Disclaimer: Nothing. Nothing is what I own. Nothing is also the exact amount I could be sued for.
Christmas and holiday cheer is a little thin on the ground in the tower that year. Stark sweeps himself and Pepper off to an island somewhere with no internet or cell phone reception and tells the people at his company that if they can't figure out how to survive running the company for a week without the two of them, they can expect to no longer have a job when the holidays are over. Banner is dragged along with them and as far as Cassie can tell he's dropped off at a resort nearby for some enforced relaxation. Rhodes has family to spend the holiday with and Sam himself actually has a few scraps of it as well. Barton and Natasha don't say where either of them are going, but they both pull of seamless disappearing acts within a day of each other.
The Jackson's extend an invitation to Cassie and Steve for Christmas dinner. Upon hearing this, the two exchange quick glances. Steve's eyes are wide and hopeful and fill with gratitude when Cassie asks down the phone line if Sally and Paul will mind if they bring along Bucky. To Sally's immense credit, she barely bats an eyelash before insisting that all three of them make an appearance.
Bucky takes the news of his extended invitation and frowns for a moment. Then Steve glares at him and says "you're coming. For this and other holiday stuff" which settles the matter. There is absolutely no way to stand against a determined Steve Rogers. If she has to guess by the well practiced though unfeeling muttering Bucky does, Cassie would say that that's one thing about Steve that's always been true.
By the time they hit December twentieth both men are going stir crazy with no one around to train with but each other and the equipment in the gym. They come back from a three hour workout still both tense and with nothing else to fall back on Cassie commits herself to vicious levels of holiday spirit. She commands the both of them to go shower and then bundles them both out the door with orders to return with the largest Christmas tree they can fit in their living room.
The next thing to arrange is lights and ornaments and Cassie dedicates herself to late season holiday decoration shopping in Manhattan. It is in all honesty one of the most terrifying experiences Cassie has ever had. The crowding levels are so extreme that it's only through careful deployment of elbow strikes that she manages to collect what she needs for a holiday extravaganza and get to the cash register to pay for everything. It's also possible she kneecaps an aggressive looking soccer mom but frankly no one can prove it.
Anyway, in the end she gets herself home without causing any permanent damage to herself or others and begins the frankly enormous job of untangling garlands shaped like golden stars and silver snowflakes. She's in the middle of testing out strands of lights to make sure she doesn't have to deal with returning any that malfunction when JARVIS decides to kick on and play some Christmas music.
Cassie is almost sure that the artist is Michael Bubble. She should probably be more able to tell given her father, but frankly she isn't. Out of all of her siblings, Austin and Lee were the two who had had the most musical ability and paid the most attention to it. Well Lee is dead and Austin is home with him mortal mother which isn't something Cassie is willing to interrupt to ask about Michael Bubble and Christmas songs.
Steve and Bucky stumble back in to the apartment balancing an enormous evergreen between them about an hour after Cassie came in with all of her shopping. For her own piece of mind Cassie resolves not to ask a few specific potentially important questions in this situation. The first is where the tree might have actually come from. The second concerns how exactly the tree plus two fairly bulky super soldiers in puffy winter coats managed to fit inside the tower elevator.
Yeah.
Cassie decides those are avenues she'd rather not pursue.
It's almost Christmas, sue her... Or rather don't.
"I made a tree stand," Bucky announces, indicating what looks to Cassie like a large metal ring looped over the shoulder of his flesh and blood arm. His metal arm is the one he's using to balance his half of the tree. Steve is supporting the rest of it and managing to look only slightly annoyed by the fact that an evergreen branch keeps springing up to poke him in the face.
The whole picture the two of them make makes her smile and Cassie retrieves the improvised tree stand from Bucky before arranging it in the space she's cleared in the living room. Bucky and Steve set the tree in place and Cassie perches on the counter top to tell them when it looks like it's at the right angle to her. This process takes more time than it probably should because Steve and Bucky keep on taking steps back to contribute their own opinions and as it turns out, there is almost absolutely no orientation in which a Christmas tree will look perfect to three different perspectives. It's a complex balancing act but the combination of three different sets of instincts regulated with above average spatial orientation has everything set and locked in place eventually.
The Christmas music Cassie doesn't have the knowledge to correctly identify drifts around them. Cassie wraps the lower branches with lights and garlands and Bucky and Steve handle the branches higher up. At least, Bucky helps out for about twenty minutes before vanishing, presumably back to his apartment while the upper branches are left entirely to the mercy of Steve's artistic eye.
"How are we going to get the top?" Cassie wonders as they both take a step back to examine what they've done so far. "Stark has to have a ladder around here somewhere doesn't he? The building has like a hundred floors."
Steve tips his head back and forth squinting and then seems to come to a decision. "We can do it," he states. "Come here, and bring some lights." He holds out an arm beckoning and Cassie goes. She has a pretty good idea of what Steve's thinking so she isn't surprised when he puts his hands on her waist says "ready?" and then boosts her straight up so that she's on his shoulders. "Better?"
"Almost," Cassie says. "Just hold still and grab behind my knees okay?"
Steve agrees and Cassie delicately shifts herself until she can balance one foot on each of his shoulders. She stands up carefully and finds her balance and Steve helps by looping his arms back to brace her legs. From this height Cassie can reach the entire height of the tree and on her instructions Steve moves slowly around the circumference so that she can drape the lights through all of the branches.
