NOTES: "Lennan" means 'sweetheart' or 'beloved' in Gaelic for a man ("leannan" is for when referring to a woman) via Bing-translate, the songs mentioned are Carrie Underwood's HEARTBEAT and Thriving Ivory's ANGELS ON THE MOON- I do not own either song or Marvel/any characters mentioned aside from Etain, I wanted Steve to have an uncomplicated and happy relationship after seeing so much fanfiction about him losing loved ones, this ignores Sharon Carter's existence, and this was written to take place about 4-6 months after CIVIL WAR (which I haven't seen, so bear that in mind)/
Agent Etain Ryan looked at herself in the mirror. She huffed out a short laugh as she reached for her shoes. She wasn't really an agent anymore. There was no SHIELD anymore. Just the Avengers, although their barracks in upstate New York was very reminiscent of SHIELD, and so sometimes she forgot. Pulling her brown boots on, Etain muttered to herself. Being a field agent, she was used to wearing either her tactical gear that made her look a little more like one of her brothers' army men toys, or running around the New Avengers facility in her blue jeans and a faded Tshirt. However a party held by Tony Stark at the new house he bought for he and Pepper nearer to the New Avengers facility, required her to actually put some effort into dressing up and looking more like a normal girl.
Checking once more, she started to think that perhaps she should have taken Pepper up on the offer to take her shopping. It just had gone so against her idea of 'fun'. If Etain went shopping for fun, she was hitting up a store that sold books or one that sold carpentry stuff. Looking at her outfit, she figured her humble background was showing. Blue dress that stopped just below the knee, buttoning up from the belt at her hips all the way to her clavicle, sleeves that stopped halfway between her elbow and wrist, and with a stitched pattern so it had darker swirls of blue, the brown buttons almost matching her knee-high brown boots. She pulled out her thin brown leather jacket, a bit redder in shade than her dark brown boots, and let out a breath. She was going to stick out like a sore thumb. The girl with the slight accent, barely done hair, and the fashion sense of someone from HeeHaw's cornfield.
The knock at her door alerted Etain to her date's arrival. She smiled as she walked down the steps of the house she and another former agent shared. The last few years going through her mind in a blink. An agent assigned to help Captain Rogers adjust to the 21st century, then being promoted to doing field work and sometimes getting to go into the field with Clint, Natasha, and Steve, and when Steve was bringing down Hydra, she had been with a group in London who heard his call to arms on the radio and they followed the Captain's orders. She'd rather forget her time during the so-called Civil War, where Steve had sent her underground, and where she ran into the surprisingly not-dead Phil Coulson. Her assignment had been to protect a relative of Peggy's during the conflict, in case any leftover Hydra-crazies saw the battle as a chance to take down someone who might cause problems for them later. In the haze afterwards, Steve had officially asked her out, with some prodding from Bucky.
Taking a breath, Etain opened the door to find her favorite teammate. Steve stood there, a white Tshirt, his favorite dark blue jacket unzipped, blue jeans that she swore Pepper had gotten custom fitted for the man, and his hands behind his back as though he were ordered at ease. Etain smiled up at him. There wasn't much height difference between them, so they easily made eye contact when talking.
"Hey there, soldier."
He smiled at her nickname. It had started not long after they met. While everyone else called him 'Captain Rogers' or 'Captain America', but Etain had started calling him 'soldier' within a couple weeks of their first meeting.
"You look beautiful.", he told her.
Etain smiled wide, feeling a blush working up her face. She cursed her Irish complexion as she stepped out onto the stoop, pulling the door closed behind her. Steve offered his arm and she easily slid her arm into place, walking beside him to the car. As always, he got her door, and then came around to join her inside. At the end of her driveway, he spoke up again.
"Small change of plans for tonight."
She nodded, waiting.
"We're not going to Tony's party. I hope you don't mind."
Etain laughed.
"Hardly. I think I've had about all the Queen Elsa jokes I can handle for one week. But uh… where are we going?"
Steve grinned a little, turning to go the opposite way he would need to drive for Tony's new abode.
"Its a surprise."
Etain just smiled with a nod. She normally hated surprised, however if it meant being able to not only duck Tony's latest shindig but also being able to play hookie from it with Steve, she was fine with it.
