoulder, "Though, after you've tried to wrangle 150 kids for lunch, that superhero bit might not seem like such a bad idea."
I hear a faint laugh as I exit.
"You know," Nat says, right after I tell her Steve's decision, "I used to suggest dates to him all the time." She looks wistfully out the window, to a past more than a world away. "He never bit. Maybe that was for the best back then. I was just throwing out names. Trying to get him out." She says that, but takes a beat. She knows, we both do, that's not quite it. Not to get him out. It was really trying to help him fit in. "But, yeah, never seemed interested. Made me promise to stop. Stop suggesting. Stop having women bring him coffee, bump into him in the elevator, what have you. So, I promised." I watch her twist the plastic bag around a loaf of bread and shove it to the back of the counter. "Now, I'm not so sure."
I look over to the doorway that leads back toward the conference room he's probably still in. "That seems like a good thing. Probably making him uncomfortable for the sake of a few dates."
"True. They were good people, not good matches." She shrugs, a small hitch - one that I only recognize from logging hundreds of hours around her - shows she's only feigning casual. Quite suddenly, I understand this is a dead-serious talk. "I never regretted making him that promise until you came along."
I swear I hear an actual record scratch.
"Wh-? What on earth would make you say that?" I look down at my faded t-shirt and - oh, I hadn't noticed - threadbare yoga pants. My standards have devolved into If It's Clean, It Gets Worn. My hair's in disarray, face bare. Not exactly Steve's button downs and starched jeans.
"C'mon, your ability to adapt? That might be an actual superpower. You both operate on the same compass. Don't know how to stop putting others first. No compromise. When I saw your letter to Secretary Ross bullet-pointing everything wrong with his stupidass Survivor Mandates? An admin who commits career suicide by telling off the Secretary of State?" Nat shakes her head. "That's right up there with airport rumbles and jumping outta planes without a chute."
I really don't know what to say to that.
Of course, I've fantasized something happening between me and Steve. Look at him.
Plus, he's a good guy. THE Good Guy. The Embodiment of morals and decency.
My room currently has several drained Jameson bottles, at least three weeks' worth of dirty laundry, a fist-sized hole in the wall from when I received my first reply from Ross, and simply scorchingly filthy porn on an incognito tab. (As a precaution, I'd searched a few vanilla sites too, hoping if anyone ever went snooping through my browser history, they'd be satisfied with that and not dig deeper to find the banned-in-several-states stuff.)
I'm more likely to listen to Steve Miller or, heck, even Roger Miller, than Glenn Miller.
I'm convinced I'd turn him off in a heartbeat. Based on what I know of him anyway. A lot can be discerned reading about his life and choices. He is just so closed off - red, white, and blue brick walls. So much in the past.
None of that matters though. It doesn't matter if I never actually get his attention in the first place.
Looking past Nat at my reflection in the window, I have to wonder how I'd keep it if I ever got it.
Honestly, maybe I shouldn't even try. Life is barely hanging on. People are either so broken they don't function or so good at compartmentalization that they don't move on and just keep trying to resuscitate it, to maintain it.
"How's your housing proposal coming along?" Nat breaks me out of my thoughts. "Is it too much? You're already doing that food program revamp plus the international incident monitoring."
"Nah, I got it." I have to. I want to. Anything I can do that allows Nat time to track down her best friend and maybe, just maybe, someone will find a way to bring everyone else back, too.
The skeleton crew that remained at Avengers HQ after Wakanda, after Thanos, had drifted away within weeks. All with broken families and lives that needed stitched up, pressing wounds that demanded them more. All but Nat and me. Nat had no one and I had no one worth going to. I'd been just another worker bee before, trying to make things right, doing the best I could for the best people so they could actually accomplish things.
Life is full, brimming with grey mourning and chalky despair, and I really don't need a distraction. Even if it's as amazing as Steve Rogers.
I almost convince myself that's true.
The outing goes smoothly. All kids accounted for and - it shouldn't be the highlight, but it is - Steve has spoken with me most of the day. Usually about the kids and their needs. Interspersed, he asks where I'm from. Who I lost. Where I was when it happened. All the sorts of things everyone has learned to ask so they don't trigger a breakdown.
