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Setting herself and Steve up actually turned out to be easier than usual. As a fugitive on the run from the US military, she didn't often have the luxury of picking locations that would be friendly to a woman traveling alone. Before she'd been on the run too long, she managed to pick up a ring that would pass as a wedding ring if needed. With Steve, she didn't just have a ring, she had a fake husband - which, for once, made it somewhat easier to find a place to stay.

It took barely a week for their current home to gain a set of jury-rigged laboratory equipment to continue her research into ways to cure - or, failing that, destroy - it. At the moment, she was mostly playing catch-up, adding newer findings to the worn notebook that served as a repository of information, something that she could visualize. When Steve entered the room, she smiled and quickly shut the book before he could see the heading of the section she was updating (termination(?)). "Morning."

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He looked over at her, and the fact that he was thinking out his answer spoke volumes.

"Like I said. I made some chicken parmesan, gonna start some pasta for a side, and I thought we could... enjoy it. Together."

Bryce, meanwhile, had found some time ago that the best way to figure out these things was to just be blunt. "Is this supposed to be a date?"

That got... an awkward look.

"If you'd like it to be a date, it's a date. If you'd rather just have a dinner with a friend, that's all it is."

Very... diplomatic. "Did you want it to be a date?"

"I'd like it if you wanted it to be a date," he said, keeping his words even and his voice soft, "but it'd be just as good to enjoy dinner with you."

"Because you're lonely." Her tone tipped upwards at the end, almost a question.

He shook his head.

"When I'm at the bar," he clarified, "I feel like someone should be there with me. That's what I meant.

"I'd like it if you wanted it to be a date because" he swallowed a little "because I like you. Because... the husband and wife persona feels good to me, and while I wouldn't say that... that we're there yet, I wouldn't...I wouldn't mind trying."

He took a long sip of his cola.

"But at the same time, I know how much you worry about... about me. How hesitant you were to accept me traveling with you. And how you seem to think" he took a deep breath in before deciding to go in feet first, "you seem to think I'm going to wake up one day and be tired of you. Of everything you have to deal with. And I don't want you to say yes because you think I'd leave otherwise. And I don't want you to say no to get rid of me out of some misplaced feeling that there's a whole wonderful life waiting for me as soon as I ditch you.

"That's just not how I'm built. Because I care about you, genuinely care about you, and I'd like to see if it worked romantically, but even if it didn't, you're still my friend. You're still the most important person in my life. You're still the person I'm happy to come home to."

All right. If he could be honest about this, so could she. She'd certainly spent enough time with Betty learning how to actually open her mouth and talk. Even if what she said when she was determined to speak had a tendency to be overly blunt, it had worked for them.

"I'm concerned," she said. "Professionally... I was your doctor when you were coming out of a 70-year coma. I'm the first person you actually remember meeting since you woke up. And you've gone on the run with me instead of making your own new life, which - I appreciate having you with me, I honestly do, but this isn't a very good life. You would, objectively, be better off without me."

She sighed. "Even aside from that, I come with more baggage than just the giant green problem and the General hunting me. I'm just not really worth that much trouble."

He looked right back at her, obviously somewhat prepared for this.

"I'm an amnesiac, Bryce. Everyone's going to be my first something. So if I waited for the first person to offer me a ride, the guy showing me my apartment, the girls down at the bar... when am I supposed to stop and decide that it's time I'm allowed to let someone mean something? Or do you think finding whoever might be left alive at this point and traumatizing them all over again while I can't remember anything about the person I was to them sits there between us like an elephant on the coffee table is the only real option here?

"I don't think there's anything objective about that statement, Bryce. And if I genuinely thought that your subjectivity was about not liking me, I'd be out the door in an instant.

"But it's not. And while you get to decide a lot of things, you don't get to decide who I think is worth the trouble and who isn't. That's up to me. I don't know much, but I know who I care about.

"And I care about you. I think you are beautiful and brilliant and kind and funny and you make me happy that I woke up from that ice. So if there's baggage, let me see if I can carry it with you. If you hadn't noticed, I can carry a lot."

