Author's note: Thanks to PrimeReader, Teyerin, and all my other readers! Your interest is much appreciated.

Chapter 21

"I'm transferring you back to the Triskelion, effective immediately," Nick Fury told Sharon Carter. "You'll remain in Special Service, but Agent Li will be assigning you cases from now on."

Sitting there in Fury's office, Sharon didn't say anything right away, unsure how to react. She should have known change was coming; there were massive readjustments being made to S.H.I.E.L.D. operations in the aftermath of the Battle of New York: new objectives, reshuffled departments, shifts in funding. The very public attack by extraterrestrial hostiles had thrown everything into chaos. Not an agent in S.H.I.E.L.D. had been unaffected.

And yet... five months ago Sharon had been annoyed with her first assignment for Special Service, getting stuck with babysitting her Aunt Peggy's old friend, and now suddenly she was sorry it was ending.

"Understood, sir," she said after a beat. She was glad to be going back to D.C., at least, where so many of her friends lived.

"I also have," Fury continued unexpectedly, "a second assignment for you. This one will be off the record."

"What is it?" Sharon asked.

Fury glanced at his monitor. "Captain Rogers will also be transferring to the Triskelion for intensive training, and to be sent out on regular missions as soon as he's ready. He's moving into an apartment in D.C., and I've secured the apartment next to his. You'll be moving in there and continuing to keep an eye on him."

"It's... going to be a challenge, sir, juggling the two jobs at once-" Sharon started, dismayed, but Fury quickly lifted a hand to forestall her.

"The nature of your assignment has changed," Fury said. "This time you won't need to watch him 24/7. I'm not so concerned about Rogers' stability anymore. It seems he handles missions just fine."

"That's an understatement," Sharon said before she could stop herself, and Fury shot her an odd look before continuing.

"He'll be spending most of each day training with Agents Romanoff and Barton, so they'll keep an eye on him then," he said. "As for his off hours... I want you to start making limited contact with him. Create yourself a cover story. Limited contact, you understand. I don't want him so comfortable that he's coming over to borrow a cup of sugar, but he should know your name and your face."

"With what goal?" Sharon asked, still not fully understanding. Why would she be needed, with agents like Romanoff and Barton on the case?

"Take note of who makes contact with him outside of work hours," Fury said. "Anyone who tries to get close to him. Pay attention to anything and everything that triggers your instincts, but don't put any of that in your official reports. Those will contain nothing but trivialities. Anything important comes directly to me or Maria Hill. No one else."

"Are you still concerned about his loyalty?" Sharon asked, astounded. "After what he just did in New York?"

"I'm concerned with his safety," Fury corrected her sternly. "I want you right there, guns loaded, ready to protect him if it should become necessary."

"Protect him?" Sharon repeated, frowning. "From what?"

"Anything he needs protecting from."

What was that supposed to mean? What was going on? If Rogers was in danger, surely Fury would know the who and the why. But he was being deliberately opaque with her. How was she supposed to protect him if she didn't even know what she was protecting him from? She studied Fury's face closely. "Sir... what's changed?"

"Your assignment," Fury said, his expression closed. "Will you take it?"

Fury's request was almost identical to Aunt Peggy's original one, and yet Sharon hesitated. What was she getting herself into?

She silently answered her own question. Did it matter? Of all the agents at S.H.I.E.L.D., she was being asked to be Captain America's bodyguard, and there could only be one response to that.

"I'll do it," she said.

Steve barely had a chance to settle into his new apartment in Washington, D.C. before he was taken to the Triskelion and given a whirlwind tour of the massive edifice on the banks of the Potomac. When Hill was done parading him in front of the various heads of departments that he'd be working with now, he was finally given a day and time to come in and begin training with Clint Barton.

Barton was waiting for him in a private practice room early in the morning, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt with the sleeves torn off to turn it into a tank top. Steve had come wearing sweats and a T-shirt; once, he had hated walking around in tank tops and shorts in men's locker rooms, dreading the inevitable stares of the other men as they tried to figure out if he was a boy or a man because of his small frame, and now he hated it because everyone stared for the exact opposite reason.

