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As the Von Trapp family crossed into Switzerland, Maria stood up and stretched. Steve surreptitiously watched her from his seat on the sofa unsure whether it bothered him more that she'd be annoyed if she knew he liked to watch her, or that she wouldn't understand why he did.
She bent over to pick up the popcorn bowl, now with only a few unpopped kernels in the bottom, and Steve waved her off.
"I've got it," he said and snatched it, and their soda bottles, up before she could start chastising him for serving her.
He chuckled at her look of mock consternation as he carried the items to the small kitchenette.
Turning back to her after he set the dish in the sink and the bottles in the recycle he opened his mouth to ask his burning question.
"Don't even ask," Maria commanded, holding her hand up to stop him.
"So, I guess that's a yes?" Steve said with a slight smile.
"You're lucky I let you bring that over to watch," she told him.
"Um," Steve almost told her Jasper had suggested it but he couldn't get the words out.
He was already walking a thin line between wanting Maria to be happy with Jasper and wanting to convince her that she could be happier with him.
"I know it was Jasper's idea," she told him.
Steve opened his mouth then shut it again.
"He's been teasing me about having you watch it ever since the Benny Hill incident," she said.
Steve shook his head to show he didn't know what she was talking about.
"When you were still living at SHIELD," she said, then Steve remembered.
Steve felt the heat rise to his face and knew he was a nice shade of pink from the look she gave him. He cleared his throat and tried to think of a way to change the subject away from that embarrassing moment.
Maria had mercy on him.
"There was a big revival of the movie at the 50th anniversary a few years ago," she said. "I was still somewhat new at SHIELD and a few people tried to make a big deal out of it."
The look that flashed across her face should have made Steve more cautious, but he had an idea of what Maria might have done to anyone who tried to ask, "How do you solve a problem like Maria?" so he laughed instead, and received a look that should have scared him more than it did. Instead it only intensified his daily struggle.
She was not a woman to be trifled with and she made sure everyone knew. That knowledge did things to Steve he was certain weren't normal for most men. It was difficult to find a man at SHIELD, other than Jasper, who had much good to say about her. And Steve realized that though, in many ways, life was more equal for women now, the old biases about a woman's role remained. Peggy Carter had corrected him of all those same biases when she'd stood, gun in hand, playing chicken with a car on a street in Brooklyn. After that, Steve knew women were capable of bravery as great as any man. And Maria seemed to him more proof.
Finally, she allowed herself a smirk.
"You're a brave man, Captain Rogers," she said, and he smiled at her.
She walked around behind him to the sink and ran some water into the bowl to wash it. Steve turned and watched her a moment, discovering he really needed to find something to talk about with her because she was only a foot away from him and it seemed too far. Swallowing down nerves, or reason, as the case might be, Steve stepped next to her and picked up the towel to dry the bowl when she was done. He could have chosen to stand farther away but Maria hadn't said anything and he really couldn't pull himself back. He was almost certain her ears were turning pink, so he spoke to cover his own embarrassment.
"Is there a shrine to the fallen?" he asked.
That earned him a genuine laugh and when she turned to look up at him Steve had to fight the impulse to do something foolish like lean down and kiss her. He thought he kept up his charade fairly well because she just shook her head at him.
"You know me too well, Rogers," she said, then handed him the bowl to dry.
In his head Steve replied that, no, he didn't know her nearly enough, but he wanted to know her more, know everything about her.
As he walked up the stairs to his apartment after she dropped him off he found himself humming the tune and seriously asking himself how on earth he was going to solve the problem that was Maria.