chuju | the shield across time

It wasn't convincing in the slightest, but Steve took the seat he'd asked for all the same. A kind gesture deserved a moment of acknowledgement, even if he doubted that she wanted it. No one sent drinks and didn't at least watch them delivered if they wanted to be thanked for it.

"That was a nice thing you did for those boys," he noted, not so much as glancing in the rowdy group's direction, trusting that she knew exactly what and who he was referring to. She didn't strike him as thick. "You don't want to join them?"

Not that Steve could blame her. That was a little much for him, too. Hell, his own unit was a little much for him sometimes and they were all his closest friends. The men he trusted his life to. But Steve wasn't one for big shindigs or getting rowdy in a pub. He was more a quiet round of drinks to celebrate, if anything at all, and usually only the big things that really deserved it like tonight was. Some nights, it felt like they'd come to a turning point in the war - though the brass were probably holed up in their meetings saying the opposite.

He'd noticed. She shouldn't be surprised by it, she's heard more than a few stories about his skills in perception and strategy, yet it still catches her slightly off-guard. Already, she's slipping into the mentality of being anonymous and alone, wrapping it like armor around her fragile heart, and then here he comes sauntering up and calling her out.

Ripples, not waves. Those words have never been more important than they are right now.

"They don't need my help to enjoy themselves," she informs him with a smaller smile, one that's a little more real this time even if it's also a little sadder. It's a risk to show even this much of herself, Daisy knows, but... Well, she's just too tired to hide everything from him. "They deserve this tonight, and I'm not very good company these days."

"Did you lose someone?" It wasn't really Steve's place to pry. He knew that, but the words came out before he could even think to stop them. He was just going to have to hope that he didn't put her off completely; most folks were okay talking about those sorts of things these days anyway. It was just a fact of life, something that just about everyone had gone through or was going through, something people had in common. They could commiserate, lean on a stranger for a few minutes. In some strange ways, the worst brought people together.

A part of Steve wished it could be that way without the pain that went with it, but he was no stranger to harsh realities and he wasn't naïve.

Maybe, though, just for a minute between him and a strange woman with a surprisingly American accent in a London pup, the world could be a place where strangers did something nice just for the sake of it and could be an ear or a shoulder. At least as long as it took for Dum Dum to completely abandon Steve. At which point he'd be just as likely to get into trouble as he was to do something kind.

Damn, he really is perceptive. He's got the wrong idea, of course, but he's not that off. And really, there's no way even he could guess that she's from the future and missing her team while worrying about the fate of the entire planet. He might be the world's first super soldier, fighting an evil scientist who looked like a sundried tomato, but somehow she has the feeling that time travel and alien robots might ring a little too heavily of the fiction side of science-fiction for him.

Still, she can't lie to him, not about this. Even just the idea of it feels wrong. So she's quiet for a moment, fingertips tracing the rim of her glass, before she nods slightly, her perfectly curled hair bobbing with the motion.

"I lost everyone," she answers softly, keeping her gaze firmly on her drink. Once those three words are out, more demand to be set free, and for once she doesn't fight it. So long as she's careful, what hard could it do? "My mom. My dad. The first man who ever loved me..."

Her response gave him a lot more questions than it did answers, but it really wasn't his place. Steve didn't know this woman; he couldn't just tell her to tell him everything, get it off her chest, and he couldn't make any assurances about things being okay even if he wanted to. He didn't know they would be. But he can't not say something, not try to offer whatever little comfort is in his power to give.

"No wonder you're treating that drink like it's your last." Maybe he wasn't exactly what anyone would call good with words. Or people. Or talking to people. But his heart was in the right place. "I won't do the 'it'll get better' thing; I'm sure you've heard it enough already." He'd heard it enough times himself, years ago when he'd lost the last of his family. And that didn't even begin to compare to what she'd lost. At least Steve had still had Bucky.

"But, if you're feeling up to remembering them," he paused to thank the bartender when his drink arrived to him, lifted his glass in her direction, "I've got some time. I don't think my friend over there's going to be looking for me any time soon."

In their line of work, any drink could be their last. Every day, there's a new fight, another close call, too many friends lost, and the only way she gets through it is by not thinking about it. Because once she starts down that path, she just ends up drowning in it all. There's too much pain in her past, too much guilt and sadness; it's better to just not deal than risk losing against the strength of her own grief.

Leaning forward, she rests her forearms on the bar, missing the comforting long sleeves she usually wears. She feels so exposed in this dress, even if it does help her blend right in with the crowd. A deep breath, in and out, and then she turns slightly in her seat to better face him.

