Schism In The Safe Place

Chapter 7

  There was an odd tension for most of the drive, and it wasn't until we were almost there that Nat spoke up.

"Where did Captain America learn how to steal a car?"

"Nazi Germany," he answered plainly.

"Mm."

"And we're borrowing. Take your feet off the dash." Nat sighed at him, but obeyed.

"All right, I have a question for you, oh, and you do not have to answer." He glanced at her before focusing on the road. "I feel like if you don't answer it, though, you're kind of answering it, you know?"

"What?"'

"Was that your first kiss since 1945?" I laughed.

"That bad, huh?" My father couldn't keep the smile from his face.

"I didn't say that."

"Well, it kind of sounds like what you're saying."

"No, I didn't. I just wondered how much practice you've had."

"You don't need practice."

"Everybody needs practice."

"Follow up question, what that your first kiss ever?" He looked at me through the mirror. "Because, I mean, pre-serum Steve was kind of a dork."

"Okay, come on, Ela." I leaned forward to look at Nat.

"Have you seen the pictures? He was a bunch of twigs with a bobble head."

"It was not my first kiss or my first kiss since 1945. I'm ninety five, I'm not dead."

"Nobody special, though." My dad chuckled.

"Believe it or not, it's kind of hard to find someone with shared life experience."

"Well, that's all right. Just make something up."

"What, like you?"

"I don't know. The truth is a matter of circumstances, it's not all things to all people all the time. And neither am I."

"That's a tough way to live."

"It's a good way to not die, though."

"You know, it's kind of hard to trust someone when you don't know who that someone really is." I immediately thought of Agent 13.

"Yeah. Who do you want me to be."

"How about a friend?" Nat chuckled.

"Well, there's a chance you might be in the wrong business, Rogers." I raised an eyebrow as my father pulled in to what appeared to be an abandoned military base.

"This is it." We climbed out and the cold air nipped at my face, my wings trembling slightly.

"The file came from these coordinates."

"So did I." Nat and my father tried to locate where the signal had been sent from. "This is the camp where I was trained."

"Changed much?"

"A little." I looked around and tried to imagine what this place would have looked like before it had fallen into disrepair. This place was significant to him, but I had to stop and wonder if maybe the man who would have been my Uncle Bucky trained here as well. There seemed to be some emotional value to this place.