Disclaimer: Don't own Marvel.

Chapter 6

Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington D.C.

December 1st, 2013

Steve wasn't really sure what he was doing here.

He'd been sitting outside of the Air and Space museum for half an hour now, deciding whether to stay put or take off running into traffic. If he stayed, he'd have to go in. If he ran into traffic…

"That probably wouldn't kill you," he said to himself reasonably. "Unless you got hit by a semi. It would just hurt a lot and you still wouldn't be off the hook."

That thought was far too morbid, he thought. The situation he was in really wasn't that bad.

Suddenly, someone plopped beside him on the bench. He glanced over. Mal grinned at him, tossing her ponytail over her shoulder. "Hey!"

He smiled, though it probably looked more like a grimace. "Hi. You changed your hair."

She beamed, fiddling with the newly red tips of her hair. "Yeah, I thought red was a little more festive than blue."

"It looks nice."

He knew he was stalling, but she didn't seem to pick up on it.

"Sorry I'm late," she apologized, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "It took me way longer to walk here than I thought it would."

"It's fine."

"Were you waiting long?"

"Doesn't matter."

She barely reacted to his curt tone. "You ready?"

He paused only for a moment before he nodded. Standing up felt like a gargantuan effort. He definitely lingered for a second to long because, finally, she seemed to notice that something wasn't right.

Cocking her head at his skittish behavior, she asked, "You okay?"

He gritted his teeth. "Yeah. Let's go."

It was obvious she didn't believe him, but she was evidently too excited to go into the museum to question him further.

Admission was free. Steve knew this fact very intimately. How many times had he considered coming here? How many times had he sat on that exact bench outside of the museum? How many times did he fail to work up the courage to see the faces of his comrades?—some who were long dead, some still alive…

Some who'd forgotten him completely.

"I've never been to the Air and Space museum," Mal was saying as they ascended the steps to the entrance. "Back when I was in boarding school, my class came down for a field trip, but I had to stay at school. I was so jealous. And now I've lived here for five months and I still haven't been. So, really, thank you so much for coming with me. Have you been here before?"

"No."

"Oh, good. I would've felt awful if you'd been here, like, a thousand times before, you know?"

He had to give her a heads-up. She didn't seem to realize what being here meant. "Yeah… listen, Mal—"

She stopped dead in her tracks just inside the door. At least three people ran into him from behind as he stopped to accommodate her pause. Her eyes were wide in horror.

"Oh, shit."

He followed her gaze and grimaced when he saw the sign.

CAPTAIN AMERICA

The Living Legend

and

Symbol of Courage

She whirled around, grabbed him by the arm, and dragged him away from the exhibit, towards the security gates. She was surprisingly strong for an average-sized woman with a lax training regimen.

"I'm so, so sorry, Steve," she immediately began when they were out of anyone's earshot, "I didn't know—why the hell is there an exhibit on Captain America in the Air and Space Museum? It's not like there isn't an American History museum two goddamn museums that way—look, let's just go—"

He put his hand on her shoulder, silencing her anxious babbling. "Mal, calm down. It's fine."

She shook her head emphatically. "No, it's obviously not fine. You were acting really weird outside and I'm an oblivious dumbass—you should have said something! I'm really up for anything today; I just suggested the museum because I'd never been before and it's free—it's not too late to go to that lecture on organic 3D printing at George Washington—"

"What was that, three hours long? I'll pass."

"—okay, fine; we could go see a movie or something. I don't know. Seriously, I'm down to do anything."

"I want to do this," he said firmly, partly to reassure her and partly to convince himself.

Unfortunately, he couldn't even convince Mal. She cocked an eyebrow at his half-hearted expression.

"Okay, I want to do this with you," he amended, lifting his hand off of her shoulder to rub the back of his neck. "I've been meaning to come, but…"

But I'm afraid. It was strange to him. He'd been afraid so many times before, but it was always of something tangible and real. He couldn't believe how afraid he was of something that was written on a wall.

Mal seemed to understand what he was trying to say, but thankfully didn't make him admit his fear. "Okay," she said, nodding slowly before taking her glasses off and holding them out to him. "Put these on."

He stared at them. "Uh…"

She rolled her eyes. "You're incredibly obvious right now, Mr. Baseball Cap and Sweatshirt."

"Don't you need them?"

She placed them in his hand. "They're not prescription."

This was only more confusing to him. "Then why do you wear them?" he asked, slipping them on. It was a bit of a tight fit, but he could deal with it for a few hours.

