Charlotte didn't like the looks of the pretty guy sitting in one of her tables by the diner's window.

Correction: Charlotte very much liked what he looked like, she just didn't like his type. In general.

In her opinion, they tended to be meatheads that spent their whole time at the gym, weighed ounce by ounce their protein intake, and frowned upon the idea of microwaving donuts (a sin, in her opinion). And this guy looked like it. He was tall, built like a tree, or a swimmer, all narrow waist and broad shoulders (Charlotte had a thing for broad shoulders), a straight posture, and pretty blue eyes.

So she steeled herself before she made her way over to his table, straightening out her back, squaring her shoulders, and plastering a smile on her face before she greeted with with a "Sir," just for the sake of politeness, and aloofness. The guy looked barely older than her so there was no need for the "Sir," yet she said it anyway.

And that's when her assumptions were proven wrong. Sure, the blonde guy was a little too buff and tall for her liking, but his shy smile and hunched shoulders as he scanned the menu in front of him made her think that maybe he wasn't the meathead she thought he'd be.

And he was polite, a bit unsure of himself when he asked her what her favorite was for breakfast, and even sweeter when he took her suggestion.

What really won her over, however, were the little doodles he left on a napkin after he'd left. They were different images made with a ballpoint pen he'd taken out of his pocket at one point or another, one of a wilting flower, another of a slice of pie, a steaming coffee, and, perhaps the most impressive one, a small portrait of the older couple that had been sitting near him, their heads close together as they read the newspaper.

Charlotte kept it, and taped it to the side of her locker in the backroom.

And Charlotte didn't do nervousness. She'd decided a long time ago, when she was alone in New York City after having lived in Phoenix, Arizona her whole life, that she would stop being nervous. Being so got her nowhere, and New York was supposed to be a new Charlotte. A confident, more outgoing Charlotte who found herself roommates, and who made acquaintances that she could call friends if only for a night in the town, and who would not be intimidated by the pretty guy with the shy smile and the doodles.

But he made her a bit nervous. Not in the stuttering kind of way, but in the way that made her look forward to the next time he'd come in and leave his doodled-on napkins. So maybe she wasn't nervous. He made her feel excited, and happy and warm when he'd smile at her. He thanked her, and read the newspaper in actual paper form (which even she didn't do anymore), and smiled every time she'd walked past him.

She had a crush and she wanted to die of mortification.

But she wasn't in New York to meet a boy. She came to New York for school, and for an opportunity of becoming something better than what people expected of her. She wanted law school, and all-nighters, and internships from hell; she wanted it all, but the boy.

And sure, she'd tried to date before. She'd gone with Daniel to prom, had attempted to have some form of relationship with him, yet he was too nervous around her at the knowledge that they were on a date, and not just hanging out. And the one guy she had tried to date in New York, a pretty boy with a trust fund, with law school in the horizon, had expected way more of her than she was willing to do on a third date. So no, Charlotte didn't date.

So she convinced herself her small infatuation with the pretty boy, who she learned was Steve, was nothing. Because that's what it was. She was too-tall-Charlotte, too-curvy-Charlotte, too-outspoken-Charlotte, too-much-everything-Charlotte for someone like Steve to even take a second look at her.

Girls like Charlotte, she convinced herself one late night in the library after she had given up on studying and had found out she would have to sleep there as it was too late to get back to her apartment, didn't get boys like Steve. They got a career, convinced themselves they didn't need anyone, and eventually married a guy more out of necessity than love because by the point they noticed that they were not ideal for guys like Steve, it was too late, they were old with useless ovaries, and had one too many pets. That was Charlotte, and Steve, or anyone like him, for the matter, was not needed.

"I'll be dog lady," Charlotte muttered to herself, scribbling down research notes as she talked to herself. "I hear hairless dogs win prices. I could make a fortune."

The girl she was sharing a table with, probably a freshman judging by the full face of make-up, and general put-togetherness vibe the girl exuded, gave her a weird look. Charlotte returned it with a raised eyebrow, and the girl adverted her eyes.

Or you could ask him on a date, the little part inside Charlotte that was in total love with the idea of being with Steve Rogers whispered. Ok, well, if she weren't a complete asshole to him sometimes, than maybe he would be the one asking…

"Long day?" Steve asked as Charlotte refilled his cup of coffee.

"Is that your way of telling me I look like shit?" She questioned with a grin, laughing when he began sputtering out an apology.

"I didn't-I mean-"

"I'm teasing." She gave him a smile, looked around for her boss, and took a seat across from him. "It's been a long week, more like it. You?"

"Something like it…" He trailed off in the way Charlotte had come to mean he wasn't going to share much, and that was fine with her. He'd mentioned he worked as a government contractor once, so she wasn't surprised he kept most of his business to himself.

She hummed in agreement, and went to get up when the door jingled the signal for a new customer. "That was my way of asking you why you look like shit, by the way." She threw a grin over her shoulder.

She heard rather than saw Steve laugh before she preoccupied herself with tending to the gang of teenagers asking about coffee and cake.

Or if she knew how to flirt at all…

"How did your finals go?" Was the first thing Steve asked her when she came over with the coffee carafe and a new cup.

She grinned. "Well, I didn't die, so that's always good."

"Always," Steve agreed with a grin of his own, and Charlotte almost forgot how to breathe when those pretty blue eyes of his shone at her.

They gazed at each other for a moment too long, before Charlotte cleared her throat. "How about you?"

