Author's Note: It is important to note that I am not remotely religious. The information in this story comes from my three primary religious sources (my parents, Father Ted, and The Vicar of Dibley; none of which can be even remotely construed at theological authorities) and some lazy googling. I am happy for feedback to make my stories more accurate and am currently open to receiving information on any religion appearing in my stories (I will still exercise my discretion as a writer). So when you read this I do not mean to offend anyone. I am thereby disclaimed.
Maria wasn't totally sure why she was sitting in the penultimate pew in St Bartholomew's wearing a nice black dress with blue heels with Steve Rogers on a Sunday listening to a round, cheerful-looking, black woman she presumed was the priest or whatever it was they called them in the Episcopal church. Maria's knees did a little 'hip-hip-hooray!' once they realised that there wouldn't be so much goddamned kneeling involved.
Maria was studiously ignoring the fact that if her grandmother ever found out that Maria had set foot in an Episcopalian church she was dead meat. Maria would be probably better off if she decided to become Jewish. It was funny, she thought, as a kid being forced to go to Sunday services she'd always hated church, hated the oppressive nature of her family's stares each time she shifted and the ancient wooden pew let out a creak that the whole church could hear. But she didn't feel uncomfortable – well, that's not true, she was practically twitching waiting for one of the flock to stand up and yell 'Bead rattler' or 'Fish eater' and point her out for the Catholic she is trying so desperately not to be – but when Steve covers the hand that's rolling the beads of the rosary she had found in her handbag as a remnant of last year's grandmother-mandated Christmas Mass she lets out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. He smiles before turning back to the service.
'Why'd you ask me to come with you?' She asks on the train back to the tower.
'My mother, Bucky's family, and I used to go to that church before I joined the Army. I just needed to not go on my own, you know? Because I figured if I went alone then it would just be like I was trying to recreate the past, but with someone else there it wouldn't be so weird. I know it must be awfully presumptuous of me to ask you to come and I won't be offended at all if you never want to do it again. You're just the only person I know who might be able to come since Natasha's dragged Bruce to church on the Upper East Side and I would rather go alone then ask Stark, Barton, or Darcy.'
Maria smiles slightly and rests her head on his shoulder for the rest of the train ride.