Bucky comes back in before they're done, carrying a box under his arm which he places on the couch. He doesn't react in the slightest to the fact that Cassie is currently standing directly on top of Steve's shoulders without wobbling or tipping at all. Excellent balance and highly perilous high stress rope training courses at Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter really have given Cassie an excellent sense of balance and an injection of Super Serum means Steve hasn't experienced muscle fatigue in about seventy years.
"Hey Buck," Steve calls to his friend but doesn't turn his head. This is something Cassie appreciates as any such movement could have very possibly tipped her on to the floor. The fall probably wouldn't hurt her at all, but Steve might have felt bad about it later if it had happened. "Could you grab a garland and pass it up to Cassie? We can't move much."
A quick glance down shows her that Bucky is complying and she reaches down with one hand to grip the proffered garland of golden stars. Bucky then pushes back against her arm to help her stand up straight again and Steve moves back around the tree. Cassie has just strung up the last star and is about to hop down to the ground when Bucky stops her.
"Wait a minute," he says. "Don't come down yet. I picked up some things." Then he crosses over to the box he had come in with and opens it. Cassie can't see very well from her angle but she focuses her vision and manages to see that the box is full of beautiful old fashioned ornaments. The most prominent of these is a large star wrought in bronze and glass and Cassie let's out a quiet breath of admiration.
Bucky passes the star to Steve first who examines it carefully. "This was mine," he says in shocked surprise. "My mother inherited it. It was one of the only things we didn't sell during the depression. I thought it ended up donated to the Smithsonian with the rest of my stuff." He looks closely at Bucky, weighing the ornament in his hands as Cassie leans down using a hand on the top of his head for balance. "Did you rob the Smithsonian?"
"Only a storage container in their archives," Bucky says with a shrug. "It's not like I dismantled an active and highly public exhibit or anything."
Cassie can't see Steve's reaction because of the angle but she's willing to bet money he rolls his eyes. He moves again, shifting one arm back to support her again as Cassie stands up straight. With the arm not wrapped behind her, Steve passes the star up to her. The weight of it is heavy in her hand and the glass and metal is smooth beneath her fingers as she sets this small surviving piece of Steve's personal history in a stable cradle of branches at the crown of the tree.
She pats Steve's hand. "Okay."
"Down?" Steve checks.
"Uh huh."
There isn't actually too much Steve can do to help given the angle but he does his best to help guide her back around to where she's sitting on his shoulder. Once she's there she slides lightly back to the ground and Steve loops his arms around her waist to tuck her back against his chest. His hands are chilly against her hips through the thin fabric of her sweater. Cassie covers them with her own hands without thinking to share a little warmth and feels his grip squeeze gently in a non-verbal sign of appreciation.
Steve hates being cold. Falling in to a hypothermia induced coma and being frozen and buried alive under several metric tons of ice and snow for seventy years would have that effect on a person. If it's grey out Cassie isn't exactly fond of snow and freezing temperatures either.
They hang the rest of the ornaments over the next hour or so and JARVIS keeps the Christmas music playing. It must take all of his advanced programming and internet savvy powers to avoid repeating the same six songs over and over again but he does pull it off and Cassie is mightily impressed. A very small number of the songs require a little bit of explaining, but for the most part the playlist of the holidays seems to have been established pre-1945 and not changed since. What has changed isn't actually different enough to matter.
Overall the evening is, for lack of a better word, cosy. That makes the evening rare, and the rarity makes the evening incredibly valuable. Cassie refuses to say the value is intrinsic because to some people this kind of evening is completely normal. Cassie however, has never once in her lifetime had an evening where the one and only thing she had to worry about was how to decorate a Christmas tree with her boyfriend and his best friend.
The next few days pass in enforced quiet and relaxation. She calls this quiet and relaxation 'enforced' because when she tries to duck in to her office to consult a file she finds the door securely and automatically locked and no amount of pushing, shoving, pulling, lock picking, Mercurial magic, or begging JARVIS can possibly open it. A small bit of investigation reveals that the labs and the office Steve sometimes uses to make calls to members of government on the Avengers' behalf have been likewise sealed for the duration of the Stark decreed Holiday Season.
Bucky quietly vanishes to his own apartment on Christmas Eve and Steve uses (or perhaps orchestrates) this increased privacy to set up a smaller holiday dinner for the two of them. "I thought we should do something that was just for the two of us," he says, going very slightly pink along the back of his neck. "I never really celebrated most holidays but Christmas... I always loved Christmas."
Those words as much as anything else have Cassie leaning up to kiss him. This dinner is about sharing something that they've both had reason to love separately and making a memory or even a tradition that they can share together. Steve brings a hand up to brush gently along her shoulder and up to cup her jaw before breaking the kiss so he can finish plating up dinner before anything burns or goes cold. After noticing that Steve himself is wearing slacks and a collared shirt Cassie ducks in to their room and puts on one of the few nice dresses she happens to actually own and sends an infrequent prayer of thanks up to Aphrodite that this one happens to be a deep shade of Christmas green.
The moment of near speechless awe she gets from Steve in reaction to the extra five minutes of effort is well worth it.
Dinner is delicious and Cassie can't help asking when and where exactly Steve learned how to cook. Cassie herself has a very limited culinary skill set as a result of living with dinning halls for the entirety of her adolescence and much of her more adult life. Between childhood, the depression, and the war Cassie just can't figure out when Steve would have had the time.
