4 Date

Steve had made a date a few days earlier because his loneliness screamed at him inside his head and because Natasha insisted that he get out of his house for a change and now it was eight-thirty and he was waiting at Agent Thirteen's door, just down the hall, and daring himself to knock.

'I don't think I can do this,' Steve texted to Natasha.

'You'll be fine, Rogers,' Natasha texted back. Steve looked at his phone and back up at the door and rocked on his heels and sent Natasha another message.

'How's Bucky? Does he need anything? Maybe I should stay home tonight and help out.'

'James is fine,' Natasha replied and Steve could practically see her rolling her eyes. Then, his phone buzzed again and Natasha added, 'James says to stop using him as an excuse and take Carter to dinner.'

'Thanks a lot, "James",' Steve texted back spitefully and Natasha only replied with a string of her favorite, very random emojis, so Steve sighed and put his phone away.

He thought to text Sam, and the notion was tempting, but he had been standing in front of Sharon Carter's door for a good, solid five minutes and if he didn't get it over with now, he never would. So Steve gathered up his courage and rapped on the door.

Sharon opened it almost immediately and Steve realized with a sinking feeling that maybe, she'd been waiting for him behind the door. But if she had been, she gave no indication and she only smiled at him politely and stepped out.

"Good evening, Steve," she said and Steve mustered a smile.

"Evening, Ms. Carter," he replied.

Steve had been attempting to court Sharon Carter for the past month or so for several understandable reasons, such as general loneliness and a healthy fear of the Black Widow's wrath, but not necessarily because he liked her all that much. Certainly, Sharon was a wonderful woman. She was intelligent, talented and witty. She at least seemed to have grown fond of Steve, of which he was a little relieved just because he still wasn't entirely used to being liked personally by people. After all, Steve could count the number of people who liked sickly, stubborn, resentful 1940s Steve on one hand. (The number of people who liked Captain America, Steve had decided a long time ago, didn't quite count.) And anyway, it wasn't as if he despised her. They had fun sometimes, and he did like to get out of his apartment, but the thing was, he didn't see any sort of future with Sharon. Not really. A few fun dates, sure. Kissing… Maybe. But Steve couldn't be with Sharon, couldn't share a life with her, or even consider doing so, because every time he looked into her face, he saw Peggy.

It wasn't even necessarily the family resemblance that drove Steve away, because Sharon looked nothing like her great aunt. It was simply the nature of what they were beginning. To put it simply, and Steve knew it, too, he was not over Peggy. He still loved her. Sharon wasn't his partner, Peggy was. It was her he missed and her he still found himself pining for when he woke up in the middle of the night, shaking and scared and attempting to wipe away the nightmares with the layer of sweat on his face. And it was her he couldn't have and he was trying to move on, but it was hard and some days, he couldn't gather up the strength to even want to get over her.

So instead, he tried to distract himself by taking out Sharon and talking to her and trying to pretend that everything was okay.

After all, that was what Steve found he truly excelled at most days. Pretending everything was okay.

Sharon had picked the restaurant tonight, so it was some expensive Thai food place that Steve had trouble pronouncing the name of and he followed her down the hall and out the door of their apartment complex, his hands in his pockets and his shoulders tense. He hated being outside. It was November and the cold was coming in fast and although Bucky slowly seemed to not mind as much anymore (he had always liked hot chocolate) and Natasha preferred the cold over the warmth anyhow, Steve still found himself avoiding the chill as much as he possibly could. He just didn't like it.

It was dark and Steve shivered as he tried to hail down a cab and Sharon stepped up behind him, a thick scarf around her neck, pulling a wool hat over her hair, and looked up at him.

"You're more quiet than usual tonight," she commented and Steve looked back from the street and down into her face and shrugged, trying to smile a little for her.

"Give me a chance here," he protested teasingly. "We just barely got out the door."

"Is there something on your mind?" Sharon asked and Steve looked away from her again as a cab pulled up on the curb next to them and smiled again.

"Nope," he said cheerfully and leaned down to open the door for her. She took it from him and stepped inside and Steve went around to the other side, the wind becoming fiercer on his face until he managed to pull the traffic-side door open and fling himself inside the car, where the heaters under the seats were a blessing and Steve began to feel his nose defrost. He rubbed his arms up and down as the cab began to pull away and Sharon finished giving directions. "It really shouldn't be this cold already," he commented spitefully.

"I thought it was rather warm," Sharon replied nonchalantly. "For the holiday season, that is."

"Hmm," Steve replied and then the cab lapsed into uncomfortable silence. Steve folded his arms across his chest and stole glances at Sharon, who was looking out her window, and fought himself to think of things to say.

"So, uh," Steve said.

"Yes" Sharon said.

"How's the CIA?" Steve asked.

"Oh, very much like SHIELD," Sharon replied. "Lots of paperwork."

"Oh," Steve said and again, the silence fell.

"And how's SHIELD?" Sharon asked a couple minutes later and Steve shifted in his seat and nodded.

"Uh, fine," he said. Silence.

Steve thought this was probably his fault. He was never a good conversationalist, and never good with women. He wondered if Bucky were here, he would still know just what to say, like he used to, and he thought maybe not, but either way it didn't matter, because Steve had to muddle through this himself.

They arrived at the restaurant and Sharon wasn't usually one to let men open doors for her, so when Steve tried to walk around the cab to try, the door flung out and hit him in the side before he could touch it and he stood there for a moment in stunned humiliation as Sharon climbed out of the car, all awkward apologies.

