Fandom: MCU
Pairing/characters: Steve Rogers x reader
Words: 424

Steve casually moved his hand from the steering wheel and scratched below his left ear, then slid the palm of his hand over his ear and glanced discreetly down at it while he laid it back on the steering wheel.

Huh. Not bloody.

He just barely resisted rolling his eyes and sighing when she reached out to skip to the next track. The bass and squeaky voice were replaced with some orchestra accompanied by an ethereal female voice in a language he had never heard before – and he had heard many.

He asked about it as he took a right turn, heading out of the city.

"It's elven. It's from a video game I played a few years ago." She leaned her head back on the headrest and closed her eyes. "It's so beautiful." Steve glanced at her and she was mouthing the strange words.

He had to admit it was a beautiful song, it sounded so...

"It's really sad though, the lyrics. It's sort of about war."

Oh.

She was still mouthing along. And Steve enjoyed the rest, the almost normal music. The whole 4 minutes and 3 seconds of it.

And then it was over, and some instrumental song took over, with a loud bass so sped up he could feel his heart rate do the same. It was enough to give someone a whiplash, the way the genres and volume changed in her playlists. It was everything from incomprehensible screaming to squeaky helium voices, from playful folksy violins to shredding guitars. After all this time, Steve had gotten used to it, but sometimes it still made him feel like his ears were bleeding.

A couple of kilometres later, came a song that made it all worth it. In each of her playlists, no matter how many weird songs were in there, there was always a selection of songs he liked.

This one was his favourite of them all. It was one he had enjoyed listening to back when he was a scrawny, sickly guy, sitting next to the record player, dreaming about taking a beautiful girl dancing. The first time he danced with her, it was to this song. They both stepped on each other's feet, both just as clumsy. But it had been perfect.

Steve smiled at the memory and reached across to take her hand. She laced her fingers with his, lifted their hands to her lips and kissed the back of his hand. He glanced at her again. The smile on her face told him she remembered too.