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Footfalls pounding, heart pumping, Steve rides the momentum, sailing through the crisp air on his morning jog. A steady pace like this feels almost effortless, like he could go on forever and run off the violet edge of the horizon; he never quite forgets to appreciate it, when for so many years a run might end in a strangling bout of asthma or simple flat-out exhaustion, when less than three weeks ago, surprised to wake up at all, he opened bleary eyes to find Sam sitting beside his hospital bed. He's in a holding pattern now, working back to his full strength as he waits for Natasha to escape the Senate subcommittee and get back to him, but even a holding pattern can be used constructively.
So Steve enjoys his run, and the serene dawn-lit surroundings, and Sam up ahead, his pumping arms sleekly muscled, his long thighs flexing gracefully through loose jogging pants. These days Sam tracks him without any help, so they usually just trade grins when Steve passes him, though sometimes Steve tosses out an encouraging comment to make sure Sam's still in the game.
This time, however, Sam nods and says, "Ten o'clock." A little puzzled, a little wary, Steve glances to his ten, and sees --
A silky black ponytail bouncing along a sleeveless blue top, squared shoulders and long, toned, richly tan arms. The hair's almost waist-length on the slender figure, but the shapely rear seems a little too narrow… oh. Steve jogs abreast, facing straight ahead and watching from the corner of his eye, and finds himself running past a lovely young man with a high-bridged nose and hooded eyes, clearly lost in whatever he's listening to through his earbuds.
Wow. Worth seeing, ponytail and all, though Steve feels a little bad to just stare at someone without even the excuse of his sketchbook, and even then he asks first if he has the chance. He looks up to make sure he doesn't run anyone over, at the morning light rising from violet to gold, and at Sam steadily jogging ahead. Steve watches him run, of course, each long swinging stride between the weightless moments when he's entirely in the air, but as he comes up alongside Steve draws a breath to say --
Sam flashes him a bright grin and puffs, "Three-thirty."
Steve rolls his eyes. He's not going to turn and stare ostentatiously at some jogger just minding their own business. He thinks that right up until he rounds a curve, automatically scans the few figures on the path, and spots her. She has to be the one Sam meant, with her springy step and sweet jiggle, her pink and purple outfit setting off her deep amber skin. Even the wisps of hair escaped from her bun bounce with each stride, to say nothing of -- Steve feels his head turning and keeps his nose pointed forward, but he can't not watch from the corner of his eye as he runs past the vivacious girl. She's smiling to herself, full lips shiny mauve, and her breasts' weighty bounce brings to mind how they might feel soft and heavy on his palms.
Steve pulls his gaze straight ahead and kicks his run up a gear so his calves burn a little and he leaves the bouncy woman far behind. He doesn't even know her, he reminds himself, and concentrates on the steady pound of his feet, the swing of his arms, the air rushing into his lungs and over his skin. By the time he catches up to Sam he feels steady again, swept clean by the cool breeze, and he intends to run by without looking, to just lightly brush Sam's arm as he goes.
He looks. Sam winks, and says, "Twelve o'clock."
"What?" Steve asks, but his pace has already carried him past. He probably shouldn't look, but he does.
Her ash blonde hair is short and silky-straight, her outfit form-fitting black from elbows to knees, but what Steve really notices first are her calves, broad and beautifully toned. She has sturdy thighs to match, broad hips and shoulders and strong thick forearms, porcelain skin over defined muscles, her fists closed firmly and her hair tossing with each stride. She looks like she could bench-press him, he wouldn't mind trying his strength against hers, and that's far enough and more to think about a woman he doesn't know. Still, as he passes her she glances sideways at him with clear dark eyes, neither smiling nor aloof but simply aware, and he thinks of Natasha and of Peggy, strong and alert.
Steve holds his head high as he runs by Sam and doesn't let himself react to the baritone puff of laughter behind him. The two other attractive joggers aren't in view, but the blonde woman is rounding the curve of the reflecting pool, her stride long and even, her gaze on the distance. As he passes her again Steve remembers an early morning at Camp Lehigh, before dawn when most of the guys in his barracks were still asleep; he looked out the window for the sunrise and saw Peggy, running in soft slacks, graceful as a poem, early enough to be alone. She'd been Agent Carter to him then, and he watched her out of sight and waited by the window for her to pass again, watching her every step. He would've waited for a third lap too but reveille sounded, and his musings almost lead him into a fencepost before he snaps out of his memories and watches where he's going.
