A. N.: A week has passed since the events in New York, and Captain Rogers has some festering issues about the military he wishes to express.

Her fist landed hard, a vicious right hook that would have sent her foe sprawling were it a person rather than a punching bag,0 fastened securely to the ceiling. She ignored the increasing weariness in her muscles, straining to push herself to her physical limits.

A lot had happened in a significantly short span of time. Loki had arrived, stolen the Tesseract from their remote S.H.I.E.L.D. facility, escaped, had been caught by the Avengers, escaped again, and then unleashed an army of extra-terrestrial invaders only known to them as the Chitauri upon New York City. The near loss of New York and it's 8 million inhabitants was certainly nothing to jest about. And, stopping Loki and his army had certainly come at a price. They were still counting bodies in New York, scavenging through the debris of the broken city to find both civilians and military and law enforcement personnel who'd been lost in all the chaos. A number of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had also been killed on Loki's assault on the hellicarrier, agents whom she had worked with for years. The most notable loss to Maria, however, had been the death of Agent Coulson.

To say they hadn't been friends would have been a lie. More than that, though, it would have been an insult to a man who'd dedicated his entire life to helping defend their great country. Every agent on the helicarrier relied on those around them for security. During combat, each agent protected those around them as they had been trained so explicitly to do. Unit cohesion was of the utmost importance. One weakened link would compromise the integrity of the whole unit. And outside of combat, other agents were often times their only company for great spans of time.

Human intimacy did not come easily to Maria. Joining S.H.I.E.L.D. early on, this mental facet had been made an integral part of her being, and it was just this lack of interpersonal intimacy and her own extreme focus that had allowed her to rise to the rank of Commander so quickly. But she had worked closely with Phil Coulson for a number of years. He'd had odd quirks: a sense of humor all his own and an almost childlike admiration and fascination with one of the world's first superheroes. But, despite these eccentricities Maria had come to consider Coulson a friend: one of only a few.

So, each time she struck the punching bag, Maria imagined Loki in its place. Every punch hit that narrow nose of his or was a nice jab to one of his soulless eyes or was a good shot to the jaw that knocked loose a couple of his pearly whites. Every kick landed in his gut, sometimes just a little lower. She didn't care that she'd have been less than useless in an actual confrontation against the Azgardian.

Everyone had their own ways of grieving. Hers simply kept her anger in check when outside the gym.

"Remind me never to get your bad side." A voice came from a ways off to the side, and Maria paused in her assault long enough to cast a glance and see it was Captain Rogers who had joined her. Last Maria had heard a week ago, he'd been making his way to Philadelphia. Perhaps he'd returned to the helicarrier for a break from the real world, a world that was vastly different when compared to the one he had known and grown up in.

When she'd turned to look at him, he inclined his head to her, offering a polite, "Ma'am."

"Captain." Maria returned in monotone. He sat on one of the workout benches, rifling through his duffel bag for something. "We both know I wouldn't stand a chance in a fight against you." She replied simply to his previous comment as she returned to her assault on the punching bag. If he detected her subtle tone of spiteful distrust, he gave away nothing that might imply anything in the way of a response to it. Boxing tape recovered from his duffel, the Captain then set the bag on the floor at his feet and began to apply said tape to his hands.

"If you punch that thing any harder, I might have to disagree." His tone was casual as he spoke. Whether or not he knew she was taking out her bottled frustrations on the bag was unknown. If he did, he didn't ask if anything was bothering her, probably respecting her privacy.

Silence prevailed. Maria didn't mind. She wasn't much of a conversationalist, anyway.

What she did notice out of her peripherals, however, was that Captain Rogers kept glancing up as he applied the boxing tape to his hands. He almost seemed . . . nervous? Uncomfortable perhaps? It happened a few more times before Maria decided she'd figure out what was bothering him. Though, a cursory glance down gave her a pretty quick understanding.

Rather than a shirt, she was wearing a sports bra, the only thing covering her torso. It was fairly standard in the modern day and age as workout apparel for women. But, he'd come from the 40's where such things hadn't been at all frequent or even looked upon very lightly.

So, walking over to her own duffel at the edge of the mat, Maria removed the black uniform tee she'd been wearing before she'd begun her workout and slipped it on. She may not like supers much, but that didn't mean she had to be an overzealous prick about it. Culture shock was tough, powers or no powers.

Captain Rogers seemed openly surprised by this action when she cast a glance at him as she returned to the mat, but he also looked undeniably relieved.

"Thank you, ma'am." Polite as always, he voiced his appreciation. Maria only nodded in his direction as she returned to her previous task of taking all her resentments out on the Loki punching bag.

Over the next few minutes, the only sounds in the otherwise vacant gym were those of Maria's fists and kicks and those of Captain Rogers stretching. Once done, though, he paused and looked to her a few times, almost as if unsure of something. This too was repeated with a little more frequency, but Maria for the life of her couldn't discern what was wrong this time. She'd already corrected her attire, so she had no idea what could possibly be troubling him.

"Something on your mind, sir?" Maria asked, unsure as to whether he would voice whatever it was without prodding, and his behavior was becoming detrimental to her concentration. Rogers hesitated before approaching, keeping outside her workout zone.

"Can I ask you a question, soldier to soldier?" he finally asked, folding his large arms across his equally large chest.

"Ex-soldier." Maria corrected him flatly between swings, and he nodded.

"Ex-soldier." he amended, still awaiting her answer. She glanced at him once after a solid kick before nodding.

"I don't see any harm in a question, sir." That was a lie. Some questions she would certainly take issue with, but she doubted that this particular man would ask any of them.

