Disclaimer: If anyone reading this story is still looking for this at the top of each post than those people should know that I am highly impressed with your dedication to copyright law and distribution guidelines. In fact, if anybody out there has the legal knowledge to know exactly why this little note is necessary for each chapter instead of just the story as a whole I would honestly love for them to explain it to me. With all of that said (or written as it were) it should be noted that I do not in fact, own anything except for Cassie and the individualized plot bits I have her in. If you recognize something as belonging to Rick Riordan or the nice folks over at Marvel then you should just assume that it belongs to them and not me. I am not paid for any of this by anybody. Suing me would be entirely pointless.
Cassie assumes she'll be able to figure out what their actual destination is when they get to the airport. How will she be unable to? Airports have destination boards that tell you where the plane you're about to get on is going. They gave you tickets detailing your pertinent flight information and check your baggage for you to send it off to meet you when you land.
Airports are systematic and incredibly obvious.
And yet...
Her assumption still proves to be wrong.
It's thwarted by the fact that her boyfriend is a tactical planner, and also friends with a mega-sized billionaire. This happens to mean that apparently they have access to private jets when they want to use them. Which, yeah that concept is still something that she's going to have to get used to. They've used private planes to get to and from missions, but never for something benign as a mystery vacation.
They drive to a private air field just outside of Richmond in a car belonging to Stark Enterprises and a young man in a very efficient looking flight red flight suit with the company monogram stitched on the pocket loads their bags in to the cargo hold. One of the bags is a rolling suitcase Cassie didn't know she owned but apparently does. Another is her own familiar old duffle bag. The other bag must belong to Steve.
While Cassie is busy staring at this seamless efficiency Steve gets out of the car and comes around to open her door for her. She looks up at him with raised eyebrows and wide eyes. "Did you seriously ask to borrow a private plane to get us to our vacation just to perpetuate the suspense involved?"
When Steve answers he does so in a way that completely lacks anything resembling shame. "Partly," he says, reaching in to the car and taking her hand to pull her up and on to the pavement next to him. "We'll call that like fifty percent of the reason."
"What's the other fifty percent?" Cassie asks, reaching back in to the car to retrieve her other bag. She gets to hold it herself for about twelve seconds before Steve takes it from her, completely ignoring her rolling eyes in the process. Steve knows she's capable of holding and carrying her own things but this seems to be one of those things he has firmly fixed in his mind as chivalrous and socially good manners.
He takes her hand as they walk towards the plane as well as a moment to consider. "Well at least some of it is that commercial plane seats are tiny, and while you are small enough to make that work, I'm well not." He gestures at the width of his shoulders to demonstrate which pulls Cassie's attention to them and his chest and derails her focus for a solid few heartbeats. Hey, her boyfriend is hot and she has a biological reason for being easily distractible.
When Cassie gets back to reality Steve is fighting down a grin and she makes a face at him. All that happens is that his smile gets wider. "Another part of the reason is that Tony offered and all of my life experience tells me that there's no point in refusing things from anybody with the last name 'Stark'. And I kinda wanted to see what the plane would actually look like."
"But mostly..." Cassie says leadingly as she goes up the stairs and in to the main belly of the plane.
"Mostly yes it was to up the suspense," Steve concedes, leaning down to kiss her cheek as they both step inside and the plane door shuts behind them. "You told me I could surprise you and I'm running with it for as long as possible."
She nods and looks around the inside of the plane for a space to store the bag that Steve still won't let her carry. "I concede that under these circumstances that is your right. You should also probably enjoy it while you can. Most of the surprises I've ever gotten in my life have involved near death experiences and therefore kind of sucked in a way that left a lasting impression."
Steve sets the bag down in one of the several empty plush seats ranged around the interior of the plane and sits down near it as Cassie looks around. "That's what I thought. Can you see any food in this thing?"
At this point in their relationship Cassie is completely aware of the sheer volume of food her boyfriend needs to consume in order to function as a human being. The fact that they ate breakfast this morning isn't worth pointing out and probably isn't having much impact. Still, that had only been about two hours ago and even for Steve that turn around time is a little quick.
Buttons are incredibly entertaining to push and Cassie occupies herself by trying a few of them. One of those buttons activates a screen along the back wall. One of the items on the screen is labeled 'Food' and Cassie uses the holographic controls to highlight and select that option.
A full menu selection fills the screen. The options all appear to be gourmet and would give a restaurant with a Michelin rating a run for it's money. Next to each menu item is a tiny picture of the food listed that can be enlarged for better viewing.
