Maria never quite liked meeting people. Never the act of it, never the interaction, and especially never the people themselves. She had two categories for the people she knew: those she tolerated, and those she disliked. Some of them, less than she could count with her own two hands, belonged to the former. The majority of most, if not all, fell in the latter. A few, like Stark, often hovered between the two depending on the time of the week and the after-action report on her desk.
But as much as she disliked people, Maria was good with them. Mastering people skills was an essential tool in her line of work. As the Deputy Director of SHIELD, she knew how to juggle her workforce, compartmentalizing them for maximum efficiency; and as a spy, she always knew what to say, where to touch, and how to smile in a dozen different ways regardless of the situation. But as good as she was with people, it didn’t mean that she had to like most, if even any of them, at all.
She liked to believe that she wasn’t always so uncompromising, so jaded with the world and its people. Maria didn’t remember growing up wary, guarded, and with the natural dislike and distrust of the people around her. It was mostly her job—if she had to pick from a multitude of reasons, that showed her the depths of which people were truly capable of, the lengths of which they’d go in order to get what they so desire, regardless of who and whatever was in their way.
It was through SHIELD that she learned that at the end of the day, weapons, bombs, machines (apart from that one time in Stark’s case), weren’t born malicious in nature. It was always the people behind them that were.
Maria’s dislike of people was one of the main reasons why she only did her weekly grocery shopping at the exact 4:37 am of each Tuesday morning. It was a specifically chosen timeslot, after careful consideration, research—and backed by statistics, which she found least likely to encounter another living person down at the bodega a station away from her place.
The specific timeslot allowed her to avoid the night owls and the midnight partygoers hoping to drag out their last thrill, while also allowing her to leave before the arrival of the morning birds and the early commuters chasing the crack of dawn.
4:37am, as she’d found in the last four months of shopping trips, was a nice little timeslot with the least chances of meeting anyone there at all.
Which explained her apparent shock and surprise when she stepped out of the BEER/WINE/SNACKS section and found him—Steve Goddamn Rogers, of all people, standing across from her in the fresh produce section, a basket full of vegetables in one hand, and a bundle of carrots in the other. And as usual, he looked tall, charming, and annoying in that ‘how can anyone glow so radiantly at 4:00am in the morning’ sort of way.
Maria immediately started to backtrack. An unconscious reaction which she realized was more instinctual than not. Captain America wasn’t in the “dislike” section of her “peoples chart”, but surely, he wasn’t close to the top in the list of people she wanted to make small talk with at four in the morning. In fact, she was very sure that that specific list was left completely, utterly, and purposefully blank.
Holding the baskets strategically in front of her, she slowly tiptoed backwards, leaning close to the aisles for cover. Her movements were as smooth and as quiet as a mouse’s, an echo of her spy’s training from a long time past. But as she was almost about to slip around the corner and away from a direct line of sight, she stepped onto a stray basket someone had left out in the open.
An echo of her spy’s training… the large crack was not.
She immediately turned away from him, hoping that he wouldn’t recognize her, Super Soldiers senses and all.
A hopeless wish.
“Hill?”
She closed her eyes for a long second and prepared herself mentally.
She breathed in.
She breathed out.
Then she turned back towards him, an immutable wall, devoid of emotion. “Rogers,” she said with nothing but professionalism in her voice, the tone not of friendly co-workers in a casual meeting outside of the office, but instead as if they were on the elevator up to work.
He on the other hand, sounded completely casual and at ease. “Fancy meeting you here,” he said with a smile, warm and pleasant, in a way that almost seemed as if was happy to see her. And for a long second, she wondered if he was, because even a spymaster like her could not fake a smile so genuine, so unrestrained, as if nothing else in the world mattered right now but the person in front of him.
She now understood how he managed to charm so many people over during the war effort.
It was because of his damn smile. It was actually glowing.
Ironic, because as SHIELD’s shadow, she never liked sizzling in the light.
“Stocking up for the week?” he asked as he placed a head of lettuce into his basket, which was overflowing with fresh produce of all sorts.
Maria nodded, suddenly feeling a lot more self-conscious of her own than she cared to admit. Steve’s basket looked like a forest of wonders, while hers, overflowing with junk food and cheap wine, looked more like an alcoholics’ imaginary landscape.
“Been a long week,” she said. It came out sounding a lot more like an excuse than she wanted it to.
It HAD been a long week, with two foiled terror attacks and a case of a lost Asgardian appearing in the middle of rush hour New York traffic. But then again, her grocery list, even during some of the milder weeks, all looked pretty much the same.
It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate a good homecooked meal every now and then, but it was as simple as that she just didn’t have enough time. Sacrificing healthier options with the risk of an attack for long office hours and late-night chips watching over the city was a choice she did not regret. Not one bit.
The cheap wine however, that she didn’t have an excuse for. And she wasn’t about to give anyone one either.
“Wasn’t judging,” he grinned as he swung an entire sack of potatoes up over his shoulders, the whole action done as effortlessly as he would a bag of soft cushions.
