Nomad | Hawkeye FF ✓

NAUGHTY SCHEMES

    "WHAT on earth did you say to her?" Audrey asked; then she spotted the notebook on her bed. "You didn't." Her eyes widened in fear.

"I had to," Steve replied, plucking up the item off her bed and walking to her desk. Audrey flickered her eyes past him and to her chair, saw his gray v-neck sweater flung over the back, and reverted her eyes back to the soldier.

She tried to focus on the topic without becoming overly distracted by his exposed shoulder blades, which shifted with ease against his white muscle shirt, paired with his black jeans. Initially, she wasn't a fan of those shirts, but more and more she became every time he wore one.

Blinking away the lust obviously displayed in her eyes, she casually stood by and watched him set the book back on her writing table. Then, she pointed an accusing finger at him and felt her aggravation rise against him. "How did that thing get in my room?"

"I...um." Audrey noticed a nervous hand fly to the back of his neck, while his eyes were drawn to the floor. "I asked Fury if I could go through it to see if there were any clues that may have led to Sophie's family, or abductor." Braving a glance towards the temperamental Englishwoman, she saw the look of truthfulness in his eyes and something softened within her.

"Alright, fair enough. Just one more thing," she said, and crossed her arms in front of her chest, bunching up the front of her dark navy SHIELD sweater, which fell just past the base of her hip bones. "What on earth are you doing in here?" A sly smirk ran across her lips.

Steve hardly concealed, or contained his own smile, as it grew large with the lovely woman's own mouth curving. He took a tentative step closer to her as his eyes briefly skimmed over her light blue skinny jeans and black and white sneakers to her soft face. "I noticed the last time I was here, some-things, could have been more neatly organized around here—"

"Oh my," she interrupted with a short chuckle as he hinted at the mess around her room; the closet, specifically. "You came back to organize my stuff—wait, you didn't color-coordinate my clothes, did you?" With this, she untangled her crossed arms and power-walked over to her closet, flinging open the door. "Ah!" she yelled. "I can't find anything in this! It's too neat—what have you done, you neat freak!?"

The soldier laughed, "Trust me, you can find stuff now."

"Ya, your way, not mine," she barked, eyebrows rising as she felt his warm palms weigh on her shoulders and his fingers lightly squeeze through her garment into her skin. "Just wait till you see your cabinet in the bathroom." His breath was a hot tingle on her ear lobe when he whispered into her hair.

Audrey whirled on him and braced both hands on his chest, trying hard to give him a sweet smile without yelling at him. "Okay, Danny Tanner," she started. "We need to lay down some ground rules."

"Who's Danny Tanner?"

"Oh boy...rule number one. You can't be dating me unless you've seen Full House." She flashed him a mischievous smirk. "Rule number two—"

"Before you make a list of your rules, may I ask where you've been all this time?" His lips formed a crooked smile, raising his brows to suggest that she was up to her naughty schemes again.

She lifted her chin and stood on her toes, leveling her gaze with his. Her face was a mask of calmness, but her voice had the tone of a know-it-all. "I'll have you know, Mr. Perfect, that I've been a good girl for two days."

"Oooh, two days," Steve cooed and lowered his head. "That must have been hard for you."

"Don't interrupt me," she warned with a silly side smirk and stepped down from on her tiptoes. Suddenly, everything shifted in her mood. The smile faded away as her cool tone slipped into a more serious one. She ruffled her sweater's hood out of habit and prepared for what was coming next. "I went to go see Fury."

Steve's eyes beckoned for her to go on as he said, "And?"

"And I thought," she started, and broke out of his warm arms to step into the center of her room, "that maybe I could change Fury's mind and get him to tell Sophie what we know."

Steve faced her but didn't move to comfort or hold her; instead he leaned on the frame of her closet door and crossed his arms. His own features were schooled into neutrality as he said, "Which isn't much. The most we know is that Hydra took her family back in 2012; there's nothing to connect or suggest that her family worked for Hydra as they too were on the STRIKE team," Steve thought out loud, then went on to say, "And now this notebook... although, when I spoke to Sophie—"

"Don't tell me that you two actually got along for once?" Audrey asked, giggling in disbelief.

Steve rolled his eyes but smiled and carried on with his story. "She told me that a man named Joseph owned the book. Does the name ring a bell?"

Audrey blew out a sigh and stretched her eyes to the ceiling, thinking. "Hmm, never heard of a Joseph before—did she give a last name?"

"No. She said he only went by Joseph or Joe." He told the rest of the information to Audrey, as it was still fresh in his mind from his unexpected encounter with the youngster a few minutes ago.

Afterwards, the soldier observed her closely, wondering what floated around in that head of hers. From the day he met her, she had always been a mystery, one that he was still trying to figure out to this day.

He awaited an answer, when finally she tore her eyes from everything else and gazed directly at him. "I guess we have to wait till she goes to a sketch artist. Maybe more clues will pop up after a face is revealed behind who owned this notebook," she told him and ambled over to her desk, plucking up the dark, leather-bound book. Her eyes roamed the cover as her fingers probed all over its body.

She heard his near silent footfalls before the heat of his chest radiated from behind her back and up her neck. Steve's arms traveled up her forearms and lovingly squeezed her biceps. "What are you thinking?" He whispered into her ear.

"I'm..." she fell silent, figuring out what exactly she was doing, "not sure." Setting down the notebook, she quickly brushed off the strange feeling and turned to face him and took his hands, interlacing her fingers with his, and gave him a wolfish grin. "Now, about that second rule."