2

Sharon focused on beating the bowlful of eggs with her whisk. She had laid out a variety of vegetables and chopped up a package of chicken sausage. She thought she was prepared to make a fine omelet, but what would he think?

It wasn't as if she were trying to impress him with her cooking skills; making an omelet wasn't exactly the height of culinary achievement, but it was healthy and filling and easy, and that made it good eats in her book. She hadn't cooked for a man since Phil—she swallowed back that thought and evaluated the bowl of beaten eggs. She chuckled to herself. Five omelets, huh? She'd never really considered how Steve Rogers's daily existence must now be different from the average man's. What else was different about him?

Her mind immediately slid into the gutter and she closed her eyes. Not now, girl, she told herself. Maybe not ever.

What was she doing? Was she ready for this? Two years seemed both an eternity and too soon. And with Captain America? That had never been in her plans. When she'd suggested the newly-available apartment across the hall to Director Fury, she hadn't been thinking that far ahead. She'd just been eager to help a national hero, and HR had been more than happy to have an easy place to put the man that was within eyeshot of an established S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.

She didn't know what she'd been expecting, really. Not a healthy young man, certainly, and not one who seemed to be able to see through her. He had an unnerving gaze, as though he were really looking at you when you were speaking. Lying to him had become the hardest thing she'd ever done, because she could see the openness and trust in his expression. He hadn't deserved it. But Director Fury had insisted that Rogers be made to feel comfortable, not watched, and she understood that. He'd had the eyes of the world on him from the moment he'd run out into Times Square in his bare feet and made the evening news. For a man who was so thoroughly unassuming, it was strange to see all the magazine stands and the movie posters and the TV interviews and the Presidential handshaking and the crowds of excited fans.

So when he came home at night, it was important that he be made to feel as though he were in a protected, private space. And for the most part, he had been. Of course she knew about the surveillance equipment in his apartment; she had installed most of it herself. But she had never had reason to check on any of it. She left that sort of thing to Director Fury and chose to believe that Fury wasn't invading Rogers's privacy unnecessarily. That didn't eliminate her increasing sense of guilt, but there was nothing to be done about that. She had a job to do, and she rather liked imagining herself as a kind of quiet, benign guardian angel, there to protect him if he had ever had need of her.

He hadn't, of course. The reporters had stopped following him around fairly quickly when he ceased to be of interest and became entirely predictable in his daily routine. His complete lack of interest in engaging in any questionable behavior also helped decrease his newsworthiness. At the time, she hadn't known if he was being deliberately boring just to get rid of the cameras, or if he really was that committed to the straight and narrow. Now, though, she had no doubt of his intentions and values. He was a breath of fresh air.

The doorbell rang and she looked up from her chopping, wiping at her eyes.

When she let him in, his face immediately grew concerned.

"Are you okay?" he asked. "I don't have to—I can come back another time—"

She waved him down. "I'm just chopping the onion," she said with a smile. "C'mon in."

"Ah," he said with a grin. "How can I help?"

She smiled to herself as she walked into the kitchen. "Pick a vegetable. There's another cutting board in that cupboard," she gestured at it, "and knives over in the block."

"Right," he said, and got himself set up with a head of broccoli on the other side of her breakfast bar. She went back to finishing the onion, watching him out of the corner of her eye. She was amused to note that he was wearing what appeared to be his pajamas: relaxed, draw-string pants and a t-shirt that left little to her imagination. Although, she thought, as she finished her chopping and scraped the bits of onion into a waiting bowl, it probably wasn't easy for him to find t-shirts that fit him more loosely. His upper body was massive. It was unlikely that he was wearing a tight-fitting shirt purposely to have an influence on her. But how well did she know him, really?

"Is this good?" he asked, gesturing at his cutting board with his knife. He'd reduced the head of broccoli to an even chop in the space of two minutes. She'd been so distracted by his pecs and biceps that she hadn't paid attention to his hands, or even touched the green pepper that was in front of her. What had come over her? She wasn't all that into muscles, she'd thought. Too intimidating, all that obvious physicality, but here she was, mentally grinding her gears just as much as all those stereotypical screaming fangirls.

