Wise Enough To Carry The Scars
St: scars down her back – torture. He's used to scars on a man, but not on a woman – not like this. Wanting to touch, asking permission. His fingers measuring the bullet holes, the scrapes and grazes and pale lines on her skin. Then wanting to taste one, bending down and kissing it without thinking. She stiffens. Apologises, and she asks, "Are you?" He's not, but surprised she doesn't slap him. Necessary evil.
She's grim and silent after the destruction of the lab, her movements sharp and jerky, as though all the anger and frustration of the failed mission pours into her body.
Steve doesn't know what to say – or even if he should say anything at all. Natasha's usually his benchmark for these things, but Natasha's half a hemisphere away, dealing with a situation in Georgia. Lieutenant Hill needed someone with extraordinary physical capabilities to help her break into the lab, and Steve got the job.
And some unexpected advice. Hill has a tendency to monofocus after these things, Sitwell said as Steve was on his way out to suit up for the job, Afterwards, she might need someone to keep an eye on her.
The idea that Hill – capable and confident and self-assured – might need looking after seems ridiculous at first. But when they get back to the tiny, dingy room in Santa Cruz which has been their headquarters for the last six days, Hill heads straight for the laptop, and Steve knows he has to intervene.
"No." He closes the lid of the computer before it can boot all the way up. "First, I'm going to look at your back. Then you can contact Operations."
Hill stares at him for a moment, blankly, as though she forgot he was there. Or, Steve thinks with a touch of pique, as though a pet has just stood on hind legs and addressed her in human speech.
"You were injured," he says when that blank turquoise gaze doesn't abate. "You've been favouring your shoulder since then. I didn't say anything on the way out, but I'm saying something now."
"It's fine."
"Maybe it is. But you'll excuse me if I decide if it's fine or not." He indicates the check shirt she's worn for the last eight hours. "Shirt off."
Her eyes narrow "Are you always this charming with women?"
Steve's face goes hot, but he manages to retort, "Only for you, Lieutenant."
She rolls her eyes but starts unbuttoning the shirt.
There's no tease in it, but Steve still turns his back and busies himself with finding the antiseptic wipes in the medical kit. He doesn't trust himself watching.
A man should know his weaknesses, Erskine said in the early days of Steve's training with the SSR, back when they were still deciding who would take the serum. With the hindsight of their conversation the night before Erskine died, Steve understood why.
It seems that Lieutenant Hill is fast becoming a weakness for him. First that shave, then carrying her out of the function in Leipzig and thinking about the way she'd stilled when he swatted her on the bottom. Thinking about the way that dress clung to her, the hem flirting with her thighs, the heels accentuating her legs. And then the last six days, watching her plan and plot and swear and eat and sleep...
It's been six days of hard living, close quarters, and slow-building frustration.
A world full of women ready to fling themselves at him – or so Stark says, and he would know – and Steve fixates on a woman who doesn't even like what he is.
"All right, Nurse Rogers," she says, sounding resigned, "do your worst."
Steve turns around and stares.
It looks like someone else has beaten him to it.
She's straddling a chair, her t-shirt back bunched up against her neck, her shoulders and spine bare all the way down to the waistband of her slacks.
The wound is thin and long and beading with blood again. But that's not what draws Steve's eye.
He's seen scars before – he was in the war, after all. And yeah, he healed clean thanks to the serum but other men didn't. So Steve's seen worse, bullet wounds and knife wounds and thick shiny scar patches where flesh tore and didn't heal clean.
By comparison, the network of old, pale scars are elegant enough – if he ignores the fact that there's a pattern to them. If Steve doesn't let himself think that it looks like someone took a switch to her back until the skin was broken and raw.
Don't think, just tend.
"It's bleeding again." It's a relief to know his voice is steady, even as his hand shakes as he dabs at the thin wound. He has that much control over himself, at least. "Probably opened up when you took the shirt off." She got lucky – if the claw had stabbed down rather than lashing out...
Don't think about that.
But if he doesn't think about how close the blow came, then he has to think about those scars. Those scars...
There's nothing in Maria Hill that makes him think 'victim', and yet someone once beat her – old school style – until she bled. For a moment, Steve can't breathe from the anger that ignites in his belly that tightens iron bands around his chest.
"I'm not made of glass Rogers." Her voice cuts through his rage, caustic and matter-of-fact. "And we don't have all day."
He drags himself together, and forces himself to be impersonal, impartial. She hisses when he presses the wipe into the cut, carefully cleaning it out, and doesn't protest when he insists on bandaging it.
The Lieutenant holds still as he smears the antiseptic cream down the scar with his finger, and doesn't call him out when he smoothes the bandage down her back, then runs his hand along it again to check that it's secure. She gives him cursory thanks when he says, "All done," and doesn't look around as she pulls down the t-shirt and starts up the laptop without a second glance.
Steve busies himself with tidying up. It keeps him busy when all he wants to do is to bend down and press his mouth to those old, white marks and tell her that the scars make her beautiful.
She doesn't want to hear that – not from him, not from any man, so he bites back the words.
Still, he keeps an eye on her all that afternoon and the next day, making sure she eats and rests. When he checks on the wound he resists the temptation to touch and taste and tend, although it nags him with a constant ache.
They return to the helicarrier without the information they were sent to get.
Hill informs Fury of the news and the destruction of the lab and receives a resigned grimace. Steve informs medical of the Lieutenant's injury and receives a glare for his concern. He ignores both her glare and the small nod of approval he receives from Fury; he doesn't expect her gratitude and he doesn't want Fury's.
Four days later, he stands in a neighbourhood that marginally resembles the one he grew up in, wondering at the changes in the world. Then he takes a deep breath, and walks into the barbershop with his shaving kit in hand, his excuses ready, and a burning curiosity to understand more about this woman who wears her scars without shame.