"I learned when I got out of the ice," Steve says. "SHIELD gave me some time off right after the Battle of New York and I had time to realize that food could be a whole lot better than it used to be. I used to have different stretches of downtime between missions so picking something up that didn't need scheduled lessons made more sense than anything else." He shrugs. "I didn't want to see the pictures either. I'd rather do something self-taught."
"You know," Cassie muses out loud. "I can't ever remember actually having a hobby. Before I turned eight I was too young to have one. I liked listening to audiobooks but I didn't want to read for fun because of my dyslexia. Then when I got older I trained for fourteen hours a day. Then I went to school."
Steve doesn't try to say anything in response to that and Cassie is glad. It's her life. Talking about it isn't a bid for sympathy. Instead they finish eating and Cassie insists on clearing the plates because Steve had cooked. She hums a little to the music JARVIS is playing softly over the speakers as she does and when she turns she sees Steve watching her speculatively.
She braces her hands on the counter and looks up at him. "What?"
For a second he seems to consider if he actually wants to say whatever he's thinking of but Steve's never been one for biting his tongue. "You said once that your father was the god of music. It was why you understood rhythm, why you can slow down my heart rate when it wants to skip every time I see you." Cassie feels her face flush a little but waits until he's done with whatever he wants to say. She doesn't have any idea what she would say anyway. "Can you dance?"
Cassie blinks at him like a startled owl for a second. "Uh, in theory I think. I tried once or twice at parties. I went to a few on Mt. Olympus. Once after the Titan War and there was a thing with Atlas once. They had the nine Muses play." Strains of a half-remembered melody brush through her mind at the thought and it makes Cassie smile without thinking. "Hearing them play is incredible. Everyone hears something different according to what they want or need to hear most. I didn't trip or step on anything or knock anyone over so..." she trails off. "I guess yeah. According to some things I can dance."
Steve smiles and she isn't sure if it's because of the way she just rambled or because of her actual words. Regardless he holds out a hand to her, and there is something in his eyes that is happy, and sad, and nostalgic, and new all at once. "Teach me how?"
That makes Cassie pause. She's been to the Smithsonian and seen Steve's exhibit and that happened long before she ever met the man in person or started dating him. Part of that exhibit is a transcript and a corner audio booth where they have a pair of headphones and the ability to hear the last cockpit recording from Steve before the plane went down.
She knows what dancing means.
"Are you sure?" she asks calmly, keeping her voice as steady as possible.
Steve nods once in decision and extends his hand farther. "I'm sure," he says. "In my life there's this before and after. I never danced before. But this," he makes a small gesture around their newly decorated apartment, to her and the tree and the well used kitchen and the window that overlooks the city. "This is after and now and I hope the future." The hand extended to her twitches just slightly. "I'd like to know how to dance with you."
At that Cassie nods and takes his outstretched hand, letting Steve pull her in against his chest. "Its not so hard," she says, her voice coming out soft and gentle as she adjusts her hand in his to a proper hold. For all his lack of experience, Steve's other hand comes up and around her to the small of her back. "Especially when the music's slow. Just- just hold me like you are doing, and move a little to the music." She has to tip her head back to look him in the eye, especially standing this close. "I don't think it has to be any more complicated than that."
He doesn't say anything in response but the arm around her back tightens a little and Cassie loops her arm closer around his neck. Her fingers brush against he soft strands of hair at the back of his head and her palm presses fully against his skin. The beat of his heart echoes and pulses below both of her hands at his neck and wrist and privately Cassie thinks its a steadier rhythm than any song.
One of Steve's thumbs travels in a small arch over her back as they sway back and forth and Cassie shivers closer to him as Steve bends his head closer to hers. "I'm still worried I'll step on you," he says with a tiny smile.
Cassie returns the smile. "Should I stand on yours on purpose?" she suggests, mimicking his hushed volume. "It'd probably take the pressure off."
Steve's smile expands to a grin and in the next moment Cassie finds herself lifted off the ground and moved a few inches forward so that her bare feet are balanced on his shoes. It's harder to dance that way but it makes the whole endeavor feel silly and fun and just a little bit wonderful. They give up entirely on dancing when they try to move too far and accidentally stumble in to the kitchen island and after that the night dissolves in to kisses, warmth, and being as close to each other as possible and Cassie decides that if this is the beginning of a new tradition, then it's one she wants to perpetuate for as many years as possible.
They wake up slowly on Christmas morning and eventually join Bucky in the main room in front of the tree for a breakfast of Bagels and salmon and thick cream cheese that Bucky had apparently procured the night before. This is also when they exchange gifts and Cassie is surprised, though pleased to get one from Bucky. It's a beautifully carved wooden hair comb and she knows without being told that Bucky made it himself. Her gift to him is a small chip that can be built in to his metallic arm which Leo assures her will make Bucky able to sense temperature and texture through the artificial limb.
Bucky hands Steve something wrapped in official brown archive paper. This wrapping makes Cassie inclined to believe that this present may also have been liberated from the Smithsonian archives. This inclination is proved correct when Steve unwraps the package to find a sketchbook. It looks a little worse for wear, but as Steve opens the pages and thumbs through them in a state of near shock Cassie can see that all of the drawings inside are completely intact. "I hauled this thing through half of Europe during the war," Steve says. Then he pulls Bucky in to the kind of one armed hug all men seamed to know how to do instinctually. "Thank you."