Edited 2014-11-05 06:06 (UTC)

"Of course I wouldn't expect you to just never be interested in anyone because of firsts, but the first person to show you your apartment isn't exactly the same thing as the first person you saw. So yes, I am concerned that you aren't really contextualizing just because you haven't had long enough. There's other people out there, ones who are beautiful and brilliant and kind and funny, who don't come with the kind of problems I do and don't do things like find a 70-year-old by accident when they were trying to die."

It wasn't until about half-a-second later that she realized what words just came out of her mouth.

Edited 2014-11-05 06:38 (UTC)

The funny thing was...

He didn't look surprised. He didn't look startled or concerned or even worried. And he knew that was on his face. He knew it was. And he let it sit on his face for a moment before he spoke.

He couldn't say what it was, exactly. There was no specific thing that told him, no damning piece of evidence. It wasn't even something he'd exactly known. It was just that when the words had popped out of her, they'd slotted right into place, filled in the answer to something he'd never quite been sure about, answered more questions than it raised.

"The first person I saw... who put their own needs aside to take care of me. Put themselves in danger to stick around and watch over me. The person who picked up... whoever I used to be and saw a human being instead of an opportunity."

He leaned in to look her in the face.

"It didn't even occur to you, not once, to use me to get yourself out of trouble. Finding Captain America... I don't need to go into the ways you could have used me, comatose, then weak, to help yourself. I've thought about it. But I don't think you have, not seriously."

A step back gave him enough room to take another sip of his soda.

"And what makes you think I wasn't trying to die when I went down in that plane?"

The look on her face when he suggested she could have used him when he was vulnerable, somehow bargained her way back to freedom over his body, made it clear that he was right. She shifted uncomfortably and wrapped her arms around herself. "I... thought about... That's why I didn't contact anyone even after I was sure you were stable. There was no way to know what kind of shape you'd be in when you woke up - if you woke up - I wasn't about to hand you over to the military when their interests would not have necessarily been in your best interests."

As for his question, well. "I don't know. If you were trying to die, you picked a time when you would do the most good." After a moment, her thought snapped into place. "You weren't... considering...?"

(Doing something like that again, she doesn't finish.)

"Trying again?" he finished for her, voice still gentle.

"No. But that's actually how I figured it out. Because I looked up the incident. Because Captain Steve Rogers wouldn't accept any other option but to bring the plane down with him in it and putting myself in that situation?" He shook his head. "I never woulda done something like that."

He glanced over at the oven.

"But I haven't seen you try since then. Have you? Tried?"

"No."

With a tug of guilt, she thought of some of the things she'd just gotten. Even if she wasn't actively planning to try to die again. "I... can't promise that I wouldn't."

"I didn't ask you to. I wouldn't. You have to accept people's choices."

Something on his face said that the phrase meant something, but that the memory wouldn't quite filter through.

"But just... hope you choose differently."

"I've been told that before." She swallowed. "Along with that I can't really talk people out of how they feel. At least not if they already know what they're getting into."

He looked at her.

"Is there something I should know, then? Something you think I should know?"

"I-" She sighed. "Nothing I'd prefer to talk about right now. You already know pretty much everything that would send most people screaming for the hills. Metaphorically."

Or possibly literally.

"And yet," and he turned, put his soda down, and pulled out a pot for the pasta.

"So, whatever kind of dinner we're having, it's in about twenty minutes."

"Okay." She breathed out and then repeated, louder, "Okay. I'm, um." Going to try to process what just happened. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

He just nodded to her before turning to fill the pot as he set the stove on high.

A few minutes turned into fifteen while she tried to figure out what to do. At some point during the conversation, she thought she managed to decide to see what would happen. At the worst, it wouldn't work very well, and he would finally move on to something better.

When she finally came back, she was - well, not dressed up because clothing like that was almost never a priority on the run, but she made an effort to look... nicer.

He'd taken the time, while the pasta was boiling, to duck into his room. He'd combed his hair, was wearing a nicely-tailored shirt, and a pair of well-fit jeans. He was lighting the candles when she got back and he'd made up a small bucket of ice and coke bottles for them both to enjoy with dinner.

He smiled when she walked in before holding up a finger and ducking down to pull the tray of bubbling cheese and sauce out of the oven.

"Hey."

She smiled back, trying to ignore the little flutter of nervousness and something else in her stomach. "Hi."

He put the tray on a couple of pot holders on the counter and walked around to pull out a chair for her without much of a word.