"Growing up, I never knew my parents," she tells him quietly, letting the words out carefully so she doesn't say something she shouldn't. There's hesitation in her voice that she hopes is mistaken for the trepidation of baring your heart to a total stranger. "I don't have things to remember about them because I didn't know them until I was grown, and then it was only a few weeks before I lost them."

She was grieving, that was clear as day, and there wasn't really a damn thing Steve could offer to make it any easier for her except to listen. That hardly seemed like enough, as sad as she looked and as much as it seemed like she'd been through. In not a very long time by the sounds of it. Losing both her parents so soon after finding them had to be tough; he didn't remember his own father at all and that helped, having years of memories of his mother did too.

It might have been easier on her if she'd never met her parents at all, but bad with people as Steve might be, he wasn't dumb enough to come out and say something so tactless.

"Sorry," he offered instead, the polite thing to say. "Did they get caught in the bombings?" It would have made sense if they had been, it would explain what she was doing in London, if she'd come looking for them and the timing had just couldn't have been worse. The other option was worse; if they'd been on the continent, gotten caught in any number of raids or battles or bombings, any part of the path of destruction the war had caused.

They were all grieving, an entire world mourning together each night before waking up the next day to continue fighting. It's so much, so incredibly overwhelming to look around and see what's happening... and not be able to do a damn thing about it. There are moments when Daisy wants to scream and leave the timeline in shreds, marching out onto the front and ending this war herself if only to save these people from all the suffering ahead.

But she can't. All she can do is sit here and wait, pretending to be someone she's not with a man who deserves better than that.

So, a little more truth than lie this time.

"No, it wasn't the bombings," she tells him with a small shake of her head. "It's complicated and I can't exactly... It was HYDRA. What happened to my family is the reason I joined the SSR."

Those last words still taste like ash on her tongue, the lie a bitter reminder of everything she's lost and is trying to get back to. But there's still enough truth in it to make it an easy sell.

The truth of it was something of a surprise. The SSR was far from a small organization, and Steve would never think that he'd cross paths with everyone in it, but it still somehow seemed strange to him to have never seen her, especially since she had such a personal reason to hate the very people he spent his time hunting down. Something didn't sit quite right but again, he couldn't put his finger on it. He'd attribute it to this woman being unique, different, and leave it at that until he had some kind of indication he should do otherwise.

"Wish I could've saved them for you," he offered, the same as he'd do for any family member of someone he hadn't gotten to on time. It didn't always feel like he was doing much good when he looked at that side. "You ever thought about asking to be transferred back home?"

It might be easier on her to be stateside, rather than in the thick of things. It sounded like running to Steve but he wouldn't blame anyone for doing it.

Ah yes, the guilt of never being able to do as much as you think you should. Daisy knows it all too well. Survivor's guilt mixed with what some might call a savior complex, but it's so much more complicated than that. The world is at war, whether it's one the world knows about (in his case) or one that's kept out of the public eye (as in her time), and that changes thing. Plus, look at them. He has the super serum flowing through his veins and she's... Well. The point is that neither of them would ever feel right letting someone else fight the battles that they could handle.

"The SSR is my home," she tells him with a little shrug of her shoulders, meaning every word of it for SHIELD. "I don't know who I am without it and I'm not ready to find out. This is where the fight is, so this is where I'm staying."

He understood exactly where she was coming from. He was exactly the same way. If Steve hadn't felt like he needed to be a part of the fight, to do exactly what so many other men had signed up to do, he wouldn't have become who he had. He'd still be short and skinny and sick. And he'd be feeling like he was useless, stuck at home doing nothing while his best friend risked his life. This was better by a long shot, even if he still wound up feeling like he wasn't doing enough.

Steve probably wouldn't ever feel like he was doing enough.

"Well, can't say I don't know where you're coming from." He was going to be in the war until it was over, no matter what happened. "Does the work help?" Doing something to occupy her mind, keeping busy. They were things he'd been told to do with his grief in the past. How much it had worked, he didn't really know, but it was better than doing nothing.

Doing something is better than doing nothing, which is why the present circumstances have left Daisy nothing short of miserable. There isn't anything she can do without risking the timeline or the possibility of ever seeing her team again.

"It was," she acknowledges with a nod, turning slightly in her seat to better face him, leaning an elbow against the bartop. It might not be the proper pose for a woman of this time period but she'll play the uncultured American card if she has to. "I'm kind of cooling my heels right now, though, which hasn't been easy. I'm used to always doing things and the waiting has been... pretty terrible, honestly."

