We won the world at a carnival
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Steve is strangely and incredibly terrified of her. It's more than just because the very first time they shook hand and was introduced, she was ultimately glaring at him as though he's the sole cause on why the world came to what it became. Maria Hill terrifies him in a lot of ways, but Steve's been terrified his whole life that he almost doesn't acknowledge it; like it actually feels natural that he doesn't blink at all when their eyes fleet and contacted with one another. Maybe Bucky's right. Maybe it's in his genes. Maybe it's his life purpose to search for trouble.
But Maria Hill is no trouble. Oh yes, Steve has no doubt a woman so young with that extremely high of a position in such a prestige organisation could cause a ruckus if she wishes so, but she's also the person who snipes back at the council without batting an eye when she unwillingly defended the Avengers, the one who personally made it certain that they erased enough intel if any of her subordinates got picked up on, the one who goes as far as challenging the court when they demand a warrant arrest on Captain goddamn America (her words, not his)―no, she's no trouble. But she can sure as hell act and clean up after one.
Maybe that's why he admires her too. She kind of reminds him of Peggy―the way she carries order and gets stuff done and doesn't take crap from anyone. But it's also different because she's not Peggy. Not even if he washes his eyes and wills himself to pretend. She's different, not necessarily in a good or a bad way, but time has changed and her cheekbones are sharper and her tongue are slicker and she doesn't wear bright, red lipstick (not that he'd want her to, 'cause that'd be weird) and she glares more than she stares, and no, Steve, she's not Peggy.
But Steve figures that's okay too.
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Steve thinks Maria Hill has many problems.
It's not just with the whole world targeting her and everybody's seemingly mutual dislike towards her in general (except for a few selected few) but he doesn't ask about it. He draws her with this kind of sharpness in her lashes that if it's real enough, he thinks it'll cut his finger, and he likes drawing her though he doesn't draw her lots. Not in the way he draws Clint's arrows or New York's skyscrapers or passerby's smiles. But yes, he draws her.
Usually a posture when she's looking away, eyes distancing towards nowhere he could reach, mind probably pondering on a thought she'd share with no one. It's only when Clint jumps behind and sniffs and squints and points out, "Why she looks so sad, though?" that Steve finally notices that she does. That's because Maria Hill has many problems, he doesn't answer, but that's not wrong.
Because when she looks at him, there's no expectation in her eyes for him to be all cheery and happy and good. Not really. Because he has problems too, he thinks, they all do―and he'll accept hers if she's willing to accept his.
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She buys him ice cream and lets him stay when he's all 'mopey' and 'sad' and 'pathetically depressed' (her words, not his).
Sometimes he just stays.
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He finds that after a while, he really likes it when she smiles.
That is, when she smiles. She doesn't do that act a lot―oh yes, she smirks and grins and fake-smiles but that's not the same you see―because when she smiles, when she really smiles, he likes that tiny rare glint brightens up in the way she gazes. Her cheekbones would rise and she'll make this breathy, tiny laughter that'll echo like singing chimes on a windy day, and it'll drum right into his memory, and it makes him feel light (because when Maria Hill smiles, it's kind of hard for you to not to as well, you know?) and Steve thinks that's how being drunk feels like.
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He finds that after a while, it's not just her smile.
He likes her better when she rants and roll eyes and tells him about that one senator that's a pain in her ass. He likes flicking his thumb over the screen and sees her name sprawls over the caller ID. It's when she's reaching out like this and give a piece of how her mind thinks that he feels like he's achieving something―like he's breaking her apart, which is insane because he thinks if it's anyone who can do the breaking it's definitely those long, thin fingers that's handled his life before, but he doesn't mean it that way. No, not like that.
He thinks that he's slowly breaking off the walls that she usually put to have a distance between another person and herself, and that he's getting closer, and that she trusts him just as much as he's willing to trust her, and that sometimes, it's her who invites him in. And that means something, you know? It means something so much to him that when he feels vulnerable enough, he wishes he could bend his head lower and press his lips across her mouth. Just a touch. Just a caress. Maybe something.
Maybe something.
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She asks him one day that if he's ever loved anybody.
He doesn't know how to respond, not that immediately, not that smoothly; so he gives her looks, you know? To figure out if this is sort of a game that she's playing with him although she most definitely does not play games. Not like this. (She is, however, an excellent chess player if that should count.) But she looks ahead like she's angry, like she's pained herself just asking that question and Steve suddenly can't find it in himself to breathe properly.