She dragged her eyes back down to the hill of broccoli on his cutting board. "Um, yes. That looks great." She looked up at him. "But you'll be the one eating it, so it's really up to you."

He nodded and smiled at her. "Okay. What else needs to be done?"

She twisted and glanced around the kitchen. "How about grating the cheese?"

His eyes lit on the block of parmesan and he grinned. "Mmm. Where's the grater?"

"In the cupboard above the fridge," she said, and watched with some amusement as he opened the indicated cupboard doors and easily plucked the box grater out. It wasn't an item she used often, so she stored it up there, and she normally had to get a step-stool out to rummage around in that cupboard. Having him around could be handy, she thought, and then silenced herself and focused on chopping the pepper.

"How was your trip?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I didn't find what I was looking for."

She chopped a bit more before glancing at him. "To be honest, I didn't know if you would return."

"This is my home," he said. He set down the box grater and scraped the broccoli off his cutting board into an empty bowl.

She nodded and pressed her lips together, searching for something to say. She looked up. "What happened to your motorcycle?" she asked. "I didn't see it on the curb when you came in."

"A plane crashed into it." He wiped the broccoli remnants off his cutting board and set the box grater on it.

"Oh, right." She felt like an idiot. She'd watched the battle on the bridge, along with everyone else, on the security feed. The fate of the motorcycle had been easy to forget in the midst of the spectacle around it. What he'd done had seemed like something out of an adrenaline-fueled fantasy, but the whole thing had been caught live on tape. He'd single-handedly brought down a compact fighter jet and run off, apparently unscathed. And now he was standing in her kitchen, helping her make omelets.

"So," he said, peeling the wrapping off the cheese, and she glanced up at him. "Why are you still here?"

She frowned at him and held the knife still. "What?"

He shrugged. "You don't work for S.H.I.E.L.D. now," he said. "Watching out for me isn't your job any longer."

She smirked at him and went back to chopping the pepper. "It was never my whole job," she said. "Not even a particularly big part of it, in fact. I was just the backup. I wasn't living here solely for your benefit." She pushed a pile of chopped pepper off to the side. "I've been living here for eight years. This is my home."

"Oh," he said, looking chagrined. "I hadn't realized."

"No," she said, giving him a significant look. "There's a lot about me you don't know."

"Yes," he said. "For starters, what's your last name?"

She smiled. "Carter."

He caught himself in mid-grate and stared at her. "Carter?"

She nodded. "I'm her great-niece." She pantomimed holding a phone up to her ear. "She was the aunt I mentioned. Sometimes she calls at odd hours; she doesn't realize what time it is."

His eyes searched her face and he swallowed, then looked down. He began to grate the cheese again, but more slowly.

She looked down as well and sliced into the remaining half of the pepper. "She mentions you sometimes, you know." He didn't say anything, but she could tell he was listening closely. His body had stilled, despite the grating he was doing. "I don't think she ever stopped loving you."

"No," he said, his voice quiet. "Nor I her."

Sharon swallowed and nodded, then frowned as she blinked back a sudden desire to tear up. She swallowed again and returned to chopping. "She stays in surprisingly good spirits."

He chuckled. "She's indomitable."

Sharon laughed. "So aptly put."

"Did she have a good life?" he asked.

Sharon looked up at him in some surprise, then looked away and paused her chopping, laying the knife aside for a moment. She swallowed. "She always made the most of it, I think. She embraced the good with the bad and never let anything stop her from finding joy…eventually." Sharon smiled and picked up her knife, gesturing at him with it. "And she taught me what to look for in a man."

He eyed the knife with a smirk. "And how to keep them at bay? I seem to recall that she was very good at that."

Sharon laughed and went back to chopping. "Some of that, too, yes." Her smile died away and she frowned down at the pepper, turning the strips she'd made so that she could cut them crosswise.

"What is it?" Steve asked.

She looked up quickly and met his eyes. She hadn't really talked to anyone about this, outside of her mother and sister, but she found that she wanted to tell him now. He was watching her with that frank gaze; if she hid from him, he wouldn't press her on it, but he would know that she wasn't being entirely forthright with him, and that would put a damper on whatever was burgeoning between them. She frowned, made quick work of the remaining strips of green pepper, scraped them into the bowl with the chopped onion, and set down the knife. She drew in a deep breath.