At times like these Cassie is really happy that the Mercury in her DNA let's her use technology as easily as she can. This tech is seriously cool. Which is something that neither Tony nor Leo will ever hear her say out loud.
"There we go," she says with a gesture. "All the food we could want whenever we could possibly want it." She frowns slightly as she feels suddenly forced to wonder if Stark has some poor five star chef named Michelle locked away and imprisoned somewhere in the bowels of the plane. If there is she feels like they should probably do something to help him.
Steve is staring at the board with a look on his face that's somewhere between wonderment and vague shock. "I meant peanuts but I guess I should have known Stark wouldn't be that simple."
Cassie flicks through a few options. "Well there's thai food," she observes. "There's probably peanuts in that."
Inside she's having a similar repressed shock freak out but on the outside she's maintaining calm flippancy pretty well. At this point in her life that's a survival function, a default setting as it were. If something is throwing her she rationalizes it down to the single most practical level possible and attempts to make it a casual feature of her landscape. Treat something as normal and eventually it becomes that way.
Hopefully.
Yeah. Cassie's still working on that.
Steve shakes his head. "The amount of food that people just have access to these days just about blows my mind sometimes. I'll think I'm over being shocked by it. Then I walk in to a grocery store where everything is just... there. I grew up with the depression and rationing. These days people are terrified of eating things out of certain kinds of cans and throw out eggs two days past their expiration date."
Cassie shuts down the screen and flops down in to the seat beside him. She kicks off her shoes (because apparently that's the kind of in-flight experience they'll be having) and tucks her her feet up in to the seat next to her. "I spent about three months figuring out which of the Everglade Swamp species I could eat to keep from starving and using my newly found powers to desalinate water," she says. "And I had to do it by trial and error. The first time I tried it was about six types of awful"
She tips to the side to rest her head on his shoulder. Steve shifts one arm so that it's rounder shoulders and she can nestle more in to his side. These seats don't have typical dividers or required safety belts and therefore cuddling is considerably easier.
"I remember the first actual food I managed to get my hands on after leaving home," she says. "I snuck in to a gas station and stole a few bags of trail mix and beef jerky along with a sixteen ounce bottle of water. I got away with it because the guy behind the counter couldn't see me over the shelves. I was too short." She shrugs and Steve's arm moves a little with her change. "The idea of being able to go to an organic farmers market and buy whatever I want still throws me sometimes."
The warm weight of Steve's lips presses in to the crown of her head and the two of them spend the next several moments in silence. The plane taxis and takes off without any kind of safety announcement and for a few minutes Cassie wonders who exactly is flying. BY looking out of the window, Cassie is able to watch the rest of the world dropping away from her and vanishing. It's always her favorite part of flying.
Steve runs his fingers over the sleeve of her sweater, watching the same thing she is. When the ground is hidden by the cloud layer he shifts to kiss her and Cassie lets herself melt in to it. Later he pulls back and Cassie settles back in against his side.
"I'll order some food in a bit," he decides. "Do you want anything."
Cassie shakes her head. "Maybe later. Actually I think I might nap." She leans up to look at him. "That is, if we're going to be in the air long enough to make that worth while Oh Grand Vacation Master?"
He makes a face at her and shifts so that they'll both be more comfortable. "I've spent enough time with Natasha by now to know that you're fishing," he informs her. "And I would like to tell you that it's not going to work. Meanwhile, yes you can nap. I'll wake you up when we're about to land. Or maybe I won't. Maybe you'll wake up before that happens. It's a mystery."
Cassie just sighs and settles in. They'd gotten up early and the night before hadn't been exactly restful. She's used to functioning without a whole lot of sleep but there's no reason she has to right now. "Most pillows aren't this mysterious," she comments lightly. "Or this sarcastic."
His chest shakes a little and Cassie has to assume he's trying not to laugh. "Go to sleep."
She decides to take his advice and get's ready to nod off. However, she makes a point of noting what time it is to check against when she wakes up again. Elapsed time can tell you a lot about how far you've gone during flight. Provided that this plane will go at the speed that a normal plane does, which thanks to Stark's involvement really can't be guaranteed.
With that thought spinning around in her head, she nods off.
When she wakes up it's two and a half hours later according to her watch and all Cassie can reasonably infer is that they definitely aren't going to Chicago, Canada, or really anywhere in the continental mid-west of the United States. Actually, she's pretty sure they're somewhere over an ocean but she can't really get any hints from the position of the sun like she normally can. One of the things that throws Cassie about long distance flying is the way the sun can seem to be fixed in position as she travels.
