If there was something in this world that could bring a greater look of wonder to Peter Parker's eyes than the front entryway of the Avengers headquarters, Lee could not imagine it. Backpack over one of his shoulders, hand wrapped tightly around her as if for some measure of reassurance that she is, in fact, still by his side, Peter stares up in awe at the expansive lobby that he just walked into through the revolving glass doors. It's indescribable, this masterpiece of technology and sleek style that fills the great sweep of the walls and ceiling. Tony Stark has outdone himself, Peter remarks to himself as he nearly drags Lee through the room, looking upward as though the advanced screen work above him might give him the answers he's been so desperately wanting for so long now.
"Wow," he breathes.
At his side, Lee hopes that Peter is holding her hand tight enough that he doesn't notice how badly her body is trembling. She, too, carries her bag full of essentials- essentials here meaning whatever it was she happened to shove into her bag at the moment she was on the phone with a frantic Peter not even half an hour ago; essentials that apparently include a jar of peanut butter and a copy of Blade on DVD- but she does not look up at the ceiling with stars in her eyes or excitement even in the face of what surely lies ahead. Lee knows how this ends, and she knows what she must do. Instead of indulging Peter's fantasies about the wonderful work of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s headquarters, she stares straight ahead at the bank of private elevators that go straight to the residency. Their bulletproof doors open, and Pepper Potts steps out, looking professional and solemn as ever. Flanked by four S.H.I.E.L.D agents, she presses onward as if leading an army into battle, her leather-bound docket tucked into the crook of her arm and her auburn ponytail waving gently behind her like the banner of a moving troop. With Peter distracted by the technological playground that is the lobby, Pepper takes the opportunity to shoot a simultaneously apologetic and comforting look at Lee before extending her hand to the unmasked Spider-Man. Pepper introduces herself.
"Mister Parker," she says as Peter starts and turns to look at her. Releasing Lee's hand, he shakes Pepper's with an earnest, eager-to-please energy. Pepper, for her part, accepts his firm handshake before turning to the woman at his side as though she's never seen her before, "And this must be…"
Pepper trails off and looks at the young woman, her eyes blank and vaguely curious, and it occurs to Lee that Pepper is a much better actress than she ever would have guessed. There is not a hint, not a trace, that Pepper has ever seen Lee before; to anyone unaware, it would appear that they are complete strangers. That is the game they are playing; Peter still cannot know that Tony is Lee's father. It could be too disastrous for what S.H.I.E.L.D. is prepared to accomplish. Accepting her newfound status as foreign and alien to all who inhabit this building, Lee merely nods her head and offers her name, unsure how she is meant to feel about anything currently transpiring within the board game that is her life.
"Lee McCarthy," she says, the words tasting sour on her lips, even though it's the only name she's had her entire life; somehow, after all of the lying she's done, it seems that even the truth feels fabricated.
In the breath of a moment of Pepper's silence, Peter jumps to Lee's defense, as though he's terrified Pepper will turn Lee away.
"She's part of the deal," he says, rushing to ensure that no one reneges on the pledge that Nick Fury made to him.
A single nod of Pepper's head is all he receives by way of a reassuring gesture. Pointing back toward the elevators, Pepper begins to lead the new caravan back toward the residency, though she doesn't miss the way that Peter almost instantly reaches for Lee's hand. The sight of that tiny gesture sends misfired rockets off across the forefront of the older woman's mind. It distracts her for a moment, before she collects herself enough to form a semblance of composure and say:
"Right. Yeah. Of course. Right this way, then."
Peter hesitates, looking uncertain at the uniformed agents on either side of the CEO.
"Where are we going?" He asks, taking hesitant steps with Lee in tow.
The elevator doors open as Pepper presses the button, and the crowd of people hustle their way inside. Still, Peter refuses to release Lee's hand. It's comforting, that feeling of another human being anchoring him to this world, holding him in reality when his mind is racing and his eyes are going blurry with the thousands upon thousands of possibilities that could arise out of this deal he's struck.