"To look smart."

"You're already smart; why do you need to look smart?"

The only answer he got was a heavy sigh. He supposed there were some things he would just never understand.

Security didn't take too long to go through, seeing as only Mal had a bag and Steve remembered to take his keys out of his pocket before going through a metal detector, so they were outside of his exhibit much sooner than he would have liked.

"So…" Mal drawled casually. "Do you know anything about this guy?" She jabbed her thumb at the life-size photo of him on the wall.

He deliberately avoided looking himself in the eye. "He's some punk from Brooklyn."

"Mm, I don't know." She cocked her head at him. "My mom's some punk from Brooklyn, but she didn't get an oddly placed exhibit at the Smithsonian."

Her fixation on the location of the Captain America exhibit made him smile, even though his stomach seemed intent on making him lose his breakfast.

Her smile faded. "Are you sure—"

"Mal, would you please just go in."

She clamped her mouth shut and marched inside.

The exhibit wasn't really for him, Natasha told him when he first heard that the Smithsonian was planning it. And though it was hard not to think that an exhibit named "Captain America: The Living Legend and Symbol of Courage" wasn't really about him, he began to see what she meant.

"The Howling Commandos," Mal read quietly to herself as Steve stood beside her, staring at the mannequins wearing his old teammates' uniforms. She glanced up at him curiously. "I thought your team was called the Rough Riders."

He gave her a look. "That was Teddy Roosevelt's regiment in the Spanish-American War."

"Oh."

They stood in silence for a moment.

"I see now why you need to look smart."

"Shaddup."

He smothered his laughter in his hand.

Suddenly, the rest of the exhibit didn't seem so daunting.

At each station, he slowly came to realize that while Mal was an impressive scientist, she had next to nothing in terms of historical knowledge. She routinely confused Teddy Roosevelt with FDR, she thought World War I and II were alternative names for the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, and she somehow never learned that the United States hadn't started out with fifty states.

"Wait, how many were there in 1945?"

"Forty-eight. Alaska and Hawaii were annexed territories back then."

"Woah."

His mouth twitched. "So, you said you were born and raised in Hawaii?" he asked casually.

"I'm gifted in other ways," she said quickly.

She took all of his increasingly relentless teasing in stride, asking every inane question that popped into her head. Some of them, he realized, she had to know the answer to, but she asked anyway to make him laugh. He appreciated it.

But there wasn't enough humor in the world to stop his heart from clenching when they came to Bucky's memorial wall.

Best friends from childhood, Steven Rogers and Bucky Barnes were inseparable on both schoolyard and battlefield. Barnes is the only Howling Commando to give his life in service of his country.

There was an old video playing, of him and Bucky laughing. He couldn't remember what Bucky said that made him smile or what battlefield they were heading off to next. It could've been just before his death.

Of course he couldn't know, Steve thought, running his fingers across the bottom of the screen. He wished he could reach through the screen to warn him, warn himself, of what was to come for them.

Someone tugged on his jacket sleeve. He hadn't noticed the tear in his eye until Mal pretended not to see it. "You okay?" she whispered.

He quickly wiped his face. "Yeah," he said, taking a deep breath. "Yeah, I'm fine."

She bit her lip. "You know, you don't have to be okay."

"I know."

But he had to at least try.

While he forced himself to watch the clip play through, Mal whistled under her breath. "Wow, what a lady-killer."

Steve chuckled despite himself. "Yeah, Bucky was popular with women."

"I'll bet he was."

He rolled his eyes.

She had a similar reaction to the video of Peggy, which basically confirmed Natasha's suspicions about her sexuality, but Steve barely noticed. He'd always had a hard time paying attention to anything else when Peggy spoke and it was no different now. Whether in person or on screen, Peggy commanded attention.

And then she was pulling him back to the main atrium of the museum because they'd seen everything in the exhibit and he was still breathing. In fact, his chest felt so light that he thought he'd float up into the model airplanes that hung over their heads.

Mal clapped her hands together. "Well! I think I filled my yearly quota for ritual humiliation in…" She pushed up her sleeve to check her watch. "…under half an hour! New record."

He laughed far too long to be considered polite. "I'm almost impressed," he teased. "It takes a certain dedication to know that little. Have you ever even taken a history class in your life?"

"I have physically been in a room while there was a history class, yes." She shook her head when he bit his lip to stop grinning. "I just have huge gaps in my historical knowledge. I know a bit about the Cold War and scientific discoveries and that's all I ever learned."

