Count On Me series- Chapter 2
Chapter summery: Steve makes working overtime a little less grueling with some coffee and teasing- I mean bonding.
warnings: talks of past trauma kind of?, I think that's it, let me know if I missed anything
author's note: Ok. After over a month, I finally finished this last night and edited it today. Sorry that took so much longer than I’d originally planned. I really hope I can get the next part out with some efficiency. Does this count as being called in? Not really but it’s definitely overtime so i’m saying it still works, hence the title.
Diana had been banging on Tony Stark's door for so long her arm was getting tired, and she had already switched arms once.
There was a meeting to look over the mission that had just been sent over from SHIELD. The overhead comms that connected to most rooms in the tower were offline- likely due to Tony being in one of his moods- so Diana was making in-person rounds to get the team in the conference room (or honestly any room all of them would agree to be in).
While her job description did not include being involved in team related missions, it did include making sure they all got the information. This, apparently, meant she had to go all around the tower finding everyone who was available and make sure they got to the mission debrief.
Tony had a whole section of rooms just for him, and Miss Potts when she was here. It was on the 80th floor, which was only a pain because she had been on the 88th, and after this encounter would have to go back up. While this was technically her first stop, she had managed to pass both Clint and Natasha on her way down from her office. Which meant she only had one more avenger to find, since neither Dr. Banner and Thor were in New York.
At the rate they were going, Diana was going to be working overtime when they finally started, which was going to put a damper on her plans. Not that they were anything special; some dinner, a sweet treat if there was something in her apartment to have, some TV, perhaps a book, maybe even a bath. Maybe at the same time. But at this pace, she might not even make it home till tomorrow. And with the mission details she’d looked at before making her way through the tower, it would appear her evening plans would have to wait for another night. Maybe next week she’ll have a free night. She was trying (and failing, as it turned out) not to think too much about how she will most likely be here late, and even later if Tony didn’t open his damn door. Miss Potts wasn’t here so he should be at least aware of her knocking.
Finally after what felt like forever ( especially on her arms, which she had switched AGAIN) he opened the door.
“ Mr. Stark, we have a mission debrief in five minutes. If you’re not upstairs in the conference room by then, I’ll come back and knock again.” She gave him one of her tight lipped smiles. And she would come back. She’d done it before when he refused to listen, and would follow through again if he didn’t comply.
He gave her a mocking one back before it dropped. “ If there aren’t snacks there I’m not staying.” he breathed out with a dismissive tone, leaning against the doorway.
“Of course Mr. Stark.” She made a mental note to pass the kitchen on the way up to grab something so he wouldn’t walk out. He closed the door on her with one last annoyed nod, and Diana made her way towards the elevator.
She pressed the call button and got in when it arrived a few seconds later. She pressed floor 87 for the fitness center, as that was where Jarvis had said Steve was.
No, no. That’s where Captain America was.
She took a breath and rolled her shoulders. She checked the time on her wrist watch and took another breath that was really a sigh. She was definitely not getting out of here on time. With the amount of time this meeting would take, plus the final debrief right before leaving, PLUS the mission reports that she would need to collect throughout the mission and when the team returned, there was absolutely no chance Diana was making it home till tomorrow, even though it was only 4 pm.
The doors opened and she walked out into the hallway, turning right towards the boxing room. The majority of the 87th floor of the tower was a fitness center, with multiple rooms for training, weights, and equipment which were located to the right, while to the left housed the main medical center and spa.
She passed one of the training rooms and two equipment areas before coming to the boxing room. There was a wrestling ring, some punching bags lined the walls. While the LED lights fit with the rest of the room, the color of the walls and equipment, it didn’t fit with Steve.
He was standing at one of the punching bags in the left back corner, wearing dark blue sweatpants and a white t-shirt that had been sweat through so much it was practically translucent. His hands were wrapped, and he hadn’t seemed to notice her coming up to the entrance, not even when the doors slid open.
