four, change
four
"go on, i dare you"
The taxi ride home had felt shorter than it had on the way out. The streets were already busy with city folk. Some in expensive looking suits carrying briefcases, others dressed in bright patterns pushing their babies in over-loaded prams.
Lusine paid the driver more than was owed and got out before he could question her. The bitter air was crisp as she walks into her apartment building and digs the key from her pocket. A tiny, insignificant object in the palm of one tiny speck in the universe, but, without it, life would be slightly more difficult than it already was for the exiled Volkov.
She enters the apartment and closes the door softly behind her, hoping not to wake anyone who still slept, which was very likely at the amount of sleep Florian had been getting lately.
But, as the door lock clicks closed, she can hear the soft voice of her cousin talking with someone and a much heavier voice speaking in return.
Lusine frowns but strides through from the hallway with her head held high. A confidence she'd perfected in acting over the years. Adapted especially for situations like these.
She stops short, shoulders relaxing as she realises who sits in her new home.
"Director Fury," She says, the false confidence hardening into realness, "I see you've met my cousin."
"Yes, she invited me in to wait for you," He replies, as collected as always. "Why don't you take a seat, Miss Volkov, we have important matters to discuss in light of your return to Earth." He gestures to her armchair as if it was his home.
Lusine takes a seat and looks at him expectantly, not willing to be talked down to or forced into anything she didn't want to do.
"I'm surprised you came here yourself, Director. If anyone, I thought you'd have sent the ever-lovely Agent Hill. She's always pleased to see me." Lusine's mouth coils into a smile, ready to strike.
He was a smart man. She knew that. But it was still fun to poke the bear.
"I don't appreciate you using your magic tricks on my agents, Miss Volkov, nor do I appreciate you arriving unannounced and using S.H.I.E.L.D. budget for your own home without doing anything in return." His voice is as stern as always. Iron in its punch.
"Have I not done enough?" Lusine questions, an ember of anger flickering, which Olea doesn't miss as she reaches her hand to cover her cousin's. But it's not enough to quiet the ember as it grows into a flame. "Have I not risked my life for this city, for this world enough to claim one home to spend a little time for rest and relaxation?"
"That depends on how long you intend to drain our money for," The director shoots back, not backing down from the rising flames. He knew control when he saw it and Miss Volkov knew exactly what she was doing. She would not intimidate him.
"I have no other means of acquiring my own, unless you have any suggestions, Director." She leans back in the armchair, mind running through possible options. Killing him wasn't an option, but manipulation at its finest was.
"I suggest that you work for S.H.I.E.L.D. to earn the money you're taking. Train, go on missions, hunt the wanted. I don't care what the hell you do, but I will not let you sit back and relax when every other individual on that pay is working their ass off." Director Fury rises from the worn sofa and brushes himself off. "So, either you work for us or you get out."
Lusine meets his challenge, standing to face him. He was right. People were working for their money whilst all she did was lie around, eat and sleep. Even if all she did was show up and train a few new recruits, she'd be doing something. That was something she could do.
"I understand. I don't know how much Olea has told you about what happened during my time away from Earth, but I need to take things slowly if I'm going to work. No intense missions, no 'hunting'. I'll stick to training until I feel... ready. Send any recruits who need shaping up my way, whether they're new or just stubborn, and I'll train them up for you. In return, S.H.I.E.L.D. continues paying for this apartment and a small payment for necessities, such as food." Lusine extends her hand. "No tricks, Director," She says when she sees him eye it suspiciously.
At her words, he shakes her hand firmly, looking at her although he doesn't even see the new scars that mar her skin.
"You have yourself a deal, Miss Volkov," He says, retracting his hand. "As for your new companions, they will have to make their own deals."
"I don't think—"
"I want to help," Olea pipes up, standing strong. "I can't fight anyone, but I can help with healing, either on the field with someone to watch my back, or back at camp." The green glint in her eyes tells of a determination to keep her word.
"Okay," The Director responds, regarding her respectfully, "you will have the necessary equipment provided, should you need anything."
"Thank you, Director," Olea says, shooting Lusine a quick smile of comfort. Letting her know this is what she wanted to do. That it was what she'd always wanted to do and had been doing since before their departure from home.
"Florian can fight, but you'd have to speak to him yourself for any commitment," Lusine explains, shrugging her shoulders in indifference.
"That should be all for today, Miss Volkov, come into training tomorrow to begin," He tells her as her new boss.
Lusine smiles. "What a lovely surprise that will be for them," She jokes, walking with him to the door and unlocking it for him to make his exit. "They're not going to know what's hit them."
