Rewritten 2018
Make You Feel My Love ~Book II~
Disclaimer: I do not own The Winter Soldier movie! All rights go to Marvel. All I own is my own characters and their stories.
~Chapter 11~
Sam Wilson
Tony's jet had gotten her back home to Washington in under one hour. By now, all she wanted to do was relax on the couch with a cup of tea and a movie playing on the TV. The past few days had been stressful, and she was indeed very tired.
The jet had taken her back to SHIELD's headquarters. Due to her wearing the baggiest clothes in the world, she felt a bit nervous about walking through the entire headquarters. People would recognize her surely as the strong Avenger that saved the world from Loki's army, and they would probably judge her attire. However, she pushed those thoughts aside and walked with confident steps, as though she truly felt like the confident Avenger she was supposed to be, towards the elevator, rode the elevator down five levels with a determined face and was about to exit the building with confident steps when a thought struck her.
Artur was locked up in there just a level or two down. She was maybe even standing right above his cell. She felt a tugging at her unconscious mind, a strange sensation that was pulling her back to the elevator to take her down to him.
She was afraid this part of her still had feelings for him – that this awful man still had a grip on her. But, after listening as well as she could to her own thoughts and feelings, she realized she mostly just wanted to go down there to show off what she had become without him; how she had rebuild herself after his awful treatment.
For a few, long, seconds there was an inner battle inside of Maria. However, in the end, the proud part of her lost and she continued to walk out. After all, Steve was probably waiting for her and she wanted to meet him again as soon as possible.
She opened the door to Steve's apartment a little after midday. With a smile gracing her lips, she walked inside, ready to be met by Steve's baby blue eyes and his loving smile. However, no one was home.
Disappointed, she walked straight into the bedroom, placing her bag on the bed. From it, she extracted the clothes she had worn on the mission - which she was sure that she was going to have to return to SHIELD soon - along with her suit. She placed her bag in the closet, while she let the remaining clothes lay on the bed for the time being. Quickly, she took off her oversized clothes, grabbed a pair of clean ones from her own closet before entering the bathroom.
It was a small bathroom though it was large enough to hold both a bath and a shower separately. Without hesitating whether or not she should, she turned the tap on and let the bathtub fill with steaming hot water. Since she didn't have anything to put in the water yet, she simply let herself sink into the steaming water, her entire body relaxing while she made a mental note to get some bath oils soon.
With her chin touching the water, she let her mind wander as her eyes watched the steam that arose from the water, smiling ever so often at the relaxation she felt at that moment.
When the front door opened, Maria snapped back into reality. Of course, her first thought was that Steve had come back home and so, she let herself relax again.
"I'm taking a bath!" she exclaimed in order to make Steve know that she was home, not wanting to scare the life out of him if he walked in to go to the toilet or something like that.
She closed her eyes, letting her mind wander again when all of a sudden, it hit her. Steve wasn't replying to her. Slowly, she sat up in the water, concentrating as much as possible on her hearing capability, trying to determine if someone indeed was in the apartment. When she heard footsteps coming from the bedroom, she cursed herself for not letting the door open further so that she could see inside of the bedroom as well.
"Steve?" she called again, her hands grasping the sides of the bathtub, ready to boost herself over the side in case she had to defend herself. "Steve!?"
Slowly and without caring about her calls, the footsteps walked out of the bedroom again. With quick movements, Maria stepped out of the bath, grabbing a towel and barely wrapping it around her before she exited the room. With swift movements, she grabbed her sword from the closet before walking over to the bedroom door who the intruder had closed again.
She slowly placed her fingers on the doorknob, turning it slowly and in the process opening the door ever so slightly before peeking through the crack. Inside of the living room, she saw absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, though she doubted that the person had exited the apartment yet. After all, she hadn't heard the front door open and close again.
Softly, Maria made her way through the door, her free hand holding a grip on the towel while her other hand held a firm grip on the sword. If anyone decided to attack her, she was ready.
However, the intruder wasn't in the apartment anymore.
A window in the living room, close to the TV, was open and he or she had probably exited through it since it had not been open when Maria had arrived. Although, it was an odd way to exit a building since the apartment was a few levels above the ground. Maria and Steve were a part of the Avengers and Maria knew that those who were against them could very well be enhanced people; like Steve. She jogged over to the window, looking down towards the ground though seeing nothing out of the ordinary there.
With an annoyed sigh, she placed the sword on the couch, starting to mentally scold herself for not exiting the bath earlier in order to grab the creep that had entered Steve's apartment.
Then, she froze.
What had the person stolen? Was it even a burglar? Had it been an assassin meant for Steve? Or for her? Did anyone outside of SHIELD or the team know that she lived with Steve?