"It's still ridiculous."

She laughed. "I know."

They managed to see the rest of the museum in less than two hours. With nothing else planned, the two of them swayed at the top of the steps in front of the museum, pretending that they really had somewhere more important to be. Finally, Mal suggested they get coffee and walk around the National Mall.

He readily agreed. He wasn't ready to be alone with his thoughts just yet. And he suspected she wasn't ready to be alone, period.

"Thanks," she said when he passed her a cup of coffee. He stuffed his free hand into his coat pocket as they began walking.

"It's cold out," he said lamely.

One of his favorite things about Mal was that she treated every word with great attention, as though everything you ever said was revolutionary and completely worth talking about.

"It is!" she agreed, with widening eyes. "And I want to turn the heat up in my apartment, but I don't want my newts to get too warm. They like it chilly."

Unfortunately, Steve did not have her innate interest in every factoid and found it difficult to react properly when she brought up her newts. "Huh."

When she put her arm out in front of him, he was briefly afraid that she was going to call him out on it. Instead, she looked at him seriously while nervously picking at her coffee lid with her bright red fingernail. "I just wanted to thank you for hanging out with me today," she said. "I know you're really busy and that this was really…not easy for you."

That was somehow an understatement and an overstatement at the same time. On the one hand, hanging out with Mal was effortless and nearly guaranteed to be a barrel of laughs. On the other, he was a normal human being who didn't like to confront his tragic past on a casual outing with a new friend.

He settled on saying, "I'm not that busy."

She didn't even dignify that with an answer, instead taking another drag from her cup. He hoped she would start rambling about science again, just so that he'd be off the hook.

"Peggy Carter founded S.H.I.E.L.D., right?" she asked curiously.

"Yep," he replied shortly.

She nodded and said, simply, "Ah."

He had no idea what that meant. "What?"

"Would it be safe to assume that you two…" she gestured vaguely with her free hand, a knowing smile on her face.

His face flushed. He told himself that it was the cold wind on his cheeks that turned them red. "What makes you think that?" he asked calmly.

She smiled and said simply, "She called it S.H.I.E.L.D."

That wasn't exactly incriminating. He told her as much.

When she finished chuckling, she restated, "You looked at her like you loved her."

He swallowed heavily. Steve thought he fit surprisingly well into today's society, given that he practically time-travelled to the future. He didn't take too long to acclimate to new technology or the bizarre fashions; his skills translated well to the times, so keeping a job wasn't difficult.

But he doubted he would ever shake off his discomfort when it came to talking about his private life. Mainly, his non-existent love life.

Natasha was an intensely private person, but her respect for privacy only applied to her own life. With Steve, she was endlessly curious; almost relentless. At first, he thought this was just another one of her quirks, a trait that came from being one of the world's greatest spies.

But it wasn't just her. Coworkers, acquaintances, people he barely knew—they asked him about his last date, his last kiss, his last…

He cleared his throat and tried to get his blushing under control.

Television shows, movies, news articles—everything was unbelievably candid about intimate relationships. Even literature, judging by the novel Stark sent him as a birthday gift. Steve usually treated books with respect, but he tossed out the copy of Fifty Shades of Grey after only a few chapters.

Mal spoke again, snapping him out of his angry thoughts towards one Tony Stark. "Sorry, it's really none of my business."

No, it really isn't. He glanced over at her. She was grimacing at the pavement, clearly berating herself for prying.

Suddenly, he wasn't angry, or sad, or guilty for making her feel uncomfortable. He was just tired—tired of guarding his feelings just because he didn't think other people needed to shoulder his burden. He became Captain America not just to protect people; it was because no one else would.

Mal was patient with him. And he didn't know if she could possibly understand his fears and his pain, but she said it herself—she would listen. Maybe listening would be enough.

Besides, he never felt completely comfortable telling Natasha anything; he always got the impression that she reported everything he said to Fury.

"I did love her," he said, so quietly he couldn't hear his own voice. He cleared his throat and repeated himself, "I loved her. But everything else was wrong."

He wished more than anything that he'd been born in this time, that Peggy and Bucky were his age and alive and well. Because it wasn't just that he felt alone now; it was that it was hard to be happy during a total war. You were just too busy to live your life.

Mal gazed at him for a long time, but he couldn't bring himself to meet her eyes. Brown eyes were always hard for him to look at.

Finally, she said, "She's your wrong context girl."

"What?"

