First off, my apologies for the long wait. Life has thrown some big, bad things at some very special people in my world and writing has taken a back seat. Things are settling again and ideas are starting to flow slowly again. My other story, Risks, is flowing better at present, but I wanted to try to get a new chapter of this up. I hope it was worth the wait. Hopefully, it won't be another year before the next part comes to me. Thanks for your patience.

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An Evening Stroll Part 4

Steve Rogers knocked lightly at the door of Maria Hill's office.

"Enter," she called.

He did so, finding her at her desk, intently studying a report on the pad in front of her. He took a seat across from her.

"So, are we still on for Saturday?" Steve asked.

"Saturday?" Maria asked, slightly distracted.

"Stark's party," he reminded her. "Unless you've changed your mind?

She glanced up at him. "Have you?" she questioned.

He shrugged. "I just want to be with you. The cookout sounds like fun, but if you don't want to go, we can find something else to do."

Maria studied him for a few moments. "Are you really sure you want to do this?" she finally asked. At his confused look, she continued. "You know, let people know you're dating me?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

"There's a lot about me you don't know," she told him.

"Likewise," he agreed. "That's why we're dating instead of jumping right into marriage."

She froze for a moment, finally deciding to simply ignore the 'm' word.

"You know that everyone is going to be telling you that you could do better, that I'm not good enough for you," she told him, looking down at her desk, but watching him out of the side of her vision.

Sighing, he got up and walked around her desk, turning her chair and kneeling in front of her. He took her hand in his, gently stroking her with his thumb. "Do you have so little faith in me, Maria?"

Her startled gaze flew up to meet his. She opened her mouth to respond, but he continued.

"I am perfectly capable of making up my own mind. I do value the opinions of others, but only as part of the equation. I observe, gather information, and make my own decisions. Besides, I've had a couple of people I respect tell my how special you are and that I'd better not hurt you," he told her with a grin.

She thought for a moment, understanding finally dawning. "Would that have anything to do with Fury mentioning that he really doesn't want to send to to Siberia?"

"Siberia may have come up in the conversation," he admitted, "along with Antarctica."

"I don't think he'd really do that," Maria reassured him. "You're far too valuable to the organization to ship off like that."

"I really don't want to find out," he told her, finally earning a smile.

"So, we're still on?" he prompted.

"If you're sure," she replied hesitantly.

He grinned broadly. "Definitely. Besides," he blushed slightly, "I'm kind of looking forward to seeing you in a bathing suit."

"Yeah, about that," she mumbled.

He looked up at her, concern knitting his brow. "You do swim, don't you? Because I'm sure it's fine if you don't want to."

"I love to swim," she hastened to assure him.

He waited patiently while she seemed to consider something.

"In fact," she finally continued, "why don't you meet me down at the workout pool later. I usually go down there for some laps about 1 in the morning when it's not very crowded."

"Sounds good," he told her. "I don't need much sleep, so I can be there whenever you'd like."

"It's a date," she told him, dropping a quick kiss on his mouth. "Now get out of here so I can get my work done." She pushed him away and turned back to her desk.

With a grin on his face, he rose and moved back to her door. When he looked back for one last glimpse of her, he noticed the pensive look on her face and wondered what had her so worried.

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His curiosity increased later in the day when he casually mentioned the upcoming swim date to Phil. Just for a moment, he detected a look of concern on the other man's face before he slapped him on the back and told him to have fun. Steve grabbed his arm before he could walk away.

"What's wrong, Agent Coulson?"

Phil looked questioningly at him.

"That look on your face. Like you're worried about something. She had the same look after she asked me to meet her."

He held the agent's gaze, waiting for an answer. Finally, it came.

"That's not my story to tell, Cap."

The silence stretched while Steve considered the comment. Then, he nodded.

"Thank you, Agent Coulson."

Phil forced another smile, patted his shoulder again, and continued on his way, leaving Steve to ponder what could possibly be going on. Hopefully, he would get answers later.

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The rest of the day dragged slowly by, as they often did when he had plans with Maria later. His mind went back and forth between excitement at spending time with her and worry about what was going on. Had she changed her mind again? Was she regretting giving him a chance?

Finally, the appointed hour arrived and he made his way down to the workout pool. It was, as she had told him, deserted, except for one lone swimmer determinedly slicing through the water. He stood watching her, smiling appreciatively at how smoothly she moved. Just like everything else she did, her focus and concentration showed in the absolute precision of every movement.

He moved to the end of the pool, waiting until she touched the wall and looked up at him.

"Don't you know it's not safe to swim alone?" he asked her, a stern look on his face.

"I'm not alone," she said, turning her head to indicate the lifeguard just returning from the dressing room. He nodded at them, then resumed his position on his chair. Steve turned his gaze back to her, finding her looking up at him, chewing slightly on her lower lip.

She took a deep breath and held up a hand. "Help me out?" she asked.

He grasped her hand and pulled, half expecting her to try to pull him into the water. As she rose to meet him, he understood her hesitance.

Burn scars puckered the skin of her right arm, starting just above her elbow and running up to her shoulder and onto the visible skin of her chest. Below the suit, matching scars covered her thighs, ending just above her knees. As she stepped past him to grab up a towel, he saw that her back also reflected the inferno she had experienced.

She turned to face him, lifting her chin defiantly, but he could see a question in her eyes.

"So?" she asked.

He took the towel from her, drying water from her face, then leaning down to kiss her lightly. He continued running the towel over her, gently blotting the scarred skin. While his hands carried out their tasks, he worked to focus his mind, trying not to think of the pain that she had dealt with.

