Liar

Kennedy wiggled her toes lazily while waiting for the polish to dry, her eyes glancing over to where Loki was sitting. She had no idea how he was surviving being locked up in her apartment for this long. All he did was sit here day in and day out. Right now, he was reading some book that he’d dug out of a box that she’d yet to unpack.

The tv channel was turned to something that he liked. That was pretty much how it went now. Kennedy got home and sat around trying to find his scepter while Loki sat there and watched tv or read. She rarely had time to sit down and watch tv herself. If she was lucky, she’d manage to get in a half hour for something almost remotely interesting at two-thirty in the morning.

She glanced over at him again before shifting forward slowly. The remote was lying beside her feet and nail polish. If she did it discreetly enough, she’d be able to change the channel. Despite the fact that she was the one paying for the tv he watched all day, Loki was a tv hog. It was borderline ridiculous.

“I’m watching that,” Loki said as he turned the page of her book.

Kennedy turned her head to look at him over her shoulder in disbelief. His green eyes didn’t even lift from the book. She ended up staring him for several seconds, her gaze boring into him before he lowered the book to his lap.

“You’re a dictator,” Kennedy said in exasperation.

“And you’re incredibly short.”

Her eyebrows rose in confusion, blue eyes just staring at him.

“So we aren’t stating the obvious?” Loki asked, brows quirking in her direction.

“Bite me,” she muttered before getting to her feet.

“I’d shatter your bones if I bit you,” he replied lazily as she walked into the kitchen.

“Sounds kinky!” Kennedy yelled before getting a bottle of water from the fridge.

Closing the fridge door with her hip, Kennedy took a sip of her water before leaving the kitchen. Water bottle in hand, she headed into her bedroom to finish getting dressed. Her clothes for the night had been tossed onto her bed along with various pieces of jewelry and her shoes.

She tossed her shirt and shorts into the corner of her room before dressing. Most of her bruises had faded enough that they were barely noticeable. Some bruising could be seen inside one of the small cutouts of her top. For a minute she thought about covering it with make-up but decided against it.

Zipping up her skirt, Kennedy adjusted it so that it sat right before she went into her bathroom to finish doing her hair and make up. Since she’d had a few hours to herself earlier this afternoon, she’d taken advantage of changing her hair up a little more. What was left of her hair formed a half-Mohawk, half-pixie cut that she had added some highlights to instead of completely dying it.

There wasn’t much that she had to do to her hair because of that. But she had to do all of her make-up. Wrinkling her nose slightly, Kennedy examined the light bruising and scrapes on the sides of her face. It would take more time than she had to cover up all of that. She’d just worry about covering up the darkest of the bruises.

Her phone rang from somewhere in her bedroom and she walked out, half done with her face, to get it. Glancing at the caller ID, she punched the talk button and set the phone to speaker before going back to her bathroom. She had about forty-five minutes before she had to meet Steve.

“Hey Rocko,” Kennedy said as she leaned against the sink. “Everything okay?”

“More or less,” Rocko replied and she heard someone say something in the background. “How terribly upset are you going to be if you don’t get Italian Saturday night?”

“I don’t know, Rock, I was looking,” she answered without blinking, “forward to it. What came up?”

“My guy wants to meet you,” he said after a few seconds.

“Your guy?” Kennedy frowned before remembering.

Rocko’s guy. The guy who had been responsible for keeping as many of the heroes pinned down here as possible. She lowered the brush from her face before furrowing her brow. Rocko hadn’t said anything back but she could hear someone talking in the background. She wondered if that was his guy.

Something didn’t feel right to her though. Biting her lip, Kennedy set down the make up brush and picked up her phone.

“Rock, do you want sushi for lunch instead?” she asked.

“What about Greek?” he replied back after a moment’s pause.

According to him, he was okay. Sushi made him sick as a dog and that was her code to see if anything was wrong. Greek was his favorite food; that’s how she knew he was okay. She still didn’t feel completely right with all this though.

“What time does he want to meet me?” Kennedy asked as she returned to doing her make up.

“Ten o’clock. I’ll pick you up at nine,” Rocko answered quietly.

“Anything else I need to know?”

“Watch yourself, okay?” he asked before sighing. “Look, Kennedy, this guy is serious. Don’t try to double cross him. Don’t make him feel like you’re even thinking about double crossing him.”

“Give me some credit,” she muttered. “I don’t play dirty.”

Rocko snorted and she shot her phone a glare.

