Chapter Two
Dine stares at Gold Steve for three whole seconds before her stomach growls loudly. Using the poker face Natasha taught her, she keeps her expression and gaze steady and watches as his attempt at 'stoic' starts to fracture.
"Go ahead," she says, pressing her lips together so she doesn't laugh. "It's my own fault for waiting so long to eat."
"I'm no hypocrite," he says, backing up and bowing a hand toward the microwave. "I ate late, too. Got caught up with your Steve and Tony, trying to figure out the thought process that led Stark to invent the device that sent me here. They've got me a room and a badge for access, but until we get an inkling about how to reverse it, I'll do what I can to help out your Steve."
She clenches her jaw ruthlessly to prevent a reaction to his repeated use of 'your Steve,' leaning to sniff the soup with the door of the microwave blocking his view. When she straightens back up, though, Gold Steve is standing there with oven mitts.
"It was pretty hot when I got mine out, and I'm guessing you don't have any healing abilities."
"Is that a fishing expedition, Rogers?"
He follows her out of the kitchen to a table, and hands her the spoon she forgot. "Well, you're the only different thing I probably won't risk unbalancing the universe to discover, so, yes."
All of the previous heart-fluttering things he's said suddenly lose all meaning. Dine chokes out a weak-sounding "Oh," and focuses entirely on the soup, even though she's lost her appetite.
"I feel like I just watched a flower wilt in real time," Gold Steve says, sitting down across from her. She desperately wishes for a book she could hold up, anything to hide from the discerning look he's giving her. Suddenly, he pulls in a sharp breath. "That's not what I-" Breaking off, he reaches his hand across the table, palm down, like a tiny little white flag begging for attention.
Claudine deliberately eats another spoonful of soup; she's no one's entertainment, least of all this oddly open version of the man she loves. Infuriatingly, he doesn't take the hint, but instead twiddles his fingers. It's stubborn, ridiculous, and it works, damn him. She looks up, but refuses to smile.
"I implied you were an object of last resort." Dine doesn't let herself move a muscle. He tips his head to the side slowly, sincerity arching his eyebrows as he says, "I promise you, that's not the case."
She's suddenly possessed by some strange spirit of determined peacemaking. "It would make sense, wouldn't it? You have no way of knowing what you could alter! If your version of Stark can send you across universal lines, even a casual comment might give ours any number of ideas."
He's nodding. "I'll admit I've been locked down pretty tight since I got here."
For a few glorious seconds, his phrasing reminds her of the specific close cut of his uniform pants from the day before. There was no chance she could have gotten away with a design like that! Everyone would have figured out her feelings immediately.
"So you've watched your words with everyone but me?"
Gold Steve's little frown of acquiescence is familiar and bittersweet. "I deserved that. What I mean to say is, I got lucky that the person who's different is you."
She'd snuck another spoonful of soup as he was talking, and now she chokes on it a little bit. "Oh my god, did you, like, lose a bet and have to take a pick-up lines course from the Anthony Edward Stark School of Superheroes Who Can't Date Good and Want To Learn How To Do Other Things Good Too?"
Dine's not sure what she was expecting as a reaction to that, but it wasn't this. Gold Steve's body tenses up visibly and he looks down, a distinct look of regret gracing his features.
"That was out of line, I'm sorry," she whispers, getting up and rushing toward the kitchen with her mostly-uneaten bowl. She finds the ziploc bag it was in previously, snags a sharpie, and puts her name on it so it's not wasted. The soup she already ate is being broken down by her specific mix of remorse, worry, and stomach acids. When she shuts the freezer door, she sees that Gold Steve is standing in the doorway to the kitchen, a soft smile on his face.
"You didn't need to run away. It was a good joke."
"It was a harsh joke."
"I deserved it," he says, and when she scoffs and moves to rinse out her bowl, he elaborates. "I said I was sorry for making you uncomfortable, and then I did it again. You fought back. Seems fair to me."
Dine mutters something about being a weirdo who can't take a compliment, but he's still Steve Rogers, so he pushes back on that, too.