Gratefully, Barton did no staring, but simply gave him a cheerful "good morning," chatted for a few minutes asking Steve how he liked his new place, and then asked if he was ready to start. Steve nodded.

"Okay, how can I say this politely?" Barton said, looking at him a little askance as they faced each other on the mat. "Please don't kill me, Captain America."

Steve's lips quirked a little. "I'm not in the habit of killing my sparring partners."

"Because I had a real good view of what you were doing to the Chitauri in New York," Barton continued, "and I couldn't help but notice there were limbs flying through the air."

"I can take it down a notch or ten," Steve reassured him.

"Besides," he added, stooping to pick up his shield, flipping it around in his hands and holding it out toward Barton, "you'll have some protection."

"Whoa." Barton put both hands up in a quick denial. "No, no, no, I don't think I could-"

"It'll absorb the vibration from the blows," Steve said. "Trust me, it'll make things more pleasant for you."

"Yeah, but-" Barton gestured wordlessly at the shield.

"It's a piece of metal," Steve pointed out, guessing where Barton's reluctance was coming from.

Barton laughed shortly in disbelief. "Okay, well, maybe it started out as just a piece of metal, but it isn't that now."

"I taught all my Howling Commandos how to use it," Steve said patiently. "It's good to have people around who know how to toss it back to me if I lose it in the middle of the fight. And sometimes my guys even borrowed it during a mission if they needed it for certain tasks. It isn't a big deal to me. It shouldn't be to you." He held it out again. "It's not like you can break it."

This time, Barton took it carefully in both hands, and then slowly slid his left arm into the straps. Steve stepped closer and tightened the straps for him. Barton looked down at the shield and moved his arm around experimentally. "So does this make me a Howling Commando?" he asked, looking at Steve with a teasing glint in his blue eyes.

"Yeah. This makes it official." Steve slapped his shoulder.

"Why were they called the Howling Commandos?" Barton asked curiously. "I mean, did they actually do any howling?"

"Only after they'd had a few drinks," Steve said. "And I think they thought they were singing."

They spent the next hour working on taekwondo kicks, and then Barton set the shield aside and started showing him some wrestling moves that he said came from a discipline called muy thai. By then Barton had apparently gotten over his fears of dismemberment, as he readily let Steve put him in several different chokeholds after he had demonstrated them properly. Steve had just gotten him pinned again when Natasha Romanoff sauntered into the practice room, wearing a track suit with her phone strapped to her upper arm and a pair of earbuds in her ears. She glanced at them coolly, noting Barton's reddened face currently squished against the mat, and smirked slightly as she settled down into a cross-legged position on the floor and rested her elbows on her knees and her chin on her hands, gazing at them with an active interest.

Steve let Barton up, who scrambled to his feet and used the bottom of his tank top to wipe the sweat off his forehead.

"You don't get him for another hour, Nat," he said, fighting to catch his breath.

"I know," she said casually, taking the ear buds out of her ears and unplugging them from her phone.

Barton's sigh sounded more like a growl. "You just came to watch me get my butt whupped."

"Yep," Romanoff said, popping the "p" gleefully.

Barton gave Steve a long-suffering look. "You can make her leave if you want," he said.

Steve smiled a little. "It's okay."

"I won't get in your way," Romanoff reassured them. "In fact, I'll help. I'll provide the workout music. What kind of music do you like, Rogers?" she asked, her finger hovering over the touchscreen of her phone while she looked at him questioningly.

"I don't really know anymore," he was forced to admit. No one listened to the kind of music he was used to, and since waking up from the ice, he had heard a lot of music in shops and on the streets that was objectively awful. Some of it didn't even sound like music to his ears. After all these months, he'd given up on finding anything good.

"Fantastic," Romanoff said, eyes brightening. "Okay, here's what we're going to do. I'll play you things from my playlists, and when you hear something you like, let me know. We'll figure out what bands you like that way."

