Ch. 16
"Me? Why would you want to sketch me?"
Steve took a step towards Alma, smiling down at her. "Now who's fishing for compliments?"
For a second, Alma felt like she couldn't breathe as he grinned broadly at her. It had gone too far. She had let herself be lulled into an easy companionship of teasing banter and light flirting. She had indulged herself, enjoying being with him, spending time with him. But the look in his eyes wasn't that of a casual acquaintance, of an easy-going friend.
"Let's go look in the next room. The museum closes at five. We should make sure we see the rest of the paintings before it does. I want to be certain that I earn my keep as your private tour guide," she said lightly, turning to go.
"Hey, wait. Did I say something? Are you sore at me?" he asked, jogging to catch up to her, grabbing her arm to stop her.
Alma battled to keep her voice steady as she turned and gave him a bright, false smile. "No, I just want to make sure that you get to see everything. Who knows when you'll get another chance to see this part of Buenos Aires?"
Steve narrowed his eyes at that. "You're normally a better liar than this."
Alma bit down on her lower lip to keep herself from lashing out. "What do you want?"
"What do you mean?" Steve asked.
"You know what I mean. This is a job. We finish the mission and we part ways. That's it," she insisted.
"Are you really only here because I'm paying you? Is that really the only reason?" Steve demanded softly. He began to massage her arm with his thumb, staring down at her intently, not giving an inch.
Alma tensed because he was too close to the truth. "What do you want from me?"
"I want you to be honest. For once. Tell me that you feel the same way that I feel about you."
Alma's breath caught. There it was. Out in the open. Exactly what she'd been hoping to avoid.
"You want honest? An employer coerces his female employee into playing his girlfriend for an assignment and then makes a pass at her. That enough honesty for you?" she snapped, desperately trying to find anything to say to push him away.
Steve let go of her and took a step back, a horrified look on his face. "Is that how you see it?"
She looked down, not able to meet his gaze. "That's how it has to be."
"Why?" he asked.
Her head snapped up. "Because you still don't get it. You have no idea of the carnage that happened after what you did. All the pain that you caused. It's all just words to you. All just collateral damage. You've destroyed the only family I ever really had. You betrayed the only loyalty I ever knew. I can't let myself . . ." Alma's eyes flew open at that, realizing she had said too much.
"You won't let yourself fall for me," he stated. "But you already have."
He smiled as started towards her once again but she backed away, staying out of arm's reach.
"It doesn't matter. None of it matters. I'm finishing the job, getting you the information you need and that's it. I'm gone the second it's finished." She swallowed thickly, each word dull and painful. "This was a bad idea. Look, I'll meet you tomorrow at the hotel at four to go over the plan for Pavlov's yacht. I need to go."
She turned to leave and Steve moved to block her way. "Alma, don't go."
Alma looked up at him, desperate to leave before he saw her cry, before she broke down, before she gave in. "Please, just please let me leave."
"What about our shadow?" Steve asked, pointing towards Pavlov's goon in the next room.
She gave him a bitter smile. "Couples fight all the time. If anything, it strengthens our cover. Can I just go?" Her voice broke on the last word.
He looked down at her for a long moment before nodding and stepping aside.
Alma made it to the lobby before hot tears began to spill down her cheeks.
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Alma wandered around the city aimlessly for a while, trying to calm herself down, trying to keep her emotions in check. She was angry at herself for letting it get to this point, for backing herself into a corner. It had all happened so fast. She knew she couldn't let whatever it was between them develop any further, but she berated herself for encouraging Steve. She winced when she recalled the hurt look on his face.
She took a shaky breath. She could do this. She would just focus on being a professional, on doing the job that she was hired to do. She would bury any emotions.
She looked up after a few hours of walking and realized that she was on the same street as Pablo's store. As she walked by, she saw that it was closed, which made sense on a Sunday. However, she knew that he lived with his folks in a large apartment right over the store.
She took a deep breath and buzzed his apartment.
"Hola?" A voice crackled over the intercom system.
"Pablo?"
"¿Sí?
"It's Alma. I was thinking . . . can I come up?"
"Sure . . . sure," he said, buzzing her in.
Alma walked the two flights of stairs up to the apartment, knocking on the door when she arrived. Pablo's father opened the door, beaming at her. Her ushered her in.
"Pablo, tu novia está aquí," Pablo's father called out with a grin and then wandered into the kitchen to talk to his wife.
Alma peeked around the apartment. It was nicely furnished and easily twice the size of hers with hardwood floors and a huge television in one corner.
"It's nice to see you, Alma," Pablo said warily as he entered the living room.