Rogers nodded again and rounded her punching bag, holding it from behind to keep it from swaying as much when she hit it. The Captain was silent for a few moments as she did just that. He seemed to be thinking of a way to voice whatever it was that now bothered him, but it wasn't too long before he'd straightened it all out.

"I've been having difficulty understanding how. . ."

The soldier's voice died out before he'd finished, and he turned his eyes downward in thought. Apparently he'd changed his mind on how to ask his question. Either way, it should be fairly simple answering any questions he had about the modern world, which it sounded like he did.

It would be hard, Maria admitted to herself. No, she imagined it would sometimes be unbearable. She'd never put any stock on the idea of time-travel for this very reason. The soldier was a perfect example of the issues created by traveling even a short distance through time. Captain Rogers, 70 years out of his time, was having more than a little trouble integrating into society. Where someone visiting a foreign country could simply return home when having these issues of culture identity crisis, Rogers didn't have that option. Things could change a lot in nearly a century, and just about everything that could have changed had. Social customs, important figures referenced, religious importance in society as a whole. A lot of things had changed since the 40's.

"That nuke. . ."

Maria froze as her fist struck the punching bag as he lifted his eyes once more. She certainly hadn't been expecting that, and she was sure her surprise showed, even if more subdued on her than it would have been on others. Slowly, she brought her fists down, and, seeing this, Rogers took a step to the side, making them more face-to-face from around the punching bag.

"I don't understand how someone could pull that trigger, knowing what would happen." He continued. Maria had tried to avoid this particular train of thought since the incident, but, now that she was. . .

Under any other circumstances, she wouldn't have hesitated in her answer. Orders were orders. That's what she would have said. You didn't have to like an order. You just had to obey it. But. . . There were limits, she had to admit to herself, pushing down the soldier in her when it cried 'insubordination'. There were things even she wouldn't have been able to do if ordered to do them.

Against her better judgement and every instinct in her, Maria did the very thing she had been carefully forbidding herself from doing since that bird had gone out. She envisioned herself in that cockpit, flying towards New York City.

Could she have done it? Could she have followed orders and sent that bomb into downtown New York, knowing that such a simple action as pulling a trigger would result in the deaths of over eight million people, even if it would have eliminated the invading enemy forces?

"I've always followed my orders, ever since I was allowed to join the military." Rogers continued, a distant look entering his eyes as he was brought back to that time of battling the Nazis: a time of conflict and struggle that had resulted in his being frozen for nearly a hundred years. After a moment, though, his eyes focused on Maria again. ". . . But I couldn't obey an order like that, not even against a foreign enemy."

Rogers started getting fidgety, probably because he was talking to an agent—a rather stern agent, she would be the first to admit—about potentially disobeying a direct order. His increasing lack of eye-contact brought it to Maria's attention, however, that she hadn't once responded to what he was saying. He continued, though, and she still wasn't sure what to say.

"I don't know." he began somewhat dismissively as one of his hands moved up to rub at his neck. "When I was in the army, that number of casualties outside the line of duty would have been unacceptable. . . Or, at least that's what I thought at the time." The significance of that comment wasn't lost on Maria.

Rogers had gone under in 43. A nuke had been dropped on Hiroshima in 45.

A weariness filled his eyes, and he suddenly looked much older.

"Maybe I am just old-fashioned." he mused to himself in a disheartened murmur, but the words still managed to reach Maria.

"No." she finally spoke, and the Captain almost seemed surprised. Maybe he hadn't expected her to answer after she'd remained silent for so long. "A nuclear strike should always be the absolute last resort and only if the situation is dire enough. I don't know if anything could constitute launching one into a highly populated city like New York." She gave her reasons, and Rogers seemed to relax.

"The Director and I tried to stop the missile, but they used a decoy. If I was in that cockpit, though, I don't think I could have pulled that trigger, knowing what was on the other end."

Another short beat of silence passed before Rogers responded.

"That's good to know, ma'am."He held her eyes for a time after that, an unreadable expression in them as he studied her. Maria quickly became uneasy under the intensity of that gaze, an odd feeling filling her stomach when looking at one of the Supers.

Was that trust?

Whatever it was, Maria quickly shoved it down and returned to her previously discarded task of beating the Loki punching bag, something she was much more comfortable with. The Captain returned to his position of holding the bag still for her. He wasn't giving it all he had, or else Maria knew the bag wouldn't budge an inch when she struck it.

"I hope you realize I won't really be able to return the favor." Maria commented offhandedly as she landed another solid kick, and Rogers gave a goodhearted laugh that actually made her pause momentarily for her surprise.

Something had been funny?

"Not a problem, ma'am. I'm sure you have more important things to do than babysit a kid from Brooklyn." he dismissed with a casual shrug.

Something about that frank comment conjured something in Maria. Whether it was the innocent honesty with which it was spoken, the fact that a renowned leader would refer to himself in such a modest fashion, or even the goofy grin Rogers wore while saying it, the simple statement made Maria do something she hadn't done in some time.

She smiled.

Sure, it was small, barely noticeable from an outsider's point of view, but the muscles pulling in her face were ones she had not used honestly in some time and were instantly noticed by her. That subtle reaction conjured a thought, one she had yet to consider.

Maria could respect Captain America, as a leader and as a moral compass. She could trust him to do his job in the field and could respect his input on what action should be taken next, even if she didn't like him. She had a habit of not completely trusting anyone or anything that could do the amount of damage the supers she'd become recently acquainted with could. The video feeds of the attack on New York simply strengthened that caution within her. If even one of them turned, she didn't want to think of the damage they could cause.

But, Steve Rogers, the stalwart, honest kid from Brooklyn? That was somehow different. She supposed she could learn to be friends with Steve Rogers.

A.N.: Not sure how long ago I wrote this, though I know it was a couple months after the movie came out. If you've got time, let me know what you thought.