For all of her pre-sleep complaining Steve's held relatively still while she was unconscious and seems to have held out on ordering food until she woe up to eat with him. They have fun flicking through the different meal options and end up with multiple plates of food so expensive and well prepared that Cassie kind of wants to take a picture of the table the way some people on the internet seemed to enjoy doing. Then they kill time by trying to figure out what movies they can knock of off Steve's ever changing pop culture list. They end up marathoning several episodes of the West Wing and eventually it ends up being Steve's turn to fall asleep on her.
They land approximately six hours after they take off and Cassie figures out where they are in about five minutes, thus solving the mystery that's been plaguing her since Steve started planning this whole thing. The position of the sun as it shines blearily through the persistent cloud layer gives her a hint. The characteristic red double decker buses and black cabs as well as the accents of the people speaking around her sort out everything else and confirm her initial theory.
"London," she states as their possessions are unloaded and carried to a waiting car for them. "We're in London."
Steve looks back at her as he opens the car door for her. "Yeah," he says quietly. "Yeah we are. I figure it's central enough that we can take the train or rent a car to see more of the U.K-" he trails off and gives a small shrug. "You've never been," he continues. "And the only times I've come were during the war between missions on twenty-four hour leaves, and I had to juggle air raid sirens and everything else. I figured- I wanted to see it with nobody bombing it, and I wanted to see it with you. Is that alright?"
Cassie is just about beyond words so she braces her hand on the open car door and kisses him quickly and thoroughly so they don't hold up any of the traffic streaming around them. One of his hands moves to her hip to help support her as she moves her weight on to her toes. When they break apart he's fairly obviously reluctant to let her put any kind of distance between them.
"It's perfect," she tells him.
Then she slides in to the back seat and moves over so that Steve can sit next to her. He gives the driver the name of the hotel they'll be staying in and the man in front pulls out in to traffic without a word. The ease of the motion draws Cassie to note that the driver's seat is naturally on the left instead of the right. She hopes Steve knows how to drive on that side because she certainly doesn't.
"I'm not even sure I can get jet lagged any more," Steve muses out loud. "Do you? I didn't think to ask. There's a six hour time difference between here and New York."
Cassie actually considers the question for a while. Almost none of the travel across timezones she's ever done has been long term or happened so directly. She's never just flown across multiple timezones in a day. All of her travel has always been absolutely immediate or considerably slower and either way jet lag has never been a factor. The missions she's done with the Avengers have mostly had her away and back in under forty-eight hours.
She laughs a little as she realizes that she actually has no idea how to answer that question. "I honestly have no idea," she tells him honestly. "It's never happened before but there's no saying it won't. What time is it here?"
Steve checks something on his Stark phone. "About two o'clock in the afternoon. Which oddly enough is about the same time it was when we left New York." He looks over at her assentingly and seems to make some kind of decision. "Let's go to the hotel and check in," he says. "Then we can just take this afternoon slowly. We've got nothing on the schedule."
Cassie nods her agreement. "That sounds good. Maybe we could go for a walk or something around the neighborhood to get stretched out. Tony's plane was comfortable but it was still six hours in a plane."
"There's a pool and hot tub in the hotel basement," Steve informs her. "I made sure of that. Might be a nice way to spend the afternoon. Then we could go out for dinner."
She smiles. "That sounds awesome. I don't think I've stayed in a really nice hotel since I was about thirteen. And the niceness of that hotel was a little in question since it was the same place that Nico and Bianca DiAngelo were parked in for seventy years. We went in for a few hours and ended up losing a week. And we were on a time sensitive mission too."
Steve is giving her the look he gives her when she's dropped some new details on his head and he isn't sure how to assimilate them just yet. He shakes his head. "Some day you're going to have to just write all of this down for me and I'll be able to have reference pages."
Cassie shrugs. "Last time I heard, Percy was working on it. But he's pretty majorly dyslexic so getting anything out of that might take a while." She frowns. "In hindsight we probably should have asked somebody else."
"Do any of you guys not have dyslexia?" Steve asks curiously. "I'm just wondering because all of you seems to work around it pretty well."
"Most Greek demigods do," Cassie tells him. "I explained about our brains being wired differently back when we were first dating. Some of us have exceptions. Leo and Piper can both read okay but their ADHD is pretty bad, especially with Leo. Hazel and Percy both are but Nico and Jason aren't. I've actually got a bit of a theory about it but there's not a lot of proof to back it up."
Steve shifts in his seat to look at her. "What's your theory?"
