Liar

Kennedy forced herself to remember the bare minimum of details before she grabbed the files and shoved them back behind the bookshelf. Her hands were shaking again, shaking as she went into Steve’s kitchen and fumbled through the cabinets. He didn’t drink alcohol that often; he couldn’t get drunk. She knew that. There had to be something though.

A glass fell from the counter to shatter on the floor though she barely noticed as she left the kitchen and went to his bathroom. She couldn’t remember if he was on pills. She couldn’t remember if pills affected him. They probably didn’t. And if they did, the dosages were far too high for her to safely take one or two.

A fruitless search of his bathroom sent her back into the living room. Frustrated, the toe of her boot connected with a couch pillow that had been knocked off. Somewhere between the kitchen and the bathroom Kennedy had lost the towel wrapped around her hand. She barely noticed the dripping down her arm as she gripped at her short hair in frustration.

“Nietzsche.”

“Gesundheit?”

The word slipped out before she could stop herself. She was rewarded with a restrained laugh that didn’t nothing to relax her. There was no way that she could relax, not with her hands tied together and belted to the table leg. The leather of his belt creaked slightly as she gave it another tug but to no avail.

His booted feet rested on either side of her head, the toes hooked just beneath her arms. He had made sure that they were belted further up the table leg so that there was a strain on the limbs and that she couldn’t rest them on the floor. The only available option for resting her arms would be to rest them on his boots and not even Kennedy felt that ballsy tonight.

She flinched and tried to move away as he traced the knife tip across the tattoo stretching across the upper part of her abdomen. She didn’t get far, partly because of the way they were positioned and partly because the metal hand pressed down on her stomach to pin her in place. Gritting her teeth, Kennedy tried to ignore the sweat crawling down her spine while he continued to trace the tattoo.

“And if you gaze into the abyss long enough, the abyss will gaze back into you.”

She almost asked how he could read it when she remembered that the letters had been in the Cyrillic alphabet. If he couldn’t read it, she would have been suspicious. Though Clint had probably seen that tattoo, it wouldn’t have been the one he commented on. He would have commented on the one on her back.

He didn’t say anything else though as he removed the knife from her skin. He had long since stopped carving into the spot above her hipbone. She lifted her head far enough to see him lean down towards her hipbone. His fingertips gently prodded at the area before he straightened.

The next thing he did was slide the knife back into the first cut just as slowly as when he’d first done it.

She stumbled inside Steve’s bathroom and barely made it to the toilet before dry-heaving. Her stomach heaved and she gagged but nothing came out. She couldn’t remember the last meal that she had eaten. Her bloody hand gripped onto the counter for balance as she pushed herself away from the toilet. Flushing it, Kennedy fumbled her way back to a standing position.

The sound of the apartment door closing drew her attention. Wiping her mouth off out of habit, Kennedy made her way back through Steve’s bathroom and into the living room. She skirted the couch where the glass from her broken beer bottle still laid and headed towards the kitchen. He’d come through there first.

She hesitated just before reaching the kitchen entrance. Slowly, she backed up to where she’d dropped her bag and crouched down. Reaching inside, she withdrew her gun and thumbed the safety off. At that moment, Steve walked through the kitchen door and called her name. His eyes found her as the word left his lips.

“Did you hit your head?” Steve asked, rounding the couch to crouch beside her.

“What?”

Blinking, she reached up and felt the sides of her head. She didn’t remember hitting them. It took a moment for her to remember that she’d gripped the sides with her hands. That was where the blood he must have seen came from.

“No…no, I just forgot my hand was…” she helped up the still bleeding appendage.

“C’mon…let’s clean that up,” he sighed before helping her up.

Following him into the kitchen, Kennedy absent-mindedly tugged at the torn skin of her bottom lip. She needed to stop biting it so much so that it could heal. But she still didn’t stop as she hopped onto the counter beside the sink.

“Do you have any Tylenol or Advil or something?” she asked, glancing over at Steve as he turned on the sink.

“Yeah, I picked some up for you,” he nodded. “Stick that under the water and I’ll get the Advil.”

Obediently, Kennedy stuck her hand under the water before wincing as the water cleaned out the cut. Her blue-lensed eyes glanced over to watch Steve as he pulled the various items out of the bag. She couldn’t help but curl her lip as she caught sight of the bottle of alcohol.

“Don’t even think about trying to sneak off,” Steve said without turning around. “If you get some disease and your hand falls off, it’s not going to be because I didn’t clean your hand from a broken beer bottle.”

“My hand is not going to fall off,” Kennedy sniffed.

