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Normally, after Steve saves a woman’s life, they literally fall over themselves in gratitude. When Steve wedges himself in between Hill and the mercenary pointing a Chitauri plasma gun at her, she reacts like he’s murdered her cat.
At the time, Steve twisted so that the shield on his back took the brunt of the first plasma discharge. The force of the blast sandwiched them against the overturned truck. He slid his arm around her shoulder, palm splayed against her neck to cushion the impact. But the merc had fired twice before Hill shot him dead over Steve’s shoulder and the second blast scorched Steve right across his left side.
The pain brings him to his knees and that’s how Hawkeye and Iron Man find them. Hill standing dead straight with Steve kneeling before her, his hand still gripping her hip, his forehead lolling against her thigh.
“I’m sorry,” Stark says, “Are we interrupting something?”
The look Hill levels at them could melt a Norse god’s armour and Barton’s face turns white. She's gentle but firm as she tucks her arm under Steve’s and escorts him to the quinjet. It’s only after he’s had a once over from Dr. Fine and is propped up in a seat ready to be air lifted back to the S.H.I.E.L.D infirmary that Hill makes the full extent of her displeasure known.
“In future, I’ll thank you not to intervene where you’re not required, Captain.”
“I saved your life, Hill.”
“I didn’t need saving! I saw it coming!”
“Really?” His tone is sardonic and his eyelids droop. The shot Dr. Fine gave him for the pain has been specially formulated to work even with his superior metabolism and he’s feeling the effects. “Because by my calculation if I didn’t intervene, there would be a big plasma discharge sized hole right about there.”
Hill slaps his hand away where it’s about to rest against her navel. Her jaw is set harder than concrete and he knows if he weren’t injured she’d probably make him pay.
Stark props his feet up onto the dashboard of the quinjet. He offers a paper bag of popcorn to Barton who is sitting in the co-pilot seat. Neither of them even bothers to pretend that they’re not eavesdropping. Their presence is probably the only reason why he’s not getting torn a new one right now.
He doesn’t care. No amount of Hill’s displeasure is going to make him regret stepping out in front of her. Maybe it’s old fashioned but he’s not going to willingly let her get hurt for the sake of gender equality. Besides, he didn’t save her because she’s a woman. He did it because she’s her.
The medication makes him bold.
“You know, Hill,” he says. “I don’t give you a dressing down every time you stop me from having my head blown off. Some gratitude wouldn’t go astray.”
Her left eye twitches in a way that sets off warning bells in his muddled brain. “Stark!” Steve calls. “When are we going to get out of here?”
“What’s the hurry, Cap? Got a hot date?”
Stark and Barton chuckle at each other but Steve answers coolly. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
He doesn’t see their reaction because he’s too busy gauging Hill’s lack of reaction. The dismay that flares in his chest hurts almost as much as the plasma wound had.
“What about you, Hill?” Stark says. He’s walking on a line even thinner than the one her mouth has pressed into, but in typical Stark fashion he just dives further into enemy waters. “Any gentlemen callers waiting at home?”
“Unlike you Stark,” Hill says, “Some of us don’t have time to date.”
The quinjet’s engine roars to life and Hill narrows her eyes at Steve one last time before she clears the hanger area so the doors can close. She doesn’t even look back as the jet takes off but half an hour later Steve gets a message on his communicator.
It’s from Hill. He’s not even slightly surprised that she knows exactly who his hot date is with.
Say hello to Peggy for me, the message reads.
Peggy Carter has been many things to Steve since the day he met her but one role he never expected her to play is wing woman. Steve doesn’t know how to feel when she suggests he ask out one of her nurses at the home. The idea of his best girl setting him up on a date with another woman is too strange even after all the twenty first century oddities he’s had to get up to speed on.
“I’ve told her everything about you, Steve,” Peggy says.
Her crisp voice is now more of a hushed whisper but her accent has lost none of its charm. Her dementia sometimes makes her forget he’s come before, but somehow she always makes the dating suggestion.
The first time Steve saw her, Steve couldn’t talk for a full twenty minutes. Every time he tried a lump would form in his throat and the same distress that twisted his heart the moment Fury told him what year it was comes crashing back. It’s only been with time and through Peggy’s matter-of-fact reaction to his presence that he’s been able to recover his voice.
Now he kind of wishes he had that as an excuse not to respond.
“What’s the harm in trying?” Peggy says. “She’s a lovely girl.”
Steve glances over at the photos of her children and grandchildren in the silver frames by the window. He pointedly avoids the wedding photo because Steve’s not sure how he’s going to react if he sees the man she ended up marrying. Peggy’s careful when she mentions her husband. She never lingers on the subject, but it hangs in the air between then like a lead cloud.