She shrugs a bit. "Well for one thing, there was historically a really big difference between how the Greek and Roman empires treated language. The Greeks kind of let all of the different cultures in their empire live and let be. There was this great big hodgepodge without a dominant element. The language changed pretty drastically from region to region. The Romans forced everyone in their empire to learn Latin if they wanted to survive. Now, most Latin demigods can read English just fine and Greek ones generally find it more challenging. Plus English is more based on Latin than it is on Greek anyway. Like I said, this is all just theoretical."
He lifts her hand from the seat between them and presses a kiss against the back of it. "Your theories are pretty incredible."
Cassie doesn't end up responding because they've pulled up in front of their hotel and have to pay the driver and get out of the car. A bellhop loads their luggage on to a cart as they make their way quickly inside to get out of the rain that's just begun to drizzle down on them in what Cassie hears is a typical fashion for England. She's heard stories from Sadie Kane before and a surprising amount of them mentioned the weather.
The lobby is high ceilinged, spacious, and opulent in the way only old and lovingly maintained and restored buildings can possibly be. Cassie occupies herself while Steve checks in by reading a plaque on the wall that details the reconstruction done on the hotel after it was bombed during the London Blitz. The durability and strength of people really never fails to amaze her, especially when she's standing in the middle of it.
An old-fashioned elevator takes them up to almost the top of the building and then the bellhop takes them to their room to drop off their things. Steve tips him and shuts the door as Cassie admires the view of the city spread out for them beyond the windows. There's an incredible panorama and the kind of sigh lines that would make the average marksman giddy with joy. Steve clearly did his research when he picked the hotel.
Cassie loves him for that.
Once they've unpacked a little they follow through on the tentative plan they had made in the car. Cassie makes her way down to the pool while Steve ventures out to change money and find them some food for dinner and maybe breakfast tomorrow. She gets the feeling he's also looking to get the lay of the land and fix the schematics of the neighborhood in his head just in case anything happens.
That's not so hard to understand.
A lot of the things Cassie does she ends up doing 'just in case something happens'.
Best case scenario nothing does and a little bit of time gets wasted. Worst case scenario, everything happens and having checked out potential running and escape routes pays off in spades. Steve will give her the low down later in all tactical detail.
It's nice having someone around to fill in tactical gaps.
With that in mind she takes a nice leisurely swim. It's a nice thing to do without the possibility of sea monsters trying to eat her. After that she gives herself some time in the hot tub and greatly enjoys the way the jets help pound the stiffness of flying all day out of her muscles.
Then she goes back to the room. Steve is still gone so she takes advantage of the undoubtedly five star shower and takes the time to put on some skin lotion. She also drinks about a gallon of water. Everything she knows about prolonged air travel emphasizes the fact that dehydration is a major issue to be avoided lest a person is willing to endure dire consequences.
She makes Steve drink about twice as much as she had when he comes back with the food later. Dinner ends up being some really amazing fresh bread, cheese, meat, fruit, and a selection of veggies, all apparently procured from a covered outdoor market near the Thames river and the Tate Modern art museum. Once that's all gone Steve finishes off the display of his recon skills by producing a selection of pastries bought from a french bakery which here are called Patisseries. Given the relative proximity they have to France here, that's not actually surprising.
They might actually both be a little jet lagged because they pass out curled up together on the mattress under a blanket that's unusual comfortable for a hotel. They sleep for at least ten hours which is a personal record for Cassie in her recent history. Then they start to explore London.
The vacation is set up so that they have two full weeks in London and another two weeks after to travel around the rest of the United Kingdom by car. Apparently Steve has a completed line up of hotels and short term rentals spread throughout England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales that they'll be taking advantage of as they go. Cassie puts up a token prayer to whomever the god of complex travel may be that Steve really can drive on the correct portion of the road.
While in London they make sure they hit up all of the main tourist attractions. They see Trafalgars Square, The Tower of London, and the Crown Jewels. They ride through the entire circuit of the London eye and pay extra to stay on the wheel longer so that Steve can keep sketching the view from the top without a break of longer than twenty minutes.
Cassie alternates between looking at the view herself and watching Steve's hand flying across the page faster than should be possible, racing to recreate the image with graphite and paper. No one talks to them while they sit there. Every one is just as struck by the view as they are and it's a wonderful sense of privacy and camaraderie at the same time.
Hyde Park is beautiful and they spend a very happy morning walking the paths and dropping bread crumbs to huge clusters of ducks. This involves studiously ignoring the signs around the water's edge telling them no to feed the birds. They figure that the water fowl wouldn't bother to congregate in the park every day if people weren't feeding them in the first place.
