Chapter Thirteen

Maria Hill had found herself in a lot of difficult positions in her espionage career. Her current predicament was a new one but just as delicate as any international incident she'd been involved in.

Feeling around in the dark with as much stealth as she could, she finally found what she was looking for - the dress she'd shed after too much wine and too much charm the night before.

As she tried turning the dress right side out, she wondered if it was worth looking for her discarded shoes or if she should just go hail a cab barefoot. How she'd let him convince her to wear her high heels into the bedroom in the first place she'd never know.

Just as she finally got the dress righted and was about to pull it over her head, a sleepy voice in the dark called out, "You know it'd be a lot easier if you just turned a light on."

Maria heard the gentle click of the bedside lamp as it suddenly filled the room with a soft glow and regarded the bare-chested man who'd been her undoing.

"Isn't that better?" Sam asked, taking an appreciative look at the not-entirely-dressed Maria as he leaned back against the headboard. "And I get the benefit of a show."

Maria merely arched an eyebrow at him and went back to sorting out her rumpled garment.

"I assume you decided against breakfast?" he asked, alluding to the offer he'd made when they finally collapsed onto the bed after getting to know one another intimately - and repeatedly - only hours before.

"I don't think it would be a good idea," Maria said, frowning at him. "The last thing I need is for Captain America to see me in the dress I wore last night after hooking up with one of his lieutenants."

"First of all," Sam said lazily, "Steve could care less. That's one of the best things about him. For all his quiet morals, he's the least judgmental guy I know. And, second, we don't really stand on professionalism around here, not unless there's a mission. No one's gonna care that you stayed over last night."

"I still don't think I should," she said, finally slipping the dress on and then struggling with the zipper - only to realize it had been broken in his haste to get it off of her.

Sam got out of the bed and took his time as he pulled a pair of sweatpants on, offering a repeat of the show she'd enjoyed last night.

"Your loss," he said with a shrug. "Sharon does this thing with chia seeds that makes you forget you're not eating real pancakes and Steve's the master of eggs."

Maria stopped struggling with the dress and regarded him. "I can't imagine Captain America cooking."

"Come upstairs with me and you don't have to. You can see for yourself."

He watched the indecision play across her face and wondered how she'd survived as long as she had being so tightly wound. She'd nearly killed him their first go-round last night, like a spring coiled too tightly and finally set free.

Maria sighed, tossing the dress on the bed and eying his outfit. "Do you at least have an extra pair of sweats and a tee-shirt I can borrow?"

"I can do better than that," Sam smiled, grabbing his cell phone.

If Sharon was surprised when Sam called and asked to borrow clothes for Maria, she didn't show it when she delivered yoga pants, a sweater and a small bag of toiletries to his door ten minutes later.

"Someone already ate the first batch of bacon so take your time while Steve cooks more," she said, handing the neatly folded garments over to Sam.

"This is why we don't leave Bucky alone in the kitchen," Sam reminded her as tucked the items under his arm.

"It was him and Steve. They were showing off the tricks they could get Rocky to do." Sharon frowned. "I just hope they don't make her sick."

"She was a police dog, she's probably used to worse," Sam called out as Sharon headed back upstairs.

He closed the door and walked into the bedroom to find that Maria had wrapped herself in the sheet, wearing the flannel toga with a surprising amount of dignity considering her situation.

He set the items on the bed next to her. "Sharon brought these for you."

Maria picked up the bag of bath items. "Did she know you were going to get lucky?" she asked, studying the new travel-sized items within.

"With as much as we travel, Sharon and Steve put a bunch of those together so we don't have to worry about packing the essentials when a mission comes in."

"A good idea," Maria admitted. "Probably would have been a good tip for SHIELD agents."

"That might even be where Sharon came up with it," Sam said as Maria stood up. "We've got time if you want to take a quick shower before we go up."

Maria looked thoughtful. "How long does Rogers need to make more bacon?" she asked, apparently having heard Sharon's comment.

"I don't know. Fifteen minutes? Why?"

