What Matters {B.Barnes Daughter} ✔️

~Twenty: Patronize~

Lizzie rubbed her eyes in disbelief and stared, wide-eyed, at her computer screen.

"Y= -1x^2 divided by 3 plus 3x divided by 6... Hell. No." She closed her laptop screen, crossing her arms and sighing.

"Language," a voice called from the entrance to the lounge. She jumped and turned to it, but relaxed when she saw it was just Steve, arms crossed and leaning gingerly against the doorway.

She smiled slightly. "Sorry. This online school has got my mind all jacked up. I think I'm starting to hear colors."

Steve chuckled, striding over and sitting on the chair adjacent from hers. He whipped out his cellphone, entirely focused on something he was typing.

"Hey, Liz? Can you come here a second?" He called, lifting his eyes from his phone.

"Yeah," Lizzie said, springing up from the chair she was in. "What do you need?"

"Tech support," he chuckled. Lizzie laughed, coming over and sitting on the arm of the chair. "Alright, so if I wanted to send something to multiple people at once, can I do that?"

"You mean a group text?" Lizzie asked, furrowing her eyebrows.

"Sure, yeah. How do I do that?"

"Oh, it's easy. Just go to where you would start a new message with someone and type in who all you want to be in the chat. Then press 'done' and there you go. Text away," she said, nodding.

"Alright, thank you. Technology is like a foreign language to me."

Lizzie chuckled, smiling a little.

"So, I'm guessing you haven't figured out Snapchat yet?" Tony asked, walking into the room pridefully.

"Snap-who?" Steve asked.

"Nope. Didn't think so. It's not really for the elderly, it's more of a young person-type-thing," Tony explained, moving his hands about as he spoke.

"Tony," Steve said. His tone wasn't one associated with a warning... it was more like Steve was pleading. Lizzie knew why, and quickly shook her head at Tony as she got up to sit on the couch.

"What? Come on, Rogers, I'm just kidding you. Take a joke.... they had jokes back in your time, right?"

"Yes, Tony," Steve said, clearly getting flustered. Lizzie gave Tony the worst death glare she could manage, but he still didn't seem to take the hint.

"Oh, nice."

A silence went by, and Lizzie silently prayed that Tony was finished with his joke fest. But, she had lived with him for ten years; she should've known better.

"Hey, Rogers?"

"What?" Steve asked, trying to seem uninterested by messing in his phone.

"It's not that bad. At least they had emojis back in your time. They were called hieroglyphics, though, right?" Tony said, snickering at his own joke.

Steve sighed, and shook his head, silently hoping that Tony would just shut up. The pain in his heart was enough to deal with by itself, without Tony patronizing him. His jokes reminded him that he was old, and that reminded him of the '40s, which reminded in of the war, which reminded him of... her. And, now, she was gone. And, because of that, his heart felt like it had a crack the size of the Grand Canyon running straight through it.