"To meet the team," Pepper explains, pressing the button to bring them to the Bullpen, "I'll show you to your room later in the evening."
With a sly lurch, almost imperceptible, the box they're contained in begins its travel up and up and up ever higher as the floor numbers climb, and Lee's eyebrows furrow, her free hand readjusting on the heavy bag she's holding. For a brief second, she wonders what it is that's making the small bag so heavy, but then she remembers hazily that she packed her seven hundred page, hardbound Psych textbook, which almost assuredly accounts for the weight.
"And where's my room?" She asks when her mind is cleared of her curiosity.
It is unreal how much difficulty it takes for Pepper to repress her smirk. With a simple shrug, the older woman merely looks down at the leather-bound docket in her arms, as if reading something extremely important on her schedule.
"I assumed you would want one to share," she says, unable to keep the slightest hint of smug affirmation from her tone.
Eyes wide, Peter looks to Lee, who is struggling to force down a blush from her cheeks. Raising his eyebrows, Peter gives her hand two quick squeezes, and he smirks without shame. If Lee were in any mood to play this game, she might have hit him for the uncharacteristic, arrogant gesture. Instead, she merely holds his hand a little tighter, allowing him the simple, momentary pleasure of watching her blush straight down past her collar. Mercifully, the elevator door dings the arrival of the elevator at its destination and the doors open up, revealing the Bullpen, which is really Tony's absurdly patronizing word for the place where the Avengers hang out when they are waiting to save the world. Pepper leads the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents out, followed closely by Peter and Lee, and the entire room goes still.
"This is Peter Parker, everyone," Pepper announces, before pointing to each of the heroes in turn as they each give Peter some sort of recognition, "Here we have Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers, Clint Barton, Bruce Banner, and-"
As the woman should have anticipated, she wasn't even given the opportunity to finish her introductions, as Tony bounds across the room with a ridiculous swagger. He folds his arms across his chest, not even bothering to shake Peter's hand, and looks him once from top to bottom.
"Tony Stark. Iron-Man," then, he reconsiders, thinking of the inevitability of this meeting, "Not for this mission, obviously, but-"
But Peter is only half listening. Before him stands a legend, the man he used to have posters of on his bedroom wall, the man his parents once met at a conference, the picture of this meeting is still hanging from a magnet on Aunt May's fridge. And though Peter promised himself he wouldn't allow himself even a moment reel from meeting the man who changed the industry forever, he fails miserably. So caught up in his humble reverence of this man before him, Peter doesn't even notice Lee's pulse racing a marathon a minute at the casual arrival of this man in their midst.
"Holy shit. You're Tony Stark," Peter whispers, more to himself than anything else, his inner ten year old boy going wild at this development. Of course, Peter knew that this man would be here, as he is apart of The Avengers, but... Now that he's actually before him, the reality is mind-boggling.
Tony holds his hands out in mock humility.
"Yeah. That's me," he intones.
Knowing what an ass he looks like, Peter carelessly goes off on what promises to be a fanboy rant the likes of which Tony has endured time and time again at conventions and book signings alike. Tony sizes up the young man, wondering just what it is that makes him so spectacular that S.H.I.E.L.D. would put themselves out for him. He's seen the Spider-Man footage and it's certainly impressive, but there's nothing extraordinary about Peter Parker, the man. Take away the mask, and Tony isn't sure what this scrawny, bespectacled kid has to offer. The question is especially pertinent when the overexcited labrador of a young man is blatantly holding hands with Tony's hidden daughter.
"I've read everything you've ever written on the arc reactor technology-" Peter begins, only to be cut off by Tony pointing blatantly at the woman on Peter's arm.
"And who's this?" Tony asks.
He's pretending that he has no idea who Lee is.
"Lee McCarthy. Peter's girlfriend," Pepper interjects.
Which, Lee thinks sardonically to herself, is nothing new.
Tony gives her a side glance, giving her little attention or recognition before turning back to Pepper. And, for the first time, Lee doesn't feel the sting of rejection at her father's casual dismissal of her existence. By this point, it's more reliable than the sun coming up.
