Steve and Angie Get to Know Each Other
Angie wasn’t used to not being able to talk. She could talk to anybody about anything, if the mood struck. It was a skill Peggy, often so quiet and stilted and British, had poked fun at her for in the past. Always with a kiss to take away the sting.
Angie had lost her ability to speak. Steve Rogers was fidgeting in her living room (one of them), and she had absolutely nothing to say. Which was okay at first. She’d retreated to her Italian instinct to choke the awkwardness out of any situation with food. Which was why her coffee table looked like a wrecked buffet. She kept serving, and Steve kept eating, very dutiful about it, though she was sure he had to be full. Except she and Peggy had both been on the busy side, and Fancy hadn’t come by to restock, and she’d just given the majority of their food, which should’ve lasted a couple more days at least, to Captain America. She thought there might be a jar of pickles somewhere, but she didn’t like to touch those, they reminded her of Dottie. And the last thing she needed was to associate the Russian assassin who’d kissed Peggy with the man in front of her. Who’d also kissed Peggy.
“You got some…” she indicated her bottom lip. Steve wiped at the spot on his own face, getting rid of the mayo there, then cleaned his hand on a napkin.
“Sorry. Thanks.”
“No problem. Welcome.”
All right then. Progress. Steve blushed, and it was kind of endearing. Angie gave herself a mental smack. Was it wrong to find him endearing? She didn’t think so, but they hadn’t yet gotten around to hashing out all the ground rules. They needed to do that, write them down. Big, bold letters. A framed copy in every room. They’d do that as soon as Peg got back.
When the hell was Peg coming back? Damn telephone company.
Steve had offered to leave. Angie wouldn’t let him. They’d spoken before, after all. She liked him, found him endearing. She really did need to find out if that was okay or not. But they’d talked, and she liked him. Peg had always been with them before. Angie could look at Peg when things got overwhelming, calm herself. She’d seen Steve do the same more than once, and that didn’t bother her as much as it maybe should’ve.
Peggy was gone now, and Angie couldn’t form a sentence. Somewhere in the mansion, a grandfather clock chimed loudly. She dug her nails into her palms instead of jumping a foot off her chair.
“Peggy thinks I’m much worse about time than I really am.”
Okay. Angie wasn’t sure that made sense, but she wasn’t doing squat to fill the silence, and she’d learned a thing or two about beggars and choosers. “Yeah?”
“She assumes I’ve been late to everything my whole life. Was never really a problem before her.”
Steve then launched into a rambling explanation about how the asthma and things made it difficult for him to run, or even walk with any kind of speed, but Bucky always made sure he got where he needed to be. His eyes misted a bit as he talked about Bucky, but he powered through it. He talked without stopping, about everything and nothing. Baseball, the stray dog that’d become his childhood pet, the woman that owned a bakery near his home, who’d sneak him extra pastries twice a week, because no growing boy should be so thin. He drew for her in return, pictures of the view outside her window, of her son who helped run the place, her grandson, a star salesman at the age of five, chatting with the customers and enticing them to buy more.
Angie heard all this without necessarily digesting it. It was a minor revelation. Was this what Peggy felt like when she got excited, and maybe ran her mouth a little too much? Not that she minded Steve running his mouth, it was just surprising. As she told him when he finally lost steam, blushing and running a hand through his hair.
“It’s nothing bad, really. Just, Peg told me you were on the quiet side.”
Steve chuckled, a wry smile on his lips. “Yeah. She also tell you I have a tendency to talk out of my ass when I’m nervous?”
Angie laughed disbelievingly. They’d met, the three of them, a handful of times, and she’d never heard him speak like that. It shocked her a bit which, she supposed, was likely the point. There was something reassuring about it. He sounded like one of the guys from the old neighborhood, men she’d dealt with all her life. “She might’ve mentioned.” She, Angie Martinelli, made Captain America nervous. Not that she hadn’t realized this the moment she met him, but it was different hearing it out loud. Freeing. Made it easier to speak to Steve Rogers. “Peg talked a lot about your art, you know. She was steamin mad when the higher-ups at the ‘phone company’ got into your locker before she could. She wanted your sketchbook.”
“She should’ve had it. Anything she wanted.”
His smile was sad and happy all at once, so like the look Peggy used to wear when talking about him. It hurt to see that look on either of their faces, and Angie felt the need to remind him that it was okay now, they weren’t lost to each other anymore. “You should draw her something new, fill some pages in another book. She’d like that.”
“You think?”
“Definitely.”
“And you…you wouldn’t…?”
