Chapter 2 - Life

The Triskelion, Washington D.C.

October 17, 2013

Without an assignment or friends outside of S.H.I.E.L.D., Steve started haunting the gym in the Triskelion every day of the week. A few times, he'd called Natasha to work out together and got her voicemail every time. He started to worry after the third time, only to immediately receive a text from her that simply said, Barton in town. See you next week.

Barton was rarely in D.C., so Steve couldn't begrudge Nat for wanting to spend time with the other half of Strike Team Delta. Even if he found Hawkeye slightly unnerving, which definitely wasn't because the first time he'd encountered him was when Loki had his clutches on his subconscious. He just found Hawkeye's stare a little too intense; particularly when all they were doing was inspecting the ice cream labels at Baskin Robin's. Natasha thought his consternation was hilarious and made no attempt to bridge the weird, one-sided gap between the two men. Steve wasn't sure if he appreciated or resented her lack of effort.

And because Fury was out of town altogether—taking care of a "situation" in Buenos Aires, according to his unflappable secretary—Steve had nothing to do except work out.

On Sunday, the gym was crawling with curious field agents. He spent the first half hour of his workout taking "selfies" with overly enthused agents before he finally retreated to a private room. Steve never thought of himself as a celebrity. A few agents asked him for combat tips, which he gladly dispensed. Some asked about his day, which was nice; for a moment, he felt like a regular guy. But receiving adulation? That was for Tony Stark.

When he poked his head in on Thursday afternoon, he breathed a sigh of relief to find only a few agents milling about. He was beginning to understand the pattern. Weekends were mobbed by agents fresh from their week-long assignments and weekdays were quiet.

Maybe that was why she was here today; fewer people to gawk at her as she lifted weights. The scientist that Natasha had given words of encouragement was there again. It was the first time he'd seen her since then. Each day after the first one, he looked around for her blue hair, to see if Natasha's words had been enough to bring her back. He'd been disappointed every day that he didn't find her and hoped that no one had bullied her away from the gym. Steve did not like bullies.

But he should've known better than to think it'd take a couple of giggles at her expense to scare her off. From what few words she exchanged with Nat, Steve knew the kid had a decent amount of pluck about her—certainly enough to ward off snide comments.

She was on the bench press today—alone, he noted with a grimace. That was dangerous even for him. He waited for her to rack the bar before he spoke up, "You shouldn't lift without a spotter."

She sat up and glanced over her shoulder at him. Her eyes were golden brown, rimmed with smooth eyeliner. "I have a few more sets, if you're offering," she replied slyly, punctuating her remark with a toothy smile.

He tried and failed to hide his smile. She had moxie, alright. He shrugged. "Sure."

Before she could lie back down, he stuck his hand out to her. He wasn't completely without manners. "Steve Rogers, by the way."

Their handshake was very awkward because of the way he'd offered his hand, but she took in stride, laughing when he blushed. "Mallory Cohen. Everyone calls me Mal, though." She shrugged and lifted the bar off the rack. "I guess they're in a hurry."

He rushed to stand over her, in case she was more tired than she looked, but she didn't seem to need his help. "Everyone's in a hurry these days," he said absently, his hand hovering over the bar.

She furrowed her brow, her tongue poking between her teeth. "Does that bother you?" she asked in between breaths.

He shrugged. "Society's moved forward, I guess," he replied. "It's not good or bad. It's just different."

She racked the bar again and, without sitting up, she stared at him curiously. "That's…very mature of you."

"Well, I am 95 years old," he said without thinking. Usually, when Steve made offhand jokes about his time as a 'Capsicle', people froze up, unsure of whether to laugh or give him a sympathetic look. Both were understandable reactions to an uncomfortable topic, he thought, so he'd been trying to keep them to a minimum around people who weren't Natasha.

But she laughed out loud—so loudly that she startled a passing field agent into reaching for his belt. Steve held up a hand to let him know there was no danger, but Mal never noticed.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to laugh so hard."

"It's fine. It was in poor taste, anyway."

She shook her head. "No, it wasn't," she assured him and lifted the bar again. "It's good that you have a sense of humor about it."

"Not much else I can have but a sense of humor," he replied.

"That's a good way of thinking of it," she said, racking the bar and sitting up. He stepped away, ready to leave her to her own devices. But she stood and nodded at the bench press. "I can spot you, if you'd like."

She was about the same dimensions as Natasha—compact and powerful, though she hadn't lifted more than eighty pounds—so he nodded. She watched with narrowed eyes as he sheepishly took her weights off of the bar and added two hundred pounds on either side.

"Oh, you're cool," she sneered jokingly when he added another fifty pounds to the bar.

"That's my job, ma'am," he replied cheekily, saluting her and laying himself beneath the bar. It was barely enough weight to make him sweat.

She twisted her lips. "Your job is to be cool at the gym?"

"Mainly, yes."