Finally, he looked up, his eyes meeting hers. "So?" he responded.

"I thought you should see before the party. Let you decide if you still want to see me in a swimsuit again," she told him.

He stepped back, studying her from head to toe, then up again. He smiled broadly and pulled her close, kissing her deeply.

"Absolutely," he told her, finally breaking the kiss and resting his forehead against hers.

"This doesn't bother you?' she whispered, her eyes searching his.

"That you're even stronger and more amazing than I thought before? Why would that bother me?" he asked, honestly confused.

"Because I'm not perfect, not beautiful."

"You are beautiful," he corrected, his finger lifting her chin to make sure she was looking at him. "You are. And who wants perfect? I hope you don't, because I'm certainly not."

She smiled slightly as she ran her hand over his chest. "Some people might argue with you about that."

"Only because they don't know me. I may not have physical scars, but I do have my flaws, Maria."

"That's a relief," she responded, her smile broadening.

He led her over to some chairs and sat down next to her.

"Combat injury?" he asked. When she hesitated, he rushed to assure her, "You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to. It really doesn't matter."

"But I want you to know," she said, taking his hand. She looked over his shoulder, gazing not at what was there physically, but into the past.

"You know I came up through the military. I was a pilot and was flying over enemy territory on what was supposed to be a simple reconnaissance mission. My plane was shot down, exploding on impact. In spite of the burns, I somehow managed to drag myself out of the wreckage and into the mountains. I managed to hide out for two days before the enemy soldiers found me and drug me to a prison in one of the nearby villages. I figured that it wouldn't be very long before infection from the burns set in and I'd be dead before they could use me for whatever their purposes were."

Steve watched her, his heart aching for her.

"A few hours later, though, the door was kicked open and a man walked in. He told me he had been running an intelligence operation in the area and they were about to pull out and wondered if I wanted to go with them."

"Agent Coulson?" Steve asked.

"Agent Coulson," she confirmed. "He got me to their transport just before I passed out. When I woke up, there was a big, one-eyed black man standing over me. He told me that my transfer had been completed and I was now an agent of SHIELD and someone would be in shortly to brief me. Phil showed up the next morning with a huge stack of papers, and the rest is history."

"Figured you would skip a whole lot of that story," a voice interrupted. They both looked up to find Phil Coulson standing over them. He was in his swimming trunks, the jagged scar on his chest still fresh and pink. Steve jumped up, reaching to grab another chair and indicating that the other man should join them. He reached to shake his hand.

"Sounds like I owe you, Agent Coulson. If you hadn't brought her in,"

Phil interrupted. "As I said, she left out a big part of that story. And please, call me 'Phil'."

"Phil," Steve confirmed. "Thank you."

Maria shrugged. "I told him the important parts."

"Now I'll tell him MY important parts," Phil told her.

"As she said, I was in the area with a couple of other agents trying to gather some intelligence. We knew the rebel groups were running something out of that village, but we couldn't find out what. Everyone was very secretive and we weren't making any progress. When her plane went down, the rebel leader was so panicked about what the pilot might have seen that he took most of his soldiers out looking for her. With the guys left behind stretched so thin, we were finally able to discover his drug running operation, where and how they were operating. We were ready to take the info back to headquarters when the soldiers brought her in. I was feeling pretty proud of myself and figured that since she had provided a distraction to help us do our job, I would be kind and generous and break her out."

"And I did appreciate it," she told him, leaning over to pat his hand.

"When I told her that we were gathering intelligence, she offhandedly commented that she was glad, that that gun operation needed to be shut down."

"Thought you said drugs," Steve interjected.

"I did. They had a drug operation on one side of the village to distract attention from the much larger gun running operation on the other side of the village. We had missed it, but she noticed it in the few minutes she had to look around while they drug her into town."

"Just got lucky," she shrugged.

"She showed me where they were. They had a truck just about to move out and we both knew that if we radioed it in the truck would be long gone before a strike team could get there."

"So what did you do?" Steve asked, somehow knowing what the answer would be.

"We decided to take them out ourselves. I gave her one of my rifles and she took out the truck driver with one shot, then we just started shooting at random crates. We figured eventually something would explode, and eventually,"

"Something did," Maria added.

"We took off running, burning debris flying everywhere. Big piece caught me across the back," he commented, turning slightly to indicate the burn on his shoulder. "She pulled it off of me and somehow we managed to make it to the chopper together. When we landed at headquarters, the medics rushed her into surgery. Fury was curious about why I brought her back, so I told him what had happened. He asked me her name and told me to go get myself patched up. A couple of hours later, he came to the medical bay and told me that the rebels had been dealt with and that Maria Hill was now our newest agent and that I was to be in her room first thing in the morning to brief her on her duties."

He looked at her. "We figured after that beginning, future missions couldn't possibly be any worse."

Her smile was more of a grimace. "Unfortunately, we were wrong about that."

"But we got through," he reminded her.

"We got through," she agreed.

Finally, Phil shook his head, pulling himself back to the present, and looked at Steve.

"And now you know the whole story," he told him.

Steve nodded. "I know enough about SHIELD to doubt that that is really the whole story," he commented with a wry smile, "but I don't doubt that it's true as far as it goes. And it makes me even more proud to know you both," he added.

Phil blushed slightly, thrilled at the thought that his hero was proud to know him.

They sound of other voices drew their attention to a group entering the pool area and Phil stood.

"So, am I going to be seeing the both of you at the Tower Saturday?" he asked.

Maria looked at Steve, her eyes asking the same question. He reached over and took her hand, smiling at her before looking up at Phil.

"We'll be there."

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Hope it was worth the wait. Please let me know what you think.