Tour boats go up and down the Thames several times a day and they spend a lovely day listening to a guide telling them about the architecture and history of the buildings along the water. They walk to Saint Paul's Cathedral and take a seemingly endless staircase up the very top.
Westminster Abbey is crowded but it provides a very comprehensive and articulate self-guided audio tour and Cassie is incredibly grateful that she doesn't have to battle through reading tiny fine print information signs to enjoy the experience. Quite a lot of the people buried in Poet's Corner are actually much older half-siblings of hers and Steve has some fun bringing up random names and asking if she's related. Not all of them are directly connected to her but plenty are descendants of Minerva, Athena, Ares, and Mars.
Cleopatra's Needle is avoided like the plague. They also stay away from the British Museum and the Rosetta Stone. Cassie has heard too many stories from the Kane siblings about the number of gods and the amounts of godly power hanging around those places.
One of the museums they do go to is the Tate Modern. Cassie has a hard time with most modern art but there's an exhibition going on Matisse where she spends hours as Steve wanders around. The single mounted mirror on one wall throws her off a little though, and that's where Steve finds her.
She points at it. "I'm having some issues getting this," she tells him. "Any thoughts? Cuz I've gotta say I'm lost."
Steve steps behind her and wraps his arms around her, leaning his chin on the top of her head. "Hmmm..." he muses, the sound rumbling through his chest as his breath stirs the hair on the top of her head. "Could be a comment on the human body being nature's work of art?"
Cassie rolls her eyes and leans further back in to him. "Okay even I got that far."
"Isn't your dad the god of this kind of thing?"
"It's either him or Hephaestus," Cassie confirms. "You should see some of the stuff that cabin comes up with in arts and crafts. But either way I'm pretty sure that neither one of them is involved in this. Are we stuck making random guesses? Is this where we give up?"
Steve chuckles and holds her a little tighter. "I refuse to be defeated by a mirror. Fine. Look at the mirror. Really take a moment and see what it shows. Go on."
Cassie does what he says and looks. There they both are. She's tucked against Steve and his head is bent over hers as he meets her eyes in the mirror. As she looks he moves his hands and intertwines their fingers. They're both smiling, and bright, and... Gods do they look happy
"I think," Steve says slowly. "That the point is that the picture in the mirror is what you make it. It can show a lonely person on their own. It can be someone you know or you might look in the mirror one morning and see a complete and utter stranger. Or maybe, it shows you yourself happy, and with the person you love. Whatever you are free of any interpretation except your own. It's the ultimate in art being in the eye of the beholder."
She smiles and so does the her in the mirror. Then she turns her head and kisses him gently. She doesn't let it linger- they're in public after all- but she tries her best to fill the gesture with love. "Well spun," she tells him. "Possibly pulled out of your ass, but I'll give you points for it anyway."
"I like that you think me pulling that out of thin air was only a possibility."
Later in a moment of brilliance and Steve relaxation Cassie wheedles him in to some schedule relaxation and popular culture indulgence. They end up making time to go to a place called the Sherlock Holmes Tavern where they together discover the absolute joy that is hot sticky toffee pudding served with vanilla ice cream. That same day involves a trip to current 221B Baker Street which is less impressive in person and flooded with people doing exactly what they are.
It also turns out that Steve has never since waking up had time to experience any of the wonderful world of Harry Potter. Upon hearing that, Cassie makes immediate moves to rectify the situation by stopping in the middle of the street to go in to the nearest book store. She comes out a few minutes later with the full seven book set which she presents to Steve triumphantly and insists he read.
Steve has n incredibly high reading speed but the level of absolute absorption he sinks in to once he gets going is highly entertaining. They spend a full weekend siting on a picnic blanket in the park with a considerable spread of food in front of them while Steve reads and Cassie enjoys all the new music she missed during the Ultron debacle and it's fall out. He finishes the second book in the series and looks around blinking for a moment. Cassie responds to the moment by handing him a sandwich and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
By the time he's done with book four he sits in contemplative silence for a moment. Then he says. "So does the whole Cho Chang thing last? Do I need to care about her more?"
"Do you really want spoilers or would you prefer to be surprised?" Cassie checks.
He contemplates, looks to where the last three books are stacked, and then seems to form his decision. When he speaks it's with the dead-heavy level of seriousness normally reserved for important mission briefs and tactical meetings. "I'm going to need you to form a hard line no tolerance policy against you answering any and all plot related questions for the duration of the series."
Cassie fights down a laugh but can't repress a smile as she gives him a perfect military standard salute. "Yes Sir, Captain Sir."