"It's fine, it's fine," Steve tried to say until finally, he just turned around and paid the cab driver through the window and, embarrassed, let Sharon lead him inside.

This is already a nightmare, Steve thought.

'Save me', he texted as discreetly as he could to Natasha, but this time, she didn't respond.

They sat down at a table and Sharon began looking through the menu and saying things and when she looked up, that's when Steve discovered that he had been wrong. It was true that Sharon and Peggy didn't have much in common and they didn't look anything alike, but Steve hadn't looked into Sharon's eyes before like he did now and suddenly, all he could see was Peggy there.

"Steve," Sharon said and Steve blinked at her, but everything was hurting him now, except that he couldn't let it. He couldn't let it hurt him. Steve wanted to do something, grind his teeth together, stand up, hit something, but he stopped and scolded himself and shoved everything back down and held it there and let the water, let that tide wash over his head. "Steve," Sharon said again and she looked concerned, her eyebrows furrowing and she put her menu back down on the table and leaned over to him. "What's wrong with you today?"

"Nothing," Steve said quietly.

Because the thing was, if Steve told Sharon that he still loved her great aunt, he wasn't altogether certain how she would react. He assumed that she would be hurt. And besides, this was his problem and he could get over it himself. Sharon didn't need to be hurt by him, she didn't need to hear him say those things to her over their dinner table.

"You look troubled," Sharon said.

"Well I," Steve started and looked down and when he looked back up, he was smiling at her. "I've never had Thai." Sharon let out a breath and cracked a smile.

"I promise you, it's nothing to look so sullen over," she said to him, rolling her eyes playfully and picking up her water glass. "Just order what I order."

"Gotcha," Steve replied and realized then that if he was to become a master in the art of Pretending Everything Is Okay, he ought to concentrate a little harder because things were slipping through the cracks in his armour and Sharon was beginning to notice.

This is ridiculous, Steve chastised himself. I'm making a big deal out of everything.

Through the rest of the night, Steve tried very hard to convince Sharon that he was fine again. The Thai food wasn't bad, just different, but he ate all of it both because he knew he would be starving if he didn't and because he still found it difficult to break the urge not to waste anything. He made Sharon laugh, and she smiled at him, the way she smiled when the corners of her eyes crinkled up and Steve knew she was beautiful, he just didn't know how to love her was all.

Because Sharon was a better conversationalist than Steve, they maintained a decent conversation through the night. Steve wondered, however, how long it would take until they could be comfortable together in silence.

Finally, Steve mentioned that maybe they ought to start leaving and Sharon let him insist on paying for the meal and even let him open her door for her once they got back to their apartment, but when it was time to say goodbye and Sharon was standing in her doorway again, she stopped Steve from walking away.

"Steve, I just want you to know, I'm only here in this complex because of you," she said. "I was only stationed here on a mission, I don't even work for SHIELD anymore, but I decided not to move because of you." Steve stared at her, his hands in his pockets, turning over his shoulder, and was silent for a moment. To be honest, he didn't know what to say. Sharon looked down and laughed a little and shrugged. "I just thought I ought to tell you," she said.

"Thanks," Steve said awkwardly and Sharon nodded and then stepped back into her apartment and closed the door and Steve stood there for a while and thought about what she had said and why she had said it. And then, he called Bucky.

Bucky picked up on the second or third ring and asked about his date, as Steve expected him to do, and Steve unlocked his apartment door and went inside and sighed loudly into the phone.

"Well?" Bucky said. "How was it?"

"Exhausting," Steve replied and emptied his pockets onto the counter and dropped down onto his couch and leaned into the cushions.

"I think it's supposed to be fun, Steve," Bucky said dryly.

"Oh, was that the right answer?" Steve replied sarcastically.

"What happened?" Bucky asked and Steve shrugged, even though he knew Bucky couldn't see him.

"Nothing, I mean," and he laughed a little. "I'm just not good with people, Buck."

"Did it go badly then?" Bucky pressed and Steve could hear Natasha saying something on the other end, but it was too distant to hear, and he heard Bucky cup his hand to the phone speaker and respond in mumbled Russian, and then turn back. Steve shifted on his couch and used his other hand to rub his eyes.

"No," he said. "No, it went fine, I'm just tired is all."

"Oh," Bucky said and there was a pause and then he added, hesitantly, like suddenly he was unsure why Steve was on the line at all. "Was there something... You wanted to talk about then?" He said and Steve realized that there wasn't.

"No," he said, but he didn't want to hang up.

"Okay, well, I'll see you tomorrow?" Bucky said and Steve nodded and didn't bother to stop himself when he remembered again that Bucky couldn't see him.

"Sure," he said and he waited for the click to tell him that Bucky had hung up, but he heard nothing. Then, after a minute, Bucky spoke again.

"Are you sure?" He said. "There's nothing… Nothing the matter?"

"I'm fine," Steve said with a sudden fierceness in his voice. "Goodnight."

"Kay, night," Bucky said, but he sounded still confused and unconvinced and Steve hung up before he could say anymore, even though he desperately didn't want to stop talking.

It was eleven forty-five and Steve hadn't even turned on the lights in his apartment and he sat on his couch in the dark and stared at the wall and tried to close his eyes, but the silence rang so loud that it hurt.