"My husband died in the Battle of New York," she said. Steve straightened and set down the remaining chunk of ungrated cheese.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

She nodded. "It was no one's fault. He was hit by a falling piece of debris and died instantly. No pain."

He nodded and looked down with a frown.

"Still," he said.

She put out a hand, touched the back of his where it rested on the breakfast bar. "You did all you could. You were amazing. You'd only been back for two weeks, and you took command of a disparate group of unruly fighters and saved us all."

"Not all," he said.

"Yes, all," she insisted. He looked up at her, searching her face. When she didn't flinch, he swallowed and blinked and frowned and looked away.

"What is it?" she asked.

He shook his head.

She drew her hand back and looked at the food laid out on the breakfast bar. There was enough prepped to start cooking. She started to move away, but his hand on her forearm stopped her. He'd never touched her before. She looked up at him with wide eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said again. "I wish I could do more."

She smiled up at him, wanting desperately to give him a hug, but not sure how he would respond to that. So she just smiled.

"You are doing more," she said quietly.

He met her eyes. She had a wild thought that he might kiss her, but he didn't. He just searched her face, his expression uncertain.

She had a sudden flash of insight and stepped forward before she could overthink it. She reached up to cup the sides of his face with her hands and, when he didn't seem to be pulling away from her, she pushed up on her toes and pressed her lips softly against his.

His response was slow, tentative at first, gentle. She closed her eyes. When she felt his hands come around her waist, she moved her own hands onto his shoulders, still not demanding, just patient and content. They briefly parted and then he met her again.

This kiss was an odd mixture of confidence and uncertainty and when they paused again, she smiled and drew back. She looked up at him and was amused to note that he seemed slightly out of breath, his mouth open as he looked down at her.

"Was that okay?" she asked. His hands shifted up to her back, his eyes changed subtly, and she had very little warning when he pulled her against his chest and met her mouth with his own. There was a desperation in this kiss. It seemed laced with fear. His body was tense and too strong and hard; there was suddenly nothing soft or relatable about him. She tried to meet him, but the awkward angle of her neck became painful and she was forced to turn her face down, breaking their contact. He let go of her immediately.

"I'm sorry," he said, stepping back and holding out his hands. He didn't meet her eyes. He started to turn away. "I shouldn't have done that."

She put out a hand, touching his forearm as he had done to her earlier. He paused and looked at her.

"It's alright," she said gently. "What was that? Please, tell me."

He frowned and glanced away, then looked at the floor. When he raised his eyes again to hers, she was surprised to see them glistening with unshed tears.

"I don't think I can do this," he said.

"Why not?" she asked.

He looked away and shook his head.

She pressed her lips together, then took a step closer, dropping her hand from his arm.

"What are you afraid of, Steve?"

At the sound of his name, he looked at her.

"I'm a hot mess," he said.

She chuckled and relaxed. Hearing him adopt modern slang lifted her spirits, somehow.

"Well, yes," she said. "That's rather obvious."

He blinked at her and frowned, but the wet in his eyes had receded.

"Look," she said, turning away and going around the breakfast bar to the range. She turned on the burner under her largest frying pan, which she'd already sprayed with oil. When she turned around, she was pleased to see that he'd stepped back up to the edge of the breakfast bar. "I can only imagine how it must feel to be in your position, but whenever I do, I can only think of how horrifying it would be if it had happened to me. Your body transformed into something unrecognizable, no matter how desirable it might be, your sense of time entirely displaced, all of the people you knew and loved either gone or nearly so, and then the one organization where you'd begun to make a place for yourself is now completely destroyed, and by your own hand. It would be easy to second-guess every decision you ever made in your life, to ask yourself if any of it was worth it, were you even right, can you trust your own judgement, what about all the people who lost their lives because of your actions, and who are you now? You're lost in so many ways that I don't even know where to start."

The smell of cooking oil began to fill the room. She reached for the bowl of egg mixture and began whisking it again. He stood in front of her in silence.

"Please correct me if I'm wrong," she said finally, meeting his eyes and smiling, "but I assume that was the first time you kissed a woman since 1945."