They rode mostly in silence, Steve driving and Etain looking at the stars through the window. When she had been living near D.C. in order to help Fury at the Triskelion, she had missed the stars. Growing up spending her time either with her mom and siblings in the Appalachian region or summers and her birthdays with her grandparents back in Ireland, the stars were as familiar and comforting a sight to her as her mom's face or her grandfather's old fishing boat. D.C. had been so lit up at night, Etain never got to see her stars. Coming to upstate New York to continue her work with the Avengers, had been a gift because it gave her back the stars.
"We're almost there."
She looked up and saw one of the jets that Clint or Natasha usually piloted for them to go out on a mission. It was parked in a clearing with a motorcycle parked beside it.
"Uh, Steve… We goin' on a mission?"
Steve smiled over at her before pulling the car up beside his motorcycle. He had arranged to have a car dropped in this location for him to use to pick her up in case she wasn't dressed for a ride on his bike. He'd brought the bike with him when he flew the jet over and he moved the bike out in order to have more room inside the jet. Conflicting weather forecasts had him worried it might rain so he prepared for the rain, just in case. Over a decade into the 21st century and the weather was still unpredictable.
"No. We are taking the jet to our destination. Just trust me."
Etain looked over at him, a knowing smile gracing her lips as if she held a secret she would not be telling him. He had no doubt she knew a great many secrets she would never share.
"I trust you, soldier. I'm just curious, is all."
He smiled wider, hearing the thickening of that Irish-tinge in her accent as she spoke. When they were at work, he almost never heard it. It mostly came out when she was teasing with him or whenever she was tired, as there was always some accent there even when she was at her calmest. It was only really thick when she had been on the phone with her family, and then for the rest of the day she would sound like she had just gotten off the plane from Ireland.
She got out before he could come around to get her door, although he was pretty accustomed to that by this point. He was convinced Etain forgot he would get her door.
"I almost thought we were going to go for a ride on your bike again."
That made Steve's heart thud a little faster, thinking of the last time she rode with him, arm wrapped around his middle and smiling wide enough to nearly split her face.
"Maybe later."
He gestured up into the cabin of the jet, smiling.
"Your chariot."
Etain chuckled at his antics she walked up into the jet, taking her place in the co-pilot seat. She didn't know how to fly these jets and the one time she had been forced to do it on a mission, she nearly froze the controls. Literally. Steve took his spot in the pilot's seat and hit the buttons to close the back end and start up the engines.
"Ducking Tony's party and now absconding with company equipment. I already sense an adventure, Captain."
Steve shook his head as he readied the jet for take off.
"Clint uses one all the time to see his family. I'm hardly the first one to use a jet for non-work related reasons."
Etain nodded.
"True. Although he can't take a car because it is a lot easier to track than the jets."
"Exactly. We won't be tracked when Tony realizes we haven't come to his party and Sam explains that we are on a date."
Etain looked over her shoulder, spotting Steve's one-of-a-kind shield propped up next to a trunk. She also noted that there was a slightly smaller trunk beside the first one, with the tag with her name on it. Steve was going to leave the radio on in case WWIII broke out and they got called in, however he was making sure Tony couldn't just be a jerk and interrupt their date. It appeared there was still a bit of healing left to do in the wake of the 'Civil War'. As the jet moved upward, Etain caught herself looking out at the stars again. They were just so bright tonight.
A few minutes later, Steve brought them out to a field that looked vaguely familiar to Etain. There were mountains in the distance and the field they were landing in was nestled between two hills with the valley leading to a stream that glistened in the spotlights of the stars and the moon. Steve landed with only a little less finesse than Clint, then shut down the engines without shutting down all of the power. Hitting a few buttons, he brought the light level down to something a bit warmer and using less of the blue and white light that made up the bulk of the lighting effects in the jet, and then he got up and walked to a box hidden behind their trunks of equipment.
Etain would have recognized that box anywhere. It was a large, bright green cooler that she had spotted in Steve's D.C. apartment once. He had gotten it for when he sometimes disappeared to New York to sit on the bleachers and watch baseball with some cold colas stashed in there. Steve came over and held his hand out to help her up from the co-pilot seat.