Diana knocked on the doorway twice, causing him to glance back towards her. He stopped his punches as he fully turned to face her.
“Ma’am” He inclines his head towards her a bit, breathing heavily. One of his hands came up to steady the punching bag as it swayed.
“Captain,” She returned his nod as she made her way further into the room, landing a few feet away from him.
“ There’s a mission debrief happening in about- ” she glanced back down at her wrist watch, finding that two minutes had passed since she left Tony’s floor. “- three minutes. ”
Cap looked down at her, puzzled. “ You tracked me down to tell me we have a mission in three minutes?”
Diana couldn’t help the slight eyeroll that came to her. “ Yes,” she sighed. “ As Mr. Stark has currently cut me off from the intercom and having Jarvis deliver messages for me throughout the tower.”
He raised an eyebrow, the side of his mouth slightly turning up. “Again?” he asked, beginning to unwrap one of his hands. “What’d you do this time?”
She shook her head. “ I don’t know, maybe I patched through a few too many government callers.”
Diana glanced back at her watch. “Well, Cap. If you could be in the conference room in the next two and a half minutes that would be great.” She took a few steps back while saying, “Now if you’ll excuse me. I need to stop by the kitchen and grab a snack so Mr. Stark doesn’t walk out of the meeting.” After getting a nod from him, she turned fully and walked out of the room back towards the elevator, her pony tail swinging slightly as she did so.
Steve watched her go till she turned the corner. He set down the fabric he had finished unwrapping from his hands on a nearby ledge.
“ Jarvis,” he called out.
“Yes, Captain Rogers?” The voice came from the overhead speakers.
“ How long has Ms. Sousa been locked out of the tower’s communications?”
“ About thirty minutes, sir. ”
“ Would you mind giving her full access back?”
It was 4:40 when the team had set out for a drug cartel working out of New Jersey, 5:08 when they had landed just outside the territory, 5:50 when the team started making their way inside the main building after some ground and aerial reconnaissance, 6:05 when the fighting had started, 6:27 when the last of the fighting had ended, 6:40 when there was a sneak attack on Steve, and 7:20 when the team had deemed the mission complete, and 7:40 when they made it back to the tower. Now it was 9:45, and Diana was exhausted even though she hadn’t been on the mission.
She was currently going through the mix of reports the team had given her when they landed, either before or during their visits to the medbay, and trying to make a statement in case the press caught wind of today. Mr. Stark had come away unharmed thanks to his suit, Barton and Natasha with minimal bruises. Steve has a few small cuts and brui-
No, no, no! Captain America had some small cuts and bruises from the sneak attack he had dealt with, but would be cleared any moment now.
Damn. And she had been doing so well up till today.
Thinking of Captain America as Captain America hadn’t been so hard to remember before that day last month, when she’d been called in to find a file and had left on the back of Steve’s motorcycle.
Oh god, there she goes again. This was becoming a problem.
Even though she had lost her cool that day, coming in with an attitude that technically could have gotten her fired, she had managed not to call anyone any of the names that had been on the tip of her tongue and make the situation worse ( or more entertaining for the team, which was almost worse), such as “stupid”, “ idiot”, “asshole“, or, worst of all, “Steve”.
Which was only the worst because it crossed a line of unprofessionalism that Diana had been instructed to establish when she first got here. When going through the onboarding process Agent Hill, Director Fury, even Ms. Potts had instructed her to keep a line between her and the team. And that wasn’t just with him. It was supposed to be there for the whole group.
What she had to remember was she wasn’t on the team. She was an employee. It would just help if some of the rest of them could also remember that.
It hadn’t been too difficult with the team. Everyone had their titles or nonpersonal names, and Diana was always “ Ms. Sousa” or just “ Sousa”. It was always Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner, Barton was just Barton unless someone decided to call him Clint that day. Thor was a bit harder since he treated Diana like she was a part of the group, more so than he should. But the hardest one was Natasha, who at this point Diana might be considering a friend.