This choice leads to a number of instances wherein Steve lifts his head with a question clearly on his lips. Each time this happens Cassie gives him a meaningful look over the top of whatever i is she's working on and maintains direct eye contact until he nods and goes back to the book. A few times he actually manages to formulate the question he wants to ask and Cassie is forced to resort to screwing her eyes shut and covering her ears with her hands as she hums several bars of an Italian aria as loudly as she can.
She hadn't known that she knew Italian operas. Actually, she hand't known that she knew any operas at all. But apparently she does because all of that music is right there in her head and ready to go. Maybe this is how Percy felt when he realized he knew a full ass load of sailing terminology without having ever been on a boat in his life before being chased by angry formerly guinea pig pirates.
Another sentence she hopes to never say out loud lest she be committed to a psych ward.
Once they've finished all of the books Cassie finds the movies and settles in to watch them with her boyfriend. She's seen them before but she can enjoy watching someone she loves see them for the first time and discover the happiness involved. She also let's Steve get drawn in to the behind the scenes special features included on each and every dvd of the films.
The result of this level of absorption is that they spend several days having very involved conversations about which Hogwarts house each of their friends would end up in. Mostly they agree but hit a few snags talking about where to put Banner, Tony, and Bucky. They end up deciding that Bruce and the Other Guy probably belong in two separate houses, Tony would likely have to pick, and Bucky's house would depend on weather he was being evaluated before or after Hydra had captured and experimented on him.
Yes this is a conversation an incredibly powerful demigod is having with her boyfriend Captain America. Cassie is highly aware of the situation and doesn't need it highlighted for her. Not on any possible level.
The other result of Steve's new enthrallment with the works of J.K Rowling is that a few stops get added to their trip. One of these is a trips to Kings Cross Station during which they do not take a train. Another is a studio tour of the place the movies were filmed. Once they get outside London they also go up to Oxford for a few nights and do the Harry Potter tour.
Cassie's pretty sure that Steve might abuse his celebrity status a little to get that tour because she can hear another young couple a few feet in front of them wondering about ticket availability. Apparently they were told that booking had to be done really far in advance. She's decided not to feel guilty about it. She and Steve have bothesaved the world several times. They deserve their Harry Potter location tour of Oxford.
While there they also have a lovely day spent punting on the river with the other boats and watch a rowing practice. The way the paddles move across the water in synch is vaguely hypnotizing and she and Steve spend a good ten minutes just watching the progress of the rowers. It's the kind of sedate paddling that simply doesn't exist at Camp, what with the supplied water monsters ready to fight you for combat practice.
One of the museums they visit consists of a series of low basements containing what looks like the evidence of the single most explosive accumulated case of hoarding in existence ever. That impression only increases when Steve shows her an informative sign explaining that most of the artifacts on display were all donated by the same singular rich guy who died a century ago. Maybe it's not hoarding when it's this well organized? She's going to have to look that up.
Several of the tours they pass seem to be spotting filming locations and settings for a British detective show which they then end up watching some of.
All Cassie has to say on the subject is that British detective shows are incredibly plentiful and dangerously addicting.
Exeter is the next location on their list. The surrounding area of Cornwall is beautiful and everywhere Cassie looks there's another beautiful view of rolling green hills or blue, blue water. They take a trip to King Arthur's supposed castle too.
The trip is supposed to be a two hour detour but they end up killing a whole day on the pebble beach, winding cliff paths, and scattered ruins. There's also a sea cave accessible at low tide named Merlin's Cave. It's about half-full of water when they go but still accessible. The salt water only comes up to about the middle of Steve's stomach but that of course means Cassie would be in it up to her chest.
Steve negotiates the cave by the simple expedient of wading through in a bathing suit. Cassie decides on the admittedly drier though more complex route of stepping between slippery, mostly submerged, rocks. She gets revenge for Steve laughing at her by jump tackling him from behind and making him carry her the rest of the way when she runs out of rocks.
Before they leave, a family on the tour kindly tells them that the rocks in Merlin's cave are supposed to be lucky if you take one with you. Cassie picks a small white rock that fits in her palm and feels perfectly smooth. Steve doesn't pick one himself but smiles as she slips her new good luck charm in to her pocket and walks over to him.
"Needed some more magic in your life?" he asks in a low voice so that people around them won't hear.
Cassie leans in closer and matches his tone. "Arthurian Legend is like the only cultural mythology that I have never seen proof of. Growing up, it was one of the only kinds of stories that could actually just be stories for me. Magic and druids are both in the stories, but most of the characters are really just people. Remarkable human beings who train and train and make mistakes but generally want to do what's right. I like a story that get's to just be a story."