Etain's curiosity was officially peaked. When they walked out, Steve stopped just a little past the tailgate of the jet. Letting go of her hand, he pulled a folded yellow blanket from where it was balanced on top of the cooler, and he began setting out. Etain crouched down and helped get the corners in place before Steve put the cooler down and opened it to reveal even more surprises. Cold colas in glass bottles, fresh cut fruit, a can of whip creme, and cutlery. He laid out the bowl of strawberries and then the dish of sliced apples, bananas, and whole grapes before pulling out a smaller container with champagne grapes that he handed directly to Etain. She chuckled.
"I haven't had these in forever! How did you know about these?"
Steve could feel the slight blush as he smiled up at her before pulling out the colas.
"I may have managed to catch your sister on the phone the other day and I asked if there was anything you used to have on camping trips when you were a kid that you might have had trouble getting when you were in D.C. or now up in New York. She said your mom always used to get each of you a fruit just for you. Your sister liked oranges, your brothers both loved apples and cherries, but you always wanted champagne grapes because you thought they were sweeter."
Etain shook her head, still smiling.
"My grandpa introduced me to them. He couldn't get me to eat regular grapes like he liked, and my grandma had loved champagne grapes, so he got me to try some of them. I loved them instantly. I used to eat them with pepper-jack cheese, crackers, and sliced apples out on the porch with him. Usually paired with two tall glasses of my mom's sweet tea."
Steve loved that look she got when she talked about lazy summers spent with her grandfather. She said that when she was younger, they went to Ireland to visit he and her grandmother, but after her grandmother passed, her grandpa moved in with them in Harpers Ferry. He had spent the rest of his years watching over his grandkids, but especially his granddaughter with the ice-powers and wide green eyes that went wider every time he offered to tell her some old Irish tale.
They continued to sit for a while, drinking the cold colas and eating the fruit, talking about the team, various events coming up in the area that could be fun to attend on their downtime, and even joking about what shenanigans would go on this Christmas around the New Avengers facility. Then it hit Steve, he had forgotten the radio.
"You alright, Steve?", Etain asked.
He ran a hand over his face.
"I forgot the radio. I was going to bring a radio out so we could listen to the music while we were out here."
Etain reached over, laying a warm hand over his thigh, her green eyes even warmer as they looked up at him. Steve could get lost in those eyes all night if she let him.
"Steve, it's really alright. Out here, you wouldn't get any signal anyway. Just static."
He nodded, then abruptly looked up at her.
"How do you know that?"
She smiled, sipping her cola with her other hand still laying just above his knee.
"Because I know where we are.", she said smugly before taking another sip of her cola.
Steve let out a breath. He had wondered how long it would take her to realize he'd brought her out to a place she mentioned she had sometimes camped around with her siblings. A few more minutes went by in companionable silence, enjoying the sounds of the trees, breeze, and babbling water around them.
"Are you cold?", Steve asked as he noticed Etain toying with the edge of her jacket. Even with the reddish hue, it was not the same shade as her dark, auburn hair that looked far darker in moonlight.
Etain shook her head, with a small smile on her lips. It occurred to Steve how silly a question that was. It seemed with her ability to create, manipulate, and otherwise use ice to her will, she had also been gifted with a strong resistance to the cold. She normally wore light jackets or hoodies when the rest of the team were outfitted to match Siberian sled racers, and even then she wore the jackets to avoid questions and stares rather than because she had any real need of them.
"No, I just..", she trailed off as she bit her lower lip in her teeth.
"Just what?", Steve asked, leaning a little closer to her so he could have rested his head on her shoulder if he wanted.
Etain let out a small, breathy laugh before speaking.
"If we could dance?"
Steve let out his own breath. He didn't want the same kind of disaster as that one mission with Natasha about two years ago. And part of him still associated dancing with Peggy and the unfulfilled promise from over 70 years ago. Etain must have guessed as much from his expression, as she moved a little away from him, looking down at her feet as she muttered in an apologetic tone.
"Sorry. Forget I asked."
Steve reached out, catching her hand, giving it a small squeeze.
"Nat and I had to dance once. We were undercover at some charity event. Remember when I had to grow out my beard for a little while and they dyed my hair dark brown?"