"My finals? Didn't have any, so…"

"Ah. You think you're funny." She wagged her finger at him and he chuckled. "I meant, how are you?"

"Not dead."

"Always a good thing." She nodded solemnly, but cracked a smile soon after. "I hadn't seen you in a while. You could've been dead for all I knew."

"Is that a hint of worry I hear?" Steve smiled, and Charlotte, if she were any other woman, would've thought they were flirting a bit.

"Not for you. It's my tips I'm worried about." She dismissed with a smile, and Steve gave her a look.

"I see how it is," He said with a side eye, the boyish half smile Charlotte was almost in love with in place.

Or if she didn't beat around the bush as much, maybe grew a pair…

"Any plans for tonight?" Charlotte asked and almost slapped herself. If that wasn't cheesy, she didn't know what was.

"Not really," Steve responded, "and you?"

Charlotte, if she had been anyone else, would've been cool about the question and maybe turn it around and ask him if he wanted to make plans for the both of them. They could go to a bar, watch a movie. Go on a date. Anything.

But she was Charlotte, and while she may be confident in many other things, she wasn't when it came to boys. This boy in particular, anyway.

She shrugged. "I've got a Netflix queue I need to work through this summer before school starts, and I become a hermit again. And I've also got a bottle of wine I bought to celebrate with for finals, but I haven't gotten around to opening it, so…yeah." She finished lamely.

Steve nodded, and Charlotte could tell he was about to say something. A part of her, the tiny part she tried to forget even existed, woke up with a hopeful spark, and her chest suddenly felt a bit warmer at the thought that maybe he would ask to join her.

He opened his mouth as if to speak twice before he gave her a crooked smile, and took a deep breath. "Well, maybe-"

He was cut off by the shrill ring of his phone, and Charlotte deflated when he began speaking in a rapid tone, before setting his phone down after replying to whoever he was talking to that he would "be there soon."

"I, um, have to go, but-"

Charlotte panicked and shook her head. "Of course. The job calls. You're a busy man, I'm a busy woman, and I've got like three tables I still need to check on, and you've got the world to save, probably." She meant the last part as a joke, but she knew it fell on flat ears when he furrowed his brows. "You know…'cause you're a government contractor, and you probably do national security stuff, and…I don't know where I'm going with this, but I have an inkling I'm in no way, shape, or form actually describing what you do for a living."

With a weird look on his face still, he'd gotten up, and put down enough money to cover his bill and a tip on the table underneath a napkin with a doodle of a smiling dog before he gave her a crooked smile. "I'll see you next time?"

"I have nothing better to do, so I'll be here."

He left with one last crooked smile, one last twinkle in his eyes, and she let herself visibly deflate when the door closed behind him.

Or if she could just hold a normal heart-to-heart conversation…

"That's quite the shiner, there, dude." Charlotte remarked as she filled Steve's cup with coffee.

"You should see the other guy," He smiled, and Charlotte chuckled. "How was your week?"

Charlotte smiled tightly, because, well, it hadn't been that great. She'd been doing the math and trying to figure out her finances for the past couple of weeks for the upcoming school semester, when her parents had called her to ask her for help straightening out her brothers' finances as well. And, ok, she knew they were all poor, but there was something very depressing about trying to figure out how to pay tuition for three people. On top of that, she'd forgone going to Arizona that summer in the hopes of saving some money, and it'd been thrown on her face by her grandmother that very morning.

"I get it, grandmother, I'm going to hell because I'm a bad granddaughter who doesn't go home for the summer. Does my self-awareness make you feel any better? 'Cause it does me." And she'd made it worse when she'd sassed her that way, so the yelling continued and escalated for the better part of another half an hour before Charlotte finally hung up on her and turned her phone off. She loved her grandmother but the woman was going to be the death of her.

But he didn't need to know that. Probably didn't want to know that, nor would he ever, and she shriveled up a little a bit more on the inside at that thought.

"Incredibly mediocre," She answered, and asked him about his. He gave her the same answer and she snorted before calling him a liar. "Your black eye tells another story."

"Your pout tells another story," She gave him a frown and he shrugged, a small blush on his cheeks, and when he spoke, it was to his cup. "Your top lip does this pouty thing when you're angry."

Charlotte swore her heart skipped a beat or two, and her breath caught in her throat when Steve looked at her through his long eyelashes, his eyes searching hers for something, and Charlotte dared herself to not hope.

They maintained their gazes for a bit before she sighed. "It was crap. My week was complete and utter crap. Not my worse, but definitely in my top five of crappiest weeks."

"Mine too." He admitted, and both broke into a smile that Charlotte almost thought felt foreign on her face.

"Probably not as bad as the other guy's, though." She commented, raising an eyebrow and motioning towards his eye.

Than maybe she'd already had asked him herself.

So when Tony Stark and Dr. Bruce Banner walked into the door of her workplace, and Steve punched her manager and told her about Captain America, Charlotte almost dared not hope too much.

Because Steve Rogers was Captain America and he saved people for a living.

And she was Charlotte, The Waitress/Broke College Student, might-be-broke-right-about-now Charlotte that had nothing of substance to offer the world. She was too-tall-Charlotte, too-curvy-Charlotte, too-outspoken-Charlotte, too-much-everything-Charlotte for Steve Rogers.

But, danmmit, when the boy smiled…Well, the smile was enough to give her the courage to ask him to dinner, to steel herself, and for the first time in what felt like forever, be the confident Charlotte she'd forgotten to be for the past couple of months.