Barton made a tortured groaning kind of sound. "Nat, don't take him straight to the '80s. That's not gonna work."

"Why not?" Nat asked, putting on a wounded expression as she scrolled through her phone.

"You have to ease him into it," Barton explained as if to a child. "Start him off with Buddy Holly or something. If he likes that, transition into Elvis. Once he's accepted that, then move to the Beatles or the Beach Boys. You can't skip decades, it would be like showing him 'Return of the Jedi' before he's seen 'Star Wars.' He won't be ready for it."

"Butt out, Clint," Romanoff advised in a friendly tone.

Barton rolled his eyes. "Besides," he muttered as he bent down to retie a shoelace, "the '90s had better music than the '80s."

"Oh no, you did not just say that," Nat said, and without warning she dropped her phone and charged over toward Barton at full speed. His fingers were tangled in his shoelaces and he didn't have time to react before Romanoff tackled him and pinned him to the mat, playfully scowling at him.

"Take it back," she said.

"Damn it, Nat," Barton complained, grimacing as she pushed her knee into his chest. "I'm already being punished enough by him." He glanced over at Steve, who was trying very hard not to look at Romanoff basically laying on top of Barton and gloating over him with a wicked smile. Couldn't they leave the flirting for when he was in another room? This was unbelievably awkward.

Finally Barton shoved Romanoff off him. "We're working here," he said, getting back to his feet. "Now run along and play with your spy kit, before I report you to Fury."

Romanoff strode over and retrieved her phone from the mat, ignoring Barton. "Here, Rogers," she said. "Try this." She tapped the screen, and a song started to play. She sat there and watched them, twitching her foot to the beat, while Barton showed Steve a new hold.

"You like this one, Rogers?" Romanoff called out toward the end of the song.

He didn't want to hurt her feelings, but it was a weird, weird song. The singer kept asking Annie if she was okay, over and over again. And there was something about bloodstains on a carpet? Steve suppressed a grimace.

"Who is she?" he asked.

"Who, Annie?" Romanoff asked.

"No, the singer."

Romanoff stared at him. "Rogers, this is Michael Jackson," she said.

He frowned. "A woman named Michael?"

Barton was laughing, shaking his head. "Show him a picture, Nat," he said. "That'll clear things right up." He sounded sarcastic.

"You hate it," Romanoff said matter-of-factly, putting a different song on. "Fine. Let's try something different."

"How about this one?" Romanoff asked a few minutes later as the second song was wrapping up.

"Is this really a woman?" he asked cautiously.

Romanoff smiled knowingly. "Yes, it really is a woman this time. This is Madonna."

He squinted one eye in confusion. "Her name is Madonna, and she's proud about being materialistic?"

Barton laughed even harder than he had the last time. "Good thing you didn't play 'Like A Vir-'"

"Shut up, Clint," Romanoff said. She put on a new song.

By the end of the session, Steve knew quite a few muy thai moves, and he also knew that he didn't like the Beastie Boys, Metallica or Duran Duran.

The three of them went down the hallway to the cafeteria to grab something to eat before Romanoff took lead on the training session. Steve could hardly get in more than a bite at a time before yet another agent or three came over to their table wanting to meet him. Now Steve understood why Hill had reserved them a private practice room instead of sending them to the gymnasium. Everyone was polite and friendly, though, and a lot of them seemed to know Barton and lingered to swap a few good-natured insults with him.

Steve couldn't help but notice, though, that not many of them spoke to Romanoff. They would look at her and acknowledge her presence with a faint nod, and then immediately look anywhere but at her until they had left.

After he had picked up on the pattern, Steve guessed it must be because of her past. She had told him that she once worked for the KGB. How long ago had that been? Probably only a few years; Romanoff could not be any older than he was. There were probably people here at S.H.I.E.L.D. who remembered fighting against her. They would not give their trust easily, even if Fury had taken her in and given his stamp of approval; no one liked a turncoat.

