Steve loves Central Park - it’s a spot he would sit at frequently, nose buried in his sketchbook. He wasn’t athletic or sporty enough to join the rest of the boys in his class, so Bucky and he would hang out under one of the many clusters of the trees, playing with pea shooters or just shooting the breeze. Now, him and Maria sit in one of the selfsame spots, her taking polaroid pictures of the surroundings and sometimes, him.
“I’m documenting those large-ass ears,” she jokes whenever he asks, tossing a raspberry he catches in his mouth. It’s golden and summery and lively, yet calm and soothing. “Gonna show them to every dinner guest we ever have.” He laughs, turning back to his sketchbook. He is documenting her, too.
Maria in an old picture he had found of her, embarrassedly looking away from the camera in a teal shirt, the pocket proudly displaying the name of the yogurt shop she worked at. The 90s camera time-stamp is down to the second of when the picture was taken. Bright-eyed 15 year old Maria Hill in 1997, working so she can save up funds to go to college where she would eventually join the ROTC, then the Air Force and end up with Shield. As he draws her, he thinks of the curious coincidence that brought them together. The little clues that maybe, the universe might have been giving him. Steve was never a big believer in fate or coincidences, but he didn’t believe superheroes existed too. Now that he lives in a world of so many things he could never fathom of, the concept of fate isn’t too far fetched.
Funny, how life works.
As a scrawny poor boy from Brooklyn, going beyond the city of New York was but a fantasy. He still remembers his first trip to Los Angeles, the cab playing a catchy pop song on the radio that he had heard too many times by now. During his stay Steve did his own exploration of the city, walking through the vibrant streets full of life, culture and sound. A sweet old lady offered him dinner when he helped her with her luggage, with Steve ending up eating dinner at her son’s restaurant.
Imagine his pleasant surprise when Maria took him around the city, stopping at the same spot he had been to years before, the lady welcoming him and her with the same warmth as if she had just seen them days ago. “She seems to know you,” she said as they took their seat, chairs scraping across the linoleum. He tells the story of his visit, Maria’s features lighting up with every sentence. They were halfway through their plate of tacos when she looked up at him, a soft expression on her face. “This is my favourite place to eat. My favourite place for food in the whole world, really. That’s why I brought you here.” When she kisses him goodbye that night, he feels a nervous excitement he hasn’t felt since Peggy.
Time hasn’t been the best to him - he’s gone through the wringer in a way truly unlike anyone else’s, but the thing about time is that it heals wounds too. He found friends new and old and cobbled together a family from it. Little and broken, but still good. Tony and Rhodey’s perennial bickering and Pepper’s stares are part of his daily life, and so are Hawkeye and Natasha’s bets. Where there used to be sleeping on rocks and canned peas is pancakes at their table and Maria snuggled up warm in bed next to him. He’s shared his fears and worries and taken some of hers too, and they have their own demons to battle, but for once he doesn’t feel alone. He doesn’t have to be Atlas anymore, because there’s Maria and his friends to help him share the weight of the world. Maybe it was fate that brought Nick Fury’s stern protege and him together, or maybe it was the time they had coffee at 3 AM at the office, venting about the struggles of adult life and her explaining modern slang and what the hype about Vine was.
Maybe it was fate that brought him to that dive bar where she was drunk and performing a song about beavers, or maybe it was Sam Wilson asking him to loosen up and not be a grandpa, but he is thankful for that. That night gave him the opening to witness her sarcastic jokes and tears at heartwarming commercials and someone who was there to understand his nightmares, who never expected more than what he could give her. She waited for him just as much as he did, though he cannot say if it was more. Because if Steve is being honest, fate made him wait 70 years to bring them together.
Time and fate are strange and messy and have caused him more problems that he thinks they are worth, but when he sees her soft eyes while she whacks him with his sketchbook for that yogurt-shop drawing, under the golden leaves of Central Park trees, he agrees it’s worth all the trouble he’s been put through.