That definitely wasn't a very lady-like thing she did, definitely didn't quite fit, but Steve was figuring that was just the way this woman was and now that he knew she was SSR he just attributed it to the work. A lot of people who worked for the organization were a bit off, himself included. Someone probably had to be a little bit on the strange side to even believe the kinds of things they encountered. Again, Steve included.

He'd always say he was the most unbelievable thing he'd ever seen.

"This might not be the best place to spend your down time if you're cooling your heels," he noted, glancing toward the door as another rowdy group of servicemen came in, already a little too drunk to be be making a good impression of themselves. "A woman alone here, tonight? Someone might think you're looking for trouble."

Not Steve, of course; he wasn't the sort to make assumptions just because a girl was on her own, but he also knew how most people thought. And dissuading any unwanted advances seemed as good a reason as any to keep sitting with her.

The same could definitely be said for SHIELD agents in the future. Sure, there were a few straight-laced no-nonsense boring types here and there, but they were definitely the minority. The rest of them were weird, either by virtue of being tech nerds or ridiculously smart, highly skilled at dealing with the strange and unusual or being one of the strange and unusual. Daisy herself checked a couple of those boxes.

She glances toward the door as well, eyeing a few of the men before turning her attention back to Steve with a dismissive single-shouldered shrug. "If anyone decides to think that, then I'll make sure they find some of that trouble they're assuming I'm looking for."

There's no hesitation or worry in her voice, not even a hint of either in her expression. She's at ease, confident, and completely unconcerned at the prospect of any of those drunk apes bothering her.

"Not to make light of your skills, Miss, but you don't look like you could do much to anyone."

Which absolutely did not mean that he didn't think she'd try anyway if she needed to. Nor that he would say anything about it if she did. He couldn't even begin to count the number of hopeless fights he'd been in, some for a whole lot less than fending off a couple of jerks. And maybe there was more to her than there looked; it was pretty clear she thought there was if nothing else. Fearless, he'd say she was if he knew her any better or judged only by the look on her face.

It struck him that what interested him so much about her was how alike they seemed to be. He'd approached her without knowing it, or even knowing why he was doing it at all, but every little bit he learned while they talked was like talking to a prettier version of himself. The story was different, but the heart was the same. In as much as it could gather in a noisy bar within a few minutes.

The look she gives him could be described as offended if it weren't for the amusement in her eyes. Seriously? Captain America is telling Quake he doesn't think she can throw a punch? "Ouch."

That amusement grows as she takes another sip of her beer, a smile blooming into existence. She almost wishes she could show him just how wrong he is about her. Hell, she wishes May was here to help correct his opinion. The two of them sparring would blow his 1940s mind.

Maybe it's the turn of the conversation or the company, but she can feel her spirits lifting, miraculously. So, she leans into it, letting good-natured humor and a little flirtation slip into her tone just for the hell of it. "Really, Captain. You, of all people, should know better than to judge a book by its cover."

Steve, dummy he's always been known to be, wouldn't recognize flirting if it kicked him in the nose. But it was nice to see her smile, a bit of the sadness gone from her eyes. Maybe he was successful in drawing out a bit of who she normally was, without the grief and loneliness haunting her. Someone who, if he didn't know better, could have been the right sort of person for him.

"Alright, alright," he chuckled softly, one hand raising in surrender. "There's more to you than meets the eye." That was always the case, and normally it came back to bite him. He definitely wasn't going to go putting her word to the test, and not just because she was a woman either.

"Seems like you've got me at quite the disadvantage, you know. I haven't even asked your name." Which, okay, was remiss of him, definitely less than completely polite, but she seemed to know a lot more than just the rank that was pinned to his shoulders. Of course she would; SSR agents were likely all up to date on his entire unit.

At least he's a cute dummy, very much worthy of the adoration of millions for generations to come. With every minute they spend together, she understands more and more what Coulson was always talking about. Steve Rogers was a hero for his actions but he was also a genuinely good man, something which the world is in short supply of in her time. Perhaps in his too, judging by some of the other bar patrons.

"No, you haven't," she acknowledges, the barest hint of playful chiding in the words. "But you know, Captain Rogers, names are important. They can't just be freely given."

Especially for someone like her, who spent a lifetime searching for her own name and has had a dozen others along the way. But she can't exactly tell him all of that, not without divulging secrets that are too dangerous to be let loose in this part of the timeline. Still, she can have a little more fun...

"I've had a few. Make me an offer and maybe I'll tell you one."

"Worried I'm going to do something with it once I have it?" There was a fair amount of teasing in his voice, in his eyes and the tiny quirk of a smile he didn't completely hide. "Are there some sort of Faerie rumors floating around about me?"