* * *** * *
When Steve finds Sam, waiting for him beneath their tree, he's greeted with, "So, what'd you think?" as Sam reaches up.
"About what?" Sam's hand curls around Steve's, warm and strong, and as he pulls Sam to his feet he's briefly tempted to hang on, but this is a public place and, well, there's still a lot he's not sure about, so he lets go.
Sam gently bumps shoulders but makes no move to reclaim Steve's hand as they walk back to the new bike. "Come on, Rogers. You like any of them?"
Steve gives Sam what was meant to be a quelling look. Sam just grins. Steve shrugs, feeling the shift and flex of his shoulders, good as new -- just yesterday he could still feel an itchy ghost of the stab wound. Sam gives him an expectant eyebrow, bright eyes lighting Steve up inside, and he has to glance away for a moment as he grins. "They're all attractive, but I thought we were running, not sightseeing."
Sam's answer to that is the disbelieving look Steve has to admit he deserves. "When I know for a fact you notice your fellow joggers." To punctuate the point he glances back over his shoulder at the tree where Steve found him, just now and at their first meeting.
Palms out, Steve concedes, and Sam's laugh tingles through him to his toes. "All right, Wilson, are you working on figuring out my type or something?" Sam should know it by now. "You could just ask Natasha, she thinks she knows."
"She told me to ask you myself," is the eyebrow-raising reply. "Just trying to get an idea of what you like, man." Steve blinks on hearing that, and regards Sam's bright smile and attentive eyes a little more closely. They walk in tandem like they've been side by side forever, but a month ago Steve was a lonely soldier who didn't know Sam Wilson.
The least he can do is try to answer properly. "I like … people," Steve starts, which earns him a derisive snort. "Okay, I know. I like people who are upright, brave, valiant. Dynamic. Who don't just stand still. I..." Figuring he's been more than obvious enough, his cheeks starting to heat with more than sunshine, Steve winds up his pathetic attempt.
Sam folds his arms and appears to have not taken the hint, but Steve's been learning he's got a good poker face. "Yeah, but what do you like to look at?"
"People worth drawing," is the first answer, which Steve follows up with, "Not that I want to go around staring like some masher."
"Oh, I have no intention of making anyone uncomfortable. I just want to make sure you don't miss the sights, especially out here among people who aren't standing still."
That deserves a tease in return, but Steve thinks of bodies in motion and remembers Peggy again, running in the blue morning, smiling approvingly at him. "Peggy once told me I was the only American she'd met whom she'd never seen leer at a woman," he murmurs, half to himself.
Sam hums an impressed noise. "Agent Peggy Carter," he says, "the woman who founded SHIELD. I wrote my junior history paper on her."
Last week Steve went to see Peggy, and she smiled a little at the sound of his voice but never opened her eyes. He sat watching her sleep for an hour, looking past her crinkled skin to the lines of the face he first saw so long ago. "Thanks, sonny," he says at the reminder of how old he really is, probably a little more bitterly than he should.
Sam gets it, though. "I can see why her comment made an impression."
"Yeah," Steve agrees, helpless before memories more vivid than everything around him except Sam. "She made an impression, from the first time I saw her. My first morning at Camp Lehigh she briefed my group of recruits on the SSR, and as I listened I just wanted to, to draw her or paint her, her gleaming hair and perfect red lips and polished -- everything, to carry her image with me forever. " They've reached the bike, but Steve's not done, the scene almost a vision before him. "Then this big lout, there's always one or a few around, he calls her 'Queen Victoria' and gives her some lip. She just nods calmly, has him step forward, and drops him with one straightforward punch."
Sam whistles appreciatively, and the memory of Peggy standing in the sunlight with Hodge whimpering at her feet fades as Steve sees the present again, as Sam nods knowingly. "She was definitely your type," he says, leaning against the bike. "And you were hers. Your name comes up more often in her autobiography than her husband's and Howard Stark's combined. I counted."
Steve smiles, shaking his head, and leans on his bike as well, and not coincidentally on Sam's side, shoulder to shoulder and thigh alongside thigh. "She was," he agrees. "Earning her good regard meant everything to me."
Sam gently nudges his elbow into Steve's bicep. "Tell me about her while I make breakfast," he more-than-asks, and Steve nods and gets on the bike. Sam settles behind him, pressing warm to his back and wrapping strong arms around his waist, and as Steve starts the engine he thinks of Peggy, feels Sam, and smiles.