"I'd ask you where you got the idea that it's unusual or concerning when someone who looks like me compliments you, but somehow I don't think I need to," he says gently.
"That's gossip, and I have to get going," she says. The expression on her face has to be forbidding, because Gold Steve moves out of the way as she leaves the kitchen.
Even though she has more time left for her break, Dine heads toward her desk in the testing room. She feels a qualm of conscience, but the idea of talking about someone she cares for so deeply behind his back, even with a version of himself… it makes her sick, truth or not.
She steps into the darkened room, lets the door fall shut, and leans up against the wall for a few minutes, letting her breathing patterns and anxious mind settle. It's been less than twenty-four hours since Gold Steve walked into her universe, and she's a mess. Sleep last night was restless, full of dreams she can't remember except for the uneasy feeling she was left with after waking up.
The unbalanced feeling just gets worse the more she talks to Gold Steve, and she's terrified about what that means. Her feelings for Steve Rogers have increased steadily the longer she's known him, with no active encouragement. What does it mean that she's so disconcerted by his lookalike?
That thought will set her feet on another anxiety spiral, so Dine pictures her favorite puppy video and flicks on the light.
Across the room, she sees a tall figure leaning up against the wall. When the man sees her looking over, he lifts his hand and does an embarrassed little wave.
"What the heck are you doing here in the dark, Rogers?" she asks, hoping like hell a) he's the Steve from her universe, and b) if he isn't, that she doesn't have the power to somehow conjure a version of Steve just by thinking about him, because that could get really awkward really fast, especially at night.
"I had some time, thought I'd kill it making sure nothing comes walking through the walls in here again."
"In the dark?"
He pushes off from the wall and holds up the cell phone in his hand. "Tony keeps giving me crap for not feeling entirely comfortable with these yet. Figured the dark might be disorienting for any intruder, at least until you came back." She must look confused, because he adds, "I'd feel better if you weren't alone in here, at least not until we make the room more secure."
Dine's earlier concern prompts her to say, "Your counterpart let slip that they don't have an Avengers Compound. Unless Stark was testing a dimensional portal in the middle of the woods in upstate New York, I doubt anyone else will pop up here." Steve's nodding, and impulsively, she adds, "Given the number of security risks all over the world, we'd need to have about a million Captain Americas to cover them all!"
"That may be true, but I would want to go after a member of my team if they were lost like that," he says, strolling to the middle of the room.
"And leave your universe without their Captain America?" she teases, settling in at her desk.
"I prefer to think of it as giving my teammate a better shot at getting back home. Speaking of which, Sam told me how you escorted him out, when the other guy showed up."
Steve's voice has gotten steadily closer, but she's been carefully arranging things at her desk as she listens, thus avoiding the look that's probably on his face. Her desk faces the room instead of the wall, though, and he's caught on. Steve walks over and stands directly in front of her, resting his hand on the object she was nervously adjusting. His fingers are separated from hers by barely a centimeter, and she realizes she's staring at their proximity when he clears his throat.
Reluctantly, Claudine looks up at him.
"You want to tell me why your first instinct was to get Sam out of there and handle things yourself?" His eyes are kind, and he does sound concerned, but he's still questioning her judgment, and that raises her hackles a little.
Instead of just wishing he had more faith in her decision making process, Dine decides to show him why he should.
"Sam's not a super soldier, and his armor isn't stored in here, it's in the armory. Following him over to the door got me close to the panic button without agitating the intruder," she points out. "I imagine you watched the footage?" He nods thoughtfully, his posture straightening. "I walked straight from the door over to the lockers, where the prototypes are." You leave it go at that, because you're not trying to lecture him, just show you're not trying to be a martyr.
He's chuckling ruefully, holding up his hands in mock surrender. "Okay, point taken. I'm sorry I underestimated you." The undercurrent of relief in his voice warms her.
"I don't want a world without Sam Wilson any more than I'd want a world without Steve Rogers," she says, just to twist the knife.