She winced and clutched her heart. "You're crushing my image of you, Captain."

"That's the other part of my job. Crushing preconceived notions."

She laughed again. It was a big, belly laugh; the type he hadn't heard in a long time. Probably not since he was fighting alongside Bucky seventy years ago. He savored every second of it.

When she finished, he asked, "So, what do you do?"

"Besides embarrass myself at the gym?" He smiled when she did. "I'm a scientist in the Biochem department. I got transferred here three months ago."

"So did I!" he said, inordinately excited. He rarely had things in common with people these days. "Where'd you get transferred from?"

She gestured vaguely behind her. "San Francisco. You…started three months ago?" she asked incredulously.

He furrowed his brow. "Sort of. I was on retainer in New York for about a year after I woke up." That had been the longest year of his life. "Fury asked me to come on full-time, but I had to move here."

"'Had to'?" she asked jokingly. "You don't like D.C.?"

Steve chuckled. "I like it well enough, but I've only ever lived in New York." He sat up, resting his elbows on his knees, and waved a hand at her. "You know what it's like."

She sat beside him, her legs tucked underneath her on the bench. "San Fran's not my hometown, but yeah. I understand." She tapped her fingernails against her leg and added softly, "I really didn't want to leave my friends, though. I've moved around so often that places never really held much meaning, but I never want to leave the people I love."

He looked at her. She wasn't a remarkable beauty, not like Natasha or Peggy, but the more he spoke to her, the more he found it difficult to draw his eyes away. Her hair was dark, almost black, and thick. Her eyelashes were long; her face was rounded with a soft nose and a wide, full mouth. His fingers itched for a pencil and paper.

"That's hard," he quietly agreed.

She winced. "And you're the last person I should be complaining to."

"It's alright," he assured her, because it was. "I understand more than most what it's like to miss the people you love."

"Still…" Mallory trailed off when he gave her a look. "Okay. Stop looking at me like that." He continued to look at her. She huffed, "If you're going for 'concerned father', you have it down."

Steve laughed, nudging her off the bench with his shoulder so he could lie down again. "Where're you from?" he asked, trying to change the subject before they fell into an uncomfortable silence.

"Originally?" He could only grimace in response; the weight was beginning to press down on him in earnest after ten reps. She kept her hand over the bar nervously and answered, "Honolulu."

"Hawaii?"

"Yes. There are so many Honolulu's in this country; it's a good thing you clarified," she said. He smiled sheepishly. "Yup, Hawaiian, born and bred." She lifted her hand just long enough to hold out her pinky and thumb. "Howzit!"

"Uh…"

She waved off his confusion. "Don't worry about it. But I started boarding school in New York when I was ten, and I've been stateside ever since."

"Wow. Ten years old?"

Mal nodded. "Yeah, I was pretty young. It was hard to leave home, but it was for a prestigious institute. And I already knew I wanted to be a scientist, so…" she trailed off with a shrug. "It was a no-brainer."

He racked the bar and sat up again. "You knew that you wanted to be a biochem scientist when you were ten years old?" He was twenty-nine and he didn't even know what biochem was.

"Just the science part. I figured out the biochem later. Actually, my father's a marine biology professor at UH—University of Hawaii," she clarified when his frown deepened in confusion, "and my mother is a high school chemistry teacher, so, you know…" she shrugged and clasped her hands together. "Biochemistry." She scratched the back of her head and amended, "That's a bad joke. I took an interest while I was at boarding school. One of my old professors is at the top of his field in genetics."

He had to stop her before she got much further and left him in the verbal dust. "What…exactly do you do as a biochemist? I'm afraid I don't exactly know," he said sheepishly.

"Oh, there's no need to be embarrassed to ask. A lot of the most significant advancements in the biochemical field happened after World War II." She began counting off on her fingers. "Photo 51, Watson and Crick, the Human Genome Project—obviously, I have more of an emphasis on the genetic side of Biochemistry; I have a colleague who is more interested in biochemical munitions, but that's beside the point."

Steve got about half of what she was saying. "Uh…"

But she was on a roll. "I have to just to get this out of the way: Project Rebirth was a biological marvel. Dr. Erskine's work was, frankly, unbelievable, especially when you take into consideration how little we actually knew about genetics back then."

He recognized the name, of course, and started at it. "You're familiar with Dr. Erskine?"

Her glasses slipped down as she'd grown more and more animated. She nudged them back up her nose with a snicker. "Every biochemist in S.H.I.E.L.D. is familiar with Dr. Erskine. Your case study is introductory reading for Biochem majors at the academy—hell, the whole Biochem department exists to facilitate the recreation of the super soldier serum. Every other project is auxiliary as far as our superiors are concerned."

His eyebrows shot up. "You're working on the serum?"