Unexpectedly, he laughed and crossed his arms. "Actually, no," he said. "Natasha dragged me into a kiss as part of our cover while we were hiding from the S.T.R.I.K.E. team."

"Ah," Sharon said with a grin. "Public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable."

He frowned, still amused. "What is that, from a standard S.H.I.E.L.D. training manual? Those were the exact words that she used."

Sharon laughed. "Something like that. Female agents were given some…additional training that the men were not."

"Really?" Steve asked, dropping his arms and drifting around the breakfast bar. "Like what?"

"Alternate defensive techniques," she answered evasively. "You guys do have us at a physical disadvantage, you know."

"I could say the same for you ladies," he said, his voice lower than it had been before.

She raised her eyebrows at him. Was this Steve Rogers, flirting? Well, there was one way to find out. She turned her back on him, whisked the bowl of eggs a few more times, and then poured out some of the mixture into the pan, where it hissed and crackled. She set down the bowl and picked up the spatula.

"Would you hand me the cheese?" she asked, without turning around.

"Sure," he said, and a moment later, to her satisfaction, she felt him come up behind her. Her body was alert and sensitive to his presence, his warmth, and the movement of air from his breathing. Which, she realized, was much slower than what she had expected. He seemed to be exhaling once for every two or three times that she felt the urge to. After a long moment of standing close behind her, he held out the bowl. At her nod, he tilted it and poured some of the cheese into the pan, his arm brushing against her shoulder.

"Is that good?" he asked.

"You'll be the one eating it," she answered. He chuckled and his breath stirred her hair. She shifted her weight backwards slightly and brought herself into the barest of contact with him, heard him inhale, and smiled to herself.

After a long moment he said, in a slightly strangled tone of voice that made her smile more widely, "I'd better get the rest—of the food."

"Good idea," she said, turning with a smile and brushing purposely against him as she did. She slipped past him and gathered up the bowls of broccoli, peppers and onions, tomato, and chopped sausage. "Chicken sausage okay?"

"Great," he answered. "Here, let me." He took the bowls from her, set them on the counter beside the range, made quick work of sprinkling their contents into the rapidly-cooking egg and cheese mixture, and then picked up the pan and flipped the omelet over onto itself, deftly folding it in half with a flick of his wrist. She realized her mouth was hanging open and closed it. He turned around, holding the pan with the perfectly-folded omelet, and her stomach growled. "Plate?" he asked.

She unfroze and quickly reached up to open the cupboard that contained her plates. He pulled one out and slid the omelet onto it before setting it down on the breakfast bar and turning back to the range. He set the pan down on the flames again and glanced at her with a smirk.

"Are you sure you aren't hungry?" he asked.

She laughed. "Okay. Make me one, oh master chef."

He shot her an amused look. "Hardly. Just a lot of practice making omelets."

She laughed. "I'll set the table."

She pulled out napkins and utensils and decided to try the white wine glasses.

"Do you drink wine?" she asked, peering into her fridge. She usually kept a couple bottles of white in it, just in case.

"I do," he said, glancing at her in between sprinkling ingredients in the pan. "But I should warn you that if your nefarious plan is to get me drunk and have your way with me, you're going to be sadly disappointed. I can't get drunk, no matter how much alcohol I consume."

"Oh," she said, straightening, and contemplated that for a moment. How sad, to have one avenue of relaxation taken away from him. But the trade-off was life without the threat of ever losing a clear head, she supposed. "Does that bother you?"

"No, not usually," he said, his voice quiet. "I was never much of a drinker before this," he gestured at himself, "so there isn't really anything to miss." He paused, flipped the omelet he was working on. "Sometimes, though, it would be nice to be able to forget."

She nodded, pulled out a bottle of the wine, and closed the refrigerator door. She found the corkscrew after rummaging in a drawer and she pulled out the cork with a satisfying pop.

"That wasn't my nefarious plan, by the way," she said with a grin.

"Oh?" he quirked an eyebrow at her and she laughed. "What was it?"

"Just to lend an ear. I hadn't expected to kiss you, even."