"Who did you lose, Steve?" It's common knowledge, but I ask anyway.
He seems surprised to hear the words. Waits a beat before answering. "This time it wasn't everyone."
Near the end of the day, outside the giftshop, I spot him deep in conversation with a rather pretty guide. She scoots a little closer every few moments and he allows it. Her hair is brown, soft waves pulled back in a barrette. Dark red lips. Neatly tucked uniform, pencil skirt.
Huh. Okay. He is very much in the past. Even further than the rest of us.
This is when the idea hits. It's all at once, a lightning strike forcing it to life.
On the way home, I stop by a drug store and make a solitary purchase: semi-matte, red velvet lipstick.
I am determined to focus on work and not go chasing after him or concoct schemes to run into him. I'm not some errant child running after him like he's a clanging ice cream truck. I am a mature person with goals and obligations and willpower and if I've recently developed a raging interest in the 1940's, well, that's pure coincidence.
I am not going to seek him out.
I cave two days later.
Container of freshly baked (by someone, not me) cookies in one hand, I find myself waiting for a break in a VA meeting he leads. A curious smile pulls at the corner of his mouth when he spies me leaning against the doorframe.
"Well, let's take a break. Back in five?" He jogs up to me, eyeing the cookies. "What's this?"
"Oh," I say, holding them up as if I'd forgotten they were there, "These old things?" While I speak, his gaze go to my dark lips. His brow furrows slightly, then back to my eyes. "I just thought maybe your group would like treats?" Suddenly, I feel silly. As if I've mistaken combat veterans for kindergarteners in need of snack time. "Do you serve refreshments?"
His rare smile is blinding. "We do now." Grabbing the cookies, with one last glance that doesn't quite reach up to my eyes, he returns to the group.
As I turn to leave, he calls after me, "Wait, let me introduce you. Please, stay. We're almost done anyway."
I position myself at what hopefully appears to be a respectful distance for the remainder of the meeting.
He's very good, I realize. Gets everyone to open up, encourages them to share and then to move on. Somehow managing to come across as opening up, but never revealing more about himself than any history book contains.
After, he thanks me again.
"It was nothing really. Happy to do it."
"You baked and came all the way down here with cookies for people you've never met?" That isn't accurate, but I don't correct him. "I wouldn't call that 'nothing.'" He rubs the back of his neck. "So...I should probably see you home safely."
Trying to seem not-ridiculously overjoyed, I shrug. "I made it here on my own. I can probably make it back."
"You stay at HQ, right?"
"Sure do."
"You don't, uh, have anyone—anywhere, some place in the city?"
No, I don't. I shoot my shot. "That's a story. Wanna hear it over coffee?"
He tilts his head. "Yeah, I could do that."
Until 2:00 a.m., over cold coffee, we end up talking about pretty much everything except any real details about ourselves.
After I slide out of the booth to leave, he appears deep in thought, runs a finger over the lipstick smudge on my cup.
Three days after shared coffee, and roughly eight hours of big band and WW2 research, I paint my lips and slide on a skirt for the first time in years.
Steve is due at HQ today and, though I don't know his mission, I am going to find a reason to be in his vicinity.
"Hey, lady," Nat whistles, "are you trying to seduce your way past Ross's assistant? Because that skirt might do the trick."
I run my hands over invisible wrinkles, "Something like that." I hope Steve makes an appearance soon, because I've been so preoccupied that going there had slipped my mind.
"It wouldn't have anything to do with a certain ca-"
"Shh!" I cut her off as Steve enters. He nods to me. My cheeks warm as his eyes follow down my skirt.
"Wheels up in 10, Natasha."
"Think we'll be back before dinner?" Nat teases.
He gives a withering look. "Maybe dinner next Thursday."
Now or never. "I was going to make chicken fricassee soon. I could, maybe, do it when you both get back?"
Nat looks at me as if I sprouted two heads. "Uh, sure? Not gonna turn down a home cooked meal."
Steve follows her lead. "Not sure Romanoff has ever completed a mission report without Chinese take-out, but we can give it a go."