With quick steps, she jogged back inside the bedroom, searching for any sign of anything that was misplaced or stolen. But she saw nothing. Then, she made her way back to the living room, searching it and the kitchen for anything out of the ordinary. Though once again, she found no traces of anything apart from the fact that Steve had eaten a piece of bread before he had gone away to wherever he was now and left the plate on the counter.
After having sighed once again, she quickly made her way to the front door, inspecting the lock. She even opened the door in order to check the lock on both sides, though she saw no sign of a break-in. Whoever this person had been, had had a key to Steve's apartment.
Something was wrong. She knew this. Though what that was, she didn't know.
"Maria?"
Quickly, she spun around, pressing her back against the still open door before widening her eyes as she saw Sharon standing there, looking at her with raised eyebrows.
"What is happening?" asked Sharon, clearly addressing the fact that Maria was standing outside of Steve's apartment in nothing more but a towel while bending down to look at the door's lock.
"Oh… Nothing. I-I just thought that the keyhole was… letting in …air," breathed Maria, closing her eyes for a few seconds as she heard herself say those words over and over again. "I mean; nothing."
"O-Okay," said Sharon before Maria pushed herself back inside of the apartment, closing the door behind her.
"Right… Clothes," said Maria to herself before running back into the bedroom.
Although she was still tense after what had happened earlier, which was the reason for why her daggers were lying on the coffee table in front of her, she was also bored. She had been waiting for Steve to come back all day now and one can only watch so much TV before it gets boring. It was almost six o'clock and Maria was starting to doubt that Steve was in Washington to begin with. Of course she had tried to text him, but his phone was, apparently, not turned on.
When a key was inserted into the lock, Maria straightened up her back, muting the TV in the process, looking over at the door with expectant eyes. Indeed, when the door opened, Steve entered.
"You're back!" exclaimed Maria, standing up from the couch.
She had startled Steve, though when he saw her face, he smiled just like she was doing.
"Hey," said Steve, opening up his arms to her as she jogged over to him. "Sorry I'm back late, I had some things I wanted to do."
"That's okay," said Maria with a smile, pressing a kiss to his cheek before stepping back in order to let him take off his jacket in peace.
When Steve looked back at Maria, he saw that her smile was gone and he grew serious and worried instantly.
"What?" he asked.
"Someone was here earlier," Maria told him, earning a confused look from Steve as he followed her inside of the living room. "I was taking a bath when someone entered the apartment."
"What? Are you okay?" asked Steve, placing his hands on her arms, relaxing slightly when she nodded her head.
"Yeah, I'm fine. I just - I should've gotten out earlier so that I could've punched the creep," said Maria with a sigh.
"What did he do?" asked Steve, looking around slightly to see if something was missing or broken.
"I don't know. I've checked everywhere," she said. "But I can't seem to find anything missing or anything strange. It's like the person just wanted to asset what your apartment looked like or something."
"Strange," mused Steve. "We better be careful then."
Maria nodded her head. "I lived in a tough neighborhood my entire childhood. My granny taught me some tricks on how to make sure that nobody entered the apartment without your consent or knowledge. The next time we leave, I'll make sure that I'll plant some of these… tricks."
"Good," said Steve. "We'll need that."
"So, how'd the mission go?" asked Maria, sitting herself down on the couch and patting the spot next to her.
"I don't know," he replied, sitting down next to Maria. "Romanoff had a different assignment than me. My mission was to safe the hostages. Nat's mission was to save files, apparently."
Maria furrowed her brow. Although she wasn't allowed to know what the mission was about, Steve could always tell her details like that. Details that, this time, troubled her slightly.
"But, if you're on the same team; how can Nat have a different mission?" asked Maria.
"That's what I asked Fury too," said Steve with a sigh. "And that's when he showed me something even more alarming."
"What?" asked Maria before shaking her head. "I suppose you can't tell me though."
"I didn't even have clearance for it," said Steve before placing an arm around her shoulders.
He looked troubled about it, and Maria wanted to ask him more, but figured the best thing for Steve was to not think about it right now. She doubted Steve had let it go at all since he came back from the mission, and letting it go for a while might do him some good; so, she changed the subject. "Did you have a nice day at least?" asked Maria, leaning against his shoulder as she let her eyes rest on the television screen that was currently showing an advertisement for coffee.
"Went to the museum," said Steve, earning a glance from Maria.
"Oh," she said, shifting one arm so that it was resting over Steve's stomach, making her current position a little more relaxing.
"Thought it might give me some insight in what I should do."
Maria furrowed her brow, "What do you mean?"
"I thought… I thought I could just throw myself back into all of this, you know? Do the thing that I wanted and that I was made for; saving people and following orders again. But it's not the same. People don't trust each other anymore. SHIELD isn't the same as the military," said Steve.
