Disclaimer: Everything belongs to their rightful owner(s).
World Setting: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Pairings: Steve/Maria (mainly), +Team Bonding
Timeline: After the events in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Not following whatever comes after.
Author's Note: Let's just lay this out― tackling Steve's character? Not the best way to spend my limited free time. Curse all of you who can actually write him. Also, not really sure if this turns out the way I want it to, but just entertain me, okay.
Musically Inspired: "Diamonds" Acoustic Version by Rihanna.
we're beautiful like diamonds in the sky
one; rivers.
She tells him she fell into the river once.
He doesn't expect it, and Steve expects a lot of things (he did asked her to kill Captain America and he could tell she's not entirely happy with it), standing there by his hospital bed, eyes boring onto the TV that wasn't turned on. There's music, low and quiet, where Sam's left it, though Steve has no idea of the song (catching up to seven decades is hard, alright) and from the lack amount of glare she's generating, Steve doesn't think she minds. It's actually nice, if he ponders on it for too long.
"I was a kid," she tells him further when he doesn't respond (although she doesn't really appear like she's waiting for him to say anything, which was, yeah, typical) and doesn't miss a beat. "Pissed of a girl, got pushed back, missed a step and down I went." She quiets down, but only for two seconds, sharp eyes flickering to her laps. "Stupid," she whispers harshly, and Steve allows a small frown, his eyebrows tugging together; wondering privately if she meant the last word personally to herself, or to him.
He decides it doesn't matter. "What happened?"
"A passerby saw the event, jumped in and pulled me out. Sounds familiar, huh?" She's mocking him, he thinks, when their eyes meet then, a small smirk gracing her pale (worn) face, but there's also something in her expression which doesn't support it. Not fully. A beat passes, and he wonders on the correct way to reply to that.
And because sometimes, Steve's just really, really awkward ― he says: "I'm glad you didn't drown."
(He's partially glad Natasha isn't there to slap him across the back of his head.)
She doesn't smile; he doesn't think she wants to. But she snorts, mocks some more. (Again: typical.) "Yeah, well. Didn't want to miss all of the fun now, would I."
He guesses she wouldn't.
.
two; dust.
There's dust coating her cheeks the next time he sees her. They don't act like they missed each other, it's not like they have any reason to; she isn't polite and he's not completely submissive, she doesn't sugarcoat and he's still fighting in what he believes in, and that's how it should be, Steve learns; but there's dust on her face, slanting down to her lips and he tucks his hand under her jaw and flicks his thumb and suddenly it's what in the hell in everyone's eyes and (at first) in hers too until she shrugs it off and says, "Glad you're back, Rogers."
He smiles (out of relief, mostly) and realises there's dust at the edge of his lips as well.
.
three; necklace.
She keeps a necklace. He doesn't know she keeps one. (He doesn't know a lot of things about her, he realises.) She never wears it. It's not hers, she informs him, twirling the silver thing one day when it's too quiet, and they're in her office, and he's not entirely sure why he's there but he is, and the atmosphere stills. Emma, it emblems, forever is when I'm with you.
He agrees to drive her to the edge of the park the next evening, just when she's getting off from a meeting, and they don't say anything as he passes her the helmet, watches her tuck the necklace inside of her pocket where she secures it tightly. He's still not entirely sure when they finally arrive at the site; about this whole thing, about doing this― she says he doesn't have to stay. It's not what he's meant to do. He doesn't make the promises.
It's intimate, he doesn't comment, plopping himself off the bike and joining her; and it's not even theirs.
It feels a little wrong (like the rest of the world, or what has come off it since he's awoke).
But he stays and bury the thing with her anyway.
.
four; daisy.
It's young and glorious as it stands between them, falling just slightly helplessly to the side but bathing heavenly under the stream of sunlight cascading onto its figure. At dawn, in the dusty diner, Steve finds himself falling in love with a single daisy sat by their table. She naturally frowns when he's been smiling at the thing for the past ten minutes, but he's a little drunk from the HYDRA bust they went through the night before and she's not exactly entertaining him.
So.
Four months later, Tony gets him a complete endless art supplies that he promise won't ever run out, Natasha gives him brochure to dancing classes, Sam bakes multiple cakes (just because, the other man reasons), Bruce drops him a few books he thought Steve would enjoy, Thor saunters in and promises a pet (which doesn't exactly work out) and Clint staples the American flag as a joke.
On his birthday, Maria Hill gets him a daisy.
(He thinks he's a little in love with her that day.)
.
five; torn photograph.
"It's torn," he tells her one night, squinting a little through the dark.
"It's my dad," she hums and Steve picks up on dark hair and deep looks, dimples and shy smiles. It's ripped down from the temple of the man, right to where his nose lies, with the colours washed down and the edges curling disgustingly. She runs her thumb over it, and there's a flick of something out-of-the-ordinary in her movements. "It's okay."