Nat elbows him and exits, still looking at me through narrowed eyes.
Figuring out how to cook in a few days shouldn't be that hard.
It was that hard.
I end up baking a ham instead. The air swirls in brown sugar and cinnamon. Nat, winking, invents a reason to leave immediately with her apple crisp.
Steve watches the common area door shut behind her. "For a spy, she isn't very subtle."
"True." I shrug, busying myself putting leftover ham slices on rye bread that I'll insist he take home later. "But maybe there's no place in this world for subtlety anymore."
He looks at me, the lipstick I'd touched up earlier, my hair pulled back. Nods softly.
"Steve, would you like to go on a date with me?"
This time he nods a little harder. "Yes. Yes, I would."
Steve's schedule is only open on the many days I give dance lessons at the orphanages. After some shuffling, I get them postponed.
It takes a few tries, but I start to get the hang of this new look.
Little things at first. Subtle. Small. Glossy clear lips exchanged for matte red. A knee-length dress here and there. Belts to accentuate my waist.
I try doing my hair differently. It seems somehow too much. Too obvious. Too...her. I know about her, everyone does. I know who she is. It's a present, tangible thing, his love for that remarkable woman. And she was remarkable, utterly deserving of Steve, if any woman is. Or, was. They're far beyond star crossed lovers, displaced by glacial ice and merciless march of time.
But I'm right here and, determined.
I can hear the echoes of my grandmother and countless wise women, "Don't change yourself for any man."
Oh, but Gram, Steve Rogers isn't just any man.
At our third dinner, a band plays standards. Several couples get up to dance. I drop hints like rainfall.
"Sorry, I...I don't dance." He shifts in his seat uncomfortably.
"Oh. Oh, that's okay. I don't really either."
His place is spartan. Walls dull grey, painted in longing. A few framed sketches. Stunning, beautiful. He says nothing when he notices me linger on the one of her the longest. It's gone, tucked away somewhere, the next time I come over to cook dinner.
A few weeks in, over potato soup that turned out pretty good even if I was craving sushi instead, I begin to wonder if I've miscalculated this whole thing. I've held hands out walking. Hugs linger a little longer. Nothing more. Stagnant.
Maybe he just...can't. Move on. Move on. Move on. Decade-long mission. Try to move on. Make the best of it. Going through the motions, a caricature of himself, of who he's supposed to be.
Maybe that's what I admire the most about him. He just keeps getting back up. It's not that he won't break - he seems so very, very impossibly unbroken. Too stubborn from a lifetime of fighting that he won't surrender tethers to his past.
Whatever it is, or isn't, I can't stay away.
Sometimes, he eyes me skeptically. Whenever I've done perhaps too much, channeled a smidge more housewife than prudent (and I do question why I've taken this tact but he keeps seeing me so I barrel ahead) when I've silently, voluntarily rearranged and back-burnered my own work and interests.
"It's not that I don't appreciate it, but you really don't have to go to all this trouble," he says one evening, setting the table.
"Oh, it's no trouble." It is. "I enjoy doing this for you." I enjoy doing things for you, but not so much this. "Besides, what else would I be doing?" Cleaning my apartment that I never let you see for many reasons. Actually completing projects. Wearing stretch pants. Work.
He sets a plate down. "What would you like to be doing?" It's an innocent enough question, asked innocently enough. It's only me that makes it feel more like I find it hard to believe you want to be doing this.
This is when I realize I've convinced myself these changes are improvements.
Surely, he - who stands eye-to-eye with gods and monsters, who observes the world from a vantage point that quite literally no one else has - wouldn't be interested in my mundane, day-to-day work. Not the minutiae of clerical work, grant proposals. Wouldn't endure an ironic love for hair bands that is pretty light on the irony or backtrack on that whole no-dancing rule.
He'd definitely be leaving a Steve-shaped exit hole in the wall sprinting in the opposite direction of the porn I haven't peeked at in weeks.
I venture another look. His face is earnest. I recall something I'd always meant to do.
"Well, I think shelters want people to come pet the cats." Oh, god. What if he hates cats? "Dogs, er, dogs and cats. Animals." Smooth.