“Fine, I play dirty some times. But I’m a big girl. I can handle myself, Rocko.”

“You’re a big girl who likes getting in way over her head and digging herself out by the skin of her teeth,” he corrected, his voice slightly reprimanding. “This guy is about as real as it gets. And he’s not a guy that we can take out.”

“Rock, we’ve taken out untouchables before. We’ve robbed untouchables and walked out without a scratch,” she shrugged as she finished her make up. “Nobody is untouchable.”

She heard Rocko quietly talking to someone else, another man. Kennedy washed her hands as she waited for a response. Only slightly irritated, she left the bathroom and walked back into her bedroom. She’d managed to do up the laces on one of her shoes before she got an answer.

“You would do well to remember your own words,” a new voice, slightly accented, murmured before the line went dead.

“Did a random son of a bitch really just threaten me?” she asked, not caring that she was talking to herself. “Oh, hell no.”

Glancing over at the clock, Kennedy grabbed her purse and jacket before throwing her phone and her S.H.I.E.L.D. phone inside of the bag. She slid the jacket on over her shoulder and left the bedroom.

“According to that medical journal, talking to one’s self is a sign of mental illness,” Loki said without looking up from his book.

Kennedy just shot Loki a look as she slid her earrings into place. “You can’t say anything to me about mental illness. You’re watching crappy reality tv in lieu of dominating the world.”

“But I’m not being threatened by faceless shadows capable of mass destruction,” Loki replied dryly before looking at her. “You should think about maybe not irritating him.”

“And use what if not my charming personality?” she muttered flatly while looking at him.

“You’re clever. And a bit mischievous. You’ll come up with something,” he shrugged.

She looked at him before smiling widely. “I’m growing on you. You’re starting to like me.”

Loki sneered slightly before returning his gaze to his book. With a roll of her eyes, Kennedy passed behind the couch on her way to the door. As she did so, she quickly ruffled her fingers through his feathery black hair. A hiss followed after her as she darted through the door before he could stop her.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Kennedy wrapped her hand around the lamp post as she walked before using her momentum to swing herself around. Steve just watched her with a bemused expression, his eyes crinkled at the corners. After grabbing ‘dinner’, which consisted of getting a couple hotdogs, they’d started wandering through Central Park. Two hours later, that’s what they were still doing.

“Seriously though,” Kennedy began for the eighth time, watching him, “your birthday is next week. You’re getting a birthday present.”

“I don’t need a birthday present, Kylie,” Steve said for the eighth time. “I’m alive and I’m in good health. I don’t really need anything else.”

“Come on, there has to be something that you want,” she frowned, tilting her head back to look at him as they walked.

“Don’t your feet hurt yet?” he asked, indicating her feet as an attempt to change the subject.

“Nope,” she smiled before wagging a finger at him, “and don’t change the subject. You’re getting a birthday present. End of discussion.”

Steve sighed loudly in exasperation before looking down at her. Kennedy just smiled as widely and innocently as she could before batting her eyelashes at him. He snorted before a smile began to tug at the corners of his lips.

“I give. This time.”

“Which means next time it’ll be twice as easy,” she smiled again before slipping her hands inside her pockets.

“Is this even in your job description?” he asked.

Kennedy just shrugged slightly. “Probably not. And I technically haven’t known you long enough to be considered a good enough friend for that but…I’m just a generous person.”

“Oh yeah,” Steve snorted before smirking, “you’re a real generous person.”

“That was cold!” Kennedy laughed after failing at a wounded expression. “You wound me, Rogers.”

“Then don’t say you’re not my friend,” he shrugged.

“What kind of logic is that?”

“The kind of logic that a man has after being frozen in ice for sixty odd years,” Steve shrugged again and looked at her. “I can’t really call that many people friends here, you know. I’ve probably spent more time with you than I have with my own team. I guess you’ll have to do as my friend.”

It was mostly true. Since she’d been named as Steve’s handler, Kennedy had spent more of her time with the soldier. At first, she had had to split her time between Steve and Loki. Once she’d been put as Jane and Darcy’s bodyguard, Kennedy had to split that time between Steve, the two scientists and Loki. It usually ended up that Loki got the short straw there.

“Don’t think I didn’t catch that last sentence,” Kennedy said before punching him in the shoulder.

“You hit like a girl.”

She stuck her tongue out at him even as he laughed. She hadn’t hit him hard but it hadn’t been exactly soft either. Of course, it was hard to hurt something that big and muscular.

