In her haste to get away, Lilly lost one of her favorite pearl-colored mary-janes. She was too shocked and too dizzy to realize it and only when she settled down behind a large willow, she felt the cool air on her left foot. Her knees were too shaky to get up again. The calming effect of the whiskey was turning into a dizzy drunkenness. She leaned back into the scratchy tree bark and recalled what had happened. She had stalked Captain America, she had a staring match with agent Barton and Tony Stark, Tony freaking Stark, Tony playboy Stark, had made advances on her. She had almost sputtered that brown turpentine onto his shirt and had fled the scene like a maniac. Oh god. There was no way she was going back to that mansion as long as anyone was still there.
She stretched out her legs and straightened out her flower print sun dress. It was fine to sit here. She had eaten enough of the salads and was not thirsty. She could see the small bridge over the artificial creek and the gazebo it led to. Rose bushes surrounded it and a wisteria gave a romantic touch. She would just wait for the evening to pass and watch the enchanted garden.
"Oh, hi." a soft voice shook Lilly from her feathery dream state a while later. "That belongs to you?"
She glanced up at the tall figure standing over her. Broad shoulders, neatly combed hair and a well-shaped silhouette greeted her. Only when he crouched down and the setting sun was no longer blinding her, she recognized the Captain.
"I found it on the way." he said.
Found it? What? Her gaze wandered down his arms to his hands that were holding her beige shoe.
"Oh! I lost it!" Lilly exclaimed.
She wiggled her feet, one bare and one clad in the second shoe. The Captain looked at her feet. Then back up at her. Then back at her feet.
Lilly sucked in a breath when he crouched down, grabbed her ankle softly and put the missing shoe back on. His hands were warm and soft and gentle. She giggled, still dizzy from the alcohol and being a little ticklish.
The Captain took his hands back to himself fast at that, looking embarrassed at her. "I apologize, Ma'am, I ..." he stumbled over the words.
Lilly giggled again. "This is so Cinderella."
The captain looked at her a bit dumbfounded but then his face turned into a pleasant smile. "Yeah, I guess it is. May I ask the name of the princess?"
"Lillian. Lillian Rosewood." She held out her hand to him.
He knelt down on one knee from his crouching stance and feathered a kiss onto the back of her hand. "My pleasure. My name is Steve Rogers."
My god, could that get any more fairytale-y?
"I know." Lilly let him know.
He rolled his eyes and looked back at the trail he had taken from the party to this silent, hidden place. "I guess everyone knows."
Lilly smirked and nodded.
He sighed. "May I stay here for a while? Being me can be a bit overwhelming at times."
Lilly shifted to the side and patted the place on the grass next to her. The alcohol was definitely doing good things to her shyness.
Steve settled down next to her, careful not to touch her, stretched out his legs and leaned back into the tree.
"You shouldn't hide here too long. Mindy will come looking for you." Geez, shut up Lilly.
"I am not hiding. And how do you know about Mindy?" He sent her a sideways glance.
"I, uhm, was at the market?"
"The market?"
So much for alcohol doing her good.
"Oh, forget that I said that." She pleaded.
"Are you hiding here, too?" He inquired. So he was indeed hiding!
"No!" that was too fast to sound genuine. "Maybe." followed a little whisper. "And I was not even on the list." she mumbled.
"Which list?"
Damn, Lilly. Will you keep your mouth closed! She covered her eyes with her hand. "You are not supposed to know that." And a little more silent and to herself. "Stupid Stark and his whiskey."
Steve had heard that and eyed her critically. She hadn't striked him as someone who would get drunk with Tony Stark. She seemed a little tipsy though. Maybe he had misjudged her, when she had timidly tiptoed around the meadow earlier?
"You are hiding from Stark?" There was a little disappointment in his voice.
Lilly wretched her hands in her lap and nodded, while lowering her gaze.
Steve didn't know how to interpret that but his disappointment started to shift into protectiveness. Had that insufferable man done anything to her? It did not seem to be beyond him. She was young and beautiful and definitely fit Stark's prey pattern.
"Are you okay?" he inquired with a softer voice, placing his hand on her lower arm for support. He felt the goosebumps on her cold skin. "You are cold." And before she knew it, he was wrapping his leather jacket around her shoulders. "We should head back to the mansion. The night will get chilly." Steve made to stand up but Lilly put her hand on his arm this time.
"Can we stay here a little longer?"
Steve looked into her pleading eyes.
"I don't get to be Cinderella very often." Lilly smiled bashfully.
He settled back down again. How could he resist that smile?
They stared into the darkening evening sky in silence. Lilly wrapped up in the soft and warm jacket and in its smell of leather, sandalwood, soap and something else enticing, tickling her senses.
The captain sat next to her, sparing glances at her shiny patent-leather shoes, her slim ankles, her creamy white shanks, that disappeared under the silky flower-print dress. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. What was he doing? Breathing in deeply did nothing to calm him because the faint scent of lemon invaded his senses. He involuntarily turned his head towards the source. Was it her shampoo? He looked at the soft reflections the fairy lights in the tree above them drew into her hair. Her eyes seemed unfocused and directed into the night sky, her slightly pointy nose gave her face a youthful expression and the curved lips were set slightly apart.
"Isn't that a beautiful sight?" she whispered.
His eyes snapped up to hers but she hadn't caught him staring. She was still looking out into the sky.
"I tend to forget how many stars are out there when I am in the city for so long." she sighed.
Indeed the first bright stars started to shine and the faint glow of the Milky Way was visible beyond them.
"Do they look the same like 70 years ago?" As soon as the question had left her mouth she mentally slapped herself. He must think she is totally retarded. She turned her eyes insecurely towards the blonde man next to her.