Steve just smirked a little in response as he walked over with the various supplies for her hand. While he set about cleaning the cut, she managed to get the bottle of Advil opened with one hand and her two feet. Carefully, she dumped out three pills before hissing as he poured more alcohol onto the cut.

“Baby.”

“Ass.”

“You like staring at mine.”

The statement caught her so off-guard that Kennedy couldn’t help the indignant squawk that slipped out. Steve just laughed as he dried her hand off and opened a tube of antibiotic ointment.

“That was uncalled for,” she frowned before leaning back against the cabinets.

“You’re not denying it,” Steve replied, smirking.

Kennedy shot him a narrow-eyed look as he began to wrap her hand. “Don’t you have a waitress to go court?”

“Do you look like a waitress?”

Steve barely glanced up from wrapping the gauze around her hand. She just stared at him for several long minutes as he wrapped, unwrapped, and adjusted the gauze. Not once did he look up and smile at her. It wasn’t until he’d taped the gauze down that he looked at her.

“Look,” he sighed and placed his hands on either side of her hips, “I don’t see the need to pretend like there isn’t something about you that sticks in my head. The last time I had feelings for a woman, I didn’t say anything. We were in the middle of a war and that was a can of worms that just didn’t need to be opened. And I knew she cared about me but...it’s a little late now.”

“The date that you missed,” she murmured, blue eyes meeting his.

Steve nodded and looked away before looking back to her.

“I don’t…Steve, I’m not the type of person that you want to get tangled up with, okay? I’m not real good for anybody,” Kennedy sighed before glancing down at her hands. “Besides you need a normal girl. Like the waitress, Elizabeth. She seems like a good chick.”

“A normal girl? Who is going to be perfectly okay with me never aging? Or disappearing randomly to go be Captain America, which she probably will never know about for her own safety? Is that what I really need?” he asked, eyebrows lifting. “I need someone who won’t ever really understand what I’m going through? Or why I don’t know barely anything that happened between 1945 and three or four weeks ago?”

“I’m just saying that you deserve someone who isn’t me.”

“Well, I don’t want anybody else.”

He leaned forward and kissed her, his soft lips firm but gentle against hers. Kennedy kissed him back after a moment’s hesitation, her arms wrapping around his neck as his hands grasped her hips. He tugged her forward until she was perched on the edge of the counter. His hands shifted, grasping her hips tighter as she hooked her legs around his hips.

Tilting her head slightly, Kennedy gave his full lower lip a nip before pulling him closer. Her body pressed against his, fingers slipping up to grasp the sides of his face. Something like a growl rumbled through his chest and a slight chill raced along her spine.

One of his hands shifted from her hip, slipping beneath the material of her shirt. The muscles in her stomach contracted, pulling away from his hand slightly so that he didn’t touch the gauze. She felt his fingers brush against it and felt him start to pull away though.

“It’s nothing,” Kennedy muttered against his lips before he could say anything. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Doesn’t feel like nothing,” Steve replied breathlessly as he pulled back.

His thumb was still resting against the gauze though not applying pressure. She was grateful for that since the cuts were still sensitive. She managed to give him her best narrow-eyed look before kissing him again. Before he could pull away, she moved from lips to his neck.

She pressed herself against him, arms slipping down to grip his shoulders as she gave the spot just beneath his jawbone a quick bite. She felt him suck in a soft breath as her tongue massaged the spot slowly. The hand gripping her hip tightened and she tried not to grin.

“Kylie…” he growled though it almost slipped into a whine.

“Hmmm?” she purred without leaving the spot.

Her hips rolled suggestively against his and the hand resting on her skin moved back to her hip. Grinning to herself, she tilted her head and gave his earlobe a playful tug.

“I told you it was nothing,” she whispered before nipping the shell of his ear.

“Why do you have to be so complicated?” Steve groaned, his head dropping to rest on her shoulder.

“Because you’re stubbornly locked onto the idea that I can’t take care of myself?” Kennedy replied as she ran her fingers along his back.

“You’re a pain in my ass.”

“You like to stare at my ass just as much as I stare at yours, don’t deny,” she smirked.

Reaching up, Kennedy tugged the collar of his t-shirt out of the way before leaning down and giving his collar bone a bite. Goose bumps jumped up across his skin and she grinned to herself before running her tongue over the spot soothingly.

After a moment, Steve lifted his head from her shoulder and looked at her. She just looked back at him innocently, blinking every so often as her brows lifted in question. He leaned forward, forehead pressing to hers before kissing her again.

“I hate you so much.”

She smiled, eyes crinkling at the corners, “keep telling yourself that while you shower. Cold, preferably.”

