"Just poking around," Tessa said, shrugging. "Being nosy. It's what I'm good at."

"Ah." Steve grinned a bit. "I can imagine you're good at that. With the shapeshifting and all, I mean, makes it harder for people to follow you, that's all."

"Sometimes," Tessa agreed. "Unless they can tell what I am." It still irked her a bit that she'd been picked out so quickly earlier.

"I wouldn't feel bad about that," Steve said. "Natasha doesn't miss much of anything. There are no secrets in this house."

"Must be annoying," Tessa muttered. She rather liked having her secrets, thank you.

"Depends," Steve said with a shrug. "Although I'm guessing it's a good thing you don't live here."

"Probably," Tessa agreed. She stretched a bit. "As soon as I get the green light, I'm going to go right back to exploring the area around town."

"Do you do a lot of that? Exploring?" Steve raised an eyebrow at her.

"Every time I get to a new place," Tessa said, shrugging. She looked at him. "Come on, you can't tell me you wouldn't be curious about a place you'd never been before."

"I would," Steve agreed. "I have done that before. But I'm guessing exploring isn't the only reason, huh? I mean, you found the local hellhounds."

Tessa shrugged again.

"They knew the area best," she pointed out. "And they were a ton of fun until all this happened."

"You call them a ton of fun. Everyone else was about this close to saying kill the lot." Steve shrugged.

"So they're a bit rowdy," Tessa said, "so what? Nobody got really hurt. People just don't know how to deal with Hellhounds. They need a big territory to run if the pack ends up as big as this one did."

"I'm not disagreeing. Just saying that opinions vary wildly and you might want to be careful. People around here aren't very open-minded sometimes. Not when it comes to things that can and have caused lots of damage in the past." Steve shrugged.

"Thanks for the concern, but I'll be fine," Tessa said. "I just won't try Hellhounds next time. Something less conspicuous will be better."

Steve nodded, though he didn't head back inside just yet. Instead he pulled over a chair, sitting on the porch and looking out at the rest of the property.

"So you must like living with her, to have traveled out here with her for a job that she got."

"Didn't have much of a choice, actually," Tessa said, leaning against the railing of the porch. "I mean, yeah, she's great to live with, but the apartment we shared before was a bit out of my price range, by myself."

"You could have moved to a different one," Steve pointed out. "One that was in your price range."

"I could have, but there wasn't much point," Tessa said, nodding a bit. "I'd rather stay with Anna."

Steve nodded. He understood that.

"Well, at least you two get along well," he agreed. "And it looks like you take good care of her."

"I think she ends up taking better care of me," Tessa admitted after a moment. "I just try to return the favor."

"I know the type," Steve said with a bit of a grin. "Tony's that way. He forgets about things like food and sleep, but he's given us all a place to stay, and he gives us all things. In return we make sure he doesn't kill himself working."

"That's it exactly," Tessa said, nodding. "That's how it works with Anna."

Steve grinned and nodded. "Yeah. I figured. It's a good thing you two have each other, then."

"She's the best thing to ever happen to me," Tessa said truthfully. She fell silent after that.