From A Certain Point Of View
Part Two
Thirteen minutes after the bridge roster changeover, and ten seconds into the nursing station switchover, the door to Steve's infirmary room eases open, and Natasha is a thousand dollars richer. Stark really should know better.
Maria doesn't quite freeze when she sees Natasha in the corner beneath the now-looping camera feed, but her gaze narrows. "Protection detail?"
"Distraction, mostly," Natasha says.
The flush wouldn't be noticed by most. But Natasha's worked with Maria for nearly six years now, and she watches as the long nape flushes beneath the coil of dark hair, and the tips of the other woman's ears go pink. "How long do I have?"
"I can give you a window in fifteen minutes. If that's enough time."
"That should be fine—" Maria stops as the man in the bed rouses.
"Maria?" Lashes rise and after a moment, Steve smiles – slight, but with all his heart and soul in the curve of his mouth.
Maria – being Maria – frowns as she crosses over to the bed. "Had to go make a target of yourself, didn't you?"
Steve is neither repentant, nor daunted by her expresssion. "It's my job to be a target, you know. And it's your job to tell me off for it."
"Actually," she says crisply, "that's Phil's job now."
"Yet here you are."
Maria's lips press together, biting back whatever thing she was about to say – doubtless something sharp and distinctly unsympathetic in spite of the fact that Steve's been injured badly enough that he's lying in an infirmary bed recovering rather than in a Quinjet on his way back to the Tower.
Natasha takes the opportunity to extract herself from the scenario.
As she walks away, she initiates the countermeasures that will allow them a little private time – no spies, no eyes – and pauses to chat with the flattered duty nurse, keeping a watchful eye on the time without ever seeming to do so.
She will admit that she didn't see this happening – Maria isn't the kind of woman to get into romantic entanglements with, well, anyone. But she noticed Maria's gaze lingering on Steve when the Avengers came in for the debriefing post-crisis, and how Steve's expression brightened when they encountered Maria. She saw how Steve preferred to write his reports at the bridge conference table when Maria was on duty, and how Maria didn't protest Steve delivering her coffee during early-morning briefings.
And, if the truth is told, Natasha thinks it's heartwarming.
They're both very solitary people. Maria is, well, Maria. She doesn't do friendly, even with the people who she might consider friends. And Steve is easygoing and courteous with everyone, but he's not comfortable here in the present – there's a distance between him and the world he inhabits that nothing seems to breach.
Natasha doesn't quite understand how it is that Maria's the one who stepped through that veil. Maybe it's just that Maria wouldn't have treated Steve's boundaries with the care that nearly everyone else displays – Stark being the natural and expected exception. Maria wouldn't cross any lines, but she wouldn't keep a respectful distance either.
That's not Maria.
Fifteen minutes later, a printer jam occupies the nurse as Maria slips back past, looking rather more flustered than she went in, and the video feeds resume their usual operation, none the wiser to their memory gap.
Natasha saunters all the way back to the Quinjet.
Clint is sprawled in the pilot's seat, studying the entry points for their next mission and not even glancing up as she sits down in the co-pilot's chair and begins the checklist for flight.
"For an international assassin," he says, "you're a big softie."
"She came out mussed, Clint," Natasha tells him, not hiding her smirk. "Mussed."
Clint rolls his eyes. "You do realise that, without the video proof, Stark will claim it never happened?"
Natasha's hand pauses over a bank of switches, before her curse sizzles the air.
Captain Rogers comes up just as she finishes kissing Thor goodbye at the base of the Quinjet ramp. "Dr. Foster?"
"Jane, please."
"Jane." His smile is friendly, warm. "You're on your way to the helicarrier right now, aren't you?"
"Yes." She's headed out for a two-day workshop with S.H.I.E.L.D scientists to go over their notes on wormhole theory and see if they can't come up with something a little more workable than yelling at Heimdall every time they want a trip to Asgard. Thor's allowed to do it since he's Heimdall's prince, but – as Jane pointed out to Thor – it feels a little presumptuous for such mere mortals here on Midgard.
Captain Rogers is holding out something blue and white hanging from a key-ring – an R2D2 flash drive. "Would you deliver this to Lieutenant Hill while you're there?" At her surprised look, he qualifies, "Last time I was on the helicarrier, we had a discussion about music, and she gave me a list of music to look up. I offered to send her some music I thought she'd like."
Jane takes the USB drive and wonders why they don't just fileshare via the S.H.I.E.L.D. cloud. "Sure. Although... if I'm not anywhere near here, is it okay if I pop it in internal mail?"
"That's fine, Dr. Fost—Jane. It's nothing private."
He smiles, and in spite of Thor standing a few feet away, Jane feels her belly warm. Thor is imposing, dramatic, princely – he dominates the space he's in. This man can make his presence felt, but he doesn't instinctively take centre stage.
Jane imagines he's all the more dangerous for it.
She takes her leave, the Quinjet heads out and, two thousand miles off-shore, encounters a patch of bad weather which requires it to reroute a couple of hundred miles out.