“Anyways, friend,” she stressed the word teasingly, “birthday present. What do you want for your birthday?”

Steve just shrugged. Frowning, Kennedy stepped away from his side and moved in front of him. He had to stop short to keep from knocking her over. She just folded her arms over her chest and looked up at him.

“There isn’t anything that you want after being gone for sixty years? There isn’t something that you wanted before?”

For a moment, he looked pained and Kennedy wondered if she’d hurt his feelings somehow. She bit down on the inside of her cheek, brow furrowing above her blue eyes.

“Steve, c’mon. This is, actually, my job,” she murmured, frowning.

“It’s nothing, Kylie.”

“You’re not a good liar, you know.”

Steve looked at her before giving her a half-shrug. Narrowing her eyes slightly, Kennedy grabbed his hand and dragged him over to the nearby bench. The only reason she got him to actually move was because she’d caught him by surprise. If he had been prepared, she wouldn’t have gotten anywhere.

“Now, you can stand there or you can sit. But I’m not letting go of your hand so if you walk away, you’ll be dragging my barely one hundred and twenty pound frame across cement. And I will kick and scream to draw attention to the scene,” Kennedy nodded.

“Just because I’m sitting doesn’t mean I’m telling you anything,” Steve muttered as he sat. “And I knew your feet were hurting.”

“That’s beside the point,” she shrugged before turning to face him. “But in all honesty, Steve, you can tell me anything. I’m your handler but even you just said you wanted me to be your friend. And I’m good at keeping secrets. Trust me.”

If there was anything that she was exceptionally good at, it was keeping secrets. Right now she was probably in one of the biggest secrets of her life. She was lying to the biggest spy organization in the world. At some point they would find out. By then, she would, hopefully, be far, far underground.

Steve looked at her, almost clearly torn between wanting to keep this to himself and wanting to tell someone, not specifically her. She needed him to trust her though. Kennedy was still part of S.H.I.E.L.D. and still had a job to do, which was to be Steve’s handler. She had to act the part. In a few weeks, maybe more, it wouldn’t matter. One way or another she’d be underground and off the radar.

“This is strictly between Steve Rogers and Kylie Anderson. Not Captain America and Agent Kylie Anderson. I don’t care how miniscule it is to SHIELD. It’s not their business,” Steve said. “It’s mine. It’s personal and I’m trusting you to keep it that way.”

Kennedy nodded and tried to ignore the look in his blue eyes. From his file, she knew that when Steve trusted someone, it was genuine trust. But he seemed like the type of person to hold a grudge. And to forgive and forget didn’t exactly seem to be his style either.

“Before the crash, I made a date with Peggy. We were going to meet on the following Saturday and she was going to,” his gaze flicked down to his lap and he suddenly looked embarrassed, “be my first dance. Instead, I wake up and sixty something years have passed.”

“That’s so sweet,” she murmured before quickly blinking incase any tears decided to pop up. “She’s still alive, isn’t she? Get Fury to get you in contact with her.”

“I don’t want to disrupt her life,” Steve shrugged. “I mean…it’s a small thing and she’s spent the last sixty years thinking I was dead. I have to move on too.”

“Damn it, you son of a bitch!” Kennedy snapped before slapping his shoulder.

Steve just looked at her bewildered as she blinked again. Things like this didn’t make her cry. She didn’t care about this sappy stuff. But here she was, getting teary-eyed. Swiping her fingers beneath her eyes, Kennedy inhaled deeply to calm herself before she looked back at him.

“Sorry. I hate when people make me cry. Or almost cry,” she muttered before narrowing her eyes. “You didn’t see anything.”

“Scout’s Honor,” Steve nodded and raised his hand in salute.

Grinning crookedly, Kennedy shook her head and got to her feet. Her hands smoothed down her skirt as Steve got to his feet as well. They walked in silence for a few feet, her hands slipped back into the pockets of her jacket.

“I like the outfit,” Steve said after a few minutes. “You have nice legs.”

“I totally would have made money if I set up a pool as to whether or not you were a leg guy,” Kennedy said, grinning slightly.

“You probably would have,” Steve laughed before letting things fall silent again.

It wasn’t an awkward silence though, nothing that made her feel like running away. She didn’t mind it. Talking with Steve was just as nice as hanging out with Steve. His easy going personality made either option okay.

“If you ever want to tell me about what happened the other night, you know you can, right?” he asked quietly.

“I know, Steve,” she nodded, “I know.”