-
-
That evening, Lusine pulls on her favourite cloak and ties it in a neat little bow beneath her chin. She had even taken the time to let Olea brush her hair out and braid it down her back, which she enjoyed more than she'd like to admit.
Now, though, as she peers into the mirror, wisps of hair had escaped from its binding, but there wasn't time to fix it now. Quickly, she sprays on a little fragrance, and pulls on her boots. Notably, she takes a moment to say goodbye to Olea and Florian, who had his head resting on the former's lap as she played with his hair with one hand and held a book up with the other, before she departs for the fifteen-minute walk to Steve's.
She was already late, and she was ten minutes away. Sure, she could be there in a flash of magic if she desired as much, but that would take more out of her than she wishes it would. It was easier to walk and save herself the aching emptiness as her magic took yet another hit of depletion.
Lusine didn't know how long it would be before she was back to her old self, but, if there was any place for that to happen, it was here. Slowly but surely, she would knit herself back together in the safety of those she trusted and would, undeniably, put her life on the line for.
Olea. Sweet and forgiving Olea was more than she could have ever hoped for in her life. Without her, Lusine knows she would be a rotting corpse by now. Or, if not, in a much worse state than she was currently.
Maybe she would've even devolved into the monster she'd fought so incredibly hard to distance herself from in the last months of her life. It would be many more months before she was even half the woman she wants to be, but slow progress is always better than no progress.
As Lusine begins to climb the stairs up to the apartment, she hears a name being called after her. When she turns, she sees Sharon hurrying to catch up with her, a friendly smile and a bag of groceries in each hand.
"Oh," Lusine pauses on the stairs to wait for her to get to her, "sorry, I was completely lost in my own world," She says, wrapping her arms around herself.
"That's alright. We all have those moments," Sharon comments, perhaps in an attempt to create rapport between them which, as far as Lusine knew, hadn't been invited. "So, back again so soon?"
"Yes," Lusine says, wishing they could walk a little quicker, "back again. Suppose I quite like the company."
Uninterested, Lusine tunes Sharon out until they finally reach the desired floor. There was nothing settling about her presence. Something about her was off, even if she couldn't quite put her finger on it yet.
"Well," Lusine says, smiling awkwardly, "it was nice seeing you again, Sharon." She lifts her knuckles and knocks on Steve's door.
"Good seeing you too," She replies and Lusine couldn't tell if she was being genuine or not. Every bone in her body tells her not to trust this stranger, but there was something warming about her personality that she couldn't hate. The door opens behind her. "Maybe you should come visit me next time you're here and we can get to know each other."
"That would be lovely. I'd like that," Lusine says, keenly aware of Steve's presence in the doorway behind her. "Well, goodbye, Sharon, see you soon." With a wave of her hand to the stranger, Lusine turns to Steve, gives him a brief smile and pushes past him into the apartment.
"Making friends?" Steve questions after closing the door from prying ears. He seems to move to face her with a simmering jesting expression, bright with rays of gold.
"Hardly," She scoffs, untying the cloak at her neck and removing it. She folds it in her arms, but Steve steps forwards and takes it from her to hang on the hook. "I'm going to forget that," She claims, already knowing how forgetful she would be once distracted by other sources.
Steve smiles with a cheek she'd not before seen so evidently on his mouth and it clicks something inside her, flushing her veins with a feeling she'd not felt in a long while.
"Then it'll just give you another excuse to come back," He points out, flirting barely ten steps into his apartment.
A sense of happiness comes over her at his growing comfort with her. Maybe it had something to do with her honesty with him the night before or maybe he was just naturally becoming more comfortable with her. Either way, she likes it. She likes it a lot.
Lusine bites her lip to stifle a laugh and says, "I don't need excuses to visit you, Steve." She winds her hands into the straps of her little bag, binding them from reaching for him against her promises to herself not to rush into anything this time around.
Steve laughs, finding confidence in the accepted and returned flirtation between them.
They walk through into the kitchen where Steve offers her a glass of wine, knowing it's her favourite, which she readily accepts. He slides the glass across the counter to where she sits and begins to pour his own glass.
"Thank you," She says warmly, but the coldness seeps back in as she stares down into the wine. "Director Fury came to my apartment this morning and insisted that I work for S.H.I.E.L.D."
"And what did you say?" Steve asks, leaning back on the counter as he watches her carefully for any sign of either tears or anger, or even both. But she didn't look like she was about to do any of the three. She was solid. As if she was carved from fine marble like the ancient art of Rome.