"I could, uh," he starts, hesitates; her eyes dangerously narrows, frowns. "I could draw it back. For you. If you want to, of course."
She looks like she's considering, and then: "No." She places the photograph away, adjusts her position, eyes set back on the target. "My dad's a shit. And do not," she exhales then, posture cool and collected, "ask me why."
Steve doesn't.
.
six; coffee stain.
There's coffee stain on her data when he picks it up and he finally realises they've been at this for six hours straight and she really ought to stop brewing the coffee because oh man, she needs sleep.
He nudges her and smiles; she doesn't look up. At this point, her cold demeanour barely flinches him. "Hill. C'mon. You need rest."
"And you need to realise we've picked up on a new trail. Your friend might be there." He knows she's still not entirely supportive of bringing Bucky and treating him like a lost friend when everyone's obviously aware that he's not, (― no, no. She's completely fine with bringing the Winter Soldier back. Better have him on sight, than anything. It's the treating like a friend, she has a problem with, he knows) but Steve really does appreciate it that she hasn't backed out just yet. Between Stark Industries and infiltrating HYDRA, Steve can't quite deny that Hill's a little (a lot) of a miracle worker, if she'll allow him to believe that.
"Hill."
"Please," she releases, unimpressed. "Be more annoying. I dare you."
He smiles some more. "You could use a nap."
"I could use a lot of things." She shrugs. "Doesn't mean I should."
He unplugs the coffee machine a minute later and struggles until he has her curled up on the edge of his sofa, the TV on, the coffee unfinished and dripping everywhere from their little wrestling (and by wresting, he really just mean it's him trying to pin her down and getting her away from the computers and printer) and there's coffee stain on his shirt by the time she's drifted to the sound of the commercial and Steve thinks: yeah. That wasn't so bad.
(The stain never goes away. Not that he minds.)
.
seven; button.
His button is undone for reasons and it's not his fault and Steve's sure that this is just another ploy for Natasha to play her part as his personal matchmaker or other but what he's sure nobody expects is Maria Hill pressing one cold, naked, thin finger right at his exposed chest and oh God it's not even a sensual move but her touches are electrifying and Steve would be lying if he says he doesn't feel it right up to his toes.
"Tell me again," she demands, cold and calculating and oh gosh, was it the lights? The hair? The lips? He should not be feeling this way. "Did Stark burned your buttons? Or did Barton ate them?
.
eight; plane tickets.
He taps the tickets in her hand, brushes the bag with his shin. He smiles, and contemplates. He wonders momentarily where Clint has wondered off with Thor, and if he should be worried. He probably should, but. Steve looks up to find that she's staring, which he should've sorta expects, and he feels it again: something rumbling deep in his stomach. Something he isn't particularly fond of.
"C'mon Rogers," she rolls her eyes, putting her phone away. "It's just three weeks. You'll live."
Yes. Well.
He licks his lips. "Three weeks is not a short amount of time, ma'am."
"So is seventy-years, Cap, and here you are, up and running." She replies, tone cool. "It'll be okay, you know. It's only Australia."
He frowns. "Only Australia," he repeats back to her, serious, tugging his eyebrows together. "Right," he says and her expression turns a rare shade of kinder; her lips upturning into the smallest, nicest smile he's seen in a while. He rolls a shoulder, licks his lips and casually nodded, commenting: "That's not far at all."
She snorts.
He smiles, because well, it's her. Maria. Hill. Whichever. And Steve realises he likes smiling around her. He also realises that he might just like her, in general, kinda a lot too, but. He stops himself, shakes his head mentally. That doesn't matter. He glances at the plane tickets again, ignores busy passerby's rushing through with identical business suit such as hers. It makes his stomach feels funny. Well, funnier.
"Maybe I could go with you someday." It tumbles out before he could catch himself and Steve stops, because: what.
She looks genuinely surprised for a moment, and then: "Hm," her eyes flick to her tickets in his hands and Steve hears a scolding and a huff of a lazy remark which surprisingly echoes in Bucky's voice, laughing oh man, you'll never change, do you? Seventy years, Steve. Seventy years, and you're still tripping on your words with the dame.
Remind me again why I keep you around?
She nods; his eyes flickers. "Maybe you could," she responds smoothly and a stubborn knot in him untangles, his posture relaxing. This is good, he mentally notes. She's not exactly running away.
She looks at him, again. "Maybe."
Steve honestly likes the sound of that. He smiles, nods and gives her the plane tickets. "Maybe," he repeats at the brush of their fingers and tells himself that nope, his insides are definitely not fluttering. (Even though it totally is.)