He smiles, a little wider than I could've anticipated, and resumes placing silverware.
"If you're free Saturday, let's go."
The questions start again during dinner. Having things done for him, his disquiet is palpable, like his skin itches and stretches over knitting wounds. Forgotten scars busted open.
"You do realize it was never like that for me, right?" He says. "There wasn't pot roast on the table and a newspaper waiting for me. I grew up in the Depression. It was a mug of hot water instead of tea and getting sent to bed so early we didn't notice we'd missed dinner."
I had realized that. I hadn't realized he knew I was catering specifically to him.
"This is how my grandparents raised me. I miss that sense of home, that sense of...comfort?" I fiddle with a spoon, my reflection elongated, distorted along its curve. "Steve, just because you didn't get it, doesn't make it right."
His head draws back, taking my in. An unreadable look in his eye.
"I know you didn't get what you deserved," I say, chewing the words, "back then. I just want to help you get it now." Fidgeting, words feeling too...accurate. "Or, the closest thing to what you...we deserve."
His hand covers mine, wraps fingers together, entwines. Gives me a tailored version of his VA coaching. Tells me that the world is what we make it. That it can be good and right. That he knows I'm holding back, holding something back, but admits he is, too, that he isn't sure he knows how not to anymore. "Please," he starts, squeezes my hand gently, "what aren't you telling me?"
Slipping my hand out from under his, missing the warmth immediately, I start without thinking. "You're here and I'm here and making the best of it. Have you felt…" I stop for a moment, realizing something I hadn't let myself think before, "...have you even felt real in years?"
The back of his chair squeaks as he leans back against it. Concedes. "Not very often."
"I'm tired of it, weary of just getting by. Aren't you, Steve? What are our lives for, if not for something better than just seeing if we can make it to another sunset?"
This is when I think it's all gone to Hell. Maybe I've overstepped.
Wordlessly, never taking his eyes off mine, he folds his napkin, pushes his chair back, stands up and comes directly over to where I sit. Bending his knees until he's at eye level, he runs his hand along the side of my face, thumb tracing my skin, and slowly, slowly places his lips on mine.
I can't help the smile that overtakes me mid-kiss. He pulls back and smiles, too, color in his cheeks.
It's all very sweet and proper. Nice.
Then I notice the slightly darker tint to his eyes and I, for lack of a better word, lose it.
"C'mere." I grab his collar and crash my lips to his. His eyes fly open and I almost laugh but I use this element of surprise to propel myself out of the chair and twist until he's flat and I'm straddling his chest.
Hovering an inch above his pleasantly, openly shocked face, I breathe out, "Wanna start living in the moment, Mr. Rogers?"
He does. Three times, all the most polite missionary orgasms in history. No complaints. I do a No-Shame-At-All-Walk back to HQ the next day.
It's gradual, but somewhere along the line, he starts talking. Really talking. About his mom. Drawing. Losing Bucky again. And again. The Strike Team's betrayal - his team for over a year - acute and somehow still raw.
Days become mutual, together. Not alone. The kind of unalone so stark and bright, like daybreak rain, that it highlights how alone we've both been. Like we'd hoisted the cellar door and crawled out of its dank depths.
One night, a man from his groups doesn't make it. Car wreck.
"Go, Steve. It's okay. They need you."
"It's strange now," he sighs. "To have death come suddenly, in such a… normal way."
"Us normal folk don't often get epic send-offs," I joke, lamely. Apologize with My eyes. His brow tightens like he didn't really want to contemplate that.
"The group wants to grab a few drinks," he says. I know he means I'd be bored, since this version of me doesn't drink. "I don't know how long..." His voice is the slightest tinge hopeful.
"Just go," I say softly.
I wait at his place. Answer overdue emails, start to catch up. Feel more like myself.
Sometime after midnight, I fall asleep on top of his bedspread.
Later, he slips in, curls up around me. Tucks me below his chin. He smells of soap and something distinctly Steve. I stir and turn to him, palm flat on his chest, press a soft kiss above his heart.
"You stayed." He kisses my fingers.
"Of course," I say, sleep-slurred.
