Mirror, Mirror ↠ Steve Rogers

Chapter Two

"Okay," Steve says as they sit down. "What the hell was that out there?"

The deli is small, a mom and pop shop ten minutes from Linda Harker's house. Steve had stayed quiet throughout the entire car ride there, but Leila could see the wheels turning in his head as he tried to figure out what was going on in hers. She had pretended not to notice the way he kept glancing over at her.

It's only now, after they've ordered and sat down, that he's finally confronting her.

"You know what they say about women." Leila shrugs. "Can't drive for shit."

He looks at her, unamused, but she refuses to continue. If he wants answers, he can dig for them. Doesn't mean he'll find them.

(Because even if she were inclined to share her innermost feelings with the guy, how, exactly, is she supposed to explain that she had an out-of-body experience because some lady was kind of an asshole about her son?)

"Look," he says. "Something spooked you in there--"

"I wasn't--"

"I know fear when I see it," he snaps. "And ordinarily I'd let it go, but we're partners on this, and you need to tell me if it's about the case."

She stares at him. That's really his baggage? He thinks she's withholding information about the case? Jesus.

"Whatever you think you saw in there," she says finally, trying to keep the venom out of her voice, "has nothing to do with the case. You know everything I know."

He studies her for a long moment. The cook calls out their order. Three foot long breakfast sandwiches for Steve, one turkey sub for Leila. No super-metabolism. She'd ended up giving up the super-soldier serum to pick up a few old standby powers before they left for New York.

"Fine," he says as he stands up to get their food. He still has questions, she can tell; she's just not sure if he'll ask them.

They eat in silence for the most part, but some of the tension dissolves as they do, and their silence becomes almost companionable.

"I have a question," Steve says when they're almost done. Despite ordering three times as much food as her, he also seems to be eating three times as fast.

"I probably don't have an answer," Leila replies noncommittally, her walls coming back up.

"Why did you order pickles specifically and then pick them out when you got your order?"

She blinks--not what she was expecting--and then grins.

"You really wanna know my diabolical pickle plan?"

He leans back and gestures to her. "I'm all ears."

"I like the sandwich to have a kind of pickle-ish taste, without the pickle texture," she explains. "Too crunchy."

"Wow, that's brilliant," he deadpans, and she smiles.

"Learned it from an old friend."

They don't get back to the case until they're back in the car, for the sake of privacy. Leila pulls out her phone--Stark Tech, SHIELD issued--and runs a background check on Declan O'Neil, the kid who made the fission generator that Harker sabotaged.

There's not much to check. He's on track to be Midtown's Valedictorian at the end of his senior year, and as far as they can tell, hasn't gotten into any trouble--not even a detention in his entire school career.

"Very few insecurities to exploit," Leila says thoughtfully.

"A very reasonable thing to say about a teenage boy," Steve replies, but there's no real malice in it. Still, she rolls her eyes on principle.