Steve leans down to kiss her. "Maybe when we get home we can figure out a way to put it on a necklace. It's probably small enough right?"
"I think so. Might be a big necklace, but statement jewelry is a thing."
Before they leave Steve buys her a necklace she had been admiring at the English Heritage souvenir shop. She'd thought about getting it and changed her mind when she looked at the price. The necklace is a silver chain with a miniature bronze acorn and a tiny silver feather on it.
Steve announces that he bought it for her while she went to buy them authentic Cornish pasties. Pasties by the way are an amazing miniature pie filled with meat, cheese, and vegetables served piping hot and delicious. They're buttery and amazing and if she can find anywhere that makes them well back in the United States Cassie may have a new favorite food.
Anyway, Steve tells her he's made the purchase by dropping the chain over her head and fastening the clasp at the nape of her neck before she can say a word. The charm falls a little above her disguised bow and makes a lovely chiming noise where the metal pieces clink together. When Cassie asks why the present Steve just gins at her and says she deserves some jewelry that doesn't turn in to a magical deadly weapon.
She thanks him with a kiss and a beaming expression she hopes properly conveys her gratitude. "Thank you. I love it."
He leans over and kisses her again. "I love you. And you're welcome."
After that is Glasgow, then a tour of the Scottish Highlands which involves several metric tons of shortbread bought in a town where the smell of butter is detectable for a clear mile as soon as the door opens. They also see several historic ruins and restored castles. However, they avoid Loch Ness owing to the fact that Cassie really doesn't want to find out if that myth is one with a grounding in reality.
Two nights are spent in Edinburgh where they see St. Giles cathedral and Edinburgh Castle. They're not there at the right time to see the live military tattoo but there's a beautiful park in the city called The Meadows bordered by a number of cafes including one called Victor Hugo which serves awesome chai tea and pastries the size of Steve's head.
They also see a place called Grey Friar's Bobby, which mostly features a dog statue people are meant to touch for luck. The nose and toes of the dog shine more brightly than the rest of it and Cassie- remembering metal angles on the Hoover Dam- takes a moment to lean up and touch the nose herself. A graveyard close buy carries the names of several Harry Potter characters and a coffee house called the Elephant Cafe claims to be where J.K Rowling wrote the books so naturally they go in.
The menu carries several varieties of hot chocolate, each with a different kind of alcohol in them which keeps them entertained for quite a while. There are also pictures on the wall of J.K Rowling as well as a bulletin board filled with messages from fans. The biggest surprise is the bathroom in which every single inch of available surface is covered with quotes, signatures, and messages. This includes the walls, sink, ceiling, floor, toilet, mirror, and towel dispenser.
The last few stops on their journey are in Ireland.
Dublin is about as green and grey and rainy as any and all reporting would suggest it to be. They see Temple Bar and make a stop at the Guinness Storehouse despite the fact that neither of them actually drink beer. However, when in Ireland, you just took the guinness and didn't say a word about any other drink preference.
Dublin is also where Cassie finds out that Steve can read and even speak Gaelic.
It happens because many of the street signs are written in that language instead of English. Cassie doesn't even try to pronounce anything, but Steve manages to pronounce each word and street name perfectly when he asks one of the locals for directions. When she asks him why he never said anything, his response is that he learned the language as a child, but lost most of it by the time he was an adult.
"There were still signs around saying 'No Irish Need Apply'," he explains. "I didn't really sound or look Irish, and my name isn't a give away so I hid it pretty well. My mom had a hard time though. She never dropped the accent. When I was about twelve both my mother and Bucky's had told both of us along with his siblings to only speak Gaelic when we were at home, and even then to do it quietly."
They also visit Belfast and visit the museum dedicated to the building and sinking of the Titanic.
"I remember that there was an interesting exhibition on this back in New York a few years ago," she recollects. "Everyone who went in got a passenger ticket number and their personal details. You got to see which class of passenger they were and weather they had traveled with family and that kind of thing. Then at the end of the exhibit you could check and see if you had survived."
He quirks an eyebrow. "Did you?"
Cassie grins. "Hell yeah I lived," she says. "I was representing a first class single female under the age of fifteen and traveling alone. The name on the ticket was Isabella Parley. She would have been considered both a woman and a child and both those categories got you a prime lifeboat seat. Will didn't make it though. He also fell victim to the gift shop and bought a copy of the movie with Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio." A horrifying realization that the end of that movie involves a man freezing to death suddenly pops in to her head. "We are not ever watching it."