"I agreed, of course, I didn't have much choice, but I'm only doing training until I'm ready to go out into the field." She takes a long gulp of wine and savours the taste as it lingers on her taste buds. When she swallows, she catches his eye and smiles, the corners of her mouth creased with red. "So, if I don't severely maim another agent, I'll be good to go."
"Don't say it like that," Steve replies, giving her that look again that was just a little too honest. He saw the good in her, but it always feels like he forgets the bad. "You know you won't do that, Lusine, you're not like that anymore."
"Like what?" She laughs emptily, shaking her head as the marble cracks, the wisps of hair fluttering at her cheeks. "Not a murderer? Not a silver-tongued bitch with a spear?"
"You know you've changed," He says, sterner than she'd ever heard him speak to her before. Frustration was evident in the way his voice appears to rise a level in order to meet her straining volume. "If you hadn't, you wouldn't be here. You'd be imprisoned on Asgard for your crimes."
There is something in the way he holds her gaze that tells her he believes everything he's saying. And that she should believe him too. Her hardened expression softens into that of folded silk, fit for a new born baby.
"Steve," She says gently, appealing to him, and sets down her wine. She shuffles across the counter until he stands before her, having turned to face her in the rise of her voice. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to take it out on you. I just... lose it sometimes and it's just another flaw on a long list, I suppose."
"It's okay, I know you don't mean it," He replies, eyes wandering across every inch of her face for any wavering emotions. "You may have hurt a lot of people in your past, but you're not that woman anymore, Lusine. You're trying to be a better person and, so far, you're succeeding, don't you think?" He steps a little closer and places a comforting hand on her knee, wishing he could do more to console her deepest and darkest thoughts.
"So far so good, I suppose," She says, rattling out the well known saying with even a little element of pride, though it was still overshadowed by her self-doubt.
But that was inevitable. It was just how she brought that pride out of the darkness that mattered.
She stares at him for a moment, heart in her mouth, as she wonders what he's thinking. Beyond what he's saying. She didn't think him a liar, but still she wants to know more. Maybe it would take him time to say it and that was okay. She can wait.
"Thank you." She lifts her hands onto his shoulders, her head lilting to the side, ear to her shoulder as she beams a toothy smile at him. "What would I do without you, Steve?"
"I think you'd be just fine," He responds, his thumb gliding across her kneecap and sending tingles all up her thigh.
Silently, she hopes that they're on the same page. That she isn't misleading him in any shape or form. The last thing she wants to do is hurt him or let this bond they'd formed melt away through misunderstandings of each other's feelings for the other.
Lusine was in no position to lose anymore people in her life. Losing Steve would be a blow she wasn't sure she could ever recover from, even now. Even before any romantic connections beyond the playful kisses they'd shared out of getting lost in moments come too soon. She just wants everything to run smoothly. For this to be plain sailing. Not another recipe for heartache. No, she couldn't stomach that again.
-
-
Two glasses of red wine and an entire Star Wars movie later, Lusine's cheeks were blushing with colour from the alcohol stirring into her system and her eyes were growing heavier and heavier by the second.
"Maybe we should go to sleep," Lusine proposes sleepily, her dark eyelashes fluttering against the slight hollows of her eyes. "I've got my first day helping train tomorrow." She taps her fingers against his knee. "I need to be refreshed because who knows what they're going to try."
"They won't try anything," Steve tells her, watching her fingers halt in their tap and begin to trace circles just above his joint. "They're disciplined men and women, not school children."
Her hand flattens on the inside of his leg as she glances up at him. "You'd be surprised how childish trainees can be," She says and pulls her hand back into her own lap. Her head rests back against the cushion and she sighs, closing her vibrant eyes from him.
All she wants to do is be near him, talk with him, touch him. Not even intimately. Just the brush of the shoulders whilst sitting together, the occasional touch of the hands, the lingering scent of his cologne on her body when she leaves him.
But, at the same time, she didn't want him to feel pressured to do anything at all with her. If he just wants to drink wine, watch a movie and relax, then that's what she would do.
A hand clamps on her shoulder. "Are you falling asleep already?" He asks, laughing at her as she blinks her eyes open to glare at him from waking her as she'd just begun to doze off. He takes the empty glass from her hand and puts it on the table for her.
"No refills?" She asks, giving him the eyes to tempt him into giving in to her whim.
"I thought you were tired?" Steve questions, leaning back on the sofa and facing her with a sharp grin. One sharp enough to cut through solid blocks of ice to result in the most beautiful ice sculpture the world had ever seen.
Lusine swallows as she commits that expression to memory.
"I am tired," she replies, holding her hands in her lap as he sits innocently closely to her, "but you won't let me go to sleep. I might as well enjoy myself with a little more wine."