She immediately screwed up her face, waving her hands in front of her. "Oh, no, no. I'm head of an auxiliary project." Then she scratched the back of her head and quietly admitted, "To be honest, I don't have too much interest in human enhancements—beyond an academic interest, I mean." She winced as though she'd personally offended him for not taking an interest in his procedure. "Sorry."

Suddenly, he didn't feel completely lost in the onslaught of scientific jargon. He scoffed, "Wow. And we were having such a nice conversation."

Mal snorted and he couldn't keep the mock-indignation on his face for long. Through giggles, she pointed to the bar and asked, "One more set?"

"Sure." When she checked her phone, though, he realized that he was probably keeping her from her work. "But if you need to leave now, I understand…" he trailed off reluctantly. Despite the vernacular gap between them, Mal was surprisingly easy to talk to. He wasn't eager to see her go.

"Oh, no," she exclaimed, shaking her head. "I like talking to you. And I don't exactly have a wealth of friends here, being the new kid."

He nodded. "Yeah, I know what that's like."

"Making friends is hard. And especially when you're busy all the time, you know?"

"I know!" Again, he felt he went overboard with the excitement in his tone. "That's what I keep telling Nat—Agent Romanoff," he clarified.

Mal choked on her breath, turning red as she coughed. He finished his set and sat up, worry on his face. "You alright?" he asked slowly when her coughs subsided.

"I'm good." She coughed one more time. "Okay, now I'm better." She pointed at her throat embarrassedly. "Choked on my saliva."

Still red, Mal bent down to grab her hot pink duffel bag, slinging the strap over her shoulder. Automatically, Steve stood and she had to arch her neck to smile up at him. "Thanks for spotting me," she said. "I probably would've crushed myself under the bar if you didn't show up."

"You would've been fine," he said.

She beamed, her turquoise fingernails scratching at the pink strap over her shoulder. "Maybe we'll see each other around," she suggested.

"Yeah…" he agreed slowly, raising his hand when she waved and started to walk away.

If Natasha was here, she'd be stomping on his foot for letting her get away. Ask her out! Her voice screamed in his head, even though the real Natasha never raised her voice above a barked command to their subordinates.

"Dr. Cohen!" he called and, before he could chicken out, he caught up with her. She turned and rolled her eyes, an indulgent smile on her face.

"Please, call me Mal. Dr. Cohen is my father. And my mother, actually…" she added as an afterthought.

"Sorry—Mal. Would you—I mean, I was wondering…do you want to get coffee? W-with me, I mean?" he stuttered, blushing. He really didn't mean to make it sound like a date, because it wasn't.

"Right now?"

He nodded. "Sure. Or whenever." There was an in-house café a few floors up that overlooked the Potomac. He'd never actually stuck around long enough to enjoy the view, but Nat told him that it was quite picturesque.

She grimaced, fishing a watch out of one of her bag's pockets. "It'll have to be whenever, I'm afraid." When she read the time, she squeaked. "Oh god, I gave myself an hour and it's been an hour and a half! I'm so sorry, I've really gotta go!"

He ducked his head. "I won't keep you."

She danced in place, biting her tongue as her eyebrows met at the center of her forehead. "I can get coffee next Monday, if you're free then?" she offered at last.

As far as he knew, he didn't have anything. He smiled and nodded in agreement. "Yeah, that sounds good."

"Great!" she exclaimed and started walking backwards out of the gym. "I'll text you the time I'm available, is that cool?"

Steve shook his head and followed. "You, uh, you don't have my number," he pointed out quietly.

She smacked her forehead. "Right. Get it together, Cohen," she muttered to herself as she entered the string of numbers he rattled off onto her S.H.I.E.L.D. issued phone with lightning speed. "I'll text you so you can add my number on your phone," she added as she rushed out. "Later!"

"Bye," he called back, but she was already gone, her blue hair the last thing he saw before she disappeared.

He rubbed his neck and went back to the bench press, a silly grin making a home on his face. Mal Cohen was just the sort of person he could see becoming good friends with. She had a quick wit and an easy smile. Frankly, he found it almost unbelievable that she hadn't already befriended the entire building in the three months she'd been here.

His pocket beeped at him. When he plucked his phone out, his grin became a chuckle.

This is Mal Cohen, your talkative spotter. :) See you Monday!

Thanks for reading! The first part of this story (the part that takes place before CA:TWS) is going to be a lot of Steve/Mal friendship stuff, btw. The stuff I have planned for TWS portion of this story is less dorky conversations at the gym, more drama.

And I don't want to spoil it but I also don't want to give anyone the wrong impression-Mal and Steve will most likely not end up together. Like, I'm 95% sure it's not going to happen. Most likely, this is going to be a Mal/Bucky story, but I haven't changed the characters/genre because Bucky's not going to be in the story for a while and the romance won't start for an even longer amount of time.

Please let me know what you think! Tell me if you think Steve's in character because he's surprisingly difficult to keep in character.

Edited August 2021