nope. still don't know what the heck is this thing. this one's set post-catws.
...
day two; demons by imagine dragons.
Somehow, the lead tracks them to Chicago.
Steve can't remember how they meet up. Maybe they'd bumped into her, or maybe that she might've been waiting for them all along. (If she was, he wouldn't be all too surprised.) But he's not frowning when he sees her; figuring another familiar face would've been nice. A trusted one is much better.
They stay, for a couple of days.
Sam likes Chicago. The city, the park, the people. It's nothing sort of crowded like New York, or way too heated like LA, or way too many soldiers lurking to get them like in Washington. It's just nice. And windy.
(Steve misses the wind.)
He doesn't know why she's here, why she would stay. He doesn't wholly mind it, of course. He's been with Sam for four months too long alone, chasing the ghost of Bucky, or glimpses of him, that is, and it's getting a little weary- this hiding and dodging-from-getting-identified-business. He figures they'd get a few days off; and Maria's not that bad once you get to know her, passing the cool Deputy Director facade she's known to keep up (especially now, since the title itself had been shed from her literally.)
(It reminds him, maybe he should apologise for that.)
On the third night they're there, Sam excuses himself to go to a jazz club somewhere down town with a relaxed, delighted smile on his face, asks Steve if he wants to tag along. "Might be fun," Sam wiggles his brows when he flicks his tie, grabs a fancy hat, "Might meet some pretty ladies, if you know what I mean."
Also, to note, Sam's been talking with Natasha. A lot.
Steve shakes his head, refuses, and leans his waist back against the motel's old creaky make-up desk, raises his brow when Sam winks himself in the mirror, proud. "Have fun, though," he tells and Sam laughs, kicking his shoes.
"Don't mind if I do!"
She doesn't expect him for the night, he could tell, when he shows up bringing the little take-out from a nice little restaurant a block down; and he knows they both hadn't expected it when an hour later, they find themselves in a cemetery surrounded by old twigs and crop-cut leaves. He looks at her, she blinks up at him.
"Don't tell me it's weird, I know it is." She doesn't exactly sigh, but there's an impression of it, but Steve only nudges her with the dinner, and she nods before she accepts it.
They lapse in silence afterwards (what do you say in a cemetery anyway?) until she points out to a dot far away and says, "I used to go by here. Every summer. Every chance I could. Walk right through here, up to a little store that used to sell candies. The owner knows me. Doesn't like me very much," she shrugs, "But he knows me."
"Why doesn't he like you?"
"I'm not very likeable," she says with a sourly smile, eyes waning under the twinkling stars and heavy nightfall. "Even as a child. Too skinny, too dirty." She shrugs again, shaking her head. The expression she displays doesn't tell more than she needs, he judges, but it's enough to know just how ruthless the truth is running in it. "So much that's not right, they say. I don't know," she shakes her head, clenching her jaw.
He wants to say he's sorry to hear that, he really is, because that's what he's supposed to do; because that's appropriate; because goddammit, they work together, sure, but Steve's allowed to keep his little secrets all to himself too by the end of the day; but that doesn't happen. No. He looks at the ground and looks at her and says, "I'm not... I'm not very likeable either, growing up." Because maybe it's the cemetery, maybe it's the wind; maybe it's suddenly the time where everybody spills their truth and it's his turn to share his- Steve doesn't know.
But he's sharing it. "Too sick, too small. Bucky used to flick his finger at my shoulder and it'll bruise."
She gives him a look that says she doesn't believe it, and she shouldn't, maybe, and he grins, a little, because, "It's true." He nods his head, picks a small piece of chicken with his thumb. "Embarrassingly so, but."
He shrugs a shoulder. It's true.
"I'm sorry about Barnes," she tells finally, like it's what she's supposed to say all of this time since they've shook hands in the meeting room the first time he's assigned to be acclimated into the 21st Century. It's ridiculous. It's nuts.
It's not anything he doesn't hear before.
"Yeah, well. Isn't everyone always," he decides to respond before he could catch himself, tipping his shoulder in a way that he does when he's skinnier, shyer; when he's hiding behind Bucky every time a young pretty dame their age asks him for his name. "Bucky'll be fine. He's okay so far, so I just."
She looks at him, and her eyes are sharp.
She asks him if Bucky haunts him (-constantly-) and he jokes and says, that's what ghosts are supposed to do, but neither laugh because it hurts, she reminds him, and he knows, oh he knows, and they stand there for a while, just stand there, because for a moment it's too painful to even move, to even breathe (he could see it, the difficulty, the sorrow, all so bare under the shudder of thin lips and cold eyes) before she carries them deeper into the cemetery, where the lights are dimmer and the grounds are messier.
Steve's heart twists when they finally stand over the grave; his chest squeezing tight against his lungs.
He looks at her.
"It's my mother's." She swallows, fixing her hands solidly inside the pockets of her coat, eyes harsh on the dead ground under their feet, to the stone that bears a familiar, forgotten name. He doesn't know about this, his mind blares. He shouldn't.
"It's her birthday today." She says, crouching down and plastering her fingers against the engraving; against the slope of every letter, the curl at the end of an 'L' or an 'R'. "Hey mom," she says slowly, he hears, closing her eyes when her hand lands on beloved mother engraved on the stone. "I brought a friend today. He's older than you."
He kind of smiles at that. Kind of.
His gaze lands heavily on her just as she swipes more twigs and leaves out of the way, clearing the grave out. He reads the date, feels something stabs within his ribcage just as his mind recalls something Clint'd mentioned years ago, when he's still getting used to everyone and everything on SHIELD. (Steve can't actually pin-point what, but there was something.)
She's exhaling now, more out of relief than grief. "Happy birthday okay, mom?" She whispers again, gathers herself and brushes any fallen hair away from her face.
"She's your ghost." He whispers aloud when she stands up, not really meaning to.
Her silver eyes run over his face, but she's not glaring. Which is good. "Everybody has their ghosts, Steve. Demons they're fighting against." She says more calmer than he anticipates her to, and he takes it, because he can and he will. "Mine are both dead and alive. Yours are out there somewhere, doing God knows what. It's a strange world."
She ends, blinking at him, blowing out air from her mouth. And he stares, because that's all he could do he realises.
She smiles, after a while. A little, beckoning. "C'mon, let's get out of here."
And slowly, they do.