"Charmed," he mutters insincerely, looking at Pepper with a pointed look in his eye, "Now, Pep, can you take her down to her room? We need to get to work."
Pepper nods once and heads for the door, but Peter pulls Lee in a little bit closer, whispering in her ear concernedly. After all, he's done everything in his power to keep her safe; the thought of losing sight of her for even a moment sends a fit of lightning to his gut.
"You're gonna be alright?" He asks, his gaze probing and questioning, almost as if he's looking for any excuse to hold her closer and demand that she remain in the room with him.
But he should know better by now than to think Lee needs anyone to hold her hand through anything. Releasing a sigh from her chest, she gives him what she hopes is a reassuring smile.
"Yeah. I'll be fine," she says, brushing her lips against his cheek, leaving a slight red flush along his skin.
Holding the door open, Pepper's tone leaves no room for nonsense, breaking the quiet moment between Peter and Lee.
"Come along, Ms. McCarthy," she says.
And follow, Lee does. They walk down the hallways now familiar to Lee and words come out of Lee's mouth before she even registers that she knows what she wants. But as soon as she speaks them, she knows that in her heart of hearts, she's said the only thing that needs saying in this moment.
"I need to talk to you and Bruce alone," Lee says.
Caught off guard, Pepper raises an eyebrow.
"Now?" She asks.
"Yes," Lee says.
They walk a few more steps and Pepper opens a bedroom outfitted for her and Peter, a grave and anxious look on her face.
"Okay. Meet me up in my office in fifteen minutes."
Bruce and Pepper have barely had time to settle into the office and exchange tense, uncertain pleasantries before Lee is bursting into the room with the scattered, harnessed energy of a hurricane. Slamming the door behind her, she huffs out a breath of air before saying three words that Pepper and Bruce now realize they were arrogant in assuming she wouldn't ever say.
"I want out," she demands.
It's funny, Lee thinks, the things that you don't know you want until you say them aloud. And here she is, saying something that she now knows that she must want. Not that she wants it, not that she wants to leave, but she knows that she must, and as soon as she speaks it into existence, she knows that it must be so. Bruce and Pepper sit in their respective chairs, watching the young woman with senselessly dumbfounded expressions. Lee doesn't move or pace; she holds her square of marble flooring with the solidity of a statue as she returns their confusion with sincerity.
"Excuse me?" Pepper eventually asks, furrowing her brows delicately as she stammers out her confusion, breaking the tense silence.
Lee cannot stay here. It's time to abandon this fast-sinking ship, this ship that has been sinking since that disastrous afternoon that she tried to visit her father in California. She speaks in measured, sane tones, clinical as a doctor and twice as self-interested.
"I've done my part of the deal. I said I would deliver Peter and I have. Now, I want my money and I want to get out."
After all, that was the deal. Full college tuition to MIT courtesy of Tony Stark should Lee deliver Peter Parker to The Avengers on time. And she did that. She kept up her end of the bargain; now, she expects for Pepper and S.H.I.E.L.D. and whomever is cutting the checks around here to keep up theirs.
"You can't leave," is Pepper's quick response.
Lee folds her arms across her chest. She'll leave with or without her money, but once she walks out of that door tonight, she will not ever be returning to New York City, and life is so much easier to restart with money in one's pocket.
"And why is that?" Lee asks.
Bruce is trapped in his mind, these terrible questions lodged in his brain uncomfortably like a catchy, bubble-gum pop refrain. And, finding him to be no help for explanation, Pepper continues on.
"Because if you leave, Peter might not continue on with the Avengers," she says, her voice a flatlined heart monitor.
But none of that matters, as far as Lee is concerned. Running on nothing but adrenaline, the desire to evacuate this situation before it drags her past the point of steady drowning which she has endured for weeks now, Lee focuses herself on turning Pepper to submission.
"That's not my problem, is it?" Lee asks, "I was contracted to get Peter into this building. And now he is, so I want my money and I want to leave."