He chuckled and slid the omelet onto a second plate before starting the process again. "Neither had I," he said. He poured in some of the egg mixture and looked up at her with a question in his eyes. "I don't regret it."

"Me neither," she said.

His answering smile lit up his face and she felt a grin bubbling up from her chest as she poured the wine into the glasses. This was crazy! They'd been together for less than fifteen minutes and she was happy and aroused and at peace, all at once. She hadn't expected to feel this way with anyone after Phil. He had been a rare blessing, and when he was gone, she'd said thank You and good-bye and I'll be okay and had taken it one day at a time. The debilitating urge to cry had eventually become less frequent, less consuming, until one day she'd gone a whole day without feeling it, and then eventually it had been a week, and then a month, and now it was two years later and she was standing in the same kitchen, remembering Phil standing at that same range, and his warm humor and his curly, untamable brown hair and the way he'd smile at her when he knew she was being coy about her work, and he'd invent some ludicrous spy scenario just to tease her and try to trick her into giving something away, which never worked, but it was so much fun to play the game and remember all the old jokes that only they two knew, all the stupid, silly things that made them laugh, and brought them together even though the requirements of her job kept them apart, and she loved him dearly for forgiving her when she had to hide things from him. She still did.

She looked up and realized that her vision was filled by a massive chest, and that she'd covered her mouth with her hand.

"Sharon?" Steve, not Phil, was asking. "What's wrong? Are you all right?"

She nodded, blinking rapidly, and wiped at her eyes. She smiled up at him through the blurry edges. "Yes. You just reminded me of him for a second."

His face tightened. "Who?"

"Phil."

"Your husband?"

She nodded and finished drying her eyes.

"I'm sorry…" Steve said.

"No. It's a good thing." She drew in a deep breath and exhaled. "You reminded me of a happy time."

He didn't seem to know what to do with himself, so she pushed up on her toes and kissed his cheek, then slipped around him and returned to the range. He'd turned off the burner, so she turned it back on and sprinkled ingredients and finished the omelet in silence.

She hadn't realized how raw the nerve still was. It was the first time she'd begun to let a man back in since Phil's death, so it shouldn't have been a surprise, but it still left her a little shaken. She breathed in and out. Although it hurt to remember, the pain was accompanied by a kind of relief as well, as though an old wound were being lanced.

"Three is enough for now," he said quietly, when she'd finished cooking. "I can make the rest while you eat."

She nodded and carried the two plates over to the table. She sat down in her usual spot and he took the opposite seat.

"Cheers," he said, lifting his glass with a small smile. She followed suit. And then—then she fell in love. Because he bowed his head and closed his eyes and said quietly, "Thank You for this food, this evening, and this…" he opened his eyes and looked up at her with a smile, "…this new friend."

"Amen," she said, her throat tight as she smiled at him.

He shook salt onto his omelets and then picked up his fork and cut one open. He quickly took a bite and smiled at her as he hummed his approval.

"Thank you," he said after swallowing. "This is great."

"You're welcome." She took a bite of her own omelet. It was perfectly cooked: lightly browned, fluffy, just the slightest bit undercooked in the middle. She could get used to this. "You pray over your meal?"

He looked up at her. "Yes."

"I know you've got strong convictions," she said, "and I admire you for them, a great deal."

He took another bite and watched her.

"Look," she said, setting down her fork. "Let me just be clear: despite what I did with you earlier, I'm not interested in some kind of casual-sex arrangement. I have strong convictions, too."

He straightened and sat back, licking his lips, and set down his own fork. He wiped his mouth with his napkin and looked at her.

"I hope you know that I did not come here expecting even to make out with you." His voice was low and steady. "That's not how I do things."

She relaxed—she hadn't realized she'd been tense—and she smiled and nodded. "That's what I thought. It's not my style, either." She smiled down at her plate. "'Make out'…wow, I haven't heard that phrase in years."

She looked up at him and saw that he was frowning at his plate. He quickly returned to eating and she followed suit.