"When you meet someone that you see yourself spending the rest of your life with, but the context is wrong. The timing or your jobs or—" she gestured to him vaguely, "—the war. Love isn't always enough; there're always mitigating circumstances that get in the way."

It was a surprisingly cynical thing to hear from someone who'd been nothing but optimistic until now. "Are you speaking from experience?" he asked slowly.

She opened her mouth and closed it again. "Yeah."

He wanted to ask, but it wasn't his business. He realized that she didn't seem to have a problem asking about his personal life, but he still couldn't shake his old-fashioned notion that a private life was private, even if no one else respected that.

But she offered the information up anyway, because that was apparently the kind of person she was: honest.

"No," he heard her whisper and, out of the corner of his eye, he saw her shake her head. "No," she repeated louder. "I wasn't speaking from experience."

Steve waited a long time for her to speak again.

She scrubbed her chin awkwardly, biting the inside of her cheek as she struggled to clarify, "It's just the lie I've been telling myself for a long time. It's easier to be jaded when you're the one at fault for a failed relationship."

Still, he didn't understand her. She glanced over at him, smirking a bit at the confusion on his face. "I'm not making any sense, am I?"

"Not really, no."

"Well, long story short: the only long-term relationship I've ever been in…I was the one who screwed things up. I thought my work was more important than my relationship and, even in hindsight, I can't say that I would've done anything differently. But it doesn't make it easier—knowing that, I mean. It's almost harder."

"What do you mean?"

She frowned. "I learned a terrible truth about myself. That this person that I loved more than any other person I'd ever met—who was smart and funny and gorgeous—that she still wasn't enough."

He wasn't surprised, but he asked, "She?"

"Yeah." Her lip twitched at his expression. "Not that my sexuality is any of your business."

Again, his face went red; though this time it was from shame at his overt interest. "Sorry."

She chuckled and shook her head. "I'm just kidding. I mean, it isn't anyone's business but mine, but I appreciate that you opened up a little to me, so the least I could do is return the favor. Although it's not like I'm still in the closet about it."

"In the closet?"

"Keeping it a secret," she clarified.

"Ah."

They fell silent when they crossed the street, passing the World War II memorial. Steve deliberately steered them around it and Mal pretended she didn't know what he was doing.

Steve didn't like it. It was huge and ostentatious, the quotes inscribed on granite pretentious and dedicated more to glory than the sacrifices made. He would have been content with just the Freedom Wall—a curved wall of gold stars, representing the fallen, with the words, 'Here We Mark The Price Of Freedom' etched in stone beneath it.

When they were well past it, under the elm trees that were nearly bare and ready for winter, she asked, softly, "Could you tell me about her? Peggy, I mean."

He swallowed thickly. He'd kind of hoped she'd forgotten about Peggy. "Peggy was…" He didn't struggle to find words to describe her. He only struggled to find the best one. "…damned clever. Fiercely loyal, determined—a little stubborn, but it was a good quality on her. She was sweet and terrifying at the same time."

Mal grinned. "How's that?"

He couldn't keep himself from smiling at the memory. "She tried to shoot me."

The grin dropped off of her face into a horrified grimace. "Sounds hilarious," she said dryly.

He laughed. "I just realized what that sounded like. Howard Stark had just finished handed me my shield for the first time and I was showing it to her. She was angry with me because…"

He blushed, remembering the very forward woman who had planted her lips on his. His blush faded when he remembered the look on Peggy's face when she rounded the corner.

"…she was angry with me," he finished lamely.

A knowing look crossed her face. "What'd you do?"

"I didn't do anything!" he said defensively. "It was a misunderstanding."

"Uh-huh."

He rolled his eyes. "Anyway, I held it up, asked what she thought. She pulled her gun out and shot it four times. Didn't even scratch it, of course. And she said, 'Yes, I think it works.'"

She burst out laughing so hard that she spilled some of her coffee on her hand. "What did you do to that poor woman?" she crowed, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes.

He didn't bother answering her question, knowing she would only tease him more if she knew the whole truth. Instead, he smiled sadly. "I don't think anyone's ever called Peggy a 'poor woman'…and gotten away with it, anyway. She wasn't one to tolerate that kind of thing."

"Pity?"

"Yeah."

"Sounds like my kind of woman."

"What about you?" At her confused look, he clarified, "Your… 'failed relationship', as you put it."

When she smiled, he would've said she was still in love with her. It was soft, affectionate—the kind of smile he knew he had when he thought of Peggy. "Her name was Bonnie. I met her about a year into my internship in San Francisco. She was a photographer. So, really into art."