For the first time since meeting her, Pepper finally sees Tony Stark in his daughter; not just in the way she looks or the way she talks, but in the way she's attempting to evade the conflict before it even arrives. Tony is the master of running away and Pepper now sees Lee bolting in his footsteps. The staggering occurrence disarms Pepper, and so dumbstruck is she, that she turns to Bruce for help.
"I- Bruce?" She asks, at a loss for words.
The man in question doesn't speak, and takes longer than he would care to admit to collect his thoughts enough to design even the simple question that he manages to stammer out.
"Why do you want to leave?" He questions.
And, without hesitation, Lee says the only thing she knows would hurt Bruce enough to let her go.
"Why would I stay?" She snaps.
It is a betrayal of the most painful, and Bruce feels it more acutely perpetrated by Lee than he would have by any other person in his life. Unable to watch the light dull in his eyes, Lee looks out of the window, staring out at the city currently preparing itself for chaos. Below them, New Yorkers are caught somewhere between the pull to continue about their normal lives and the strongly worded suggestion from Channel One that they board up their windows or evacuate to the suburbs for a long weekend. She turns away from him in every sense of the word, and Bruce responds just as she knew he would. Bruce gives in.
"That seems… Uh…That seems fair enough to me," he mutters, swallowing back unbidden tears that make him feel very weak indeed.
Knowing defeat when she sees it, Pepper sighs and reaches into the top drawer of her desk, pulling out the checkbook. The agreed amount is a figure that has been tattooed on the inside of her brain, and she makes the check out with that unconscionably high number. But she doesn't detach it from the checkbook, not yet. Holding the piece of paper worth several hundred thousand dollars hostage, Pepper raises her eyes to the contemplative but sturdy young woman before her.
"Before I give you this, tell me you aren't running away," Pepper implores.
For the first time this conversation, Lee looks a little green. But she presses onward anyway.
"I've lied to everyone else, Pepper. I'm not gonna lie to you."
And Bruce watches Lee walk out of the room, and waits for the door to close behind her before the emotions settling right in the center of his chest boil over. He and Pepper share a glance, one that contains a million conversations with a thematic promise that strikes Bruce forcible and steady: Do not tell Tony that she's leaving. Bruce gives Pepper a nod in agreement before following Lee's path out of the door.
Unable to control himself, the lid now off on his feelings, Bruce charges behind the young woman with the force of a wounded, erratic animal. He finds her staggering through the halls toward Lee's room, and he calls behind her, freezing her steps.
"Why are you doing this?" He begs.
Lee rolls her eyes, though she is fighting the steady thrum of her heart as she bites back the bitter taste of blood in her mouth.
"Bruce, you aren't my father," she says, hoping that reminder will be enough to silence him, enough to silence the frustration in her own heart.
It isn't enough to silence him. In fact, it only makes his speech more impassioned. And she sees the tears of a million fathers in his eyes; the guilt that she feels at that one look makes her want to crawl into a hole and bury herself in it.
"Well, I'm as fucking close as you're ever gonna get, so you listen here, young lady," he grows solemn, knowing that this is his only chance to get her to stay, "Ever since The Hulk, I cannot pass down my genetic code; I can't have kids of my own. But I've gotten to look after you these past few weeks and your father doesn't know what he's missing. You're spectacular, and if Parker's what you want, then you've got to tell him the truth, and you've got to let him love you. The real you, not the lie. You've got to fight for him. And you can't do that if you're running away."
Running away. Lee wants to laugh and scream all at once at the sound of those two words. Yes, of course, what she's doing now can be called running away, and it may look a lot like running away. But… She isn't. Bruce once told her that he though Lee had been dealt a bad hand, like her life was a hand of poker with terribly noted numbers and face cards of different colors and suits. And if that's true, which Lee is more and more readily accepting, if her life is just a bad hand of Stud, then she isn't running away. She's just folding. There was no scenario in which she came out the victor, no reality where she saved the hero and fell in love with him and walked off into the sunset with her father and a family that would make her feel something like a real person. There was no scenario in which she could win the pot with Aces to spare. So, she's simply quitting the game. Folding her hand and waiting for the next game's deal-in. She can only hope that the next game isn't rigged like this one.