Before sunrise, he buries himself inside me, tilts my hips, angles in. It's slow sweat and sweet, limbs tangled and swallowed breaths. Holds my face, hands woven in my hair as he rocks in me. Never says a thing, his tongue curls into my mouth, pushes my secrets back in.
And I fall a little further each passing night. It feels foreign, but warm. Like remembering something I never really knew.
What should be joy is horror. I've never been more scared. Even when I'd watched everyone on my bus disintegrate, driver's hand gone to soot.
Late one weeknight, I burn the ever-loving shit out of my hand on the stove. A string of creative curse combinations leaves my mouth for a full forty-five seconds. It's all very incongruous with the frilly apron and (useless) oven mitts.
He looks gloriously scandalized before laughing until his eyes water.
He takes me bent over the island and it is anything but polite. Positively revels in me. Reveals spots I didn't know I had. I scream his name.
Ragged breaths behind my ear. "You're so close...I want it." His words push me over, as I clench he loses rhythm, follows.
Panting, pressed against cool granite, confessions carved into stone, I hear myself whisper how much I love him.
He has propriety enough to act like he didn't hear.
This is when it gets awkward. Two steps forward, three miles back.
We barely speak the next day. And the next. Then, it's the most days without seeing one another since this whole mess started.
On day four, I slide out of my sweats and into a dress, paint on my face, and go lean on his apartment door to wait for him.
Being alone with one's thoughts is never a great exercise, but certainly not for someone who has been play-acting for a few months. Mentally, I scroll through all the deadlines I've missed.
Nat's voicemail replays in my head. "Hey, I know you might think this isn't my business, but you're my business and those kids are my business and, frankly, Steve is my business. You've lost perspective and, again, frankly, I didn't think you'd be like this with him. Please call me. Or, come to work. Both. Both would be good."
I look up at the ceiling and breathe out. An unblinked tear escapes.
I miss Steve approaching. "Hey, are you o-" he starts, then chews his lip for a moment. "We need to talk."
"I'm not so sure we do." I stare blankly at the walk ahead. "I think I'm just gonna go."
"Is that what you want?"
"It's what you want that's at issue here." Another traitorous tear slides down my face. "I know I'm not genuinely what you want."
"Damn it," he huffs, mostly to himself. "Just come inside. We shouldn't do this in the hallway."
I move off the door and he goes in, pulling me in at first, then looks to where he holds me and drops my arm as if burnt.
"Sorry."
"You don't really have anything to be sorry for Steve, except maybe avoiding me for a few days."
He runs his hands over his face. "I just don't think I can be what you need. I thought I could, but I just don't think I'm...capable of that anymore."
"Capable of what?" I know. But I need to hear him say it, to rip it off like a bandage left too long, gauzy fibers soaked, enmeshed with tissue. If I finally hear it, then I can...I don't know.
"Oh, shit, this sounds so bad. I want to. I want to love you. There are moments when I think I could, that it could happen, but it just...doesn't."
This is when I break.
No rebuttal comes. My mind sparks but fades. I can't help but try to hang on, dig in, fingers clawing at the dirt.
"It's okay, Steve. I didn't mean t-"
"It is definitely not okay! None of this is okay. I don't want to hurt you or waste your time." He shakes his head. "I can't ask you to compromise like that."
"The whole damned world now is nothing but compromise and it sure as Hell didn't ask."
"We're better than that," he says, frowning. "We deserve real."
"Are 'we' better than that? You...you are. Me? I don't know." I try to laugh but it just chokes off. "The planet used to be stuffed with twice as many people and most of us - I sure as Hell was, weren't you? - were very much alone."
He sighs. Brushes a tear from under my eye. "Part of me...part of me is always going to be someplace else."
This isn't news. I blow out air slowly. "How I feel isn't going to change whether you feel the same or not. I don't want you to send me away because you think you know better." I'm not crying anymore. I'm mad. "I want to be with you, regardless." A blind rage, mostly at myself. Probably all at myself. "It's my choice and I damned well think you're worth it."
His face is genuinely stunned.
We both really do try. Make the best of it.
Things change though.