"Everyone's contribution is important," Steve emphasizes, and she avoids rolling her eyes. She was never one of the people worried about credit; every time something she's made helps the person she made it for, that's enough credit for her. "I'm sure he misses his team as much as they miss him. All of them," he adds, nodding his chin in her direction as he backpedals to go stand with his back to the wall again.
"Not me," Dine says breezily, pulling out a piece of sketch paper. Wanda Maximoff doesn't have armor, and she probably doesn't really want armor, but that doesn't mean she can't mock something up.
"'Dine." Steve sounds exasperated.
"I'm pulling your leg. He says I'm not in his universe."
There's silence for a long while, long enough that she looks up from the spiky vest she's idly sketching. Steve looks lost in thought, brows furrowed. She toys with the idea of trying to get him to leave, but decides against it. She's always wanted this space to feel like a comfortable, safe place to try new things. If Steve Rogers wants to guard her from an undetectable, unpreventable new threat, she's fine with that.
oOoOoOo
That night Dine doesn't have nightmares, but she does dream about Steve's hands. It's as if her brain has been hiding a photo album and is now excitedly showing her the result of a year's work.
Steve running his hand along the chestpiece of the first armor she designed for him.
The crowbar that's winched open her stuck elevator doors being replaced by Steve's hands, which then wrench the doors wide with ease.
The moment when she realized she actually lovedthe man, as she stood nearby at a party and watched Steve run his hand through his hair, smiling at something Stark said.
Countless times when he's gotten her attention with gentle fingers on the back of her hand, a knuckle tap on her desk, resting his hand next to hers on a railing, stretching his arm across the table to wiggle his fing-
Dine had been laying in bed half-asleep, waiting for the alarm to go off, but now she's wide awake- because that last image? It's Gold Steve.
"Absolutely not," she says aloud. She draws the line at conflating the two. Groaning aloud, she realizes what she's going to have to do.
oOoOoOo
A week later, Stark's pretty sure he's onto something, which Dine only knows about because Sam told her at the meeting they had scheduled to finalize the changes to his gear. She'd spent the whole week to herself, not really on purpose, it just worked out that way. The feigned cold took care of a few days, and after that, she had joked she was catching up on a new tv series. The strange part is, while she'd never really tried to see Steve every day, she usually did, and the longer it's been, the more it feels like something's missing.
Well, her minifridge is full of takeout leftovers, she'd gotten two weeks' worth of work done in half as much time, and her heart is full of stupid 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' bullshit, but at least she hasn't compromised her principles.
The weather today is supposed to be fantastic, so Dine gets up early and laces up her trainers to take a dewy walk around the complex. She's not a jogger per se, more of an 'every three months, I forget why I'm not a jogger, and need a wheezing, limping reminder' nature enthusiast.
She's strolling along the back near the woods reminding herself how to breathe when she sees a figure jogging towards her. It doesn't take long to recognize Steve in his typical work-out garb, those dark blue athletic pants and gray t-shirt. In full summer, he swaps to shorts (it's around then that many of the compound staff find reasons to be outside around jogging time), but spring hasn't quite shifted away from the bite of the winter wind yet.
Even though she's been deliberately avoiding the Steves, Dine slows her pace to prolong the moment of admiration. As it happens, he slows down too, and by the time they approach each other, her heart is full and her smile is genuine. It doesn't hurt to be friendly to Gold Steve, and even though she hates to admit it, she does like the way he looks at her.
"Been awhile, Brigandine," Gold Steve admonishes, pulling up one leg behind himself to grab the foot and tug.
"Oh, I'm a slave to my stories," she jokes. When Stark had complained about her absences, Sam had told him which show she was knee-deep into, and ever since then, he's been making soap opera jokes in texts and emails. The fact that her sci-fi space drama has less in common with a daytime soap than Sesame Street is supposed to make his teasing charming, apparently.
"Yeah, well, you've only got One Life To Live," Gold Steve says seriously. Dine bursts out laughing, and he joins in. "You're okay, though?" he asks once their giggles die down, and damn, there's the longing again.