Except Clint Barton, apparently. Steve wondered at that. What had Romanoff said or done to earn his trust? Despite his laid-back demeanor, he did not seem naive — and Steve could hardly imagine Fury elevating someone who was into the position of trust Barton obviously occupied. Romanoff must have proved herself in some definitive way. Steve hoped he would find out someday; he had to admit that his curiosity was piqued.

If Romanoff was bothered by the cold shoulders she was getting from the other agents, though, she gave no sign of it. She just calmly sipped at her soda, and responded in a normal tone whenever Barton drew her into the conversation. After a while, they headed back to the practice room and it was Barton's turn to lounge on the edge of the mat and watch while Romanoff faced off against Steve.

"You afraid to hit a woman?" Romanoff asked him as she put both her hands up in a combat-ready posture.

"Not if she hits me first," Steve said.

"Oh, good," Romanoff said, and without any further ado, came at him swinging.

As the weeks went by, Steve settled into his new routine at the Triskelion. Besides his training with Romanoff and Barton, he also attended as many S.H.I.E.L.D. briefings as he could. He had a lot of catching up to do when it came to understanding modern geopolitical conditions, and he found that the briefings gave him better information than reading the newspaper had.

In fact, he was kicking himself now for the amount of time he had spent over the past few months trying to get a handle on all the changes to European borders and governments over the years. It seemed like everyone at S.H.I.E.L.D. was more concerned about the Middle East and China, places he had never visited or even really studied in-depth. He decided to learn as much about them as quickly as possible, having no desire to let Fury simply point him at a battlefield as he would a weapon. Whatever missions S.H.I.E.L.D. set for him, he wanted to be sure he understood exactly what he was doing and why.

The first time he attended a briefing, he struck up a conversation afterward with the agent sitting by him, a curly-headed technician by the name of Cameron Klein. Agent Klein became visibly flustered the moment he realized who was addressing him, but he readily answered Steve's questions about some of the things discussed in the briefing that he hadn't understood, and despite an unfortunate stammer his answers were so helpful that after that, Steve made a point of sitting by him as often as possible. Pretty soon Klein got over some of his nervousness, and at the end of every briefing they'd linger in the room, talking over the topic of the day. Sometimes they were joined by Maria Hill or, more rarely, Fury. Fury had his hands in so many different projects that Steve didn't see him often, although the director made a point of speaking to Steve whenever he came by.

And he was learning one other important skill, with the help of Bruce Banner.

STEVE ROGERS: Hello, Bruce.

BRUCE BANNER: hi

STEVE ROGERS: I'm learning how to text.

BRUCE BANNER: am i your guinea pig

STEVE ROGERS: I hope that's okay.

BRUCE BANNER: im honored

STEVE ROGERS: Sorry, I am a slow typer.

BRUCE BANNER: heres a hint

BRUCE BANNER: stop capitalizing and puncuating

BRUCE BANNER: saves time

STEVE ROGERS: I don't want to look uneducated.

BRUCE BANNER: its texting no one cares

STEVE ROGERS: I heard most people go to college now. I didn't. I'm trying not to embarrass myself here.

BRUCE BANNER: i have 7 phds

BRUCE BANNER: srsly, no one cares STOP CAPITIZING

STEVE ROGERS: I just tried.

STEVE ROGERS: I can't do it.

STEVE ROGERS: It looks awful.

STEVE ROGERS: What is srsly?

BRUCE BANNER: seriously

STEVE ROGERS: How are things in Stark Tower? Is Tony with you?

BRUCE BANNER: no i work on the 6th floor i dont always see him

BRUCE BANNER: he runs all over creation all day long

BRUCE BANNER: hes like the energizer bunny

STEVE ROGERS: A bunny?

BRUCE BANNER: google it you will get a laugh

STEVE ROGERS: I just watched. That is funny.

BRUCE BANNER: well dont say its funy

BRUCE BANNER: type LOL

BRUCE BANNER: it means laughing out loud

STEVE ROGERS: This is like learning another language.

