AU Milliways

[therighttime]

The door opens from one pub to the next. A rosy-tinted, warm little English pub filled to the brim with uniformed soldiers and local girls, crowing and laughing and being alive, really feeling it for the first time in longer than any of them would like to admit.

The woman who is leaving that particular pub is tall - very tall, inches over six feet - shapely in her 1940s olive dress uniform. Her make-up is fresh, her tie in perfect order, her hair is even curled in classic victory rolls (it took three showgirls three hours to make it happen, but they're all used to it by now).

Stephanie Rogers is grinning, flush-faced and filled with joy as she waves to a dark-haired soldier at the bar and steps purposefully into -- another bar.

She recognizes a shift, a difference immediately, and keeps one hand on the knob even as she frowns thoughtfully at the room around her.

Comments

[therighttime]

"What I get for trying to be polite in every situation," Steph agrees, laughing quietly on her own. "I really need to quit that."

She's working on it, though. The boys outside that door wouldn't have agreed to follow her if she couldn't at least swear properly.

[without_fear]

"No," Maggie says. "You don't. Be yourself, and let the world get used to it."

...she's giving worldly advice to Captain America. What.

[therighttime]

Training means Steph's smile is politely amused, instead of the accusing eyeroll she'd like to deliver. No one's told her to be 'herself' since Dr. Erskine, the night before she took the serum.

But she smiles anyway. Amusing or not, what she did - not so much with the USO, but with the help of Peggy and Howard Stark's plane - got her where she always wanted to be.

"...you might have a point there," Steph admits after a moment, and her smile turns true just thinking about it.

[without_fear]

"I'm a lawyer," Maggie points out. "If we can't turn out trite cliches sometimes what is the world coming to?"

[therighttime]

Steph laughs, brief, and shakes her head. "Not sure what's trite about it, to be honest. 'Let the world get used to it' sounds pretty useful to me personally."

[without_fear]

"Ah, well, that's just me," she admits.

[therighttime]

"World didn't have to get used to you?" Steph asks, her smile friendly, relaxing into the conversation and bar, both. "If you'll pardon me, you don't strike me as the sort of woman to take what life offers without challenging it back a little."

[without_fear]

"You're right," Maggie agrees. "I'm not that sort of woman at all. I think the world needs to be challenged."

[therighttime]

"Not much changes without a little noise," Steph agrees, her voice softening just a little, her smile more secretive. The argument could be made that she didn't change a single thing without Dr. Erskine's aid. Steph would just be quick to point out, it wasn't the first time she made a fuss about the way of things. Just the first time someone helped her.

[without_fear]

"No, well, you'd know that more than anyone from my time," Maggie confirms.

"Here's to change, right?"

[therighttime]

Steph smiles back, pleased. "I'm glad to hear it."

Things sound better, brighter in Maggie's future. She likes that a lot.

Though if they're going to toast, she'd better flag down the bartender. "Gin and tonic, please. And whatever they lady'd like?"

If Maggie will let her, that is.

[without_fear]

A drink from hot lady Captain America? Is she kidding?

"Gin and tonic sounds good to me," Maggie says. "Thank you."

[therighttime]

"Sure thing." Steph grins and slides her glass across the bar to clink gently against Maggie's - and push it closer to her fingers in the bargain. "It's a day for celebrating anyway, I'm glad to do it."

[without_fear]

On cue, Maggie reaches for that pushed glass and tilts it in acknowledgement of the toast before taking a drink.

"Is it? Why's that?"