She nodded. Steve figured she would remember, considering how much she had teased him about needing a plaid shirt and he could be the Brawny Towels spokesperson. He had been forced to use a search engine to figure out exactly what she meant. He had even taped a picture, cut out from his fake ID for the mission, to a roll of paper towels and left it at her desk a couple days later.
"I nearly broke several of her toes."
Etain held a hand over her mouth, clearly trying to stifle a laugh. Maybe even a snort. She was prone to snorting repeatedly when she laughed. More so if she was with Sam, Bucky, Clint, and Steve. It seemed they brought it out in her.
"I'm not kidding. I'm pretty sure her one toe might still be crooked."
Etain smiled widely, finally moving her hand away from her face.
"I'm willing to risk it. Besides, we don't have to be all fancy like Nat at a charity event. We can just sway to the beat."
Steve nodded, standing up and holding a hand to Etain. As she stood, he asked the obvious question.
"What beat are we dancing to?"
Etain walked the few steps with him to be off the blanket, her shoes left forgotten on the other side of it.
"We've got a symphony going on around us, soldier. A stream over there, the wind making the trees let out a hushed hum, and the occasional nightowl."
Steve moved to face Etain, his arms wrapping around Etain as her arms came to rest over his shoulders, one hand moving to run her fingers over the hair at the base of his skull. He would ever understand it, though it seemed Etain loved having her fingers in his hair. Looking down into those deep green eyes of hers, he could not deny her anything. Even this little dance to no music.
"You could sing."
Etain shook her head, biting her lower lip again.
"Come on, you've got a good voice."
"You can't know that. You've never heard me sing."
Steve smiled wider and watched as her eyes got a little wider, the realization dawning on her.
"When? How?"
"You were working at the Triskelion one night when I came in to meet with Fury. I was a little ways off, so I couldn't see you. I saw the light coming from under your office door as I walked further down the hall, no other lights on in the area, and someone was singing a song about angels on the moon."
Etain groaned, her forehead resting on Steve's shoulder as she hid her face.
"No one was supposed to hear that. Fury was holed up in his office. No one but the security on the ground floor, should have been there."
Steve kissed the side of her head, still smiling.
"I admit, I paused a while to listen. Fury asked what took me so long and I told him that I hit some traffic."
Etain raised her head, looking at him in disbelief.
"You lied to Director Fury and got away with it? Don't tell Natasha. She still thinks your a horrible liar."
Steve grinned. Most of the time, he was.
"Okay. You win, but you have to close your eyes. I can't deal with you looking at me while I do this."
Steve nodded, closing his eyes as he smiled so much his cheeks were hurting a little. It was a pleasant sort of pain. She began with humming, as though finding the rhythm of the tune, before she began to sing.
"I love it when we're at a party, at a downtown crowd. But I can hear you call me 'baby' with the music up load. Red win, good times, no I don't mind being with everyone else, and then there's night life tonight that, I - I want you to myself."
She hummed a little and sang some more, and Steve smiled, seeing why she might have picked the song she chose.
"And tonight I wanna drive so far we'll only find static on the radio. And we can't see those city lights, and I love the way you look in a firefly glow. Saying everything without making a sound, a cricket choir in the background, underneath a harvest moon. Standing on your shoes in my bare feet, dancing to the rhythm of your heartbeat. Oh woah, and we're dancing to the rhythm of your heartbeat."
She hummed and sang, Steve doing his best to move to the beat of her singing, all the while also just taking this all in. They didn't get very many nights off, and even fewer still where he could have a moment out of time with Etain, all to themselves.
"And tonight I wanna drive so far we'll only find static on the radio, and we can't see those city lights, and I love the way you look in a firefly glow. Daying everything without making a sound, a river rolling in the background, underneath a harvest moon. Standing on your shoes in my bare feet, dancing to the rhythm of your heartbeat, and we're dancing to the rhythm of your heartbeat.", she sang the last lines, then hummed a bit before Steve opened his eyes to find her eyes were closed as well and a soft smile graced her lips as she ended the humming and opened her eyes.