He remembered their long conversation about the merits (or lack thereof) of art and chuckled. "That must've been weird for you."

Mal laughed lightly. "It was, a bit. But that was actually something I really loved about her. She was passionate about her work, which was something we had in common."

Her smile faded as she continued, "But being an intern for S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't like being a freelance photographer. My schedule was inflexible and stressful and demanding. And she got pissed that I never even tried to make time for us; I mean, rightly so.

"And I kept telling myself, 'This is just an inconvenient time. As soon as I get my own project, we'll have so much time to be together.' But I knew that wasn't true and she knew it too. So one day, she said, 'I can't do this to myself anymore.' And I said, 'fine,' because I couldn't beg her to stay with someone who wasn't going to be as invested as she was. I loved her too much to ask her to be unhappy."

Steve grimaced. "That's rough."

"I think part of me hoped I'd fall so stupidly in love with someone that I'd give up everything. But that's just not who I am. I mean, could you even imagine up a person that would make you want to give up being Captain America?"

He blinked. He'd never even thought about it. If Peggy had asked him to stop—not that she ever would have— he knew he wouldn't have. And there was no one else in the world, past or present, that he would have considered retiring for.

"Well… no. But I'm not Captain America because I love it—"

"—it's because there's always more to do," she finished for him. "There are always people to save, right?"

"Yeah."

She nodded. "It's the same for me."

He chuckled. "Always people to save?"

"Of course!" she exclaimed. "C'mon, what do you think I do all day?"

He had no idea. "Do science? I don't know," he admitted, shrugging.

She stepped into his path, holding her hand up to stop him. "I'm slightly changing the subject because I don't like talking about what an asshole I am."

"You're not an asshole."

His assurance fell on deaf ears as she continued, "But I want to make a bet with you."

He raised his eyebrow. "Oh, really?"

"Yeah, really."

Steve searched her face and saw nothing but good-natured jesting there. It was the same expression Bucky used to have just before he'd bet him to slide down a stair bannister or throw a paint-soaked rag off of an apartment building.

Naturally, he decided to bite. "Alright, what are the stakes?"

"Bragging rights."

"So… no stakes?"

She ignored his snide comment. "I bet I'm going to save more people than you could even imagine saving in your entire life."

He exhaled a white breath of laughter. Not as bad as what Bucky used to challenge him to do, that was for sure. "Alright."

She did not appreciated his levity. "I'm serious!"

"Sorry," he chuckled at her disgruntled expression. "I just thought it was going to be an actual challenge."

He didn't realize how that sounded until her mouth fell open.

"Wow," she uttered. "Way to be humble."

His foot had clearly decided to make a home in his mouth while he wasn't looking. "That is—not what—can I just—" he stuttered.

She threw up her hands. "It's fine!" she cried, unable to stop grinning even through her false indignation. "I know you're just talking shit 'cause you know you don't have a chance against my project."

"You actually, uh," he cleared his throat awkwardly. She didn't seem to remember that she'd never actually explained what she did to him. "You never told me about your project. I had to leave early. Fury called," he added unnecessarily.

"Oh, yeah." She blinked. "Woah, we haven't talked in two weeks?"

"That was definitely a month ago."

She looked up at the grey skies, sighing wistfully. "Time is a cruel mistress."

He rolled his eyes, which she pointedly ignored in favor of a sudden bench. "Well, cop a squat, my friend, and prepare to be thoroughly bored."

"I'm excited," he assured her as he waited for her to sit before he did. "I've been waiting for a month to hear what you do."

"Well, then…" she took one last gulp of coffee, sat it down by her feet (so she could gesticulate wildly, he assumed, as she tended to do when she was excited), and said, "…the wait's over."

Oh my god, an update?! This must be the end of days.

Seriously, I apologize for the wait to anyone who reads this story. And double apology because this chapter is kind of terrible. And triple apology because the next chapter is pretty much shop talk about Mal's project, which is a well-researched mixture of actual science and hoodoo (though, to be fair to myself, most of the science in X-Men is ridiculous so, really, I'm just trying to stay true to the source material).

Again, please let me know if you think Steve is out of character and what you think of Mal and if you're wondering if there's even a plot to this story (spoiler alert: there is... kind of).

And for any of you wondering what the eff is going on with "Fire and Ice": I haven't forgotten it! I promise. I won't promise a speedy update, but I am working on the next chapter, which I can assure you will be boring because that is the reason I am having so much trouble with it.