"Yeah, no worries," she says. It isn't until right now that she realizes: no one is going to come get her when they figure out how to send this man home. "Had some things to think through, and this was a good time to do it."
It's the closest she's come to alluding to her feelings for 'her Steve,' and Dine feels like she can see understanding, if not full comprehension, in Gold Steve's admiring expression. To deflect away from that potential awkwardness, she looks around, nodding toward the woods.
"I will completely lose my momentum if I stop now, but hey, we've gotta enjoy this while we can, right? I was glad to hear from Sam that Stark might be close to a breakthrough. See ya!"
She smiles and waves like a complete idiot, opting at the last minute for the steady jog for her ignoble exit, instead of trying to actually run. There's a non-zero chance this man will turn around and see her fall against the wall after 200 feet and heroically come back to help, and at that point, she'll be looking to invent an interdimensional portal to open up and swallow her whole.
When she turns the corner, she allows herself a single look back. To her surprise that Gold Steve is still in sight, having slowed to a light jog himself.
About twenty minutes later, Dine's done a whole circuit, and most of it has been at a pace faster than a slow walk. She grabs the damp towel she'd left draped by the rear door and wipes off her face and neck. It feels great; it's been resting in the shade, so the wetness is refreshing rather than gross.
Instead of heading right in, she enjoys the light breeze coming off the treeline and leans on the stone fence, letting its heat soak in. The door opens behind her, and she hopes like hell it's not Nat; being caught by an Avenger and coerced into strength and avoidance training might be someone's dream, but not hers, not after the rigors Natasha had put her through. Dine had learned that a person didn't have to know they had a muscle for it to hurt.
"Starting out or just getting back?" Steve's voice asks.
She smiles without turning around. "Can't you tell from the damp, bedraggled curls in my hair?"
"I would never think to comment on such a thing," he says gallantly.
"A king among men," she pronounces.
"If so, I'm an absent ruler." His tone makes her turn to look over her shoulder. Steve's looking down at the ground with a wistful look on his face. He's wearing sweatpants and a tank top, and the hem of the latter is folded, giving her a glimpse of the jut of his hipbone above the low waistband of the sweats.
Dine's mouth goes dry before she turns back around, hoping he doesn't mind if she has no idea what he just said.
Steve mistakes the quick movement for unhappiness, it seems. "Sorry, it's just- I can't help but imagine what they're going through back there. Wondering where I am, inventing God knows what to get me back."
Her entire blood volume crystalizes into ice at once, and she tastes metal in her mouth. "What did you just say?"
Gold Steve (because, that's who it is, there's absolutely no doubt, which means… !) comes over and leans a hip on the stone fence, facing her. "I know showing up here was an accident, but I feel responsible. There's nothing I can do over here but take up space." He looks down at his clothes and huffs out a frustrated breath. "Literally. I only fit into my own clothing." He stops and leans over, slowly moving his hand back and forth about six inches away from her face. "Earth to Brigandine. You… do still call it 'Earth' here, right?"
"Very funny," Dine says. "No, I'm- I'm just… If just this once, my stupid he- brain would shut up about the ways I've possibly screwed up, that would be great." She widens her eyes and shrugs, and the crinkled-eyes smile he offers in response makes her heart skip despite herself. Which is the problem, the reason she was staying the heck away from these men. At least the words 'head' and 'heart' sound close enough that she hasn't given too much away. Hopefully. "Shit," Dine sighs.
"Can I help?"
"Nope, not unless you want to tell me this is all a big prank involving you, yourself, and I, and I didn't just mix the two of you up!" She pulls the towel up from her shoulders and drapes it over her face.
"Why would that be a-" Gold Steve falls silent. "Are you- do you have feelings for him?"
She'd been hoping to avoid that question, but the thing that soothes it is that Gold Steve says 'him.' He knows that there are differences, he knows this isn't his universe, and that's how she knows there's no trick. The Steve that she saw jogging earlier, the one who looked at her like someone beautiful? That had been her Steve. The man she loves.