When he'd cleaned his plate—she was amused to note that he'd finished both of his omelets and she was only about halfway through her one—he sat back and looked at her. She raised her eyebrows and took a sip of wine, feeling self-conscious. Perhaps she shouldn't have been so forthright; it seemed to have killed the mood a bit. Despite that, she couldn't really bring herself to regret it. She'd thought Steve Rogers the sort of man who would not be intimidated by her comment and might, in fact, welcome it, but she wondered what he was thinking and whether she really understood him at all.

He put his napkin on the table, pushed back, and rose to his feet with a gesture towards the range. "Do you mind if I finish making the rest?" he asked.

"Not at all," she said, but she frowned down at her wine glass.

"So," he said, over the snapping sound of the burner being turned on. The flames rose and he reached for the bowl of beaten eggs. "What sort of arrangement are you interested in?"

Sharon's eyes widened and she looked at him. Before this evening, she would have said that she wasn't interested in an arrangement with anyone at the moment, but now that he was standing in her kitchen…

"I don't know," she answered.

He nodded.

"This is all too new," she said. "I have too many questions and not enough answers."

"What sort of questions?"

She frowned and turned the stem of her wine glass. Which one to ask first? What was the most important? When she contemplated the List, most of the early questions were about establishing character, but Sharon was fairly certain that she had a bead on Steve's character and integrity. She smiled, suspecting that Aunt Peggy had probably composed the List with Steve himself in mind. He wasn't exactly hard to pin down in that sense. So what disturbed Sharon? What was worrisome?

The directness. This was no light, flirty first date. There had been some of that, but they were both wearing their nightclothes—implying a certain assumed level of comfort with one another—they'd kissed, they'd each made some of their pain visible to the other, and now they were talking about big-picture expectations. It all seemed to be moving rather quickly, and she wasn't sure if that was healthy. Was she feeling pressured? Why had he kissed her with such desperation? Why had it even been a bit painful? Did he really not know his own strength? That seemed unlikely. Had he forgotten himself in a moment of passion? That also didn't seem quite right: Steve Rogers was a man accustomed to self-discipline. She frowned.

"That upsetting, hmm?" he asked, and she looked up quickly and gave him a weak smile. He was going through the motions of finishing the omelet, but he was watching her with a pained expression.

"No…not upsetting. Puzzling," she said slowly. "I feel like I know you so well in some ways, just from how Aunt Peggy has talked about you and from watching how you've responded to the circumstances I've witnessed, but I don't really know you. All of my assumptions could be wrong."

He nodded, sliding the omelet onto his plate and starting another one.

"You've gotten the shape of things pretty well so far," he said. "I'm adrift. I'm looking for an anchor. I freely admit to needing some human contact right now." He looked at her. "I don't want to make you that anchor, or load you down with my baggage."

"Why not?" she asked.

He frowned and sprinkled cheese and then broccoli on the frying pan.

"I couldn't ask that of you," he finally said.

"Why not?"

He sighed. "You can't solve my problems for me; I need to take responsibility for myself."

She smiled. "Good."

He looked at her with a self-deprecating smile. "Was that some kind of test?"

"Yes," she said, standing, and she came up beside him. "You passed. First rule of healthy relationships: having healthy expectations of each other."

He smiled, a lopsided grin that struck her as weary.

"We can't necessarily solve each other's problems," she said, "but we might still be able to help one another find the solutions."

He nodded, sprinkled the sausage and the tomatoes, and flipped the omelet over onto itself before sliding it onto his plate. They went back to the table and he sat looking at his food for a long moment.

"I'm not sure most of my problems have solutions," he said. "And I'm not sure how to live with them myself, so how can I ask someone else to live with them as well?"

He was looking at her with such a lost, saddened expression that she chuckled.

"So dramatic," she said with a smile. "Let's move out of the vague generalizations and into something concrete. Pick one thing that's bothering you right now and tell me about it." She took a bite of her cooling omelet and raised her eyebrows expectantly.

"Where do I go now? What should I be doing? What do I want from life?"

"That's three questions."

"All facets of the same struggle, though," he said quietly.

She regarded him for a moment, chewing, and then she swallowed.

"What makes you happy?" she asked.

He laughed and sat forward. "That's what Sam asked."

"Sam?"

"Sam Wilson. Falcon." Steve started eating again.

"Oh, right. I didn't think he was S.H.I.E.L.D. How did he get involved?"

Steve grimaced. "I dragged him into it. His apartment was the only safe place I could think of after Pierce bombed us."

Now it was Sharon's turn to grimace. Losing Phil had been awful, much more difficult than she'd expected it to be. She didn't think she could go through that again, but Steve Rogers practically came with the guarantee that one day she would. A man with his skills, visibility, and tendency to run to the first line of defense was only buying time before he died in the line of duty. Her own choice of profession wasn't that far off from the same danger.

She swallowed thickly and pushed those thoughts away. They were both alive right now, talking and breathing and facing the future with all of its unknowns, possibly together. His directness made sense now and she appreciated it.

She gave him a smile. "Did you meet him at the VA?"

"No. We took the same route for our morning run," he answered, frowning in question.

She shrugged. "I did a tour in Iraq. As a field medic."

"So you are a nurse…sort of."

She smiled down at her wine glass. "Sort of."

"How did you end up at S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

"I did my undergrad in computer science and kept it up as a hobby while I was enlisted," she said. "I wrote a tracer that caught someone's attention. Between that, the medic skills, and my marksmanship...among other things...they thought I was useful."

Steve nodded. "So what was your day job?"

"I was a Launch Control Manager for Project Insight," she said.

His eyebrows rose and then he frowned. "Why didn't you stop the launch when I asked?"

She scowled. "I tried. Rumlow started bullying Avram—one of my techs—into pushing the button, but Avram resisted. He was the first one who did. When Rumlow pulled a gun on him, I pulled my own on Rumlow—along with half the room—and he put his down." She growled. "I was an idiot, trusting the gun to keep him in line. He pulled a knife on me and I lost it." She held up her wrist to show him the fresh pink scar. "He caught it and started to go for Avram again, but I kicked Avram's chair out from under him and he rolled under the desk to get away. Rumlow had full access to Avram's console at that point and I was too far away to stop him." She glared at the far wall without seeing it. "I should have shot him when I had the chance."

"No," Steve said. "You did the right thing."

She frowned at him. "How can you say that? I was useless. I was in the perfect position to stop the whole thing from happening and I failed!"

"You resisted," he said. "You can't blame yourself for things that were out of your control."

"But it wasn't out of my control!" she hissed. "I should have known better than to trust in a gun."

Steve narrowed his eyes at her. "True. But how much combat experience do you have?"

She shifted uncomfortably. "Not a lot. Some."

"And how much do you suppose Rumlow has?"

She frowned.

"Rumlow has enough skill to make a run at me," Steve said. "He was the last man standing when they tried to capture me in the elevator and he inflicted plenty of pain before I knocked him out."

"What happened?" she asked, sitting forward. "I saw the elevator afterwards."

Now it was his turn to scowl. "It was stupid. They packed ten men into a small space and tried to use strength of numbers to take me down. No one had room to move, and merely grabbing me was a useless tactic." He looked down. "If they'd gotten both cuffs on me, they might have had a chance, but I never let them get that far." He looked up at her and smiled. "Don't look so concerned. I'm fine."

"Rumlow was your right-hand man, though," she said. "That must have given you trust issues."

His face darkened and he pushed his half-eaten meal away and sat back.

Ah. She nodded to herself. And what reason did he have to trust her? She'd been lying to him since the first day he met her. She looked away, uncomfortable, and got to her feet, bringing her plate and glass with her. She didn't have much of an appetite any longer and washing the dishes gave her something to do.

After a minute, he brought his meal over to the counter and stood beside her. "It seems a shame to waste it," he said, gesturing with the plate. "Can I wrap it up? I'll bring the plate right back."

So he was leaving. This was the beginning of a polite retreat. She nodded and gave him a small smile she didn't feel.

"Of course," she said.

"I'll be right back."

She nodded and washed and tried not to care when the door clicked shut behind him a few seconds later. Why was there a pain blossoming in her chest? She barely knew him; it shouldn't hurt this much.

But there were so many things about him that she loved. Or rather, admired and respected. She had done so for as long as she'd known him and even before then, she supposed. It's hard not to fall in love with an ideal when your elderly aunt describes him with tears in her eyes. But who was he, really?