(Bucky would have been ecstatic.)
.
nine; letter.
He writes her letters when he's back on the road, searching for Bucky, killing off HYDRA. Well, he's never been good at writing ― so he sketches. A lot. He doesn't send it all to her, of course, and he makes sure he picks up a little bit of everything for everyone. It's nice being on the road, it's nice to plan and have a purpose and setting up objectives and most importantly, keeping people safe. But it gets terrifyingly lonely.
Sam doesn't deny it.
So, he picks up a pen or a pencil and sketches. Steve sketches from the littlest of things that catch his eyes to the things that he sees in his sleep, and sometimes the act itself doesn't even make sense (because sometimes, it's not even an object ― it's just dark lines twirling and swirling and desperately finding itself a shape), but it keeps him sane somehow. Sam mentions it's good. A hobby. A distraction. Steve doesn't disagree.
Finding Bucky is hard, he writes there in gangly, awkward strings of alphabets at the bottom of a picture he decides to send her and smiles when he signs his signature, adding, tell me how you've been.
She writes back. She always does.
She can't draw to save her life, dear Heavens, but her letters are surprisingly nice. In a way that Steve could almost feel her besides him, hushing out tales from Tony's reckless behaviour to Clint's random requests, murmuring out idiots under her breaths at the appropriate moment of times and watching her retaliates to a stupid remark without as much as a hitch.
You're enigmatically amazing, he once write to her.
No. She writes back with a coffee ring around the edge of her paper (ugh, typical), her neat handwriting mocking him purposely: I'm just that good.
Steve doesn't think he's ever laughed that hard since he's woken up.
.
ten; senses.
They found Bucky eventually. Or, the Winter Soldier found them. And he's different, like Bruce and Tony had warned him to be, and it's weird, and it's all very strange yet coldly familiar, and Steve knows the Soldier's mostly trying to make it work, but it's hard (oh, it's hard) so he doesn't really blame it when after a week of travelling together, Bucky shakes his head and tries to level his focus, "It's just. I need time, okay." He says, trembling a little (Natasha would have laughed), torn between the ghost of a fallen soldier and the threatening assassin he's created to be, "I need time and I don't. There's so much. Gosh." He curses in Russian (Bucky curses in Russian a lot), pulling on his hair, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I just. Captain. Rogers. S-Steve. I need time. Do you― do you understand?"
Steve does, and watches him nod, affirming. Sam stands loyally, on-guard if anything out of plan decides to happen. (That happens a lot too. Things that are out-of-plan. It gets to the point it's not even impressive anymore. It's just... Well, it's just tiring.)
And Bucky drops into the shadow just like that. Just like that. And disappears.
He contemplates on calling Natasha, or Tony, or Peggy (which yeah, doesn't make a whole lot sense, but it just feels right, you know. For that moment) because he feels like talking (and he would've talked to Sam, sure, willingly even, but he was there when it happened and that's just― that's not the same) but he also doesn't want to talk, you know. It's very hard.
Superserum, and best friend still alive, and there are all of these nice things around him and things are still very hard.
Sam puts them in a train. It carries them to New York all night and Steve watches the stars and doesn't quite fall asleep and Sam doesn't talk much aside from pointing out very obvious modern preferences that he's never heard before and is learning, and he thinks and he thinks and he thinks and suddenly it's morning and the train's slowing down and he's looking out the window and he catches silver eyes and thin smile, dark hair wrapped up in a low ponytail, casual clothing to fit the crowd, waiting at the station.
She sees him; he doesn't have doubt that she does ― and Sam laughs.
"I called her first," is all he's offering and Steve doesn't quite smile, but his chest expands, weighs lighter. God, he closes his eyes, sinking back into the chair, and feels a few burden being cut loose from his shoulder. It's been so long. "It's okay, man." Sam laughs again, patting his knee, and Steve looks up, realises that yeah, maybe he is smiling. Sam's eyes glint, "You should get a coffee or something. With Hill. You look like shit."
Of course.
The train stops, and the door opens, and it's people and people and people and Steve barrels through until: "Miss me?"
And, God. He thinks again, finally (finally) looking at her. After so long. After so many letters. After so many nightmares. Maria Hill doesn't waver, eyes glimmering under the morning sun, highlighting her rare amusement; cheeks tinted with a hint of pink, high and sharp, and smiling. She's smiling.
(He's surprised he doesn't cry.)
"I'm glad you aren't dead, Cap." She says sarcastically, flowing through the crowd so fluidly it's crazy, to come closer.
He catches her smile, squints. "Well I'm," he breathes out, mostly out of relief. "I'm glad you didn't drown."
She laughs; and Steve feels like all of his senses come drastically alive.
.
(He's a little in love with her a lot.)