InsaneJournal

Who: Steve and Alice
What: Polite conversation
Where: Between the Marvel door world and the Passages hallway
When: Recently
Warnings/Rating: It's Steve.

The situation with the bugs resolved, Steve was ready to return to Las Vegas. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be useful in New York, or that he didn’t think he was needed, but it was easier for him to deal with everything he’d lost when he was tucked away in the mind of a girl that had it worse than him. It wasn’t cowardly, because Steve was never cowardly, even when hiding from a world that he didn’t know. But the problem with the girl was immediate, and he understood it more than he understood the world behind the door with its mechanical bugs and blond men with hammers. It would take time, getting used to things, and he felt completely alone with everything that was going on . Everyone else chatted like they knew each other, and maybe they did, but Steve didn’t know any of them, and he didn’t know the rules. That’s what bothered him the most, the fact that he didn’t know the rules.

It was coincidence that he opened the door when the dame - Sif - was on the other side. She looked almost the same on one side of the door as the other, so he didn’t have any trouble recognizing her. For some reason, he didn’t walk right on through and let the girl take over. Instead, he stood there with the door opened, and he looked at her, standing in the hallway of the dark hotel. “Looks like you got here before me,” he finally said, staying on his side of the door, blond hair, khaki slacks and a white shirt that announced itself as belong to the Super Soldier Program. He smiled. “Ma’am.”

Alice was lost in thought as she walked through the door. She didn’t often go through the door, the transition both seamless and jarring. Unlike most of the others she had seen, she didn’t go through some dramatic change when she walked through, and Sif never clashed so terribly with her that she was constantly at war with herself. One second she was in charge and then all it took was one step and she was in the backseat.

Sif clung to what was familiar and Alice clung to her, so while through the door their world mostly revolved around the men in Sif’s life. She never strayed from Thor’s side and Loki and worry were never far from her mind. Other than an assessment of the others assembled to handle the bugs – strong, competent, adequate allies – Sif didn’t pay them too much mind. Not yet anyway. When there would be no threat looming then she might give them more thought but it seemed there was always something happening, or at least Alice would only give her control if there was some emergency that needed to be taken care of.

So it was Alice who answered Steve, finally made it through the door back to Vegas and turning to look at him through the doorway. The only change between the women was the clothes. Sif’s armor shifted the moment Alice stepped through and when she heard Steve’s voice she turned on her high heels, the hem of her olive colored shirt dress flaring slightly at the movement. Her life was mostly her work now, not that she minded in the slightest, and she was always dressed impeccably for the occasion now.

“Not really,” she said, shaking her head slightly, taking a moment to look at him now that they weren’t fighting mechanical bugs. “Not very long. And honestly I’m just following Sif’s lead. And she’s just following Thor. And I’m just mentally crossing my fingers that we all don’t end up like Lemmings jumping off of cliff.”

Steve could have crossed back through, but he didn’t. He stayed where he was, separated from the woman in the olive dress by the doorframe. She was pretty, and he acknowledged it with the shy kind of regard that he’d only just learned to put aside when he talked to Peggy. His hands were in his pockets now, arms loose and slightly bent at the elbow, and he thought about her words with a serious expression, one that said that whatever she had to say mattered. He gave off the appearance of being unhurried, because he was used to a much slower life than the one he’d just seen in New York. Her dress was the same color as an old, familiar Army skirt and shirt that he felt like he’d just seen days before, and that made him wanna stay too. “Ya know,” he finally said with a smile that tugged at one side of his mouth, “you aren’t the only one worried about that. I got plenty of concerns about cliffs.” Maybe the bad guys had changed, but it seemed there was still a war on - it just wasn’t his war. Didn’t mean he wasn’t going to end up being a part of it, though. “But it’s gonna take more than some cliffs to run us off, isn’t it?” His smile turned a little more reassuring then, and he was all blue eyes and perfect-American blond. The only thing missing was for his teeth to glint when he smiled. It would have been a good act, a good performance for the stage; but it wasn’t a performance when he did it.

“Hopefully,” the time and she wasn’t due back for a while. She could linger and who wouldn’t want to? He was terribly handsome and earnest, a little too perfect to be real but really the whole situation was a little unreal. She was running around with gods and chasing after comic book villains. She wasn’t going to question or turn down a quiet moment with an honest to goodness All American poster boy. “We just stomped out some mechanical bugs.” There was a slight shudder in her shoulders, Alice’s skin crawling a bit at the thought of the swarms and Sif’s mental eye roll at her delicate backbone. “If a cliff’s going to send anyone home with their tail between their legs, that door world is going to be in a lot of trouble. This just feels like the beginning.”

She shifted slightly, arms folding across her chest as she leaned against her side of the doorframe. “How are you handling it? This.” She kept her word vague, her meaning general. She had been on hand during this bug emergency. She had a vague idea how it felt to suddenly be an Alter, Sif easily supplying that information. And she had general knowledge of his story, as she had seen his movie a while ago. But she wasn’t him, and she was always so terrible curious. And maybe she just wanted to listen to him say tell it, whatever the it he chose.