It was as though there were a spell on them, as powerful as one Wanda might do, however Steve had no urge to fight this one. Slowly, they moved closer until their lips met and their eyes closed once more. Steve held Etain closely, hands under her jacket to be as close to her as possible as they kissed. When they parted, both needing some air, Steve enjoyed the look on Etain's face. Face flushed, lips curled into a small smile as she caught her breath, and eyes locked back into his.
"I love you."
He hadn't meant to say it, the words just slipped out. Her smile widened and her eyes grew softer as they looked back at him.
"I love you, too."
Steve tilted his head so they stood forehead to forehead, arms still wrapped around one another, their breaths commingling in the cool October air.
"If I'd known getting away and singing was all it took to hear those words, I would have kidnapped you a long while ago, Steve."
"If I had known you were ready to hear it, I would have told you a while back. I wasn't sure we were at that stage yet."
Etain leaned up, lightly kissing him again.
"I'm no expert Steve, I just go with what feels right. And this, us, it feels more right than anything else in the world."
He was sure his face was going to split from all the smiling he was doing. Leaning, he kissed the tip of her nose and agreed.
"I haven't felt this right in… well, maybe ever."
Etain smiled a little wider.
"I love you, Steven Grant Rogers."
"And I love you, Etain Ridley Ryan."
She smiled, leaning up to kiss him just as the rain started to fall on them. They both moved fast, smiling and laughing a little as they dragged everything back into the jet. Before he could stop her, Etain pulled off her jacket and went back out into the rain to dance around for a moment. Steve just watched her as she appeared to be doing a small jig before smiling back at him, and joining him on the gate of the jet. She took one last look outside, her face falling a little and taking on a sadness.
"You alright, sweetheart?", he asked.
Etain could tell he was worried. He only used that term when he was worried, such as when he overheard her calling out from a particularly bad nightmare or when she had been injured on a mission. Looking up into those beautiful blue-diamond eyes, she smiled.
"No. Just thinking that it is a shame we couldn't stay till sunrise."
Steve smiled, and she felt more warmed than she ever did under the sunlight. His one arm curled around the small of her back, pulling her a little closer.
"I'm supposed to have a day off next week. We could meet and then go sit up on top of the New Avengers facility and watch the sun come up, then you could go back to bed for a bit and I could head into the city for a little while with Bucky?"
Etain smiled.
"Sounds perfect. Its a date, lennan.", she said before moving to kiss his cheek, only for Steve to turn his face at the very last second to capture her lips for a lingering kiss. Etain didn't mind.
The next morning, as Etain was back in her usual attire of a black Tshirt, black army surplus-looking pants, combat boots, and a gun strapped to her left thigh, and she was furiously scribbling her signature across stacks of paperwork. Being one of the more senior agents with the New Avengers Training Facility had some drawbacks. Just when she was almost done with the first stack, she heard a song coming from the radio behind her, that made her stop for a second to listen. She had turned on the radio for some mindless noise. She had never done well with silence as it made her jumpy, so she nearly always had the radio going or a fan running in her office to make some noise. The tune was familiar and brought a smile to her face as she bit her worried her lip between her teeth. A woman singing about being so far from the city that the only thing on the radio was static, dancing under the moon, with a river in the background. She was just about to turn around and turn it up just a little when Maria's voice brought her back to the present.
Meanwhile, across the facility, Steve also had the radio on as he was checking gear for a training exercise he intended to do with the latest batch of recruits. A song came on that made him smile into the locker he had just opened. As nice a voice as the lady singing it had, Steve would always have a preference for a certain Irish-lady who sang that for his ears only. The same woman who called him lennan and thought he didn't know what it meant, who could literally freeze someone with a look, and who had loyally stayed by his side during not only the exposure of Hydra within SHIELD's ranks but also the painful 'Civil War' and his search for Bucky. She had even befriended both Sam and Bucky, sometimes looking after Bucky for Steve when a mission required him to be gone a few days at a time without Bucky.
Steve decided he might need to go find her at lunch today, and perhaps talk her into taking lunch to the roof for some privacy so that he could have her all to himself for a half hour or so. He didn't feel like waiting till both of them were done with their work for the day. Maybe this evening he would talk her into a second dance and maybe he could get her to sing again. His smile growing wider, Steve went along with his work. He would turn these fresh-faced recruits into solid agents by Christmas. And maybe he would have to make a few other changes by then.