Lee shakes her head, looking at the floor, unable to speak without her voice wavering ever so slightly.
"I've gotta go. I'm taking the first bus out tomorrow."
Bruce doesn't even try to hide the emotion in his voice; this is what it looks like to lose one's family.
"You aren't even gonna say goodbye?" He asks.
Wordlessly, Lee opens the door to hers and Peter's room, closing it behind her quietly, leaving Bruce in her wake, and hoping all the while that he doesn't hear her quiet tears. For they would say more than a million goodbyes could ever hope to convey.
Lee remains locked in her room for hours, looking through the MIT brochures that she stashed in her bag with little interest. They're more for distraction than anything else. If she allows herself a moment to second-guess her decision, she will lose herself. So, she thinks only of what will be, thinks only of attending a good university and reinventing her life. Boston doesn't look so bad, after all. It isn't New York City, of course, but in a city like Boston, she could be a new person. Erase Lee McCarthy and what she's done here, and begin sketching out a new existence.
Amid a swirling sea of disquieting realities, this one idea is the sole source of comfort in Lee's mind.
Around midnight, the door to the small suite opens wide, and an exhausted Peter staggers inside, leaning against the doorframe as he looks at Lee like birds must look at the shore after flying a little too far out to sea. His body sags under the weight of mere gravity, and Lee cannot ever remember him looking this played out. The domestic, if often silent, bit of Lee is secretly glad that he looks like he's done her the favor of showering before returning to their room after training, so she knows that their last few hours together won't consist of her stomach rolling at the combined musk of rubber training mat and sweat.
"How was it?" Lee asks, taking care to surreptitiously slide the MIT brochure back into the bag sitting beside her on the bed.
Peter shakes his head, running a hand through his wet and unkempt hair.
"I'm in way over my head," he confesses, though he keeps his eyes closed for fear of the disappointment he anticipates seeing in Lee's eyes.
Much to his surprise, he doesn't hear any disappointment or shame in Lee's voice at his admission; on the contrary, the air around her seems to soften and alchemize, warming up to him as he stumbles toward her, his steps inebriated on the liquor of unbearable physical exertion.
"Just come here," Lee says tenderly, waving him over to her place on the bed.
Eventually, Peter makes it to their bed, a comfortable monstrosity that Lee would almost bet her life that Pepper personally outfitted, and collapses onto it, his body simply giving into the cloud-soft mattress beneath his body. He doesn't move from this state of defeat, but rather speaks into the comforter.
"I have to be ready to fight any minute, Lee," he says, his voice muffled by the blanket beneath his lips, "And I haven't even gotten an entire day to train with them. The simulations alone were kicking my ass-"
Lee doesn't want to spend her last night with him talking about her father and Captain America and training simulations and any of that shit. Contorting her body, Lee allows herself to lie parallel to Peter, lining her face up with his, her legs bent up by the pillow as his hang off of the end of the bed. Like two shooting stars just passing each other in the night, going opposite directions, burning brilliantly for a moment before dissolving into darkness.
"Don't talk about it anymore. Just be here with me," Lee says, her voice only just audible as she looks at Peter with wide, pleading eyes.
The young hero nods.
"Okay," he agrees.
Silence for a while; neither is sure what they should say, exactly.
"Lee?" Peter asks, after some time has passed of them trying to read the footnotes of each other's eyes.
"Yeah?" Lee asks.
He's jumped off of ledges before, but no leap of faith has ever made his stomach run roller coasters quite like the one he takes now.
"Why haven't you kissed me yet?" He asks.
He leans up on his elbow, propping his head up on the palm of his hand so he can see her more clearly. Lee's mouth dries and her eyes widen at the words. Maybe it's because of the lack of attention in her life, maybe it's because she's never thought herself to be anything spectacular, maybe it's just because her life's most recent turn of events has left her feeling little more than a pawn in the grand scheme of the world's rigged game, but a question comes from her with all of the surprise she possesses either way.