He rests his head on his hand, elbow braced on the top of the sofa, the credits playing in the background. He watches her pour half a glass more before settling back beside him, though he found the further distance between them strange.
Lusine looks at him with eyes that had charmed so many to bed before him over the top of the glass as she takes a long gulp of the crimson liquid, and he can't look away as they hypnotise him without her even batting an eyelid.
She lowers the glass and offers a smile to him upon wine-stained lips. "You can't look a me like that and not tell me what you're thinking, Steve," She says, making it known that he had not gone unnoticed.
He glances away from her for a moment, gathering his thoughts to be completely honest to her. To say it in a way where she didn't doubt his truths like he knew she was extremely likely to do.
When he cuts his eyes back, she's already waiting to meet him. "I was thinking about you," He tells her, unashamed. "That you're too hard on yourself. That you don't need to worry about your scars and that you don't need to bother with your illusions." The corner of his mouth quirks up. "Especially not with me."
For once in her life, Lusine Volkov's mouth is parted out of speechlessness. Only slightly; enough to see the pink of her tongue and its movement as she sought the words to reply.
"Thank you, Steve," She, at last, manages to say. She puts the glass down, occupied elsewhere. "I... I wasn't expecting that." She smiles quickly and stands from the seat. "I'm going to get changed for bed," Lusine announces, dipping away before he can say anything else.
She swipes her bag from the hall and takes it with her into the bathroom. After splashing her face with cold water and patting her skin dry, she changes from her shirt and trousers into a simple, plum nightgown. Though she really did want to go to sleep, this was evidently her moment alone to recollect her thoughts after what Steve had admit to her.
Nothing about what he'd said was horrible or provoking as she'd become accustomed to in many of her previous relationships. Even the beautiful Regina had a sharp tongue when she wanted to. And Loki... He was perhaps the worst of them all in the height of their involvement with one another.
Steve wasn't anything like either of them and that alone was terrifying. She knew how to handle a romance with people like those of her past, but someone like him was an entirely different hole to fall down.
And, even in her thoughts of worry, she knows she won't regret tumbling into that pit. Nothing about him could ever be regretted to her. He was a good man and, for many, a man she did not deserve.
Maybe she should prove them wrong. Show them that she deserved him, or, at the very least, deserved to be genuinely loved.
With one more deep breath, she was composed. She stuffs her old clothes into the bag and emerges from the bathroom.
Steve waits for her outside and, as soon as she realises his presence, says, "I'm really sorry if I upset you, Lusine, I didn't know—"
"You didn't upset me," She reassures him. "It was just a surprise, that's all." With a pat on his arm, she slips away into the bedroom to dump her bag and climb into bed.
She lies awake on her side, staring into the darkness until the door creaks open and Steve enters. Lusine watches him cross the room and get into the bed beside her without saying a word.
As soon as he settles into comfort, she moves closer to him, her head on the edge of her pillow, dark curls sprawling out behind her. "Steve," She begins quietly, catching his attention. He'd clearly assumed she'd already be asleep by now. "You really didn't upset me, I promise."
He rolls onto his side to face her. "Good," He says, "and I would never want to."
"I know," her hand snakes up and presses onto his broad chest. Quietly, she's impressed, but tucks that thought away before it can evolve into something more. "And you know I would never intentionally hurt you either."
"I know," He replies, repeating her former agreement.
When she feels his fingers venture onto her waist and linger there, she smiles through the dark at him, thankful of his trust in her. Nothing about him was rough and ready, but she admires his tenderness and the change of pace he gifts her.
Though his hand does grip her a little tighter when her hand glides up to splay her fingers across his cheek, thumb brushing across his lips. Nothing about him resists when she leans forwards and kisses him briefly. Only a short kiss, intended as a goodnight kiss. Short but sweet, she supposes, and sweet enough to give him a sweet tooth as he lifts her chin up and reconnects her lips with his as if this was all they'd ever been born for.
Lusine can't help but smile against his mouth as it moulds into hers. Slowly and passionately. Far from the high intensity she was used to and yet this was completely and utterly perfect. Everything about it was right. Between her fingers pushing into his hair to his one hand at her jaw and the other at her waist, both holding her close.
And, when it comes to its end, both left with swollen lips and heavy breathing, he didn't let go. Instead, he more than welcomed her as she wraps herself into his embrace and presses a kiss just below his ear.
Nothing more needs to be said as both drift into sleep, craving more, but knowing waiting is for the best and wondering how much this changed.
-
4047 words
12.9.18
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