"It's nice to see you, too," Alma said blandly, wondering what possessed her to come there of all places.
"Is everything alright?" Pablo asked.
"Um . . . everything's great," Alma lied.
There was a long awkward moment between them as they both shifted uncomfortably.
"Have you had dinner?" Alma asked suddenly. "Maybe we could go out? I'd like to talk."
Pablo gave her a confused look, but then shrugged. "Sounds good. Let me grab a jacket."
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As they began to walk down the street together, Pablo looked over at Alma. "Alma, I've known you for five years and you've never once talked to me outside of a business transaction. What's up? Are the passports good? I double-checked them. To be honest, I triple-checked them."
"No, that's not it. They're wonderful. You did great work. You always do great work."
"So, what's up? Not that I mind a beautiful woman taking me to dinner. You are paying, right?" he teased.
"I asked you, so yes," she said and she felt her mood already begin to lighten.
They stopped at a well-known pizza place at the end of the block that Pablo recommended. It was crowded for a Sunday night and they were lucky to grab a free table in a relatively quiet back corner after a young family vacated it. The bustling, popular restaurant was brightly lit, the floors and walls covered in white and red tiles. The emphasis was on the delicious food rather than the ambiance. The smell of melting cheese and tangy tomato sauce made Alma's stomach growl as they walked in the door.
After a few minutes of going back and forth, they settled on a thick pizza covered in mounds of mozzarella cheese. They didn't talk much after ordering, practically inhaling the pizza when it arrived. Alma hadn't realized how ravenous she had been. Once they were both on their third slice, Pablo smiled over at Alma. "Okay, so out with it, why are we having dinner?"
"You know, you're the only one left in Buenos Aires who actually knows who I really am. Heck, I even use an alias at church," Alma confessed.
Pablo gave her a rueful grin. "I'm honored, I guess."
"Do you ever wish your life had gone a different way?" Alma asked.
"I'm nearly thirty years old and I still live with my parents. What do you think?" Pablo said with a trace of bitterness before taking another bite and washing it down with a swig of beer.
"Why do you still live with them? With all the money S.H.I.E.L.D. has paid you over the years . . ."
Pablo looked down at the pizza, snagging another slice. "My dad. He has a gambling problem. If I ever left, . . . "
"He and your mom would be in bad shape," Alma supplied, wincing at having brought up such a sore subject.
"Probably out on the streets," he said.
"You're a good son."
Pablo smirked at that, wiping his mouth with a napkin. "That's kind, especially considering how I make my money."
"There are worse ways. Maybe if I had been a better daughter. . . " She remembered the awful fights with her parents as a teen, sneaking out until the wee hours of the morning. Ever since she joined S.H.I.E.L.D., her contact with them had been limited to stilted Christmas cards.
"You were quite the little felon in your younger days, weren't you?"
Alma's eyes widened. "You read my files?"
Pablo shrugged. "Couldn't help myself. You were almost as good as me for a time."
Alma smiled, taking a bite of the pizza.
"So . . . this bout of introspection doesn't have anything to do with the male model you brought in yesterday?" Pablo asked.
Alma gulped. "That transparent?"
"I saw the way he looked at you."
"Maybe if things were different . . ." She wondered what it would have been like to have met Steve before everything had gone so very wrong.
"So what's the deal with him? You obviously trust him enough to go on a mission with him."
Pablo was right. She trusted Steve with her life. She just wasn't sure she could trust him with her heart.
"He did something. Something horrible."
"To you? Did he hurt you? You don't ever have to put up with that, Alma," Pablo said urgently, his fingers gripping the table top.
Alma smiled to see Pablo leap to defend her. "No . . . nothing like that. He did something that he thought was the right thing at the time, and maybe it even was, but the fallout was . . . catastrophic."
"And you don't think you can forgive him?"
"It's hard to forgive someone who doesn't think they did anything wrong," she said, leaning back in her chair. She brushed the Parmesan cheese off her fingers and offered him the rest of the pizza.
"Maybe forgiveness had more to do with freeing yourself than freeing him. I wasted years of my life being angry at my father. I felt like I spent all this time trying to swim and there he was, an anchor around my neck. But . . . he isn't just his worst flaw. And one day, I just decided to let it go. And I feel better. He hasn't changed, but I have."
"I don't know if I can do that," Alma admitted.
"Then you may end up punishing yourself more than him."
Author's notes-
1. Rough Spanish translation-
Hello
Yes
Your girlfriend is here.
2. A guest reviewer, Hannah, had wanted to see a bit more of Pablo, so I decided to use him in this scene.
3. Thank you to each person who has reviewed, followed, or favorited this story. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your encouragement.