Word count: 2500

~>)/|\(<~

Pietro was not pleased with the captain spending time with his sister.

Watching them from a distance made him less wary, since they just seemed to be walking together. However, when they stopped for a water break, he saw that they had been holding hands. He suddenly became furious. Stella had been sent in there to take her place... but here she was, bonding with the captain... he knew that Stella was already getting friendly with many of the others, but he didn't like how she and Steve were bonding so much. If they were too close, then Wanda would be more wary to leave.

To make it worse, it didn't end when they went home. Steve and Wanda also went to the car, leaving the house. Pietro had to follow.

They were talking too much. They were smiling and laughing in the car, but it wasn't Wanda's normal laugh. It was much more of a giggle than how she usually laughs. It made Pietro more than suspicious. Why had he never even seen her laugh like that?

The pub was near empty before the pair even ordered their drinks.

The bar had mostly been filled by a group of middle-aged men, but they left almost as a unit. As soon as the first one left, all the others found a reason to leave as well. Because of this, Steve didn't feel all too bad about completely taking over the music.

First, he started with the Andrews Sisters. They didn't listen too intently to them, just chatting for a while before a waitress approaches them.

Steve orders a gin and tonic. Some label of gin she's never heard of (though she isn't very acquainted with many brands of many types of drinks) come from his lips and makes Wanda wonder a little before the waitress turns to her. A new thought comes to Wanda's head.

"I'll have the same," she says, kind of unsurely. She pulls out her I.D. and shows it to her before the waitress leaves again, having dropped her name. Wanda didn't remember her name at all. She wasn't even listening.

"I didn't know you liked gin," Steve says, cracking a smile at her.

"Well, I've never actually had it before," she says quietly. Steve cocks his head to the side. Wanda keeps talking. "Frankly, I've never had more than a sip of anything before."

"Huh. Really? Isn't the drinking age 18 in Sokovia? So... you would have been allowed to..." Steve tries to speculate, but Wanda shakes her head.

She pulls up a hand, conjuring a small ball of hexes into her hand, "Experiments. Neither my brother nor I were allowed to."

As she dissipates the ball, Steve was smiling at her a little more.

"Well, I'm proud to be with you for your first drink," he chuckles a little.

The waitress returns with the drinks. Without looking away from Wanda, Steve informs her that they would wait a while before ordering any food.

Steve starts drinking his gin and looks at Wanda, "Go ahead."

Wanda smiles a little, feeling heat coming to her cheeks. She takes the drink and drinks it, then puts it down. It felt... gross to drink. It felt guilty. Alternatively, it also felt liberating. The actual taste of the drink wasn't important; what was important was what it meant. Watered-down gin was the most alcoholic, adult thing she had ever really had to drink. She wasn't under supervision or anything, but... she was a good kid. More importantly, she was a good kid who had never been drunk. She was a good kid who had never really done anything to mature herself.

"Mixed feelings," is all she said. The thoughts in her head were still racing, so she sips it a bit more. This time, the taste reached her. It didn't taste good, but it didn't taste bad either. It was fine, but it burned just a little as she swallowed. Steve was kind of gazing at her.

"You hate it."

"Well, it doesn't taste great..."

"You said you've had a sip of something. What was that?" He asks.

"My mother let me try her wine," she looks down a little, feeling a little ashamed.

"I didn't have my first drink for a while either. I was 22, I want to say," Steve says, still smiling a little. "It was... a pinot grigio from 1920. It also, coincidentally, was the worst drink I've ever had."

Without thinking, Wanda sipped more of her gin. It was in an odd tall glass, so she had more to actually drink. She was kind of getting used to the taste. Despite the ice in it, it tasted warm. The tonic was just plain bad and she regretted ordering it with tonic, but the gin tasted fine. It tasted sharp, something she didn't know she could taste.

"I've come to a conclusion," she says, putting the drink down. "The gin, I like. The tonic... not so much."

Steve chuckles, "Really? You like gin?"

"It's different, but yes," she chuckles. She drinks more of her drink. "I wouldn't be averse to trying something new, too."

Wanda likes gin, rum, red wine and vodka. She can tolerate beer (she'd had some sort of standard drink like Miller or Budweiser) and tequila (she can barely tolerate tequila, but she tolerates it nonetheless). On the other hand, she does not like brandy (though she's alright with cognac), whiskey and scotch. She had only a sip of most of the drinks, just to try them, but she did end up having a little more red wine with her supper. She had dinner with Steve and she was, at this point, fairly drunk.

Some Cab Calloway was playing as Wanda holds both of Steve's hands, attempting to show him the choreography to a dance her father had taught her, though it definitely did not go with the music. Minnie the Moocher was setting the tone, but Wanda steered clear of the tune, just making up her own.

She stumbles a little while trying to wrap an arm around Steve's neck. Their bodies were parallel so her back touched his chest, with her arm in an uncomfortable but graceful pose. She had done a poor job of explaining how to actually do the dance, and Steve was honestly more focused on deciphering what she's trying to do.

"Now you put your hand..." she takes Steve's hand and puts it on her hip, but the one on the opposite side of her body from where his arm came from. Her body was pressed gently against his, but it felt natural. Her body fit perfectly against his; the way her waist concaved matched perfectly with his. She then giggles a little and says. "Now you pull my hip and spin me around..."

Steve gently pulls her hip at an angle, spinning her as she had told him to. He felt her hand slip from the skin on the back of his neck. She steps out from him, stumbling again because of the uneven floorboards. Since Steve still had a hand on her waist, he manages to stop her from falling, helping her regain her balance by gently gripping onto her waist. She was far lighter than him, so he anchored her.