“I’m afraid it’s always just the beginning,” Steve said, regret in his voice. “Peace doesn’t seem to last for very long. Doesn’t matter the time or the door.” Despite his words, there was something reassuring in his smile. A yes, ma’am and an everything’s going to be just fine, ma’am even if he wasn’t saying it aloud. He leaned against the door’s frame, ever the soldier, not at ease, even with the relaxed pose, and he considered her question. “I’ll be fine,” he said, which was his reply to everyone who had asked at first, but she was standing there in that green dress, and he shook his head a moment later, some raw something crossing that chiseled face. “It was hard waking up in New York,” he admitted. “This is a distraction, which has got to count for something.” It was a positive outlook, maybe, but the positivity didn’t reach his eyes. “It’s easier to be on your side of the door, ma’am,” he finally admitted. “Here, it feels almost like home, while being nothing like it at all, and that brings it all back.” He shrugged, careful not to move beyond the careful barrier of the door. “You holding up alright?” It wasn’t clear which side of the door he was talking about, maybe, but he grinned a little a second later. “Out there. In here, I think you can handle things just fine.”

“She can handle things just fine over there,” Alice gently corrected with a delicate point to the world behind Steve’s shoulder. “This?” She cocked a thumb back towards Vegas with a grin almost as brilliant as his. “This I can handle a little better. Much more boring with the lack of supervillains and mythic beings.” Boring wasn’t exactly what she’d call living in a luxurious suite and working for famed dominatrix, but she wasn’t about to tell tall, blonde, and wholesome that just yet. “Besides, it’s not so much of a change. Vegas and New York. Haven’t gone off to Aswherever. Not yet, anyway” Her smile turned up just a notch as Sif corrected her and Alice refused to voice it. “But at least it’s the same time period. When it’s not randomly a Parisian opera house, of course.”

“It’s all a challenge to me,” he admitted with that same, earnest grin. “In here,” he said, looking back over his shoulder. “I don’t know who to trust, or if we’re even talking the same language. I’m a soldier. I’m used to issuing orders, and I’m used to following orders. I don’t do really good with talking in circles. I like doing, but I don’t know what this fight is, and I don’t have anyone I trust leading it.” He nodded toward the hallway over her shoulder. “Out there, I’m not being really effectual, and I’m not sure I’m the best man for the job.” Being in the mind of a broken, conflicted teenager was something Steve just didn’t get. He was trying, but it wasn’t something that came easy to him. He smiled a fonder, warmer smile at the memory of Peggy telling him he didn’t understand women. He didn’t, and understanding a girl wasn’t any easier, especially one involved in things he found reprehensible. “I liked it better when my biggest concern was figuring out how to ask a dame to dance.”

“Are we all that big, bad and scary?” she laughed, a teasing lilt to her grin. Dame. He called them dames. She couldn’t get over it. “And the people who contacted us aren’t so bad. I would trust them about as far as Sif can throw them, but she also throws pretty damn far. You seem to be a pretty good leader though, and I remember them trying to find someone to step up to the plate?” She added a bit sheepishly. “Maybe that someone should be you. You’ve got experience under that star spangled belt of yours.”

“I’m a soldier,” he replied, enough pride in the world to make it pretty obvious that he was glad to be one, and to finally be able to say he was one. “I’ve done my share of following, and before things fell apart I was leading my own infantry. I got not problem leading men-” pause, “or women. I’m just not interested in following a cause blind. That’s how you end up serving Hydra and Hitler. No, Ma’am, I want to know who’s behind what I’m fighting for. I understand fighting for a flag, that makes sense to me. This isn’t fighting for a flag. It’s fighting for some covert operation with a strange name and women that have never led an Army at the helm.” Another grin, this time sheepish and a little wistful. “Nothing against women in the Army. One of the best agents I’ve ever known is- was a dame” Pause, clarification, “a woman.”

“She must’ve been really something, then.” His continual clarification, as if she wasn’t aware that she was a dame tugged her smile even wider with each turn. She wasn’t a soldier or a fighter. Hell it took a lot of inspiration to hit the gym instead of eating cheese fries. But her Alter was one, and the lines between them were significantly less stark than others, so while she knew was really complimenting Sif, Alice soaked it up all the same. But not for too long. Her phone chirped quietly, an alert that caught her attention long enough to remind her of an upcoming appointment. No military for Alice but duty called all the same.

“Well I’m sure we’ll figure it out somehow. You’re not the only one antsy about not having direction. Soon enough someone’s either going to step up to plate or come out from behind a curtain.” She flashed him a small smile, wondering quietly if he’d catch the reference but there was no time to explain everything. “It was wonderful meeting you. Well, me meeting you,” she gently corrected with a laugh. “I’ll see you around.” And with a gentle wave of her fingers she turned and walked down the corridor out back into the busy streets of Vegas.