"No, it's not. The military would've shipped you off to some far away country and let you fight like you did in the war," said Maria. "Other men can do that now, Steve. There's no world war anymore. The world's changed and there are other things that we need super soldiers for."
"I know," sighed Steve, brushing a hand through her hair. "Sometimes it just feels like that new thing is to clean up after SHIELD."
"It's only been a year…" said Maria shifting so that she was looking up at Steve. "I'm sure you'll find your place in SHIELD soon."
Steve smiled a soft smile at her, nodding his head.
"How'd things go in Midtown?" asked Steve, earning only a sigh from Maria as she let her head fall back onto his shoulder.
"They took some samples… They're gonna check my DNA now," said Maria. "It's gonna take some time but they'll probably find something soon. Hey, did you know that they're building an Avengers Tower?"
"Really?" asked Steve, earning a nod from Maria. "I didn't know that."
The next day, Steve told Maria he had someone he had promised to go and visit. It was someone that he had met only two days ago and since Maria didn't want to be left alone, she came along with Steve to this place. The moment the cab stopped in front of the building, Maria knew where they were. She couldn't help but feel like this was a perfect place for Steve to process the war he had gone through. Yes, she did try and help him as much as possible, but there was only so much that she could do to help him.
"The thing is, I think it's getting worse. A cop pulled me over last week," said a voice from inside one of the larger rooms.
Maria stopped a little behind Steve, watching him take in the scene before him. She wondered if he had ever thought about the effect that the participation in the war would cause him during the time where he would lie to the doctors about who he was just so he could be a part of the men that were sent to Europe. That it would change him both for the better and the worse. Maybe he had, maybe he hadn't, but one thing was for sure;
He was thinking about it now.
There was a small group of people sitting in the hall, all listening to one woman's story with intent ears. One man was standing in front of this group, listening as well and leaning on a sort of pedestal placed in front of the group. He looked like he was leading the group session for veterans and Maria immediately felt respect for him. Mostly because she knew that military men and women needed help after coming home from a war, this she had seen with her own eyes with Steve, but also because she could relate slightly to him since she tried to do her best to help someone who was struggling to move on from a war.
"I swerved to miss a plastic bag… I thought it was a bomb," the woman said.
"Some stuff we leave there, other stuff you bring back. It's our job to figure out how to carry it," said the man leading the session.
As he said this, Maria walked up to stand next to Steve, hooking her arm through his and leaning her cheek against his upper arm.
"Is it going to be in a big suitcase or in a little man purse?" continued the man. "It's up to you."
As the session ended and people started to walk past Steve and Maria in order to get to the exit, Maria started to wonder who the person that Steve had met was. Each person that walked past them didn't seem to know Steve and it wasn't until the man leading the session had said goodbye to the last member of the group that Maria finally understood who Steve had been waiting for.
"Look who it is," said the man as Steve walked over to him, Maria following behind. "The running man."
With his hands tucked into his pockets, Steve smirked at the man.
"Caught the last few minutes," said Steve. "It's pretty intense."
"Yeah, brother. We all got the same problems; guilt, regret…"
"You lose someone?" asked Steve.
"My wingman," he replied. "Riley. Fly in the night mission, standard PJ rescue operation, nothing we hadn't done a thousand times before. 'Till an RPG knocked down Riley's ass out of the sky. Nothing I could do. It was like I was up there just to watch."
"Sorry," said Steve, Maria feeling more and more like she shouldn't be there. Surely, she had problems of her own but hearing these two men talking, it sounded like her problems were tiny compared to their losses and pain.
"After that, I had a really hard time finding a reason for being over there," he said.
"But you're happy now?" asked Steve. "Back in the world?"
"The number of people giving me orders is down to about zero, so; hell yeah," said the man. "You thinking about getting out?"
"No… I don't know," said Steve. "To be honest, I don't know what I would do with myself if I did."
"Ultimate fighting? Just a great idea of the top of my head," said the man, earning a smile from both Maria and Steve. "But seriously though, you can do whatever you wanna do. What makes you happy?"
Slowly, Steve grabbed a hold of Maria's hand, making her blush and raise her eyebrows. At first, she couldn't believe that Steve's answer to the man's question had been her and she had simply thought that he had grabbed her hand randomly while thinking. However, when she looked over at him and saw the look he gave her, a sheepish and cute look, her heart melted and she bit her lip in order to keep the giggles that wanted to burst out of her inside.
"Well," chuckled the man. "I can't disagree with that. A lady like that would make any man happy."
"Sam, meet Maria," introduced Steve, shifting so that his arm was around her waist. "Maria, this is Sam-"
"Wilson," continued the man, reaching out a hand for her to shake which she did with a delighted smiled. "I'll be damned. Only the best for Captain America, I suppose."
Maria's already existing blush only grew redder at his words which made him smirk.
"Nice meeting you, Sam."