He thinks about Bucky, Peggy. He even thinks about Sharon. In between everything, he thought he thinks about her.
"Yes." He answers, looking at his hand like it has committed a crime against him, and remembers the gloved fingers that fails to catch Bucky and the skin that promises a dance with his best girl.
"Senior Agent Carter?"
He's quiet, doesn't actually nod nor shake his head. It's so weird to hear her refer to Peggy with such title, but he accepts it. Just like he'll accept everything to make him feel better right now.
She puts her cigarette away and blows out the smoke into the night. He cringes disapprovingly, but he doesn't stop her. (She does the commanding here, right now, just like most of the time when they're together.)
"What is love anyway?" He hears himself ask childishly and there's a dangerous smirk in her eyes as she steps on the cancer stick with her boot.
"Hell if I know, Rogers," she laughs at him like he's an idiot (and he kind of feel like he is) before she runs her thin nails at the side of his skull and he tries to keep the groan from running through his throat (which doesn't ultimately work out) when there's a force pushing him to tilt his head sideways and he's catching her mouth at the edge of his tongue.
She tastes funny, but he kisses her harder. Harder. Harder.
(He doesn't smoke, so he thinks this is the closest to being as addictive to anything as he can be.)
She laughs and says, "Maybe it feels like this."
And he thinks, maybe.
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It's not love.
They don't love.
Although he wants to. And he thinks somewhere within, she wants that as well. Maybe it's even possible that she wants it with him. But they're all steel and bones and orders and facts, and she barks once that she's not made to love. ("The world will collapse, Rogers. I need to fix that.") But she has been in love once, before, he thinks. He asks her about it, and she tells him about her father.
It's not love, but when he cradles her and lay kisses down her neck while she tries not to tremble, he kind of wants to pretend that it is.
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He starts seeing Sharon. And it's nice.
She makes him laugh, and her eyes are gorgeous and every time she looks at him, Steve can't quite wash away the hummingbird feeling nestling at the bottom of his stomach.
Maria doesn't get jealous (he kind of doesn't expect her to) but she gives harsher glares at everybody else right now and there are fewer smiles to come out from her, but she doesn't say anything to him. Not directly, at least. There's that distant look in her eyes that makes her look sad(der) which kind of makes him sad(der) because he wants her to lash out, snipes a comment, say something―just anything!―to indicate he's more than a bored conversation to fill her times with during Monday nights, because she's got to know that she's more to him than that.
But she doesn't take action.
And neither does he.
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He thinks he kisses plenty for a ninety-seven year old war veteran with a serious case of depression.
But none of those kisses could compare to when he gets high at her mouth sucking on his bottom lips and when the smoke left in her breath chokes heavenly around his lungs.
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He doesn't know what she loves. Or who.
Maybe it's him. Maybe it's that photograph that she keeps in the drawer in between the pages of a book that she no longer reads anymore. Maybe it's the ghost of a father's love that she'll never get. Or the mother that'll never come back. Or maybe it's nothing at all. Maybe she doesn't love. Maybe she just cares as much as she can, stays loyal for as long as she could and thinks rationally when every circumstances demands her to.
Steve sure as hell hope that's not the case.
But sometimes when she looks away? It kind of feels like that.
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He finds out a few days later that she likes the storm.
The day is greying and the sky is rumbling and there's this sway to her body that warns him to not run away and tell Thor (she hates telling stuff to people) and he feels strangely, stupidly happy to know this fact because of course you do and watch her eyes glaze over when the rain splats across the window and the familiar coldness sweeps into the atmosphere.
He slips her his jacket.
It almost feels like it's normal again.
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He might love her.
It's possible. He wants to. Some days, when it gets too quiet and he can't seem to draw her smile just right, he wants that oh-so-desperately. It spreads ache all over his chest and he feels like falling. But in a very bad way. Like when he sees Bucky in his eyes over and over repeatedly, or like when Peggy starts crying at the sight of him as though he's meeting her the very first time all over again.
Maybe that's the problem.
Maybe he doesn't love her enough to actually love her for real.
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Maybe she feels the same way.
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Maybe she's figured this out so long ago. (She's always been smarter.) Maybe that's why she doesn't take action. Maybe they're doomed. Maybe because he's always going to love other people (Bucky. Peggy.) than he's ever going to love her, and she knows it. Maybe it's nothing after all.
Maybe it's nothing after all.
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When it storms, he thinks she still smiles.
(Even if it's not for him.)
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Steve figures that's okay too.