This results in Jane's arrival with less than two hours before the first workshop and just enough time to seal the USB up in an envelope and drop it in internal mail before having a quick shower to freshen up and make herself presentable. It's lucky she remembers it then, because the next two days are too full of ideas and thoughts, equations, and arguments to recall anything as mundane as a USB delivery – even for Captain America. And then Thor turns up on the helicarrier on the second day – and at least half an hour of his time is spent in extremely non-scientific ways, unless Jane considers it an experiment in how many times she can orgasm in thirty minutes.
The answer is actually 'more times than she can count'.
As a result, Jane's already flustered even before she gets out of the wardroom and finds Lieutenant Hill waiting for her in the corridor, one shoulder against the wall, her eyes on the envelope she's holding in her hand, her expression carefully bland.
"Oh, Lieutenant, I...hope you weren't waiting long."
"I just got here." The faintest of smiles plays about the other woman's mouth as she falls into step with Jane. "You're headed back to the Tower tonight, aren't you?"
"I—Yes." Jane resists glancing back at the end of the corridor to see if Thor's come out yet. Not that she needs to hide her relationship, just that—well, it's not very professional to be engaging in a quickie with one's lover while on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s clock, is it? Even if the lover in question is an Avenger and the Norse God of Thunder, and the 'quickie' is defined as 'thirty minutes of unspeakable, breath-stealing, exquisitely mind-shattering pleasure from start to finish'. "Did you want me to give something back to Steve—Captain Rogers?"
"Please." The lieutenant passes over the envelope – nothing fancy, just standard office stationary. Inside it, something small and hard slips around inside a fold of paper - an SD card, perhaps? "It's just some books I think he might like."
"Sure." Jane takes it, although she wonders when she became the postal exchange – not that she minds.
"It's kind of cute," she tells Thor on the trip back to Avengers Tower. "Like passing notes in class."
"Passing notes in class?"
"Clandestine communication at school," Jane settles back in the cabin seat, her notes on her lap in spite of the knowledge that she's not going to get to read them with Thor there. "Although, in this case, quite open."
Thor studies her expression. "You think this is sweet?"
"In an old-fashioned kind of way. Although, since it's Captain Rogers, it's not really surprising."
"Yet surprising in Lieutenant Hill?"
"I wouldn't have thought her willing to...engage like this."
"Like this?"
"To play," Jane qualifies. "Using a go-between, and a non-S.H.I.E.L.D. one at that."
"She enjoys her encounters with Steve," Thor notes with a faint frown. "And Steve is fond of her – so much have I have seen between them. I did not believe it would become more serious, and yet it seems it has."
"Well, it might not be serious." Jane considers how best to put it. "But it's at once more whimsical than I'd expect of her – not that I know her very well. And yet, it's also...solemn. A serious matter."
"A declaration of intent?"
Sometimes it still amazes Jane how he cuts through to the heart of the matter – direct as the lightning he controls.
"Yes," she says. "Like that."
Clint understands. Really, he does. He's been there, he's done the math, he's been in the scenario, he knows the score.
If it was just about Maria, he'd leave her to continue on her course of action, unbothered, unadvised. However, since it's about Rogers, too, a certain group of people have a vested interest.
Who'd have thought the Black Widow would have a romantic streak? Or Thor, come to that. Thank God Stark is still in full possession of his cynicism, and Banner is firmly staying out of it, while what the Hulk thinks of it is anyone's guess.
Clint would rather let sleeping S.H.I.E.L.D. lieutenants lie.
Yet he brings it up at the bar, amidst the crowds and noise and drunken madness of a Friday night.
"What are you going to do about Rogers?"
Maria doesn't look away from the game, but Clint's familiar with her body language. Still, her answer is disingenuous. "He'll be back on the roster when he's cleared for duty, not before."
"Not what I meant."
The look she gives him is hard and unfriendly. "It's all the answer you're getting."
Around them, the crowd swells to a roar as the attack bulls through, sprinting for the TD line. Someone jostles Clint's shoulder in an excess of energy and excitement. "Are you interested?"
"That's not the point."
"Oh, I think it is the point. If you're interested, then you have to put your cards down on the table."
"Have to?" Maria snaps, sharp and defensive as a cornered creature. She's always been a little different, a little distant – the dark horse that so few ever see coming. "I don't have to do anything!"
"Bad choice of words," Clint concedes. "I guess the question is 'Does he matter?'"
She doesn't answer. He didn't really expect her to confess all – this is Maria he's talking to.
He lets it go while the home team scores a touchdown, while there's shouting and yelling and celebrating and hullabaloo all around them. Sits and drinks his drink and thinks that there's nobody in the universe who's going to move Maria Hill if she doesn't want to give way. And yet, it seems Steve Rogers has managed to get close enough to matter – big and heroic, impossible to hide or disguise, and without engaging any subterfuge at all.
In spite of the others, Clint's less worried about Rogers than he is about Maria. Rogers will land on his feet; he's got enough heart to pick himself back up again and move on. Maria doesn't make friends easy, doesn't trust easy, hasn't had a lover as long as Clint's known her – a fuck buddy here and there, but nothing that meant anything.
And, if he's reading the signs right – and if he's not, then he'd have to discount Tasha's observations, too – then Steve means something.