It might be a surprise to some, or to most, that Steve actually not only believed in Faeries but was a bit on the superstitious side about them. They were the stories he'd grown up with but it wasn't something about himself that came up too often. Just about only when he purposefully avoided a stone circle on a mission or when he got to crack a joke.

"And does that mean you'd be against me buying another round?" He gestured with his glass, all but empty at this point.

The comment about faeries goes right over Daisy's head. Aside from the very obvious pop culture references, all she can think of are the string of teen books featuring Hot Faeries that seem to be really popular in her time. But since she's pretty sure that's not the sort of thing he's referencing, she's going to guess it's something like the whole Rumplestiltskin thing — which she also doesn't know the details of but she does know it involves names.

Despite not totally getting the joke, she still smiles in response, appreciating the effort he's making, and the fact that he's sitting here with her at all, really. And then he goes and makes that offer and...

"I think another round might just earn you a name," she allows, actually feeling a little charmed by the whole exchange. (How the hell had he managed that?) Holding her hand out to shake his, she finally introduces herself. "Daisy."

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Daisy," he offered kindly, taking her hand in a brief, firm handshake before waving down the bartender for a couple more drinks. A promise, even one not expressed as such, was a promise.

"So, where are you from?" That was a thing people talked about, and it was a kinder thing to ask after than what Steve really wanted to know. He wanted to ask how she'd wound up in the SSR, what had brought her to London, how her family had gotten caught up with Hydra. But he'd successfully distracted her from her grief and the loneliness he'd found her in, it would be cruel to throw her right back into it.

Maybe they'd run into each other another night and he could get the answers he was really after.

It hits her hard just how much she'd missed the touch of another person's hand. She's always been a tactile person with those she cares about, offering friendly or comforting touches whenever they were needed, either by herself or the receiver. These past days without her team, her family, have been full of more loss than even she'd realized.

The handshake now is too brief and she finds her skin cold when she wraps her hand around her glass, lifting it to down the last of her drink. She's definitely going to need another.

"I've kind of been all over the place for the last ten years or so," she answers, again choosing her words carefully while purposefully keeping her tone easy and casual. The spy's life has always come easily to her. "But I grew up in New York City."

"You don't say?" He wouldn't have pegged her as from the City. The same city he'd grown up in, though if anyone was to ask him Brooklyn was a unique spot, shouldn't be lumped in with the rest of the boroughs. "What part?"

It was too much of a coincidence that they'd come from the same place, or had been neighbors as it were. If Steve didn't know any better, he'd be suspicious. A woman who happened to be so much like him, had the same hometown, who had done something kind for the men he served with to catch his attention. It seemed too good to be true. But Daisy hadn't given any reason for him to doubt her sincerity. No tell of lying or trying to coax him in, not as far as he could see at any rate.

If any of his guys were still with him, he knew they'd be telling him he was too naïve, too trusting, and that any woman that seemed too good to be true was. But on his own, Steve would never have more than a passing thought about it. Rather, he was genuinely interested and probably too trusting.

He really was far too trusting. She's lying to him with every breath and he's just being a charming good guy, trying to help a total stranger through a moment of grief. It makes her feel even guiltier about those lies she's expertly weaving with the truth, but all it takes is a reminder of what's at stake to have her pushing that guilt aside.

It's only one conversation. One single night that he'll likely forget entirely with everything that's to come. She just needs to get through this without messing up too much and everything will be fine.

"Lower Manhattan," she answers, having no idea if it was referred to as Hell's Kitchen in this time. He's from Brooklyn, she knows that from all of Coulson's fanboy history lessons, so it's best not to risk saying something too out of character. "At least, that's where the orphanage was. I kind of bounced around the city a lot, going from one foster home to another; I was never in one place for very long."

It was words like orphanage and foster that really struck Steve, ticked yet another box toward her being too good to be true. Orphaned as well, though obviously long before Steve had been, he'd been adult enough to be on his own, and probably grew up just as poor as he had. Manhattan had an image of being the fancy part of the city, a stereotype he'd believe under any circumstance. But Daisy had, maybe, lived a life not so different from his own youth.

"I would've expected the Bronx, I won't hold being from Manhattan against you," he allowed. "But I'll be honest here; my opinion of you's definitely damaged." He was joking, of course, but there was a definite disconnect between all the parts of the city. And those prejudices carried even into a warzone. But all things considered, Daisy had turned out alright despite her origins as far as he could tell. She definitely wasn't the haughty sort of girl he'd have expected.

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