* * *** * *
The next morning, after a lap or five, Steve decides to try something. It's more like a jolting sort of fast walk than a jog, which he is absolutely going to point out, perhaps using a metaphor involving molasses or snails or roadkill, but he keeps his pace slow enough to match Sam's and slots in behind him, far enough away to not be heard and close enough to watch closely.
Sam's posture was the first thing Steve ever noticed about him, a thing of upright beauty, back straight and head held high. Many people run head-down as if to batter the air out of their way, but Sam slips through it, trusting it to part around him and carry him. Today he's wearing the weathered olive green tee Steve handed him while they were interfering with each other's getting dressed, and his shoulders surge handsomely under the straining cloth, the thin shirt clinging to the planes of his back and the furrow of his spine where Steve's fingertips fit perfectly. He could run up now and lay a hand right above Sam's waistband or an arm across his shoulders, and Sam would grin and elbow him gently and lean into his touch. He could … but it's so open here, exposed and public, and he doesn't.
Instead Steve hangs back and watches how Sam's full firm rear flexes with each footfall, the bunch and stretch of his long legs, how he launches from the ground time and again. He thinks about the figure studies he could do of Sam, from the side, looking back over one shoulder, or leaning into a three-quarters view, about asking for permission to draw some nudes. Sam would probably be fine with that, but Steve's not sure he could keep his hands on the pad and paper, and he's going to make it hard for himself to run if he keeps thinking along these lines.
Up ahead, Sam glances sideways, and Steve dodges into his blind spot. Sam starts looking around in earnest, and Steve concentrates on weaving back and forth to keep from dashing up to tackle him, at least until Sam turns all the way around, jogging backwards with careless ease. He glances quickly to each side, gauging the possible audience, gives Steve a wide laughing grin and both middle fingers, spins and sprints for it.
Steve takes a deeper drag of the warm air. "You call that running?" he calls, letting himself loose, full speed through the sunshine.
"Yeah, we ordinary folks do!" Sam tosses over his shoulder, running like a thoroughbred and waiting to be caught. "Come on!"
There's nothing ordinary about Sam, Steve doesn't say as he catches up. Instead he shouts, "On your left!" As Sam turns leftwards Steve grabs him from the right, wrapping both arms around his waist to lift him clear of the fence as he tosses them backwards onto the grass. The ground's a friendly back-slap, Sam tumbles over in his arms, and they roll a few times in a laughing tangle, green landscape and blue sky spinning behind Sam's smile.
Steve's atop when they stop, Sam's belly and thighs pressed firmly to his, Sam's hands tight on his shoulders. "That was a dirty trick," Sam pretends to complain, and Steve wants to brush imaginary grass off his forehead, cup his face in both hands and lean in.
"That's not how you say 'successful maneuver'." Instead Steve tips off Sam onto his side, preparing to get them back onto the paved path. After all, they really shouldn't be on the fenced-off grass.
Sam's lips part, but he tips his head back, looking up as he murmurs, "Oh, hel-lo," and instead of watching his neck arch Steve follows the line of his gaze.
A girl's watching them, laughing brightly at them, tall and sleek and stunning. All Steve can think of at first is drawing her draped on a chair, how the light would flow down her velvety brown skin. She glows in the sunshine, a cloud of brown-black curls framing her face, her gold hoop earrings swinging as she shakes her head. Her lipstick's red and shiny as Peggy wore, and Steve wonders if it would taste as sweet and waxy off her full lips; her eyes are as dark as Sam's and big enough to tell their color from this distance, her burgundy sleeve flutters as she waves, still laughing, stepping back into her run.
Sam waves back, propped up on his elbow, and Steve tears his attention from the woman, storing up the sight of her, to look at Sam beside him. Sam returns his gaze with a jaunty smile, bottomless eyes sparkling, shoulders broad and sturdy, tee pulled taut enough to show the gleaming dip of his throat, and for a breath or two Steve just looks as intently as he can, memorizing Sam in this moment.
Then he leans forward, curving his hand behind Sam's neck, and kisses him in front of God and anyone else who's watching, under the open sky. Sam 'mmphs!' but his mouth softens tenderly under Steve's, he tilts his head into Steve's grip and pushes forward into the kiss, warming Steve to the soles of his feet and the roots of his hair.
Eventually Sam pushes away, his hand lightly flattened on Steve's chest, and Steve lets him go. "What was that for?" he asks, eyebrows up in scandalized delight.
Steve's first reply is just a bashful grin as he shifts into a crouch, reaching out with both hands. Sam folds both hands into his, looking steadily at him with that bright, clear gaze, and as Steve pulls them up together he lets himself answer fully, "For being my type."