That's why he's here to give her a nudge.
He leaves the conversation to stand, though, doesn't say anything for the rest of the game, keeps his silence through the streets of New York, all the way back to her apartment.
Maria climbs off the motorcycle. "Thanks for the lift."
Clint figures it's now or never. He flips his visor up. "You know, if he matters, you should take the chance."
Her hands clench on the rim of the helmet. Then she lifts her chin and glares at him, cool and almost contemptuous. "Says the man who spent seven years dancing at arm's length with the Black Widow."
Clint revs the bike with a grin. "Which is why you should listen to the master, young padawan."
About forty-five minutes into the party, Rhodey realises he's being watched by Captain America. Not with curiosity or calculation, but with...dislike.
The stare he's getting is most certainly not friendly.
At first Rhodey racks his brain to work out why the change in manner. He's met the man before, during a tour of the Tower. Rogers was courteous and almost friendly then, interested in what Rhodey did with the Air Force and more than happy to talk about some of the flying aces he'd known during World War II.
Rhodey figured he'd done pretty well not to turn into a quivering mess at speaking with a national hero, and he'd obviously played the cool, calm, and collected Air Force Colonel – at least on the outside – because Tony never gave him shit about it later.
So the flat, hostile looks are a surprise.
"Lieutenant?" Rhodey figures his companion – although that's really the wrong word, since they didn't come together, just arrived at the same time and have kept in company since then – might have a better idea of what's going on in Rogers' head. She's a better option than asking Tony, at any rate. "Do you have any idea what's up with Captain Rogers?"
Her brows twitch together, and she turns unerringly towards Rogers, standing tall and polite and suited in the midst of a circle of admiring Senators and their spouses.
Like steel drawn to a magnet, Captain Rogers looks up at the lieutenant, and his expression brightens for one illuminating moment, before his gaze shifts to Rhodey and darkens.
"What's up with Rogers?" She frowns. "You might have to explain further, Colonel."
Rhodey looks at the lovely, unrevealing face with a new sense of wariness and respect and just says, "Oh, it's nothing."
Lieutenant Hill gives him a hard look, but doesn't comment further – is given no opportunity to comment further as Senator Phillips of the Appropriations Committee toddles up and promptly demands when the Committee is going to see an accounting of S.H.I.E.L.D. resources and finances.
It takes the better part of fifteen minutes to convince him that, although led and staffed by many American citizens, S.H.I.E.L.D. as an organisation does not lie under the jurisdiction of the American government, and is therefore not subject to the US Senate's Appropriations Committee.
"I need a drink," Lieutenant Hill mutters when the Senator finally stalks away.
Rhodey's never quite sure why he offers her his arm on the way to the drinks table, but it's probably for much the same reason that he gets on so well with Tony.
Lieutenant Hill looks at his arm as though he's presented her with a live snake, but she takes it after a wary look, suspicious of the courtesy, but mindful of the appearances of things. And Rhodey doesn't quite smirk, but he saunters – just a little – with the natural pride of a man who has a looker on his arm.
Pepper once commented that if there was a bastard gene in the male genetic makeup, then Tony had it in spades, and Rhodey had it in clubs. Which, Rhodey has to admit, is kind of true. But as a black man and as a man in the armed forces, he has much less rein to be a magnificent bastard than Tony does.
He still has his moments.
Hill orders her own drink of a soda and lime and Rhodey asks for a beer, and leans against the bar. "Pepper wasn't sure you'd be coming now that you're no longer managing the Avengers."
"She needed someone to help ride herd," comes the response with a brief smile. "And Phil said that if he had to attend, I had to attend."
Rhodey glances across the room, finds Agent Coulson in quiet yet urgent conference with Captain America, and realises that his time is up as Rogers nods then heads for Rhodey and the Lieutenant with the directness of a thrown shield.
"Colonel Rhodes."
"Captain."
"Lieutenant. If you've go a moment, Agent Coulson would like a word with you."
She doesn't get it at first. "If Coulson wanted a word, he would have come himself, not sent you, Rogers. What's up?" At Rogers' stiff and pointed glance at Rhodey, Hill looks from Rhodey to Rogers and blinks with dawning disbelief. "Are you kidding?"
"Ouch," Rhodey comments, then puts his hands up when Rogers steps in, right up beside the Lieutenant. "I think you'd better go, Lieutenant."
"Yes, I think I'd better. It's been...interesting." And her tone of voice says she's not happy with him – no happier than she seems to be with Rogers even as she takes the arm he's offered her in direct echo of Rhodey's courtesy to her earlier. "Let's go speak with Coulson, Captain."
She leaves her drink behind, untouched. Rhodey scratches his cheek and drinks his beer. He tries not to think about how close he came to being punched out by Captain America, but there was a moment there when he really thought he'd have to duck.
Tony comes up, passing Cap and the Lieutenant on the way, but clearly thinking the better of saying anything as he goes by. He settles into the space the Lieutenant vacated. "Kicked the beehive, did you?"
"Seems like it."
His friend smirks at him. "You dog, Rhodey."
Rhodey lifts his glass at his friend. "Tony, I learned from the best."
tbc