Steve's present to Bucky is similarly historical and coincidentally also involves drawing. Steve's done a whole series of pictures showing the development of the Brooklyn skyline over time. They're incredibly detailed and Bucky smiles and thanks him. It's the second smile Cassie's seen on his face that morning. It might be a record for the duration of the time Cassie's known him.
Her gift to Steve is a newly designed layer of armor that can be worn under his suite in cold weather. It'll stop almost any weapon and is completely temperature controlled. Leo, Calypso, and Jake Mason had all appreciated the challenge to produce the design she specified. "It'll keep you warm, which you like. And safe, which I like," she explains. He responds by kissing her with a quick thank you and handing over his own present. It's a silver bracelet containing the symbols of both Mercury and Apollo side by side. There's also a stylized Avengers 'A' and a miniature rendering of a familiar red, white, and blue shield.
"It's beautiful," she tells him with a smile. She holds out her left hand, figuring it's the better choice since she's right handed. Steve obligingly fastens the clasp around her wrist with deft fingers and the charms give a muted clink as they tap together. The bracelet is lighter than she thought it might be and the links and charms catch the light coming in through the window.
The metal is unfamiliar to her. Hazel or Leo could probably tell her what it's made out of, but Cassie doesn't care. This is a beautiful gift from her boyfriend celebrating the first Christmas they've had together and she'll wear it for that reason alone. She'll have to think of somewhere safe to put it whenever she operates.
Later in the afternoon they present themselves at the Jackson-Blowfiss apartment at the time Sally specified to Cassie. Percy and Annabeth are both there taking a turn to occupy Rosie with the proffering of various holiday themed coloring books. Frank is sitting in the corner with his arms crossed over his chest and his knees hunched in to his chest. As ever the poor guy looks too big for the space and seems to be trying incredibly hard not to knock over anything. Hazel is talking to Sally about the recipe she used to produce the pot of Shrimp Gumbo that is her contribution to today's meal.
It takes Bucky and Steve some convincing to assure both men that the apartment really is supposed to be this blue. Steve warms up to the idea a little more quickly having already witnessed the azure and cerulean explosion that had been Percy's birthday party back in August. It takes them a little longer to talk Bucky around to the idea, but after being played a rendition of the song "Blue Christmas" and hearing the Jackson's family explanation he sits down and stops looking at the dish of blue jelly beans on the coffee table like he thinks they might poison him.
No one can convince him to eat any of the blue food until Rosie approaches. Percy's sister comes armed with pigtails, a gap toothed smile, and one of Sally Jackson's blue chocolate chip cookies in one hand and a book of Transformers themed stickers in the other. By the end of the interaction, Bucky has eaten the cookie and stoically sitting with his arm extended as Rosie critically studies the metal plating and covers each joint mark with stickers of Bumblebee and Optimus Prime.
James Buchanan Barnes. The Winter Soldier. World War II veteran and longest surviving P.O.W in military history.
Bested by a four year-old.
This moment is priceless.
Christmas passes peacefully after that. Rosie seems to decide categorically that she likes Bucky and ends up falling asleep half on top of him and half sprawled across the arm of the chair. Bucky doesn't seem bothered by it, though slightly afraid to move in case he wakes her up. Sally takes advantage of the peace and quiet by taking a nap on the couch once Christmas dinner is over. Cassie and Hazel claim a patch of carpet and play through several rounds of a card game called Spit. Steve gets drawn in to a Round-Robin chess tournament with Annabeth, Frank, and Paul.
New Years comes around a week later and is a decidedly more raucous and festive affair. It's completely Tony Stark organized (not even Pepper had been permitted involvement to mitigate the party spirit) and takes place on a rooftop too high to feel safe when seen in conjunction with the amount of alcohol being served. Actually, most of the actual Avengers team has issues with reaching proper levels of intoxication.
Bucky, like Steve, has Super Serum and all the metabolic foibles that come with may not have been truly Russian for quite a long time but she holds her alcohol like one. Barton's spent too many years of his professional career matching her intake and the way he drinks shows it. Banner doesn't drink to avoid unforeseen problems with the Other Guy and Cassie is willing to bet that Stark lost the ability to get drunk like a regular person at least fifteen years ago. Pepper and Maria Hill have both spent too long competing in their respective boy's clubs and absolutely crushing their adversaries to not be able to hold a drink.
The state of things shifts slightly after Pepper insists on introducing her to a woman named Dr. Helen Cho who's working on developing a sort of cradle that can asses tissue damage and repair it with synthetic materials. The conversation is fascinating and Cassie kind of wishes she had a way to take notes, or even to just record what they've said. In the end they make plans to talk on the phone and arrange a meeting to discuss things further.
Cassie is absorbed enough in the topic that she doesn't notice that Thor has arrived until after Dr. Cho has been summoned away by representatives from a group she explains provides a sizable chunk of the funding for her research that doesn't come from Stark. Thor's presence seems to have provided a breath of relief for Bucky and Steve by distracting most of the big wig government types. He's also handed over a flask of Asgardian mead to Steve to be shared with Bucky.
The presence of the mead allows those with super metabolisms to loosen up a little. Bucky smiles more between eleven and one in the morning than Cassie thinks she's ever seen him do thus far. Thor sweeps Jane Foster in to a complicated looking Asgardian dance Cassie is about sixty percent certain he wouldn't have attempted to do sober. However, she doesn't know Thor well enough to really make that judgement.