Peggy’s had seventy years to get used to Steve’s death.
He’s still mourning their unfulfilled date as though it was yesterday.
And then there’s Hill.
Steve didn’t expect to feel anything for someone so soon and he’s not even sure what he feels but he’s confused enough to know it’s not just lust.
“I’m not sure if I’m ready,” he hears himself say. Is that what it is? Or is it because he is ready but someone else isn’t willing?
As always, Peggy knows him better than he cares to admit. Her smile is touched with sadness. He’s sure it’s just as disorienting for her to be discussing his love life.
“Would you like to talk about her?” Peggy asks. There’s nothing Steve would like less than talking to Peggy about Hill.
“Not really,” he says. His ears are getting hot and he gets a flash of memory of riding in a car with Peggy on the day of his experiment. All tongue tied and unsure how to act around her. “There’s nothing to talk about anyway. She sees me as work.”
“Ah.” After a while she adds, “You understand why she’s not jumping at the chance to be with you don’t you?” At this point Steve’s pretty sure Peggy’s figured out the who. He’d been surprised when he learned that Hill and Peggy were well acquainted with each other. Peggy had laughed at him.
“You don’t get to be the highest ranking female S.H.I.E.L.D agent at her age without making an impression on its female founder,” Peggy had said. Steve remembers the note of pride in Peggy’s voice. The two women are too alike for Peggy not to have made an educated assumption about where Steve’s thoughts linger.
Steve shrugs. He’s heard all the excuses in the world about why a woman doesn’t want to go out with him. Repetition doesn’t make rejection easier.
“Back when you went off to find the missing men from the 107th, Colonel Philips blamed my decision to help you on a crush. Every shred of my credibility, my years of hard work and experience, dissipated because of our relationship. Howard was every bit as responsible but he received none of the censure. I was dragged through the coals because they thought I acted on emotion. The buildings might have changed and the technology is more advanced but human beings have barely evolved in their thinking. If she’s S.H.I.E.L.D then she’s already given up more than you can imagine to get where she is. As soon as people find out she’s dating Captain America her position will always be defensive. That’s a lot to ask of someone and more than most men would accept for themselves if the situation were reversed.”
Steve can’t help thinking of the livid fury in Maria’s stance as she protested his saving her life. He has no doubt what Peggy says is true but he has no solution to the problem either. Then it dawns on him that had his relationship with Peggy ever progressed, her position would have been worse than Maria’s.
It makes him feel sick.
“Are you happy?” he suddenly has to know. “I mean, are you satisfied with your life?”
She doesn’t hesitate even for a second. “Yes,” she says. “I lived it the way I wanted.”
He swallows hard. He wants Hill to live her life too.
“Okay,” Steve says. “What’s the nurse’s name?”
On his way out of the nursing home, Peggy had become reticent. “You know Steve, sometimes it’s just as good to figure out what you don’t want as what you do.”
During the first half an hour of his date with Stacey the nurse, Steve figures out what he really, seriously, does not want.
He doesn’t want to stop talking mid-question so that she can take a picture of her entrée to post on social media.
He doesn’t want every question he’s asked to be about what things were like in “his day.”
He doesn’t want the punch in the gut commentary on what it’s like to care for an ailing Peggy and he definitely does not want to go outside and smoke a joint before the main course arrives.
She’s pretty, beautiful even, with raven dark hair and a body like the pin up girls on the trading cards Steve and Bucky used to collect. But even this doesn’t make Steve want to kiss her goodnight when he walks her to her door at the end of the evening.
Close your eyes and think of America, Bucky used to say to the girls he set Steve up with. He’s never wanted to punch his friend so badly before.
“Well,” Stacey says. “I had a great time.” She bites her bottom lip and her smile leaves no need for interpretation.
Steve is literally saved by the bell when his phone starts to ring. He answers a little too eagerly.
“Captain,” Hill says on the other side of the connection. “We’ve got a situation. I’m going to need you to come in.”
He’s never been gladder of a disaster in his whole life.
The next time he sees Stacey he apologizes and tells her he’s not ready for a relationship. She takes it with the ease of a woman with options and his relief is palpable.
When he mentions the failed date to Peggy, her mouth twitches a little and he’s sure she knew it would be a disaster all along. He decides to retire Peggy from her wing woman status.