He had his eyes in the sky. A sigh loosened from deep within him and his shoulders slumped a bit. Well done, Lilly. Now he thinks about his own time and what he has left behind. She and her stupid questions. Stark and his stupid whiskey.
Just when she thought he wouldn't speak at all, she heard a silent "Yes, they do. They are one of the few things that haven't changed." He sounded a little lost.
"When I am homesick, I go to the roof and look at them. They look the same as home. This bright one over there" Lilly pointed her finger to the right, her arm crossing in front of Steve's face. "that one would be right over Old Jemima's barn. She makes the best pumpkin pie in the world."
The corner of Steve's mouth lifted up a bit while he was not really looking where she pointed but at her gleaming eyes. Lilly didn't notice. She was in her element now and was thinking of home. Not her LA home. Home in Ohio. The real and only home.
"And this one. You see the one at the end of this line?" She turned her enthusiastic look only shortly to Steve's face and then right back into the night sky. "This one would be over the church tower." She shifted to the other side. "And the bunch over there is right above my favourite oak tree, where I fell from that swing when I was little because stupid Chuck Miller had notched the strings." And she would have rambled on and on about Chuck Miller and how she got back at him for her scraped knee by painting his bicycle bright pink, had she not felt that shallow breath grazing the side of her neck. She froze. Her own breath stuck in her lungs. Then, a well shaped arm appeared close to Lilly's head in her line of sight so she could follow it and see where the finger pointed to. It was the same stars she had pointed out. Not that Lilly was looking at the sky right now. Her head might be but her eyes were glued to that arm, to the softly tanned skin, the veins in it, the muscles and the strong hand at the end of it. Oh, god. Captain America's unclad arm was almost touching her and she could undoubtly smell the minty scent on his breath as he spoke. He must sit very close to her.
"This cluster over there is Lyra. The legend says it belonged to Orpheus, the ancient Greek musician." He told her in a soft voice. "He could charm all living things with his music and when his wife Eurydice died, he played songs so sad, that even the gods wept. He went to the underworld for his wife and with his music he softened the heart of Hades and freed his Eurydice. Only when he broke the one condition of her freedom, that he shall not look back at her while walking back to the upper world, he lost her again and this time forever."
When the arm lowered, Lilly could not refrain herself from slightly turning towards him and he really was closer than before. His shoulder was brushing hers (although hers was now clad in his leather jacket) and he was still leaning over a bit. His sad blue orbs set on her face. Lilly's brown doe eyes turned up towards him. And the silence stretched on. He did not move, neither did she.
"That is sad." She whispered finally to break the silence. She couldn't bear it any longer.
"It is." He agreed.
Her eyes turned down to his hands that were resting on his tighs. "Are there happy stories in the night sky, too?" She didn't mean to sound as innocent and chaste as she did.
Steve blinked and looked at Lilly a little longer. He hadn't expected to find someone like her in a place like this, someone so sincere and friendly and open among the ranks of SHIELD. Agents were tough to deal with and, as he had learned today, even the secretaries were, uhm, quite forward in their intentions. He was sure he had felt a hand squeezing his backside earlier when he was grabbing a hamburger from the barbeque. Lilly's modesty was refreshing and a stark contrast to the mob of eager women back at the party. She was nice and quiet company and he could use a little nice and quiet.
"Are there?" her soft voice whispered and she looked up again with her big hazel eyes.
Steve smiled an honest smile down at her and then turned his gaze back to the stars. "This over there is Andromeda." And with that, he told her the story of how Andromeda was to be sacrificed for the vanity of her mother and how Perseus rescued her and married her.
Lilly had recognized the tale when he was halfway through but did not tell him that she had seen the movie. She liked his voice and how well he told the story and did not want him to stop. They came from this tale to the next and she did not really know how they ended up with Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz. Steve told her he had seen the movie, the original movie, back in his time in the theater and Lilly wanted to ask him so many things about the past and how it really was. She had never spoken to a man this long and with being so comfortable about it. Maybe she should thank Stark and his whiskey. Maybe not Stark, but the whiskey. She wasn't a drinker, not at all. Punch was fine with her and a fruity cocktail also but the strong stuff was not her thing. Much less getting drunk. She got dizzy quite fast and was then getting tired even faster but these two glasses of burning brown liquor back at the mansion had helped her definitely over being awkward to being comfortable around a man like Steve.
Yes, Steve.
She thought no longer of him as Captain America. He wasn't the soldier. He was the man from another era, an era with better manners and kinder men. Her mind drifted off to movie scenes from the 50ies and how she imagined herself being a loving wife, who baked pies and cooked dinner for her impeccable dressed, well mannered husband. She might be even imagining all that in black and white. She got dreamy again and her eye lids drooped a little bit, so she startled when Steve spoke again.
"We should head back. It is getting late."
Oh god, had he seen her dozing off? She hadn't meant to make him feel uninteresting or so. A cold breeze of night air was waking her up again. The leather jacket was keeping her wonderfully warm but her legs were freezing. She really should have worn tights.
"My lady?" Steve was already standing and offered his hand to help her up. Lilly took it but the sudden change in position and what was left of the alcohol, which coursed through her veins, had her wavering. "Careful." Steve said and steadied her. "Shall we?" he offered his arm like a true gentleman and Lilly weaved her own arm through. They started heading back towards the mansion in silence. Soft music was drifting their way through the garden and Lilly could make out a couple in the gazebo, dancing slowly. Well, she had a nice evening as well, much nicer than she had expected, and it was really a shame that it would end. But she assumed as soon as they were back in company, Steve would attract attention and she would get her earful from Rita and Mindy. Especially from Mindy.