Steve doesn't get drunk, but he does get remarkably more comfortable with the concept of public displays of affection. It starts by him finding her in the crowd and towing her around the room by the hand as they each get drawn in to conversations with different groups of people. Half an hour later he has an arm looped around her waist and pulling her incrementally closer by the minute. By midnight Steve has spotted an empty chair and claimed it for himself before Cassie finds herself pulled down on top of him.
"Hold on, hold on," she laughs. "I refuse to elbow you in the face by accident." It takes her a few moments to arrange all of her limbs and ends up sitting sideways across Steve's lap with her back against one arm of the chair and her feet propped on the other.
"Comfy?" Steve asks with a lazy sort of grin. His right arm slides between her back and the arm of the chair and his palm falls warmly on a strip of skin revealed by a cut out in the fabric of the dress Rachel had bought and shipped to her as a Christmas gift. The Dare Family was evidently spending the Holiday in Paris. She hadn't been sure about wearing it but Steve had had to stop and swallow a few times the first time he had caught site of the patches of skin the garment revealed, and as with the Christmas Eve Dinner Dress, the reaction had made the effort worth it.
Cassie looks up at him with a smile. "Hmm. For someone with your muscle density you really are remarkably comfortable as a living chair." She loops her arms around his neck and uses the leverage to pull herself a little farther in to his chest. Her dress and Steve's hand both shift so that his palm is under the fabric and pressing against her skin. His fingers skim minutely up and down over her ribcage.
Her comment earns her a small smile and Steve's eyes are warm like a summer sky as he looks down at her. "Well evidently I live to serve."
The countdown to midnight begins and the kiss the they manage to share once it reaches zero and the ball drops in Times Square is well worth the implicit cliche. Steve seems even less inclined to let her go more than about six inches away from him after it happens than he was beforehand and doesn't so much make their excuses to the generally assembly as he does lead her to the door forcibly shifting people out of the way as they go. Cassie follows at his side, smothering laughter the whole way.
That night is a good one.
Unfortunately the morning is a little less good. In fact, 'less good' is probably an understatement. Colossally fucked over from basically start to finish is probably a better description.
Because of course it is.
The universe does not allow Cassie to have purely nice things. Sooner or later, everything will come out in a balance. She knows this and accepts it
...
...
But, COME ON!
Everything is okay for about the first twenty minutes. During those twenty minutes Cassie and Steve manage to wake up and Cassie makes her way in to the kitchen to make them both some form of morning beverage, possible coffee while Steve gets changed to head up to the gym. Cassie is considering joining him but knows she needs to make a more extensive patrol of the city later and figures her daily exercise will get covered then.
Steve joins her in the kitchen wearing sweatpants and a tee shirt with a pair of tennis shoes just as her phone buzzes with a new text. She pulls it out and views the message. "Huh," she says with a frown.
"What?" Steve asks, pouring himself a cup of coffee from the pot and inhaling the steam before taking a swig.
"Messages from Hill and Pepper. Both telling me to turn on a news station." She turns to face Steve. "I don't know what it's about but if they're both texting me it can't be good can it?"
At that moment Steve's own phone starts buzzing in his pocket and he pulls it out, examining the screen. His own forehead knits in to a frown mirroring the one on Cassie's face as he reads the message. "I just got the same thing from Sam." He scoops up the remote from the kitchen counter and turns on the television which immediately flashes up C-SPAN and Steve turns up the volume.
The two of them watch the people on screen for approximately ninety seconds before understanding the point of all of their friends texting them. "Stark's parties apparently need better non-disclosure agreements," Cassie mutters as no fewer than six people on screen debate the ethics and examples set by Captain America, the national icon of humility and honor personified, and symbol of American patriotism having (for lack of a better word) a sex life in the twenty-first century.
The top right hand corner of the screen is filled with a picture of the two of them together. The image isn't anything inappropriate. It's just of the two of them standing together at the party the night before. Steve has one arm draped around her and is looking down at her as she talks with Banner, following along with the conversation as best he could without medical training. Cassie's pretty sure Banner had been clearing up some questions she had had on certain areas of nuclear chemistry but that doesn't really matter.
Squinting a bit proves that the picture is actually slightly blurred around the edges. Maybe Stark should just confiscate all of the phones after the drinking started like she had heard some more understanding parents did with car keys at high school parties. Unfortunately, this slight blurring doesn't actually do anything to help obscure the details of her face or more importantly her identity.
There's a loud thump from behind her as Steve drops his forehead straight down to band against the kitchen counter. Cassie winces in sympathetic pain but Steve doesn't lift his head. "Why is this news?" he groans in to the polished marble. "The United States has been engaged in a war overseas for over a decade, the entire city of Detroit is bankrupt, the federal government actually went through a gridlock over the national budget, terrorism, racism, and homophobia are still running rampant and who I'm dating is still. In. The. News."
"It's ridiculous," Cassie agrees with a drawn out sigh, rubbing a hand over her face. "On the bright side, maybe a Kardashian will announce a pregnancy and the media will move on."
Steve lifts his head an looks at her with tired eyes. "I still don't think I actually know what a Kardashian is."
Cassie procures the remote from Steve using a long reach and begins skipping through channels looking for a program that isn't discussing her relationship. Eventually she stops on BBC World News which is instead talking about the first televised address to the public for this year from the Archbishop of Canterbury. "Well," Cassie says with consideration after a few minutes of listening. "It's not exactly multiculturally ground breaking, but they aren't talking about us, Duchess Kate, or the new Prince George so I'm willing to call it a win."