Kennedy hopped down from the counter once she’d moved him out of her way. Adjusting her tank top, she looked down at her beer- and blood-stained pants. While she wasn’t opposed to walks of shame, she wasn’t doing the walk of shame in these pants.

“You’re not particularly attached to those sweatpants on your bed, are you?” she called while walking through the apartment.

Steve just snorted before walking into his bathroom and closing the door after him. Shrugging, she changed into the sweatpants before listening for the sound of the water turning on. Once she heard it, Kennedy walked back through the apartment and slid her shoes on. She tugged her jacket on as well before grabbing her phone and gun.

With the drawstrings of Steve’s pants pulled as tight as they would go to fit her narrow hips, Kennedy slid her gun into the waistband and made sure the safety was back on. Accidentally shooting herself wasn’t something that she wanted to endure tonight. She dialed Rocko’s number as she jogged down the stairs.

“Everything okay?” Rocko asked, skipping the hello’s.

“I’m okay,” Kennedy replied, “for the most part. Call Kolby and meet me at my apartment tomorrow about eleven okay? I want to get this ball rolling now.”

“Are you sure everything’s okay?” Rocko asked. “After Saturday night…I’m worried about you, Kennedy.”

“Everything’s fine,” she snapped and pushed through the lobby doors, “okay? You warned me, warning went unheeded, end of story. I want this ball rolling by Thursday night. I want to be out of country by Saturday.”

“What has you so spooked?”

“Nothing has me spooked. I’m getting out before I slip up.”

“Kennedy, I know you better than anyone,” Rocko sighed into the phone. “And I know how you’re going to play this out. I told you…this guy, we’re not on his level. He’s what has you spooked, I know. You can’t take this guy on by yourself. Do you understand me? He’s going to take you apart until you’re nothing.”

Kennedy ran a hand through her hair, pushing it from her face, before glancing around the sidewalk. No one really paid much attention to each other as they walked and barely glanced at her. They probably wouldn’t have noticed the blood in her hair if it covered the entire side of her head.

“I’m a big girl. And I can fix my mistakes by myself,” she shrugged. “Just be there, okay?”

“Fine…fine. I’ll get Kolby there,” Rocko said irritably. “Don’t do anything stupid, okay?”

“This whole situation is stupid,” Kennedy muttered before hanging up.

She checked the time before sliding her phone back into her pocket. It wasn’t that particularly late for her but she had that sand-in-the-eye feeling. Fighting off her yawn, she started to turn before hesitating. She glanced over her shoulder and her hands started to tremble before she even saw his face.

Abruptly, Kennedy turned and began weaving her way through the people on the sidewalk. She barely noticed when she ran into someone and didn’t say anything when they snapped at her. Her steps were short and quick, fisted hands shoved deep inside her jacket pockets. Occasionally, she’d glance around to see where he was but she couldn’t see him.

She didn’t stop once she hit the lobby of Steve’s building. Her boots scuffed across the floor, head ducked slightly as she turned for the stairs when she saw the elevator doors close. Once in the stairwell, she began climbing the steps two at a time and rarely stopped glancing over her shoulder.

By the time she reached Steve’s floor, she was breathless. Her side hurt and her hands were trembling so badly that she felt as if her entire body was vibrating. For a moment, she thought that his door was locked until the knob turned and the door opened.

Slinking inside quickly, Kennedy flicked the locks into place before sliding down until her butt hit the floor. Pressing her head back against the door, she pressed her clenched, trembling fists to her skull. She stayed there for several minutes, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth. Her gun pressed against her stomach uncomfortably but she barely noticed.

Before Steve could come find her, she made herself get up and walk back into the other room. Her jacket and shoes were deposited back on the couch and she noticed that he’d cleaned up the beer. Glancing around, Kennedy padded softly through the apartment and into his bedroom. He glanced out of the bathroom, toothbrush hanging from his mouth, to see her standing there before he returned to brushing her teeth.

She slid her gun from the waistband of Steve’s sweatpants and carefully tucked it beneath the extra pillow. Without saying anything, she leaned back against the headboard and stretched her legs out in front of her. Her legs crossed at the ankles, socked feet resting on top of his sheets.

“So you’re birthday is in two days,” she said, head tilting back to look at him as he walked out.

“Which would explain all the red, white and blue decorations going up across town,” Steve replied.

“I know what you’re getting for your birthday.”

He raised an eyebrow as he sat down on the mattress beside her. She just managed to eek out a teasing smile in his direction.

“Just as long as it’s not what Stark suggested,” Steve shrugged and brushed his damp hair from his face.

“So you don’t want porn stars for your birthday?”