She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the bathroom, dropping her sheet in the process.

"That's plenty of time for us both to shower."

A little more than fifteen minutes later, Sam led Maria into the brightly lit apartment upstairs.

"Make yourself comfortable," Sharon called from the open kitchen, gesturing toward the table. "We're nearly done over here."

As she took the seat Sam offered, Maria saw that Steve Rogers was indeed at the stove cooking, apparently having taken over for Sharon as he flipped the infamous chia pancakes. Her fascination with the sight of Captain America in an apron was surpassed, however, by the piles of food already on the table.

She leaned toward Sam when he took the seat next to her and immediately started filling his plate.

"You eat like this every Sunday?" Maria asked, indicating the heaping platters of eggs, pancakes, muffins, bacon, fruit and yogurt as well as the pitchers of orange and apple juice.

"More like every day. We do have two super soldiers to feed."

Maria couldn't help the "wow" that escaped her lips as she accepted the cup of coffee Sharon placed in front of her - already creamed and sugared to her preference. She took a drink, appreciating the fancy beans Sharon favored, and found Barnes and his dog staring at her intently.

She smiled, trying to be friendly, and aimed for something polite to say. "That is a beautiful dog."

"Her name is Rocky," Bucky replied.

"This is her first meal with all of us, too," Sharon said as she took one of the remaining seats. "And apparently we've decided that she can sit at the table with us."

Sam laughed. "If Bucky's allowed at the table, I don't see why Rocky shouldn't be."

"Rocky's table manners are probably better," Steve chimed in as he took his place next to Sharon and accepted the plate she'd already loaded with food for him.

It should have been awkward, Maria thought, eating a surprisingly excellent breakfast with a man she'd only known in a passing professional capacity until spending last night with him, two of her former subordinates and a known assassin and his dog, but it wasn't.

Once Steve sat and everyone gave the barest of pauses in their conversation for him to say grace over his plate (which Maria was familiar with from the Triskelion commissary), everyone went back to talking at once with the topics including upcoming movies they wanted to see, local sports they'd wished they hadn't, the new tricks they wanted to teach Bucky's dog and a construction project they promised to complete at Sharon's parents house before Labor Day.

When they finished eating, Maria volunteered to do with the dishes and drafted Sam to help her by drying. As she handed him the hand-washed skillet, she noticed Sharon and Steve, still seated at the table and obviously sharing a tender moment.

As far as Maria knew, Steve hadn't shown interest in any woman since waking up in the twenty-first century, much to the consternation and frustration of many of her agents. She'd had to have several uncomfortable conversations with women from all levels of SHIELD about their inappropriate attempts to capture Captain America's attention.

Maria had herself wondered if Steve was even interested in women, concerned more with finding his place in the world and, at times, caught up in his past.

"I didn't know they were together," she said quietly to Sam, angling her chin toward the couple.

Sam looked over his shoulder at his teammates and then back at Maria. "They just celebrated their six month anniversary on Monday."

Six months - so they'd been together two months when they'd started up Team America and she'd had no idea. She wondered if Pepper did, or Tony. She was almost certain Natasha would have known - and Black Widow was going to hear about keeping the rest of them in the dark.

"Is it a problem?"

"What?" Maria asked, caught off guard by Sam's question.

"You're not hung up on Steve, right? That's not what last night was about, was it?" Sam asked.

"No," Maria said, shaking her head. "Nothing like that. I'm just surprised, which doesn't happen often. And I'm actually kind of happy for him. He's always seemed so lonely."

"I don't think you can say that now. If there's one thing Captain America doesn't lack in, it's people who care about him. I don't think he ever realized how many until recently."

"I think SHIELD demanded a certain level of loneliness from all of us," Maria admitted. "It was hard to do what we did otherwise."

"And now?"

"What?"

He took the baking sheet she handed him and giving it a swipe with his towel as he asked, "Are you committed to being lonely now?"

Maria looked thoughtful as she handed him the last dish to dry. "I don't know," she answered.

Sam grinned. "I can work with that."