The next time Steve asks out a woman he’s on his way out of Stark Tower and bumps into the waitress at the café across the street. She does a double take and he remembers seeing her on one of the thousands of news feeds after the Battle of New York. Then he remembers an earlier meeting, when she’d offered to let him keep his table in the café and the old veteran with the big mouth had called Steve a moron for not asking for her number.
“I hear you wanted to thank me,” Steve says. He asks for her number. She blushes furiously as she scrawls the name Beth and her digits onto her order pad and hands it to him.
Their first few dates are easy. Steve does all the chasing and she’s happy to let him take charge. She’s sweet and complimentary and Steve gets to play the gentleman, walking on the street side of the sidewalk so that she doesn’t get splashed by rain, offering her his coat when he sees her shiver, leaning in after their third date and pressing his lips to hers. Her mouth is warm and pliant but she takes only what Steve will give her. He’s pretty sure she’d say yes to anything and somehow that makes him sad.
On their fourth date a car backfires and she shrieks in his arms. She’s still clinging to him when they leave the movie theater and it makes him wonder how badly the events of New York have shaken her. After he drops her home Steve wanders the streets of Queens, missing his flight back to DC, but not caring in the slightest.
He walks for hours, lost in his own thoughts, aimless until he passes the window of a brightly lit Italian eatery and almost chokes at the sight of Hill having dinner with a man he’s never met before.
All Steve can hear is Hill telling him and Stark she’s too busy to date.
The stab in his gut is visceral and the haste in his stride is unreasonable, but he can’t seem to stop.
He’s almost on top of them, blinded by indignation, until Hill happens to glance up and her blue eyes glitter with malice. He’s seen that scathing look before and it means trouble, but he’s trapped between her table and the waiter serving another couple.
Too late he realizes that he does know the man Hill is dining with from the mug shots in their current mission brief.
Blake Carlisle, black market mercenary, takes one glance at Steve’s all American physique and pushes his chair back. Hill’s arm comes out from under the table, her handgun pointed at Carlisle’s chest.
“Sit down,” she says. Her breath could well be ice it sends such cold up Steve’s spine. “Both of you.”
After Hill can get no more intel from Carlisle without force, she arrests him and waits for backup to escort him to the S.H.I.E.L.D holding cells.
All Steve can do is stand by sheepishly awaiting his own judgement but sneakily enjoying the view as well.
In uniform Hill is beautiful but restrained. Out of it, in her little black dress with her hair down and swept to the side, she knocks the air from his lungs with every stolen glance.
“What are you still doing here, Captain?” Hill says when everyone else has gone.
“That’s it?” he asks with astonishment. “No lecture?”
“I’ve already said what I’ve had to say to you several times. I’m not in the habit of repeating myself. It’s on you if things go badly next time.”
Steve’s never realized it but there is something far worse than being the brunt of Hill’s fury and that’s being the recipient of her apathy. He would almost prefer it if she punched him in the face.
Steve’s heard all kinds of things about the wonders of the African Savannah but he never thought this would be the way he’d see it. From the lip of the quinjet, in the dark of night, as he and a Strike unit strap parachutes onto themselves before Maria gives them the signal to jump. They descend in pitch blackness, their only beacons for direction are tiny spot fires of open air camps dotted throughout the landscape.
While the Avengers were trying to stop the portal to the Chitauri dimension in New York, mercenaries had snuck in and helped themselves to as many Chitauri weapons as they could. For months S.H.I.E.L.D had been painstakingly tracking them down, attempting to limit the spread of alien technology. Stark Industries may no longer be the leading name in weapons manufacturing, but who needs visionary genius when there is reverse engineering of alien technology up for grabs? And there’s been plenty of grabbing.
Out of precaution, this mission has been coded a level five but the crude mud buildings they storm can barely be considered structures. The mercenaries inside wouldn’t be fit to scare first year Academy students, but what they lack in organisation is made up for in bounty.
As the Strike team cuffs the mercenaries, none of whom speak English, Steve and Romanoff take stock of the four Chitauri plasma guns and five staffs. More than any other stockpile they’ve come across.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Steve says.
Romanoff nods in agreement. Steve picks up a gun and the blue lights don’t illuminate. When he pulls apart the firing chamber he realizes why. These weapons have been picked apart inside but the shells have been left whole as a decoy.
In the distance, so faintly that only his pinpointed hearing can detect, the quinjet’s engines power up.
He’s halfway across the cracked earth before Romanoff and the others can even follow. With its stealth mode activated, the only way Steve can get a handle on the quinjet’s location is by listening hard.
He stops running for a second, willing his heart to beat slower, stamping down on the fear that’s threatening to make him reckless.