BRUCE BANNER: yep

BRUCE BANNER: food's here brb

STEVE ROGERS: brb?

STEVE ROGERS: Bruce?

STEVE ROGERS: Hello?

BRUCE BANNER: brb means be right back

STEVE ROGERS: Oh.

Sharon had settled on being a nurse for her cover story. Rogers' mother had been a nurse, and maybe he would have some instinctive trust associated with that. It would also nicely explain any odd hours she might have to keep, fulfilling her other duties for S.H.I.E.L.D.

It was strange, moving in next door to Rogers and not bringing any disguises with her. It would be her own face that Rogers would see. Her own hair, her own clothing, her own personality. An assignment like this called for being herself as much as possible, since authenticity was easier than keeping a lot of lies straight. She was looking forward to that part, after so many months of being invisible. She would actually get to know him for real.

She waited a few weeks to make first contact with Rogers, wanting to watch him get settled in first. He quickly established a new routine, and to her relief it was predictable and meshed even better with her own work schedule than she had hoped. Rogers would get up pre-dawn and go for a long run around the National Mall, then go back home to get ready for the day. Then he'd head to work at the Triskelion, and so would Sharon. She kept to the east tower, reserved for agents Level 6 and up in the Special Service division. Rogers had been assigned to Level 5 for starters, and he spent most of his time in the training facilities in the north tower.

He worked long hours every day. He didn't come home until well after dinner, hours after Sharon had gotten home, and he never went out on weeknights or had any visitors then. He would spend an hour or two sketching, reading books or watching movies — he was methodically checking off items on his running list of pop culture phenomenons he had missed — and then he would go to bed.

That meant she really only had to keep tabs on him during the weekends. On Saturdays he ate breakfast at the same cafe, where he was starting to make friends with the regular crowd, and then he would run errands and clean his apartment. On Sundays he went to church — he had found one with a traditional Latin Mass and seemed to have made an immediate connection with the priest there — and then he would go to a park for a walk, followed by a visit to a veterans nursing home.

After a few weeks of this, she contrived to meet him by coming out of her apartment at the same time he was coming in one night. She had curled her hair and dressed nicely, as if she were going out with friends — which she actually was. Her assignment to watch him back in New York had been so time-consuming that for a while her social life had come to a screeching halt, but now that her schedule was more liberated and she was back in D.C., she was back in the swing of things and loving it.

Rogers came up the stairs just as she was locking her door. He nodded and smiled at her in a friendly way as he reached into his pocket for his own keys.

"You must be my new neighbor," she said.

"Yeah, I moved in just a few weeks ago," he said, gesturing vaguely toward his door. "Just in time to see the cherry blossoms."

"Good timing. They were as nice as I've ever seen them this year," she said conversationally. "I bet they don't have anything like that at... wherever you came from."

"New York," he supplied readily. "Actually, they do. There's a botanical garden in Brooklyn that's more than a hundred years old. They've had cherry trees there since-" He stopped himself. "For a long time."

Talking to him in person was surprisingly different from watching him on cameras. Sharon knew all his facial expressions, knew his mannerisms and his habits, but now, standing so close to him, making eye contact, interacting with him... it really was like meeting a stranger for the first time. She was even catching a whiff of his after-shave, something she'd never been close enough to take note of before.

"I'm Kate, by the way," she said, smiling and holding out her hand.

"Steve," he said, coming over to shake her hand. He had a firm grip, but not too firm. "Nice to meet you, Kate. So how long have you lived here?"

"Couple of years."

"You like it here?"

"I love it," she said, glad that she could be completely sincere. "There's so much history here. You know that statue of Washington on his horse? I get to drive past that every day. And I can see the Washington Monument from the windows where I work."

"Where's that?" he asked.

"George Washington University Hospital," she said. "I'm a nurse there. How about you? What do you do?"

Rogers looked down and shrugged a little, obviously reluctant to answer, and she had some idea of why. She had watched him long enough to know that he had an intriguing combination of pure honesty and unfeigned modesty, which meant he didn't always love talking about himself. No matter how he worded it, a simple, truthful explanation of his job description would sound an awful lot like bragging. I save the world for a living, how about you?