The expression on Steve's face is still some mix of confused, frustrated, annoyed, and probably angry. Cassie gets up from her seat and props her elbows on the counter across from Steve. "Alright, talk to me."
Steve lets out a deep breath in a rush and looks up at her. "I hate that this is an element of my life," he admits. "This... public invasiveness. I hate that I have to deal with it and I hate that you have to deal with it too just because you happen to be dating me."
Cassie tips her head to the side and reaches out to cover his hands with hers. He isn't fidgeting but he does have a white knuckle grip on the edge of the counter that Cassie doesn't like the look of for the counter's sake. Polished marble might be strong but she isn't sure its strong enough to stand up to a super soldier under mounting levels of anger and psychological stress. "A lot of your life was public before," she points out calmly. "Back in the forties I mean."
"Yeah but this is different," Steve mutters. "Then it was- It was by choice. It was traveling around and putting on a show or being on a news reel where I could see the camera. It was annoying but I always knew it was happening and I could decide not to be involved if I didn't want to be. And everything was about 'Captain America'," the way he says his own title very clearly puts it in quotations. "None of it was about... me."
She doesn't really know what to say about that so Cassie just grips his hand and brings them towards her to press a kiss against each knuckle. "I don't know how to fix this," she says honestly after a moment of quiet. " I can be here with you and help make a choice that the two of us agree on together about how to go forward with all of this. I can understand what you mean in theory about the press but my life has never been public the way yours has."
Steve doesn't respond verbally at first but gives her hands a small tug which Cassie takes as an invitation to join him on his side of the counter. She does this by taking the most expedient route and simply hauls herself up and over the marble and brings her hands up and over his shoulders. Steve's stands between her knees and lets his hands fall to her hips. "It's probably about to be," he warns. "Public I mean."
"Well people can look but they won't find very much on me," Cassie says. "Everything between age eight and twenty is going to be completely blocked off besides my school diplomas. Someone might find that my mother died and that my dad was nowhere to be found but nothing made the newspaper and I never went in to foster care so there's nothing to find there. I don't have any social media and everything I do for Stark is contract protected."
She leans up and places a kiss on his forehead. "We knew this might happen," she reminds him. She's trying to sound both cheerful and reassuringly bracing at the same time and isn't sure she's pulling either off.
In response Steve releases another gusty sigh and leans down to mimic her forehead kiss, leaving his chin resting on top of her head with his nose half-buried in her hair. "I know. I know." Cassie wraps him in a hug and just breaths in tandem with him for a few minutes. "I still don't like it," he mutters.
Well fair enough. Cassie doesn't like it either.
She finds she likes it even left as the day goes on. For as long as possible she stays inside and tries to occupy herself with household things that need to happen around the apartment. However, she is eventually faced with the reality of needing groceries, and hiding from a fight with no counter plan has never been her style. She does consider using her abilities to simply vanish from the living room and reappear in the frozen foods isle of the grocery store, but decides pretty quickly that she may as well just bight the bullet and get it over with. Cassie might live where she works but she refuses to stay cooped up there forever.
Steve grits his teeth and goes out for a run before she leaves. Watching how he handles the reporters is kind of funny. He absolutely refuses to make any kind of comment on Cassie or their relationship but he does deliver a decent speech on the need for better counter-terrorism measures and improvements in U.S relations abroad which is all the more impressive for being extemporaneous.
A couple of members of the press try to follow him and Cassie takes the opportunity to slip out and hail a cab to the grocery store. She still has a few questions shouted at her, but they're all on the way back in to the building and not out of it. She smiles at everyone pleasantly enough, waves once or twice, and makes a few well chosen comments on the perils of neglecting to have children vaccinated in this day and age.
Stark, Pepper, Hill, and possibly even Nick Fury must intervene and sic their media people and lawyers on the assembled press over the next few weeks because by the time Saint Patrick's day rolls around the paparazzi and reporters have all but completely disbanded and Cassie is able to make it out to a charity five-K run without being followed by people with cameras. Rachel doesn't run with her, but she does hand her a specially stylized green running shirt covered with a design of four leaf clovers.
Lately Rachel hasn't been around much and Cassie suspects the Prophet aspect of her life might have presented a bigger problem to a potential relationship than had originally been evident. The oracle isn't at all bitter about it though, and suggests introducing Reyna (who's in town for a visit and a break from leading the legion) to Steve and Bucky. The break is much needed and might some day soon become more permanent once Reyna is done training her chosen replacement, a ruthlessly efficient daughter of Nike named Victoria who's already been approved by the rest of the Senate.
Reyna and Cassie spend the run chatting about nothing overly important and finish the run in good time with energy to spare. Both girls could have gone more quickly had they wanted to, but it's occasionally nice to run like nothing is chasing you. They go back to the Tower for about half an hour and take turns in the shower before heading out to meet Rachel for burgers and milkshakes. Luckily Reyna has brought clean clothes along with her because she's at least four or five inches taller than Cassie is.
A phone call to Steve confirms that he's happy to meet a friend of hers for dinner that night and Cassie and Rachel spend the rest of the day showing Reyna the tourist spots around the city. At least, they show her the spots that aren't flooded with drunk college kids and exuberant crowds claiming Irish heritage. Gods only know if they actually have any of course, but Cassie will withhold judgement. After all, it's not like she has to work an E.R shift later where she'll have to handle all the alcohol fueled injuries that will surely present themselves.