All he can think as he lines up his shield to throw is that Hill was on the quinjet. He takes the shot and then commences tearing through the desert after it. His shield slams into the jet’s hull, interrupting the stealth reflectors.
It’s still hovering low enough for him to reach.
Steve leaps over the last five meters and manages to catch the strap on his shield for purchase. His muscles protest as he forces himself onto his feet against the g-force rapidly being generated by the ascending jet. Using the shield as a grappling hook, Steve drags himself to the windshield.
His stomach almost drops out when he sees Hill in the pilot’s seat with half a dozen men surrounding her, all dressed in peasant clothing, carrying Chitauri guns. The mercenaries must have switched out with the locals and planned to take the quinjet all along.
Hill’s long fingers control the interface, steady as ever. All he has to do is smash the windshield and he might be able to pull her out.
Her eyes dart upwards as though compelled by his intentions. When she sees him, there is an imperceptible shake of her head before she’s looking forward again. Her lips move as she speaks to the mercenaries and it takes everything in him to keep still. All of Peggy’s advice and Hill’s protests come rushing back. As much as he wants to act, he has to trust her to take care of herself.
And she does.
A moment later the quinjet dips and Hill is a blur of firing guns as she takes out one mercenary at a time. The jet doesn’t level out but continues to change direction turbulently as though she’s programmed the autopilot to go haywire.
Plasma blasts light up the cockpit and the jet loses control for real. The hanger door begins to open and Steve takes his chance at getting inside. No sooner do his feet touch down does Hill come rushing out, twisting to fire one last time before she snags him around the waist and they’re jumping overboard.
The quinjet self-destructs in a fiery explosion just as Hill rips the chord on her parachute. Steve cushions their landing and they stand there for untold minutes, gaping at the aftermath.
It isn’t until Hill goes to reach for her communicator that they both realize his arms are still wrapped around her. He drops them automatically, missing her presence immediately, as she starts making calls. They’ve flown a substantial distance from the location of the others and with no backup in the immediate vicinity, Steve’s not sure how they’re going to get out of it.
“Right,” Hill says when she hangs up. “The US Navy has a carrier docked in Durban. They can get an aircraft out to us in a few hours. I’ve let Romanoff know. We just need to sit tight and not get eaten by lions.”
They make their way on foot to the crash site where it’s clear the mercenaries are in no state to make off with any more weapons. The whole front half of the quinjet is crushed in but the hanger is still intact and provides some shelter against the surprisingly chilly night wind.
Hill sinks to the ground with her back against the hull. Steve does the same beside her. The silence is deafening except for the chattering of her teeth. Her shivers almost make what’s left of the quinjet rock.
“Would you like my jacket, Hill?”
Silence.
“What if I just take it off and leave it on the ground and you happen to pick it up? We can make it an unspoken rule from now on. If the jacket is just there then it’s fair game. I haven’t offered it to you.” When she still doesn’t respond, he adds. “There’s nobody here to see”
“I’m here,” she says. The words are so loaded they quieten Steve. He wants to reach out and squeeze her hand, to let her know he gets it. Finally. That even the simple act of wearing his jacket must be measured, analyzed, evaluated. That she can't enjoy the freedom he's always taken for granted.
“Thanks for not barging in,” she says.
He wishes there was some way to bottle the feeling that pulses inside him in response to her words. Or for a light so he can see into her eyes. But there’s nothing except the darkness and the glittering of stars overhead. Steve thinks it’s almost romantic but then he remembers he’s not allowed to think of romance and Hill in the same thought.
He knows now breaking it off with Beth had been the right thing to do. He’s not emotionally available, hasn’t been since he woke up from the ice and he won’t keep dragging her back into his crazy world when he can see it frightens her so much.
But Peggy had been right. Knowing what he doesn’t want has made what he does want clearer. He’s never going to be able to stop worrying, but with Hill it’s a different kind of worry.
Still he’s not a saint and there will be times when he can’t stop himself.
“How am I going to know when you’re really in need of assistance?” he says.
“See what I’m doing right now, Captain? Using my words? If I ever need help, I’ll ask for it.”
“Okay. No need for sass.”
The silence changes then. It’s still as imposing but also kind of comfortable.
Then the unbelievable happens.
Hill sneezes.
“Rogers,” Hill says. “May I please borrow your jacket?”
She is true to her word. She needs help so she’s asking for it. Steve’s only too happy to oblige and to sit there grinning like an idiot as she slips her arms through the sleeves.
Of course, as soon as they hear the rescue plane overhead she’s throwing it back at him. But for a little while at least, they are something other than Captain America and Lieutenant Hill.
He doesn't feel the cold at all.