"You want me to kiss you?" She responds.
Cheeky as ever, Peter shrugs and smirks, rolling his eyes as he attempts to pass off as a joke something he means in absolute earnest. He's wanted to kiss her for a very long time; but courage… Courage has always been an enigma to Peter Parker, and harnessing it has been limited to his time wearing a mask. As Spider-Man, he can be courageous, but as Peter, he's terrified that she might be too good to kiss him, that he might not be wroth it.
"Maybe for good luck," he quips.
Lee can't help herself. She chuckles. He has a way of making her laugh that cracks the windows of her heart, his warmth wafting inside of her bones with the grace of a spring breeze. Sitting up, watching as Peter follows suit, Lee shrugs, knowing that she shouldn't. She shouldn't kiss him for a million reasons, shouldn't kiss him because she's about to leave him, shouldn't kiss him because she's not good enough for him, shouldn't kiss him because she's betrayed him, shouldn't kiss him because he may very well get hurt in the crossfire of a battle with the Task Master she dragged him into, shouldn't, shouldn't, shouldn't, shouldn't, shouldn't, shouldn't-
But…. She wants to. And since Lee is a selfish creature, she isn't able to keep herself from what she wants.
"For good luck," she agrees, her hands ghosting up to his chest, her lips less than a wish away.
And before Peter can reel from the actuality of what is happening, Lee closes the gap between them.
Her soft lips touch his with gentle fervor, as though it is not only the first, but also the last time she'll ever get to do so. And Peter counts himself as the luckiest man alive for those brief, few seconds where nothing in the world exists but the two of them. Her grip on him strengthens, holding him like she'll never let him go.
But then, she does let him go and the world around them continues to exist, winding back up like a music box opened after a too-long stretch of being closed. Peter doesn't open his eyes, and doesn't let Lee wander too far away, his forehead resting against hers and his fingertips resting on her cheek, a gentle will for her to remain close to him. The feeling of Lee's soft flesh beneath his own sets off the rattling steam engine of revelation run off of the tracks in his mind. It's a revelation that's always been there, that's always been true, but has laid in wait for its moment to escape into the unretractable space of Peter's life.
"Oh, shit," he mutters, unaware that he even said it out loud, so certain that he had said it inside his head.
Lee furrows her brow and gulps, but makes no move to let herself out of his grasp.
"What?" She asks.
Though caught off-guard that she heard his curse, Peter isn't deterred. Instead, he says the only thing his heart is allowing his mind to broadcast. His eyes contain the glory of wild honor that feels like a page from a Tolstoy or Dickens novel. And when Peter is like this, when he gets that look in his eyes that comes almost exclusively from men who don masks and try to save the world, Lee knows that he is sincere.
"I love you," Peter says.
Fuck. The air flies from Lee's chest as she pushes herself off of the bed, running an anxious hand through her hair. No, no, no. This was supposed to be a kiss, not the climax of a Rogers and Hammerstein musical. Fuck. He can't love her; he can't think he loves her, Lee thinks. But, he does. And now she has another demerit, another black mark. Not only has she betrayed him, but when she leaves, she'll be breaking his heart as well.
"Don't say that," Lee responds.
But he isn't even interested in hearing her say it back. Instead, his mind is now racing with the future and the dark cloud obscuring its truths from his sight.
"I love you, and I'm gonna lose you, aren't I?" He asks.
The light and color evacuates the room as Lee turns over that statement in her mind. Does he know? Does he know that she's leaving? Does she know what she's done? How could he know?
"What?" She prods.
At the look in her eyes, Peter slumps back onto the headboard of the bed, conquered by the demons in his mind. His imagination conjures up the most vile ways in which he could lose her, ways that she could be taken from him that even S.H.I.E.L.D. could not foresee or protect against.
"I'm gonna lose you in this fight, aren't I?"