A move like that would make most girls squeal. Maria wasn’t a squealer, not was she easily impressed, but even she had to admit he looked good doing it.
Not that she’d ever tell him that.
As their conversation continued over to the checkout counter, Maria realized small talk with Steve… wasn’t all that bad after all.
He did most of the talking and, as if understanding their unspoken boundaries, never once asked her a question that could be considered “personal.”
Maria didn’t mind personal questions about herself. But that was only because she had six different cover identities to choose from, courtesy of a long career at SHIELD. Which meant that if he were to ask a personal question, she’d have to lie, and she didn’t exactly feel like lying to Captain America this particular night.
So, she was glad he didn’t ask.
While they waited behind an elderly lady with a cart full of items as a single cashier struggled to clear the line, she looked towards his basket and asked, “Is the SHIELD pantry inadequate?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know we have an on-call chef and someone in charge of catering, right?”
“You’re referring to Jason and Dev?”
“Mhm,” somehow, she wasn’t surprised with the fact that he knew both their names.
He seemed to understand what she was implying. “Oh, their food’s fine,” he said. “More than fine actually.” He then gave the sack of potatoes a pat. “These guys here are for something special.”
“Something special?”
“I’m cooking for someone.”
“Oh.” Not an answer she expected.
“It’s not like… a date, though,” he added in a little too quickly.
“I never said it was,” she answered, though it certainly was what she was thinking.
He chuckled, seeming a little flustered but still at ease with the situation. “She-… well, Kristen from accounting brought me homemade cookies the other day, and I… I thought I’d return the favour, you know?”
“Homemade potatoes?”
“Don’t underestimate potatoes,” he laughed. “I’m using my grandmother’s recipe, and you know, back during my time we were really into boiling and potatoes. So yeah, I invited her over to my place for some morning stew.”
“So… someone made you cookies and your response is to invite them over to your place for breakfast?”
He smiled sheepishly. “Is that a bit too much?”
She thought for a moment. Personally, she’d never invite anyone over to her place unless it was a matter of life and death, and even so, it’d be a tough decision. But that was just her. “Probably,” she said. “But I doubt she’ll complain, you’re… you, after all.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I meant,” she said. “You’re THE Captain America. I’m pretty sure there are plenty of women out there that’ll jump at an invitation to have breakfast with you.”
“I don’t know about that,” he laughed. “I was never good with women.”
“I know, I saw your file.”
“My file?” now it was his turn to look surprised.
“Back when Fury was putting together the Avengers Initiative, Agent Carter’s assessment came across my desk,” she said. “Was she wrong?”
“That’s… a little too personal.” A smile broke out across his face. “Then again, Peggy’s never wrong.”
Maria could’ve sworn she saw a flicker of sadness in his eyes, but she kept that mostly to herself.
It was raining when Maria left the store, which hampered her plans to leave before the cashier was done checking-out Steve’s items. She cursed as she waited in the bodega’s sheltered partition, half contemplating running out into the storm anyways when an umbrella’s grip appeared at the edge of her vision.
“You can have mine,” said Steve.
“What about your breakfast?” she asked.
“Cancelled,” he said. “Just got a text from Kristen, something came up at accounting.”
“How exciting,” she said dryly.
“Don’t be mean,” he smiled.
She looked at the umbrella, then back to him. Maria never liked accepting help. Not even if it was in the form of an umbrella from Captain America. “It’s okay, I’ll wait.”
“You sure?” he asked. “I don’t mind since I live just down the street. Plus, you’re not dressed warm enough, you’re going to catch a cold.”
She didn’t know how to react to the thought that he’d paid attention to what she was wearing, or the thoughtfulness directed towards her. It was a strange feeling, not entirely unpleasant. “I can handle myself.”
“I’m sure you can,” he chuckled.
He didn’t leave and instead stood quietly next to her, watching the rain fall.
She stared at him, wondering why he was still here, when their eyes caught. His gaze fell downwards in the direction of her basket, then back to his, before eventually settling back onto hers again. His lips twitched for a short second, as if there was something on his mind.
It wasn’t hard to guess the idea that was brewing in his head. She started to shake her head, but he asked her anyways. “How about I cook you breakfast instead?”
“I… I don’t want to intrude.” It came out weaker than she wanted.
“Not at all,” he said. “Unless you’re the sort of person that prefers chips to warm stew on a rainy day. Again, no judgement there.”
‘Didn’t know they had sarcasm back in the forties.”
“Don’t change the subject, Hill,” he grinned.
“I…” she tried hard coming up with an excuse, but nothing was working for her then.
“If you say no, I’m going to sit here next to you until the rain stops,” he added in.
She breathed in deeply and, after a long moment, finally said, “Fine.”
Picking up her baskets, she stepped up next to him, shoulder to shoulder as they shared the same umbrella out into the rain.
She hoped it wasn’t a decision she’d live to regret, but then again, maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t going to be that bad after all.