This time Steve smiles and the shape of the expression is a little twisted. "Too late. Tony thought it would be funny to show it to me about two months after Loki invaded New York. What he didn't realize was that in 1912 both of my parents were still around. They both read about it in the newspapers. They published lists of the dead and lists of survivors. A lot of people actually went down to the docks when the ships that picked up the survivors came in."
She isn't sure what to say next. Instead of taking a guess and risking messing up the nice day they've been having, she just nods and squeezes his hand where it lies in hers. The content of the years Steve lived through before missing the better part of a century is so historic that she sometimes has a hard time conceptualizing it. She can only imagine how he, Bucky, and even Thor must feel.
Cork, Steve tells her is where his mother's family had immigrated from and that's where they go next. Because of that they spend quite a bit of time walking the streets. They also pay a visit to a graveyard and manage to locate the grave of Steve's great-grandparents. They leave flowers and while they're there Cassie occupies herself a little bit away to let Steve have a moment.
Monsters leave them alone until two days before they're meant to fly back to the United States. Actually Cassie's too busy being impressed with the fact that it took this long for any kind of nasty to pop up to feel mad about it. Also there's a certain cliche level at play that really she just has to laugh at.
The laughing is almost more of a problem for her to deal with than the monster. The effect of that is mixed. On the one hand she's laughing so hard she's almost bent double and is having a hard time catching her breath. On the other hand the werewolf in front of her seems to be too nonplussed to attack so maybe the time delay doesn't matter.
Steve might be a bit freaked.
"This is a werewolf," he's repeating for what must be the fifth time. "We're trapped in an alley with a werewolf. Why are you laughing? What do we do? Do we need to go get silver bullets or something?"
"Hey!" the son of Lycan protests. "Bullets hurt. I the getting shot. And all of this laughing is very hurtful. I worked hard on my menacing growl." The words come out a little bit garbled around his large canines and incisors. He's also wearing clothes which is unusual in her experience of werewolves. Most of them go naked. Not that she's complaining about that right now.
Cassie wipes her eyes and manages to straighten up, taking a deep breath. "Oh gods I'm sorry," she gasps, shaking her head. "I really am it's just," she gestures at the werewolf helplessly and then dissolves in to a fresh round of giggles. "He- he's- He's from- and now he's here. And I watched that movie before but I honestly never thought I was going to be living it and- Gods, okay. Where are you from just out of curiosity? Pennsylvania?"
The wolf snarls. "I'm from Hoboken!"
Steve's face of disgust at those words makes Cassie want to laugh all over again. "New Jersey?"
"You got something to say about it Pretty Boy?"
Steve puffs out his chest and actually looks ready to get in to a conversation here which more than anything else gets Cassie moving past her giggles to move this confrontation along. The werewolf probably already wants to kill them, Steve's devotion to all things New York and Brooklyn isn't fuel that needs adding to the fire. Though an actual literal physically there fire might be good right now. Werewolves weren't fans of flames.
She sighs and twists the charm on her necklace to activate her bow and quiver. A silver arrow is conveniently located at the top of her quiver and she selects it gratefully and draws the string. Her bow does that sometimes, just automatically provides the ammunition she actually needs for the given situation. It's lucky that it does because a lifetime friendship with many members of the Hephaestus cabin and the Hunters of Artemis has resulted in her having a wide, various, and plentiful, collection.
The shot is easy to line up and she knocks the arrow. "Alright. This has been lovely but now it's over." The arrow is released, flies across the space between them, and strikes it's target. The werewolf melts away in to the shadows with a screechy, whining, yip and a burst of sulfuric powder.
Steve still seems to be dumbstruck. The silence stretches between them like salt water taffy. It lasts for several heartbeats.
Then Cassie breaks down giggling again. "I can't believe I actually met an American werewolf in London."
A/N: So what did you guys think? Did you like their vacation? I thought of having the two of them go somewhere tropical and beach-y but I just got back from an expansive tour of the UK with my family. I've also been before and have actually seen and experienced a lot of the places and things I had them go do. I hope I conveyed the travel well. Anyway, I thought the two of them deserved a nice dose of low stress fluffy fun. Tell me what you thought! Review for me!
P.S. I recently got a bit obsessed with the British detective show Foyle's War. It's set during WWII and one of the characters, Andrew Foyle, is a fighter pilot born the same year as Steve. I've noticed there isn't much content for the show on FF or AO3. Have any of you watched the show and if so would you be interested in seeing a few insane story ideas I have about it? Let me know if any of you have thoughts on it.
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