"Wait, don't tell me. Let me guess," Sharon said quickly, sparing him the discomfort. She squinted one eye, studying him. "Police officer?" she hazarded.

He raised his eyebrows a little. "Do I look like a police officer?"

Sharon nodded, assuming a thoughtful expression. "I could see you wearing a uniform," she said casually.

She could practically see the gears in his head turning, trying to figure out if she knew who he really was or not. He was recognized on the streets on a regular basis now, ever since the Battle of New York and a flurry of media interviews that had followed, and he was unfailingly polite to people who approached him, taking a few minutes to engage them in conversation or give autographs if they asked. But she often got the impression that he didn't really crave those interactions for his own sake. He never seemed offended when he wasn't recognized, at least.

"That's a good guess," he said. He neither confirmed it nor denied it, though.

She smiled to herself, and then she adjusted her purse on her shoulder. "Well, I've got to run. I'm late to meet my friends. It was nice to meet you, Steve."

He nodded. "See you around, Kate."

As spring turned into summer, it became a game that they played each time they passed each other in the hall and made small talk. She would make a new guess about his profession — Welder? Schoolteacher? Bar bouncer? — and he would dance around the topic and never really confirm or deny. It became her mission to think up jobs that would get good reactions from him. So far the best one she had gotten from him was the day she guessed "social media director."

"Social media director?" he repeated, scrunching up his face in disbelief.

"Am I getting warmer?" she asked innocently.

"You're in the freezer," he said.

"You don't like social media?" she asked curiously.

"I don't really see the appeal," he admitted. "I'd rather look someone in the eye when I'm talking to them, wouldn't you?"

"You have a point," she admitted, smiling because he was looking her in the eye right just then. He was good at eye contact, she had discovered. She never felt like his attention was elsewhere when they spoke. He never once looked down at his phone, although he had finally started carrying around a mobile one. He was fully present for every interaction.

He suffered from insomnia more rarely now, and never two nights in a row. Gone were the days when he haunted the city streets like the living dead, and it was an intense relief to Sharon. He seemed much happier. Stable enough to please even Fury, who she updated on a regular basis.

She kept Aunt Peggy updated on Rogers often, too, although sometimes Sharon found herself having to repeat the same stories she had already told Aunt Peggy during the last call. The Alzheimer's was advancing, and she was growing more forgetful. Pretty soon Sharon learned to call Aunt Sarah and tell her all the same things, so she could keep reminding her mother. In her more lucid moments, Aunt Peggy was still intensely interested in and concerned about Rogers and the progress he was making, but at other times she reverted to living in the past.

"But Steve is here," she would sometimes say in puzzled tones after Sharon had explained something Rogers had done, and then Sharon would have to patiently explain the whole thing all over again. Sometimes it was easier just to agree with Aunt Peggy and let her believe that Steve Rogers was there with her. Maybe she was happier during the times that she lived in the past. But it broke Sharon's heart to hear her Aunt Peggy talk that way. Her mind had always been so sharp. It was a normal part of aging, Sharon knew, but that didn't make it any easier to bear.

TO BE CONTINUED

Author's note: What do you think of the direction the story is taking? Let me know in the comments! I'm trying to decide how long to keep this story going.

I have more chapters written that lead up to "The Winter Soldier," and I have some ideas for more chapters that could: (1) explain what Clint was doing during the Hydra Uprising, (2) show what Sharon did after her shootout with Rumlow and the STRIKE team, which will involve Peggy Carter's children and grandchildren as well (readers of my story The Third Life of Steve Rogers will be able to spot characters who will now make appearances in both stories) and (3) scenes in the immediate aftermath of Steve and Bucky's fight on the helicarrier that will focus on Steve, Nat and Tony Stark and address the whole sticky topic of the Winter Soldier.

I'd love to know how far the readers want to see this go. And as usual, comments on this specific chapter are welcome as well.