Rachel wanders off to help make signs for a student protest Cassie isn't sure she actually cares about, but Rachel enjoys art in all forms and painting signs raging about various issues seems to appeal to her on an instinctual level. This leaves Reyna and Cassie with an hour to kill before dinner which they occupy with window shopping in the kinds of streets Pepper can certainly afford buying in, but Cassie still shies away from despite living at least half a year on her Stark sized paycheck. As they walk to the restaurant a drunk guy babbles at them in Spanish Cassie can't comprehend but would guess is distasteful. Still, she finds it funny when Reyna responds with a cold glare and a flow of easy and undoubtedly uncomplimentary response in the same language.
"He had some choice words about some of our physical attributes," Reyna informs her as the man slinks off and they gain a city block of distance. "I told him in no uncertain terms that we were not interested."
Cassie nods in appreciation and holds up a hand. "High five for the multilingual shut down."
Reyna sighs and is probably thinking about how she should have tried to make different friends during her teen years but gives her the high five anyway. She probably figures she's getting off easy on this because Percy or Leo would have forced her in to a fist bump and then done one of those mini explosion sounds and knowing their mutual friends as she does Cassie has to admit that she's probably right. Besides, when you were a demigod your friend options were limited. Especially if you aimed for friends who might have longevity.
They end up at a tapas restaurant to find Steve already seated and waiting in a quiet and mostly empty heated patio. He's apparently decided to bring Bucky along though how he did it is a mystery given that the man in question is managing to look both confused about how he got there and vaguely annoyed by the fact that it happened. Cassie can only assume that Steve deployed some mixture of earnest cajoling, wide-eyed pleading, and unadulterated brute force.
"Hey," Cassie greets, sliding in to the empty seat next to Steve. Reyna hesitates for a moment before taking the seat across from her and beside Bucky. She glances at him once to do a threat assessment which Cassie figures is fair because Bucky does the same thing out of the corner of his eye. Cassie smiles around at them all and figures it's time to make introductions "Reyna this is my boyfriend Steve."
Steve deploys a wide smile that is similar to his press smile though more realistic and reaches out to shake Reyna's hand. "Its good to meet you."
Reyna returns the shake and manages a small smile of her own. "Likewise. Cassie has mentioned you before."
"I hope good things," Steve says easily and then gestures to Bucky. "This is my best friend James Buchanan Barnes."
Bucky roles his eyes. "Why did you have to put in the Buchanan? I have never in my life introduced you as Steven Grant Rogers and frankly never plan to. There was literally no reason to throw in the Buchanan."
"Adding in the Buchanan is the only way it makes sense to other people when I call you Bucky," Steve replies sounding supremely unbothered. "It's not really a normal nickname."
"Much as I hate it I think most people know who we both are at this point," Bucky points out. "We have been on T.V kind of a lot lately."
Steve shrugs. "It seemed arrogant to assume."
'Whatever," Cassie cuts in. "Bucky this is Reyna. Reyna this is Bucky."
The two shake hands with the definitive air of two people sizing each other up. Cassie supposes neither of them can help it given that Bucky still maintains the habits of seventy years of training as the Winter Soldier and Reyna is the daughter of a highly military oriented goddess and has been the leader of an entire roman legion for nearly a decade now. "Does anyone ever call you Jamie?" Reyna asks with an attitude that is somewhere between military analysis and personal assessment.
Bucky narrows his eyes slightly before apparently deciding that answering the question will not in fact be used against him as a combat weakness. "Not that I can remember," he says evenly. "But given the seventy years of electric shock and exposure to untested drugs that doesn't necessarily mean very much."
Reyna raises her eyebrows slightly and tips her head in recognition. "Understood."
That's when a waiter comes over to take their order and manages to only stare at them in open mouthed shock for about fifteen seconds before scribbling down the entire contents of the menu and scurrying away to the kitchen. Cassie sympathizes. She, Steve, and Bucky have taken up a lot of screen time lately and their faces are probably recognizable. Adding Reyna probably hadn't helped anyone's comprehension.
"What exactly did we just order?" Bucky asks after the fact.
Cassie rescues a menu from the table next to theirs and flips it over to show the small written out story of the restaurant's founding. "Tapas," she says. "It's Spanish food. You order two or three small plates and that becomes your meal. Most of the time the whole table shares food around."
Bucky squints down at the list of food that he had apparently not tried reading before actually picking his dinner. "What's this?" he asks pointing at a menu item the name and description of which is written completely in Spanish.
Steve reaches for the menu to translate but surprisingly Reyna reaches over for it first and translates easily. "It's sliced ham with asparagus and goat cheese," she tells him, flicking her long dark braid back over her shoulder. "And the thing below that is dates stuffed with walnuts and wrapped in bacon," she shrugs. "I used to like it when I was little. It should be good."
"Are you Spanish Reyna?" Steve asks with polite interest.
Reyna turns back to look at him. "No I'm Puerto Rican, but the language and the food is mostly the same. By the way," she gestures to Steve. "Your uniform looks a lot like the Puerto Rican flag. Someone may want to look at that." Steve mutters something about not having been given any design input and Reyna moves on. She hesitates for a moment but then seems to figure she might as well go all in and shrugs. "But if you're talking about godly parent mine is Roman. Bellona."
