Work Text:
“Maria.” Steve’s voice was soft, eyes doing that plaintive thing that could make a woman’s insides turn over.
It was a question, no assumptions on the answer. Are you okay? It was warmth hidden under a thick layer of the professional, personal wrapped under their own reserve.
Maria straightened her stack of papers with a sharp thwack against the conference room table. There was nothing pretty about the mess of legal work they were digging through in preparation for the first drafts of the Accords. Heading off trouble at the pass had always been Fury’s bailiwick. Maria preferred being on the frontlines of trouble that had already arrived.
She looked up at that perfectly stoic expression, faint question in his expressive eyebrows. She debated within herself whether to answer professionally or...
“Not now.” The polite, curt please went unstated. Somehow both of them knew better than to get hung up on outward expressions of feelings.
He simply nodded and took his leave like the soldier he was.
She hated this tension of impending disaster, the way it snapped so hard between Stark and Steve whenever they shared a room right now and the topic of conversation turned even remotely toward peace, security, the future of the Avengers. Steve was still the boss, but Stark was still the underwriter.
Maria didn’t wait to go out and lock up before she had her phone out and was calling Pepper. It was a long hallway. Pepper had picked up before Maria hit the elevator door.
“That good, huh?” Pepper’s voice held a wry undertone and Maria could hear the clicking of keys in the background ambience.
“Still at work?” she countered, feeling a returning smile of her own before it was wiped away in a sigh.
Pepper’s typing paused. “I suppose it’s been a long day for both of us.”
That hummed between them, tense and silent, for a long moment. By mutual agreement, they didn’t say why or who was involved and responsible. It struck Maria momentarily that their significant others were spearheading two sides of an argument with no foreseeable peaceful conclusion.
“How about drinks?” Maria asked.
Pepper huffed out a tired sigh, but it sounded like she’d smiled. “That sounds great.”