Angie shook her head. Art in any form was such a personal thing. If anyone else were to do this for Peggy, expose their heart to her with paper and ink…but somehow she didn’t mind. Not with Steve. She might have, if they’d stumbled through this conversation weeks ago, but not now. She didn’t think that was normal, not minding, but they’d pretty much thrown normal out the window already. “I drew when I was little. Tried, more like. Had this idea I was gonna write my own stories, then draw them, then act them out. Took me awhile to realize I couldn’t draw to save my life.”
“I’m sure you weren’t that bad.”
“Oh, I was. My brothers used to make fun of me for it. That and everything else, but they were right about the drawing.” Angie watched with some alarm as his face darkened, eyes flashing. She knew he loathed bullies, told herself he’d wear that look for anyone with a similar tale. She didn’t buy it. Hadn’t known him long, but did not buy it at all. He looked ready to slug each and every one of her brothers in the jaw, as he had with countless Hitler lookalikes a few years back. He cared about her. Cared about everybody, so she understood, but cared about her something special.
Maybe it was okay that she didn’t mind him drawing for Peg. Maybe, somehow, all these crazy feelings flying like bullets between the three of them were okay.
“It was a long time ago,” she added, because her brothers were idiots, but she didn’t reallywant them knocked into the next decade, “and my Ma gave then hell for hasslin me about it.”
Steve’s face cleared some, a smile tugging at his lips. “Good to know. So tell me about them.”
Angie frowned. “My idiot brothers?”
“If you want, but I was thinking of your stories, your drawings.”
“Nah, those were just silly scribbles on the back of my homework assignments. Nothin interesting.”
Steve shrugged. “Interests me. Wouldn’t ask if it didn’t.”
His smile was attentive, but easy. Like he’d eagerly take in every word she spoke, but wouldn’t mind if those words didn’t come. Which was why she felt okay telling Captain America about her childhood musings. Recounting a story she’d slaved over involving a cat, a priest, and an ice cream truck. In the Broadway performance of this masterpiece, she’d planned to be the truck driver. It was kind of embarrassing, how quickly these things came back to her.
Steve laughed. At the stories, but not at her for creating them. She laughed with him, and thought it very possible that she could get used to the sound.
***
Peggy didn’t know what to expect when she rushed in after dealing with this latest catastrophe. She’d run through various scenarios with varying levels of awkwardness and disaster. She couldn’t help it, considering the way Steve and Angie had looked at her before she left. As though she’d jumped in a lifeboat and left them together on the deck of the Titanic.
None of her scenarios involved the entirety of her kitchen being moved to her coffee table, with Steve and Angie huddled together over a notebook as if they were old friends. Steve had a pencil between his fingers while Angie pointed at something on the page, telling him to add more shading on the left side. They didn’t register her presence until she cleared her throat.
“Oh hey, English. Missed you.” Angie grinned at her, then glanced at Steve. They slid away from each other creating a bit of space, but not much.
“I see. Did you throw some sort of party in my absence to cope with your loneliness?”
“Don’t worry, English, I’ll clean it up.”
“We will, I’ll help, don’t worry.”
Smiling at Steve’s rush of words, she approached the sofa they were sharing. “How could I worry with you two about? May I ask what you’ve been up to?”
Angie was off before Steve could take a breath. Something about drawings and collaborations, and how they were going to create their own comic book and turn it into a radio show, then a movie, because weren’t comics always finding their way into the movie houses these days?
Halting at the back of the couch so she could see over their shoulders, Peggy’s eyes were caught by a woman in a rather detailed costume, who bore a more than passing resemblance to Angie. There were smaller renderings of swords, shields, spears, and what looked like something between a machine gun and a rocket launcher.
“We’re still arguing about the cape,” said Angie. “He doesn’t think there should be a cape. You believe that?”
“A cape doesn’t make any sense. It’s impractical. You’d trip over it all the time,” Steve replied.
“Maybe you would. Little Italy’s got more hand/eye coordination than that.”
Peggy’s eyebrows rose toward her hairline. “Little Italy?”
“It’s a working title. Soldier boy here wants Lady Liberty.” Angie shot Steve a teasing glare. “Clearly I’m gonna have to be the idea woman in this partnership.”
“Right. You keep telling yourself that.”
They went on for several minutes, showing her different versions of the costume, debating the merits of secret identities and powers versus no powers. Peggy, who didn’t understand half of it, knew she was grinning like a madwoman.
After a spirited conversation regarding secret lairs, Angie looked up at her, momentarily pulled from the land of fiction. “Hey, forgot to ask. Your work thing. Everything okay, world not gonna end any time soon?”
Pressing a kiss to Angie’s hair, Peggy tentatively stroked a hand over the blonde strands at the base of Steve’s neck. Angie didn’t blink at the show of intimacy. “Everything’s quite perfect, darling.”
More perfect than it had any right to be, actually.