Resigned that, whatever he feels, it's not love. It's affection adjacent. If a thin line exists between love and hate, then it's a thick metal girder between love and like.
I double down. Desperate, every word rehearsed, every aspect honed to perfection. Let me have these pieces of you in exchange for pieces of me.
In the throes, one night, I hear him stop himself from saying it. He doesn't mean to, I know it. He can't help himself any more than I can. It'd be fighting oceans and tides and lightless moons.
On my knees, in stockings and red-lipped, before him. "Peg-...Pe-...Please...don't stop." Pain squeezes my heart, musculature seeping between its dead, cold digits. I swallow it down along with him.
On top of me, wrapped up around me, his hoarse puffs beside ear my. They all sound like the beginning of her name.
They all are.
I could pretend it's my name, a name for what I've become. Placeholder. Placebo. But even that's not accurate. I'm pure medicine scorching through his veins. This century's super serum, burning up under the hot lights and sterile space a Stark made for him. I'm on fire, searing away trying to be what you think he needs - but, he didn't need anything to be good, never did - all the while, over the chaos, Peggy shouts to stop.
I signed on for this.
Because I faked it so well, I'd fooled myself.
Messy. Misaligned. Reckless love.
I take to crying in the shower. Searching every piece of me, I don't know what more I can change or give or swap out like spare parts, to finally, finally, be enough/real/alive.
In the fogged mirror, I look. Truly look. A collection of cobbled together bits and limbs. Someone else's lips and hair and clothes. All myself and my work amputated. A zombie pantomime of by-gone ideals and remembrances.
I wipe away the fog again. There, smeared and broken among the watery trails, it is all too obvious why he cannot love me. I do not love myself like this. A monstrous visage, the good parts ignored to decay, just a stitched-up collection of dead things.
He catches me crying sometimes. Swears to leave for good and I beg him to stay. Every time. Holds me tight to his chest and whispers he's sorry and promises to stop hurting me because he cares, he really cares, but I don't think he knows exactly who is to blame.
He is late getting to his place one night so I start the record player. Sway, arms wrapped around myself as Billie Holiday sings "You Go to My Head."
On the refrain, Steve comes up behind me. Places his lips gently on my shoulder, runs his hands down my arms.
"Dance with me, Steve," I say, facing away. Hold myself a little tighter.
I hear his short gasp.
"God, please give me this, Steve. Please, just dance with me." You didn't ask, but I gave up everything for you.
Wordlessly, he turns me and draws me to him. Sways until the notes fade away.
My heart might not beat for a solid minute when the words "Time Travel" first come up.
It's the end. Steve doesn't realize what he's going to do, but I do. Given half the chance, there's no doubt.
"Hey, Doll." He pulls me into his chest. "It's going to be okay. This is what we do."
I nod against him. No doubt they will be successful. Mutely, I pull out of his embrace. I cannot leave fast enough, this place where all these gods and angels stand.
My last mistake is not going to my room.
While the solitary bird flits around where I sit in the courtyard, a concerned Steve overrides security to get into my quarters to comfort me.
When I get to my room, Steve is there. Looks so out of place, like a dog on its hind legs. His face is flat, eyes cold. Silently, he turns a digital photo frame toward me. Each photo stripping away another lie. A photo of me with my parents, another in my toe shoes, two at recitals, tongue out and drunk at an Ozzy concert. Not one looks like me now. Not one.
Jaw squared, he looks to the kitchen where printouts of old recipes litter the counter.
"Steve," I say, starting to reach for him. He puts a hand up. "Steve, let me explain."
"You know," his voice is steel, "I didn't go out with you because you reminded me of the past. I went out with you because you asked me."
"Steve, I just wanted to…wanted to…"
"You wanted to what? Read about me in a textbook and try to be - what? - fake it? Ugh, God." He rolls his eyes, body half-twists away.
"It's not like that." Except, it is.
"It's not? Oh, well then please tell me. Enlighten me. Because from where I am right now, it sure fucking looks like you took things you thought were special to me and just, what? Wore them like a suit to manipulate me?"
Near numb, I shake my head.
"It worked...it worked so well and you let me feel guilty about it!"
