Steve must've seen my internal panic, because he said, "I'm really sorry, Tess, maybe now wasn't the best time-"
"Will you help me put it on?" I asked, interrupting him.
It's still from Layla, and she wanted me to have it. Regardless of what she knew or didn't, or did or didn't do, she was still my mother.
"Of course," Steve took the necklace from me gently. I pulled my hair up from my neck so he could have better access. He clasped the necklace at the nape of my neck and patted my shoulder, so I released my hair. As I turned around, he reached forward to hold the pendant and he ran his fingers over it.
"At least it's pretty," Steve joked, earning a smile from me.
"I guess," I said as he let it go. I felt it hit my chest lightly and it gave me a small shock.
"Ouch," I said, my hand flying to my chest.
"What?" Steve asked, his eyes widening. "Is it too tight?"
I shook my head. "No, just static electricity. Shocked me a little," I explained.
Steve nodded, but didn't bother to move. "Well, a beautiful necklace for a beautiful girl," Steve gushed.
My cheeks grew hot as I stuttered out, "Y-you're not so bad yourself."
He chuckled, but stopped when he saw something. I followed his gaze to see that the necklace was emitting a reddish glow. We gave each other a weird look before I asked him, "You want to help me with something?"
He looked at me warily before reluctantly agreeing.
"Thor and Loki both know who my biological mother is, and neither one of them will tell me. I'm tired of waiting. I'm going to figure it out myself," I told him.
Steve rocked on his heels. "Tessa. I-"
"What, you don't think I deserve to know yet either?" I cut him off, but he held up a hand.
"I think that you need to think about the consequences before you plan to do something like this. You already got lectured by Fury for accidentally breaking into the council room. What do you think he'd do if you purposely broke into another one?" Steve made a good point.
"Well, how about I don't give a shit about Fury? Or this job? I'm leaving in a week or two anyway to go to Asgard, so why should I care about the consequences?" I said.
Steve puckered his lip, thinking about what I said.
"Okay, good argument."
"If you're worried about your reputation with Fury, you don't have to help me-" I tried to say.
"No, no," he interrupted. "I want to help. I think you deserve to know, it's just..." he trailed off.
I waited patiently.
"Ugh!" He rubbed his face with his hands. "Okay, fine. But if Fury asks, you used your newfound power of mind control to force me to help."
I lightly punched him on the shoulder, but laughed with him.
"You owe me one," Steve murmured behind me as I opened the door.
I whirled my head around to say, "That depends on what you want."
He was quiet as he shut the door, but said, "I'll think of something."
"So, where should we start?"
* * *
"Tessa, we should not be doing this!" Steve whisper-yelled to me as he crawled behind me. We were in the vents, and I was navigating with a map on my phone.