Plus, the last time she had called Natasha Agent Romanoff unnecessarily, she had gotten a knife pointed at her with some vague threat about doing it again. Since then, Diana had opted to only use it when the situation absolutely required it, and used Natasha or Nat on the regular.
She had actually managed to come away from that whole interaction with the captain without addressing him by any name at all, which boded well for her. She had managed not to call him anything other than Cap, Captain, or captain rogers since they had met.
But he had called her Diana instead of Ms. Sousa.
It wasn’t even the first time he had called her Diana. It was the third.
It always happened when he needed her attention, more so than he already had. Something about the way he said it, maybe it was the tone or maybe-
One of the doors to the left slid open. As if her thoughts had summoned him, Diana looked up and saw Steve- Captain. America. - walk in. He had traded his tactical suit for a different pair of sweatpants and t-shirt than he had been wearing earlier in the gym, and now had a butterfly bandage near his temple.
She had set up her working station for the night in a common room by one of the kitchens. A way of isolating herself less than just being holed up in her office. And better proximity to the good coffee maker, which seemed to be his destination.
He glanced at her a few steps from the counter. “ Putting in some overtime?” he asked, taking out the reservoir from the coffee maker and starting to fill it with water.
“ Considering you guys might need these ready in the next 30 minutes, I thought it’d be best. ”
The side of his mouth turned up as he let out a scoff. “ You’re not wrong,” he sighed, his head tilting to the side while he put the reservoir back in the machine and . “Although I doubt we’ll be doing anything else tonight.” He finished pressing the buttons to make the brew start, then rested his forearms against the counter before adding,”If we can help it.”
A laugh slipped past her lips before she could stop it. “ Well, this is a building full of workaholics.”
“ I wonder who’s the worst, you or Tony. ”
“Oh me, definitely.” She said, sitting up straighter from her slouched position on the couch. “ At least Mr. Stark has a life outside this. ”
His brows raised at that. “ You don’t?”
“Don’t have time.” At his look , she scoffed, “Well after dealing with your life, his life, everyone else on the team's life, plus their drama, and all the meetings and press related things I have to do for you, no I don’t have time.” Diana got a small sense of pride at the smile that drew out of him.
“It must be getting to you if you let your hair down while still on the premises. ” He nodded in her direction. He turned away from her to grab a coffee mug and Diana’s hand flew to the hair near her shoulder. She had forgotten she’d taken it out of its ponytail after sitting down in the common room. She’d had it in since she’d left her apartment at 6:30 that morning, and it had been giving her a headache when she’d finally pulled it free.
Seeming to notice her hesitance, he blurted out, “ It looks good, why do you never wear it like that?” He sped past the compliment, Diana almost missed it.
She tucked some hair behind her ear, now aware it was in her line of vision.“Uh, it gets in the way.” At his unconvinced look, she continued. “ in my face, my eyes, my mouth. I can’t focus as well when I'm working with it down.” She scrunched her nose when adding, “It’s annoying.”
He nodded at that. Diana looked down at her papers before she could see his smirk. “How do you take it?” he asked.
She looked back up at him, brows furrowed in confusion. “ Take what?”
“ Your coffee. How do you take it?”
“Oh.” She hadn’t noticed he’d taken out two mugs, not just one. ”Cream and sugar, thanks.”
He poured each thing into one mug before adding a splash of milk into the other for himself. It was his usual order Diana always got him.
She looked back down at the papers while he walked around the counter, gaze coming up when he reached her.
“Why don’t you call it a night and pick back up tomorrow?” he asked, handing her the coffee mug he’d made her. She thanked him quietly, their fingers brushing when she took it.
“ Because the press will definitely have heard of your mission this afternoon by then and want some sort of statement before they spin it in some evil looking way. And it’s in my job description to make sure that doesn’t happen. “ He took a seat across from her. “Plus, even if I wanted to do something with someone tonight,” she started, going back to their earlier conversation. ” It's a school night, and she’d freak out on me for making her think about something other than arteries.”
He smiled again at that, knowing full well she was referring to Sarah and her studies for med school.
“Ah, yeah. Ya know, I’ve been wondering how you two met.” He took a sip while leaning back against his chair. “ I mean, you’re a bit older than her, different backgrounds.” His head tilted as he watched her. “ How did you two meet?”
Diana took a sip, then another before answering. This was definitely going to cross the professional line she’d been working on. But then again, Cap made it so easy to forget about the line when he was here. “ There’s a program in place at SHIELD that has to do with family protection. ” she began, folding one of her legs under the other. “ If a SHIELD member is compromised, or their family is in possible danger, they will relocate them to a safe house. Sometimes, if the family member in question is a child, with a different SHIELD family so as to look normal and non suspicious.”
She bit her lip for a second, finding the words that wouldn’t give too much away.“ When I was 14, my family was compromised and I was taken to stay with another SHIELD family for my safety.” She looked up at him then, a small smile on her lips now that she was getting there. “ It was during that time I met Agent Coulson, who took me to his home, which was deemed a safe house, and I met Sarah. I was pretty inconsolable up till that point-”
“You, inconsolable?” Cap joked softly. “Now that I just can’t believe.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“ I’ve never known you to be anything but in control and calm. Your voice is always so even, practically melodic. Except last month when you came in raging.”
“I was not raging,” she shot back, mouth slightly agape as she searched for her next words. “ I was just… irritated.”
She gave him another look before continuing. “ Anyway, Sarah decided we were going to be best friends. And from that day on we were.” Diana was fairly proud of herself for not trauma dumping on one of her bosses.
Steve shared the smile Diana gave him, but it faded after a moment.“ I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“It’s alright.” After a few moments of silence, Diana took a deep breath. “I should finish this statement,” she picked the papers she’d been looking at back up. “ Gotta get ahead of the press with this. And I need to file the reports. Then,” she gave him a pointed look that made him smirk. “ I will go home.”
“I’ll take that as my cue to leave.” he stood up, taking another sip before moving towards the door.
He looked back at her when she said,“Thanks again for the coffee, Cap,” then continued out the door he’d come through.
Cap came into her office a little before 11. He'd found her right as she’d finished filing (surprising all things considered) and stated, with no room for argument, “ I’m driving you home. Get your stuff and we’ll head out.”
Diana had been too tired to argue with him, and in her defense, he had made her coffee. So she grabbed her bag and jacket before following him out.
They’d taken a car this time instead of his motorcycle. The drive was mostly quiet, with Diana trying not to look as though she could pass out at any minute.
It was after they’d crossed through the park and neared 60th street he asked, “ What’s your favorite movie?”
“ Excuse me? Why do you need to know that?”
“ Hey, I don’t know much about you other than your best friend, where you live and how you take your coffee. “
“ You could have figured that out from my file. I’m sure it’s in there somewhere.”
There was a beat of silence, and it seemed he was just going to drop it.
After another few beats, when he turned onto her street, she said,“Legally Blonde.”
“ A sorority girl follows her ex boyfriend to Harvard after he breaks her heart, then finds herself and her passion for law instead.” She could feel his eyes on her as she spoke.“ I was obsessed with it when it came out when I was 11. Whenever I watch it, I feel empowered.”
He was smiling when he pulled up to her building. She turned to him before closing the door. “Thank you for the ride. I will see you tomorrow.”
author's note: Ok, lore drop. Diana's background will definitely be back again in the future. I think someone has a crush, but is it the super soldier who wants to know more about his assistant, OR is it the assistant who is overthinking how personally she's mentally addressing one of her bosses? Who knows? Oh wait, I'm supposed to know.
Hope you guys enjoyed this part, I've got plans that I will hopefully deliver soon on!
turnnoffyourmind
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