She laughs it off, holding onto his arm gently. She then places a hand on Steve's, extending her other arm out before stepping towards Steve again. Before he can ask what happens next, Wanda ducks under his arm. He simply watches, mostly watching her smile in that way she does when she's truly happy. She drops his hand and says, "That's all I remember..."

"Well, maybe I could show you how to dance," he offers. That makes Wanda only smile more.

"Yes!"

She walks to be before him, "You lead this time."

"Well, we can start..." he pulls away from her, going to the jukebox again. Every part of it felt weirdly sticky, but he had come to almost ignore it. He chooses a song that sounded like it would be slow, then smiles when he hears it. He walks up to her and takes both her hands. "With a slow dance, like a waltz, kind of."

He places one hand of hers on his shoulder, then placing a hand on her waist, gently pulling her a little closer.

Wanda looks up at him, waiting for him to show her more. When he sees the way she looks at him, he feels... warmer. She didn't look so shy anymore.

"Step with me," he says, stepping slowly in a pattern. Wanda looks down at their feet and mimics his movement, though her feet barely hit the ground in the right place, stumbling just a bit. Whenever she stumbled, all she did was laugh it off. He then pulls his hand from her waist, instead holding his hand above her head and gently helping her spin. She slowly spins, instinctively keeping time with how they had been dancing before.

When they return to their former position, Wanda resets closer to Steve, resting her head on his chest. Her elbow hooked lazily around his neck, since she was getting tired. That made sense, since they had been at the bar for around three hours. It was nearly 2 A.M., too. Dancing was the last thing they were going to do; Steve had even paid the check already.

"Wanda?" Steve asks. "Are you tired? Do you want to go home?"

She nods slowly. Steve nods and pulls away. Wanda pulls away as well, beginning to walk to the car alone. Her walk wasn't near straight; she stumbled and wobbled and her steps stuttered against the uneven flooring. Steve then walks over and takes her hand, keeping her upright again.

"Are we going to tell Clint that we were drinking?" She asks.

"I don't think he'll need to ask," Steve answers, bringing her to the car and opening the passenger door for her. Wanda climbs in.

"Are you sure you can drive?" She had seen Steve have more drinks than she did.

"I'm sure," he replies with a soft smile. Since he couldn't get drunk due to the serum, he could drive as normal. He closes the door and gets in the driver's seat, beginning to drive them home.

It was past 3 A.M. when their car drove over the hill and into sight.

Pietro had followed them to a pub and smoked a jay outside before going in and drinking, keeping his head down and covered by a hat. He watched them eat and laugh, and he watched them drink. He watched the captain get his sister intoxicated before dancing too close with her. When she began showing him a Sokovian dance, Pietro couldn't watch anymore. Instead, he ran home as quickly as he could to think things through.

They were too close. He had to convince Wanda to leave with him, but how was he supposed to do that if she was there with someone else?

He had to tell her whenever she got home.

Steve drove around for longer than he expected. At first, it was a wrong turn made right out of the pub, but then it was Wanda's chatter. Clint always had some water bottles in the car just in case of emergency, so Steve had Wanda drink two to sober up, and it brought out a very talkative person he didn't know was in there.

She would hold his hand and keep telling stories. Steve didn't mind. He took a couple detours, allowing her to share stories of her past. All her stories were light and trivial. She talked about her first and only pet (a chinchilla named Inka), her brief experience in high school and the time she traveled illegally to London and back to Novi Grad with her brother when they were teenagers. Throughout every story, no matter how vaguely and ungracefully she worded it, Steve couldn't find himself able to stop listening.

When she finished a story, she would usually find a place to pick a new story. From her hitchhiking story, she recounted her trip to the boardwalk in Novi Grad, then to a story of nearly being arrested. It was absolutely fascinating to Steve. She could recount stories from stories like a Russian nesting doll of memories: each layer pulled away revealed yet another, equally interesting but completely different layer. She had stories from before she had her powers... more importantly, she had stories with happy endings. She had stories of getting home safe and everything ending up the same, except now she has this new experience.

A couple times, the air filled with that comfortable silence. The first time, Wanda started investigating Steve's hand before she found a scar he had gotten during a fight in his youth. She then found a story to tell from that. The second time, she looked out into the forest and explained to him why she enjoyed the mountains over the beach, mostly telling him about the beauty of forestry and how beautiful miles of nothing but botany could be.

When Steve couldn't reasonably waste any more time, he just drove home. Wanda ran out of stories to tell when there were maybe five minutes left in the drive. Silence remained for a couple minutes before Wanda laughed out of nowhere and said, "Wow. 3 A.M."

They pulled into the driveway and Wanda got out, her legs surprisingly sore from the long car ride. She was mostly sober now, her head felt like it was buzzing just a little bit but she was otherwise able to think fairly clearly.

Steve walks up next to her, taking her hand gently and leading her into the house, "Thank you for getting dinner with me."

"It was fun," she says, swaying just a little while Steve gets the front door for her. Wanda looks him up and down before walking through the doorway. She had never really been able to talk and connect with him in private before. They were always with a group, but today had just been him and her. She was beginning to realize how genuinely sweet he is. "Thank you for bringing me to get dinner with you."

Steve smiles a little and extends a hand to her, "The pleasure was all mine."

Wanda takes his hand happily, allowing him to lead her up the stairs. She was reminded yet again of how warm his hand was when it warms up hers. She then looks up at him, "Sorry for talking so much on the way home. I'm sure it got annoying after a while."

That made Steve kind of angry. All he says is, "That's nothing to apologize for. I liked it. I learned a lot about you."

Wanda nods before they reach her bedroom. Yet again, she thanks him, "Seriously though... I appreciated tonight. It was lovely."

Without another word, she receded into her room, smiling to herself.