The first stage of their food arrives so they stop talking until the waiter leaves. They all dig in but Bucky still manages to speak. "The Roman Goddess of war," he says. At the looks of ill disguised surprise he receives Bucky rolls his eyes and offers a further explanation. "My lifelong best friend is dating a girl who's three quarters god and I've had a lot of free time. I did background reading. Steve had the books."
At that Cassie slants her gaze at Steve who shrugs looking unabashed. "You patrol most nights and get attacked by monsters," he says. "I can't help you or protect you. It seemed like the least I could do was be up to date on some of the details. You know," he shifts again. "In case it ever comes up."
Cassie leans across and kisses him on the cheek. "Intel is important," she intones gravely.
Reyna pops a bacon wrapped date in to her mouth, chews, and swallows. "Yes," she tells Bucky. "Roman Goddess of War and Battle. As far as we've been able to figure out Athena is the closest Greek equivalent, but Romans historically didn't treat Athena particularly well so we're a little touchy on making that comparison." She scoops some kind of salsa on to a yucca chip and considers it for a moment. "Basically I'm good with troop coordination and the use of sharp objects." Then she swallows the chip and eats another.
"She's understating," Cassie says, waving an accusatory fork. "Reyna here has been Praetor of New Rome for a decade and she managed to go to college and get a business degree at the same time."
Reyna attempts to brush the compliment off. "It wasn't that difficult," she says. "Especially not after Frank started helping and we started splitting the job. It was just about time management." She gestures at Cassie. "Gods, you made it all the way through being pre-med in New Rome while working quests for both camps, and doing your legion service, plus that whole thing with your father."
"Gods don't remind me," Cassie groans. "Finding out your immortal godly father has been temporarily turned in to a teenager and made officially your problem is so not what you want to hear for your eighteenth birthday present." This comment leads in to several stories about Apollo as a human, all be it ones that are short on proper nouns just to be safe so that they can avoid any gods eavesdropping, getting offended, and deciding to smite one of them.
By the time all of the food, including a delicious flan has been consumed they are all pleasantly tired and even the super soldiers present are well fed. Reyna gets a call on her cellphone before the check comes and sighed as she answers. What follows is a quick exchange in Latin which Cassie mostly understands so she isn't surprised when Reyna apologizes and excuses herself. "There would appear to be a slight problem with an angry manticore in Battery Park that requires my attention."
Cassie prepares to push back her chair. "Do you want some help?" she offers.
Reyna shakes her head and stands, gathering her coat as she does so. "That shouldn't be necessary. I'd appreciate it if you stayed on your phone though. Just in case." Cassie agrees and Reyna gives her a quick one armed hug. "Shall we meet tomorrow for breakfast?"
"Definitely," Cassie says with a smile. "Text me in the morning. Have fun with the manticore. Impale it extra if it speaks French and try not to get impaled."
That makes Reyna smile. "There is a story there that you will owe me later," she tells Cassie and shakes hands with Steve and Bucky once more. "It was nice to meet you both. I hope we'll see each other again." She flashes them a grin when she's a little way out the door. "There is a man outside on the other side of the street trying to take pictures. I may go and frighten him before I leave."
Then she makes her way to the door. Bucky watches her go in a way that is probable subtle to people who aren't waiting to notice exactly that kind of behavior. "She's one of my best friends and one of the bravest people I know," Cassie remarks calmly, taking a sip of water. "Rachel likes her too. She thought you guys might get along." Steve is looking at her with an expression that might mean he appreciates her deviousness and is getting ready to back her play. "I have her phone number," Cassie remarks, poking an ice cube with her straw. "I could give it to you," she offers. "You could call her. If you wanted."
Bucky glares at her but without any particular malice. "You aren't being subtle." Cassie shoots him an incredulous look that asks with no words necessary if the man really thinks she was trying to be.
Steve gives Bucky a crooked grin and suddenly Cassie can see the two of them as they might have been back in Brooklyn all those years ago. That happens to her sometimes. The two will talk and Cassie will imagine a time before the war, before the ice and Nazis and HYDRA and SHIELD. "I think you should call her," Steve states and hands the waiter his credit card.
"I'm not going to call her," Bucky mutters mutinously. Out on the sidewalk their is the definitive crunching sound of shattering glass and plastic and the indignant shouting of a member of the associated press. This is followed by a flurry of faux-apologetic Spanish which quickly escalates in to angry shouting. In seconds the paparazzi goes from sounding angry to seeming terrified and then abruptly stops talking. A brief glance out to the sidewalk shows that the paparazzi has vacated the premises, leaving the shattered remains of a camera behind him on the sidewalk were Reyna stands with a smug smile.
Steve and Cassie both give Cassie meaningful looks, particularly his own reluctant smile. When he notices he groans and tosses Cassie his phone. "Fine."
It takes all of Cassie's self-restraint not to beam smugly herself.
A/N: So what did you guys think? I got some good feedback on people's opinions of Rachel dating as the Oracle and I thought about it and realized they were right. I also decided I wanted to bring Reyna in for AOU which I should be at by the next chapter if everything goes to plan and this seemed like a way to do it. I thought Bucky/Reyna would make a nice point of contrast for Steve/Cassie. What do you guys think? It'll probably be another few weeks before I can get another update posted so I tried to make this a nice long one. Happy Easter Early! Review for me! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox