Chapter 14

When Sharon came back at dinnertime, she found a tired-eyed Natasha Romanoff wading through all the reports Sharon had written on Rogers for the past several months.

"How did he do?" Sharon asked, slipping off her shoes and glancing at the video feed. Rogers wasn't in sight.

"Not so good," Romanoff said, not looking up from the laptop. "He looked at the S.H.I.E.L.D. files of all his old friends from his time. He got pretty upset."

Sharon's heart sank. So he'd finally done it. "Where is he?" she asked. "Out running?" She almost didn't bother asking. Of course he would be.

Romanoff pointed up at the ceiling. "Sleeping."

Sharon paused. "In the daytime? He never does that."

"Well, he just did," Romanoff said. "He went into the bedroom hours ago and hasn't come out. There's not a sound on the mics." She gathered up her jacket. "Cut the guy a break, he's depressed. He didn't even have a family, and now he's lost every friend he ever had, too." An odd expression flashed across her face, so fast that Sharon didn't quite have time to read it properly.

"It's PTSD, not depression," she responded automatically.

"I know, but you did say he didn't sleep last night," Romanoff said. "He must be tired. And like I said, the files really upset him. Better let him sleep it off." She pushed her arms into the sleeves of her jacket.

"Are you taking another shift tomorrow?" Sharon asked her.

"No," Romanoff said, adjusting her collar. "Duty calls. I gotta catch a plane."

"Where to? Anything interesting?"

"Some moron in Russia, selling Stark weapons on the black market."

"Sounds like fun," Sharon said lightly, hoping Romanoff wouldn't see how worried she was about Rogers, not wanting to hear another quip about getting attached to a target.

"Well, you know how much I love interrogations." Romanoff smiled brightly, although it seemed a little forced. She leaned over and pulled a memory stick out of the laptop. "I'm just... going to take a copy of your reports with me, if that's all right, so I can finish reading them on the plane. This guy, he's..." She trailed off.

"There's something about him," Sharon supplied.

"Yeah," Romanoff said slowly, and then she cleared her throat and swiftly left, closing the door behind her.

Alone again, Sharon paced the apartment and thought rapidly. In all the months she had been watching Rogers, he hadn't once slept during the day. Hadn't even tried. Something about this was off. Was he really sleeping? Or just staring at the ceiling in wakeful exhaustion? Maybe she should call Agent Hill to come and check on him. She hated to do that, partly because she knew it would generate a report and then Fury would know. He might call Sharon up then, demanding to know what went wrong, but that was the least of her worries. Up until now, no matter how low Rogers got, he had always behaved in predictable ways. For him to do something so out of character now...

Maybe it didn't mean anything. Then again, maybe it did. Suddenly a cold chill went down Sharon's spine. She'd been told the signs to watch for in case Rogers ever got bad enough to become a danger to himself. She hadn't recognized anything like that, and yet she was suddenly afraid.

She put in her earpiece and listened in on the mic from his bedroom, turning it up to full volume. Romanoff was right, there wasn't a sound. For the first time, Sharon regretted not putting a camera in that room. She hadn't seen the need to intrude on him to that degree. If he was sleeping now, the last thing she should do was disturb him. But if it was something else... her intuition was telling her to act.

Agent Hill was there less than 30 minutes after she made the call. Sharon was afraid Hill would think she was overreacting, but she seemed to take Sharon's explanation seriously, and went straight up to Rogers' door and knocked loudly, while Sharon hovered within earshot down in the stairwell.

Rogers didn't answer the door, not even after Hill knocked several times. She frowned and came down a couple of steps, meeting Sharon's eyes.

"You have the key?" she asked, and Sharon dug it out of her pocket and handed it over.

Hill unlocked the door and glanced back at Sharon. "Follow me in, but stay back out of sight," she said in a low voice, and Sharon nodded in confirmation.

They walked quietly through the living room and down the hall. The bedroom door was half open, and Hill silently eased up to it and carefully opened the door wider. From further back, Sharon could see that Rogers was sitting on the edge of the bed with his back to the door.

"Steve?" Hill said softly.

He didn't turn around.

"Steve?" she repeated a little louder.

He still didn't turn, although Sharon could see his shoulders moving up and down slightly as he breathed. She had no idea what was happening or what they should do next, but Hill decisively moved into the room and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"Steve," she said.

He turned toward her in one startled motion, and Sharon shrank back further down the hall, not wanting him to see her. But through the crack between the frame and the door she could see him blink several times in surprise, glancing around his bedroom and then back up at Hill, looking confused.

"Sorry," Hill said quickly. "I didn't mean to startle you. You left your front door hanging open. I called out, but you didn't answer. I was afraid you'd had a break-in."

It took him a long moment to answer. "I left my door open?" he asked, sounding bewildered.

"Yeah. You okay?"

He rubbed his eyes and then kept his hand up there, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I guess... I must have fallen asleep."

"Long day?" Hill asked. She still had her hand on his shoulder.

Rogers glanced out his window, and seemed surprised to see that it was dark outside. "What time is it?" he asked slowly.

"Almost 8 o'clock, I think."

His eyes widened slightly and his breathing quickened, but he didn't say anything, and after a few moments Hill asked again, "You okay?"

Sharon fully expected him to brush her off with a reflexive "fine," but instead he said in a monotone: "I don't feel good."

Hill sat next to him on the bed, and with her left hand down by her side she made a subtle shooing gesture in Sharon's direction. Immediately, Sharon turned and very, very quietly slipped out of Rogers' apartment and carefully closed the door behind her.

Once she was back in the apartment below his, Sharon deliberately turned off the cameras and mics one by one. She was tempted to leave them on, aching to know what was going on with Rogers and if he was okay, even though she had instructions never to listen in on Hill's visits. But lately, she had been feeling uneasy about the level of surveillance she was authorized to carry out. This assignment was incredibly intrusive, and even though Sharon knew it was her job and that it was being done for a good reason, it was right that she should give Rogers this one moment of privacy.

Maria Hill carefully sat next to Steve on the bed. "What's wrong?" she asked gently.

He didn't know what to say. His body felt stiff and his eyes were dry and sore, but that wasn't even the half of it. How was he supposed to explain to her that he couldn't remember even coming into this room? Somehow he had just lost hours of time, and he knew he hadn't been asleep but he could not possibly have been awake, either.

And it was there hovering in the back of his consciousness, the memory of reading Peggy's file earlier today, but something was holding him back from dredging that back up and looking at it too closely. His heart galloped in his chest like he'd just been on one of his marathon running sessions. Maybe he had been running. His perfect memory had failed him, and he just didn't know anymore.

The silence stretched out for a long time while Steve wrestled with his thoughts. Finally, Maria stirred beside him, and then she impulsively reached out and laid her hand on top of his where it was resting on his leg. He froze for a few seconds, unsure what to do, and then without really making the decision to do so, he slowly turned his palm up and let Maria lace her fingers through his and give his hand a squeeze. Her hand was warm and solid, and he was desperate enough to feel something real that he suddenly found himself clinging to her hand like it was a lifeline.

They sat that way for a long time. Feeling the warmth of her palm against his was an unbelievably intense relief, like being handed a whole jugful of cool water after a long, hot march down a dusty road, and even though he knew he shouldn't be imposing his personal problems on a commanding officer like this, he couldn't bring himself to pull his hand away just yet.

"You must have something better to do," Steve said at last, forcing his voice to sound normal.

"Actually, I don't," Maria said, not relinquishing his hand. "I'm not on call tonight, which means I get to hang out with my friends as late as I want to." She flashed him a smile that was without question a sincere one, and he was startled to realize Maria thought of him that way. All this time, he had assumed that the effort she had been spending on him was a quiet dedication to her S.H.I.E.L.D. duties and nothing more. It was undeniably comforting to discover that he had assumed wrong.

"So what's going on with you?" Maria asked.

"I think... I think I'm going crazy," he suddenly confessed, the words coming out in a rush.

"You're not going crazy, Steve," Maria said calmly. "Crazy people don't know they're crazy. That's what makes them crazy."

"I want to go back to work," he said.

"I know. You'll get there."

He had to force the next words out. "Shouldn't take this long."

"Hey," she said quickly. "There's no rush. Whenever you're ready is fine with us."

"It's been months."

"No one's holding a stopwatch," Maria said firmly. She seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then said: "Listen, Steve... I want to tell you something." She took a deep breath. "About a year ago, my mother got cancer for the second time. She had gone through treatment a few years earlier, and we were starting to think maybe she was out of the woods... and then it came back. This time, the treatments... they just didn't work. The cancer was too aggressive, and she... she didn't make it."

Steve paused a moment as her words sunk in. "I'm so sorry," he said.

She nodded, looking bleak. "Thank you. It, uh... it was pretty rough on my dad, especially. I don't think he was really prepared for that outcome, you know? Not that you ever could prepare for that. Anyway, I ended up taking a leave of absence from work so I could help him plan the funeral and deal with the paperwork and sort through my mother's possessions and everything else he needed me to help with. It took almost a month to take care of it all and get my dad to where I felt like it was okay to leave him, and then I went ahead and came back to work."

Maria blew out a long sigh. "And three days later, some crisis at work started to brew and I started to handle it like I always do. One minute I had everything under control — you know how it is in this profession, you get used to high-pressure situations, you can even thrive on them — and then suddenly I just..." She sighed again. "Let me be honest with you, Steve. I just had a complete breakdown out of nowhere. We're talking ugly-crying at my desk, couldn't stop, couldn't make decisions, nothing." She looked down, her cheeks touched with pink. "It was... pretty much the most humiliating moment of my life."

"What happened?" Steve asked, concerned.

She shrugged one shoulder. "Fury called in Agent Coulson to take over my operation and then drove me home himself. Told me to take another leave of absence, and that this time I was supposed to take care of myself and not just my dad, and not to come back until I was good and ready. I know what you're thinking — this is Fury we're talking about here — but he was actually really gentle about it. Believe it or not, there is a soft center somewhere deep inside there." She smiled a little.

"They didn't fire you?"

Maria looked a little taken aback. "No, of course not. Is that... did that used to happen?" She seemed surprised.

"Yeah." He was surprised by her surprise.

Her eyes widened a bit as that sunk in. "You know, Steve," she said slowly, "there were a lot of things your generation did better than ours, but I think we might have figured out one thing that yours didn't. We know now that practically everyone deals with an issue like this at some point in their life — depression, anxiety, trauma, grief — and we found out that talking about it, and giving people the time and the tools they need to deal with it, helps a lot more than shaming people, or trying to sweep it under the rug and pretend like it doesn't exist."

Steve thought that over for a long minute.

"I know it exists," he said at last. "But... I want to be normal again."

"This is normal. I'd be more worried if you weren't shook up by what happened," Maria said gently. "And you're doing a lot better than you think. Really." She squeezed his hand.

He could tell she was being sincere, and he felt the tension in his shoulders relax ever so slightly. "Thank you. I'm glad you came by tonight."

Maria smiled at him. "So what do you want to do? Order a pizza? Watch a movie?"

He was relieved, both by the change of subject and by the fact that Maria didn't seem to be in a rush to leave. It was funny; all his life he had always cherished having time alone with his thoughts, but for these past few months he had gotten too much time alone, something he had not realized until now was possible. He thought about Maria's question for a moment and then shrugged a little, his guard let down far enough that he could admit the plain truth, at the risk of sounding finicky: "I don't really like movies anymore."

"Well, what kinds of movies did you used to like?" she asked curiously.

"I don't know. Good ones."

"What were some of your favorites?"

"I liked..." He thought for a minute. "'Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.'"

Maria pursed her lips. "That sounds familiar. I bet we could find that somewhere. Hang on." She pulled out her phone and tapped at it for a minute. "Yep. Here it is. Okay, perfect. What kind of pizza do you like? There's a little place just down the block that I can't get enough of lately."

She was serious? Steve couldn't help but laugh a little. "So we're just gonna have a pizza party? Just you and me?"

Maria quirked an eyebrow. "Can you think of one reason why we shouldn't?"

He paused. "I guess not."

"Okay then." She started dialing. "You better tell me what you like, then, or else I'm going to order anchovies on your half."

Sharon got a text from Agent Hill saying everything was under control and that she would stay with Rogers for a while if Sharon wanted to get some sleep. She didn't think she'd be able to, but she laid down anyway, and the next thing she knew, Hill was shaking her gently awake.

Sharon sat up on the couch, glancing at the clock: it was past one o'clock in the morning. "Is he okay?" she asked anxiously, smoothing back her flyaway hair and trying to look alert.

"He's sleeping now," Hill said. She looked tired but not worried, and Sharon felt herself instinctively relax in response. "But it's good that you called me. He just... needed to not be alone tonight."

"He's never alone," Sharon said.

Hill nodded. "Your team's been doing an excellent job," she said. "Never lost track of him even once. I've been singing your praises to Fury."

That wasn't what Sharon meant, and she certainly hadn't intended to fish for a compliment, but she knew she couldn't explain what she was really thinking of: that no matter who from S.H.I.E.L.D. was — or wasn't — watching Captain Rogers each day, he always had at least one person in England thinking of him and praying for him every moment of every day. And he always would.

"He's all yours again," Agent Hill said, and she patted Sharon's shoulder as she left.

TO BE CONTINUED

Author's notes: It's funny which scenes are the hardest to write. This one went through several complete re-writes. At first I intended to write something in the spirit of some of the touching moments in the Tobey Maguire "Spider-Man" movies in which random New Yorkers support Spidey in his times of greatest need. So I had Steve's elderly neighbor caring for him, despite not knowing who he really was. But it just wasn't working for some reason, and then I hit on the idea of having Maria Hill come to the rescue instead. I think she's a great character, although the movies tell us so little about her personal life that I had to — or rather, got to — got to fill in some of the blanks myself. I hope this version worked! Let me know what you thought.

Next chapter: At long last, the narrative will connect with the opening scenes of "The Avengers"!