The shame pushes my legs out from under me. "I just wanted to make you happy."
"Me? You can try to tell yourself that. No, you did this for you." Holds the picture frame in both hands, the colors reflect in his eyes as they change. Under his breath, he says, "I don't even know you."
Steve nails me with his gaze. "Do you even realize what you've stolen from me? What you guilted me into? What I saved and I can never get back?"
Billie Holiday echoes in my brain. The song, the dance. Like a miracle, I hate myself more.
I am carved down, scoured out, brittle bones bleached in the sun.
He shakes off his anger slightly. "I knew you were holding back, but this?" He points to a stack of work I've let languish. Detailed housing plans, nutrition guidelines, research and half-complete presentation charts. "I can't understand why...why wouldn't you include me in this? Were you scared of not being enough? Too much? Of being you?" He sighs out. "Everyone can have those thoughts, that's understandable. But, you didn't trust me with you."
I desperately reach for him, hold his arms. "I do trust you. I do."
He scoffs. "The problem is you let me care about someone who doesn't even exist. Who never existed. You kept "you" secret from me while I opened up to you. You think I let anyone else ever know how fucked up I feel?"
He looks at me in a way I never wanted. With grief.
"Damn it - Goddamn it all. I let you in." I expect him to punch the wall, but the air just leaves him. He deflates. Smaller than ever seemed possible. "I fucking let you in."
Everyone comes back. Except Nat. All I have left is her voicemail.
There's no more times together. Nothing.
It's always been beautiful, pulsing nothing.
Bleeding out every pore.
In a makeshift office miles from decimated HQ, I bury myself in her projects and try to resurrect my own until it's time for Tony's memorial.
I'm not sure why I'm going. Apart from Tony hiring me, I don't really know anyone else there except Steve. But, Tony gave me a chance and, while I've mucked it up spectacularly of late, I go to honor him as best I can.
I try to stay in the shadows, so I'm surprised Steve finds me nonetheless. Even more surprised he tries.
Looking out over the water, he asks, "Are you going to be okay? Did you find a place to stay?"
"Yes." No and yes.
"I'm so very sorry Steve. I just wish, I just wish…"
"Don't." He blows out a sigh. Hands in his pockets. "If you didn't trust me, I could work to make you. If you didn't trust yourself, I'd help you learn to. But you didn't trust either of us and there's nothing I can do about that. And that's a damned tragedy." He turns and starts to walk past.
"Steve! Steve wait!" I cringe, my voice echoes over the serene lake. He keeps walking.
"Steve." Sniff. "Please."
He takes a huge gulp of air and turns partially toward me, staying in profile.
Shaking his head softly, jaw askew, he lifts his hands and lets them fall as if to say, "What do you want from me?"
"Can we just try again? Start over?"
How did we meet? How did we meet back when I was real?
"Steve, I'm...I'm so sorry. You're right. I was more than guarded, I was trying so hard to be good for you. I took what I knew and what you showed me and tried so hard to mold myself into what I thought you'd want. I know that was so stupid now. But I know you. I know you! And I just want a chance for you to know me. I...I...I like metal bands and R&B. I'm a cat AND dog person. I used to tap dance. There's photographic evidence! They let me back on the orphan program and we're using it as a template for veterans. I have yelled in the face of the Secretary of State. More than once. My grandparents didn't raise me but I spent summers with them." I choke back more tears. "I am actually a bit of a pervert. That's who I am. I screwed up. I just want a chance to show you 'me.'"
I cough and through blurry vision it almost looks like he starts to reach for me. Then, his arm pulls back.
"But what I felt - what I feel for you is so real. I'm absolutely in love with you, Steve Rogers." I wipe my sleeve across my wet face. "I know I screwed up and I hurt you and I have no excuses, but I am b-begging you to give me a chance. Just let me start over."
He doesn't move, still looking out over the lake.
"Steve, please, I just want to show you who this girl really is."
"She sounds amazing," he says, toneless. Walks past me toward the platform where a case full of gems and a magic hammer wait. "I wish I could've met her. I would've loved her."
This is when I know. I'm the bad guy in my own story.