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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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"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.

"Thank you."

She bit her lip after sitting down. "I don't really know what I'm doing."

"That makes two of us," he said as he carefully pushed her chair in. Then it was just a matter of putting out the salad bowl (he'd apparently managed to put some of that together), the bowl of pasta and sauce, and the tray of chicken parmesan.

"I figured you could serve yourself as much as you like of everything. Sorry it's not quite as pretty as it could be."

"At least we're on level footing." And she shrugged with another smile. "It doesn't have to be pretty. Honestly, my high standards bottom out at 'not food poisoning'."

That made him laugh.

"Well, I've tasted it enough to know it's better than that. So bully for me, I guess."

He sat across from her and plucked one of the cokes from the bucket and held it up for her 'approval' before gesturing to the glass.

The coke meets her equally high standards for bottles of coke. "It definitely smells good, so I think that's two for you."

"Good thing we're not keeping score," he said before twisting the top off and pouring most of it into a tall glass he'd already set out. He did the same for himself before settling back into his chair and closing his eyes to speak a short bit of grace. That, it seemed, hadn't been erased.

Once he was done, he smiled over at her and gestured for her to eat what she liked.

She couldn't help but tease a little at that. "Who says we're not? I don't follow sports, maybe this is the kind of score-keeping I pay attention to."

"All right then," he said with a smile back and a sip of his coke, "so who's winning?"

"I think we both are."

She was pretty sure she was, at least.