Unable to contain a sigh of relief that he hasn't even the faintest clue of her plans to leave tonight, Lee sinks back into the bed beside him. There is only so much hope she can give him, but this is a reassurance she can swear to him.
"No, you won't. I promise you won't lose me to the Task Master," it isn't much of a guarantee, but she'll be in Boston by the time he strikes, so it's the only guarantee she can give him, "Now, go to sleep."
"One more kiss?" Peter asks, raising an eyebrow.
Lee gives him a level look.
"Don't get ahead of yourself."
Peter laughs to himself, sliding under the covers with in his gym shorts and t-shirt still on his body, shrugging even through his mild disappointment.
"That's fair."
Lee rises from the bed to turn off the lights, but Peter is asleep before she even hits the switch. The clock on the wall gives her a few hours still to make it to the train station, so Lee sits in a chair by the window, looking out over the city so she doesn't have to look at the man sleeping in her bed. But, eventually, her quiet hours cease to stretch, and she rises to her feet. A few steps cover the space between her and Peter, and she looks at his sleeping form before bowing so her lips may just barely brush his forehead, light enough so that he might not feel it and wake, but steady enough that she knows that it's happened.
"You're a good man, Peter Parker," she whispers.
And, just like that, she picks up her bag, and creeps out of the bedroom door, closing it gently behind her as the porcelain making up her soul shatters and reforms into a new creation. Not even she could build bombs strong enough to destroy the steel that now makes up her heart.
"Where do you think you're going?"
She's almost to freedom, almost to a cab and the train station and a new life and Boston when Steve Rogers wanders into the front lobby of Avengers tower, folding his arms across his chest to get a good look at her. The look on his face gives Lee the impression that he's disappointed in her, though she cannot understand what earthly reason he might have to be disappointed.
"Boston," comes Lee's sharp reply.
There is not a bone in Lee's body interested in having this conversation, and her newfound bullet-proof exterior gives her no desire to be even the slightest bit kind to him. Steve raises an eyebrow.
"What's in Boston?" He asks.
"My life," she snaps.
Steve holds his arms out, looking around at the life she's been living for weeks now. She's been in and out of the Tower, in and out of their lives. This seems like her life to him.
"This isn't your life?" He asks.
She abandoned her pain at the foot of the bed she just left Peter sleeping in. All she has is her constructed facade, this strength she's putting all of her energy to maintaining.
"No, this was my mission," Lee replies.
Steve doesn't miss the past tense version of that statement; how easy it seems to him for her to just turn a page on her life.
"You can't leave," Steve orders.
Lee merely shoulders her bag and continues her walk toward the door; she doesn't have to stay here for a moment longer.
"And yet, here I am. Leaving," she barks over her shoulder.
There isn't anything Steve hates more than cowardice.
"You're abandoning your mission," he reminds her, his voice that of every commander ever met with unrest in the field, coming out so much sharper than he knew he should have allowed it to become.
Lee turns on her heel to face him, her response instantaneous and shattered, the illusion of strength wavering.
"I am not a soldier!" Lee almost shouts, her voice raising with an erratic and vulnerable shake.
In that moment, Steve retreats back to a time when her father said something similar. We are not soldiers, he once said. Lee turns back around and regains her steps, causing Steve to scoff.
"At least you have learned something from your father. You know how to bail out when things get hard," Steve calls.
Lee gives a caustic, painful laugh, and she pushes the door open, shouting so that he may hear her even as she steps into the New York City evening.
"Well, Captain Rogers, at least Tony can say he isn't completely useless as a father."
I am so sorry that this is late, everyone! I had to leave town because of a family emergency, and there was no wifi in the place I was staying. So, I'm sorry if this chapter isn't up to my usual quality. Everything is pretty crazy right now with my family. Again, I am so sorry that this update is late, but there will be another one (I promise) on Thursday! Please, please, PLEASE leave a review! All of the ones last time were lovely and so insightful. Thank you to all of my friends out there who review! I can't wait to hear what you guys think about this one.