Chapter Text
Steve tries not to seethe as he cleans the coffee maker. Sharon left nothing but dregs in it. She clearly had a bad pain night, since she slept in the guest room. He can’t help but notice that she still made a mug for herself, plus eggs, bacon, and toast; she left the dirty dishes on the counter.
He loads the dishwasher while he waits for the coffee to finish, reminding himself that just because Sharon can’t be in the field doesn't mean cooking and taking care of the house is solely her job. After the gunshot wound that fractured her C5 vertebra, she’s lucky she can walk.
Sure, he expected married life to be different. But that’s no one’s fault.
“Good morning, Commander.” She leans in the doorway, almost lounging, her cane in one hand. She's wearing his clothes—his boxers, his socks, and one of his button-downs, most of the buttons undone. It's a good look on her.
He softens. “Hey,” he says. “How're you feeling?”
She makes a face. “Like shit. You got time to shower with me? Help me limber up?”
“Sorry,” he says. “I have a meeting.” It feels like a lie as it comes out, but he does have a meeting, and since he has to make his own breakfast, he’s already running late.
“Next time,” he tells her. It sounds like an excuse even to his own ears. But why should it? She’s his wife. He’s wanted this, wanted her, for years.
He promises himself he'll come home early tonight and show her just how much he loves her.
Steve’s morning meeting is interrupted by an urgent message from a team in Nevada, which only Steve has clearance to handle. He wraps up the call with them in time to lead the workout for first-year agents, but is pulled away halfway through by another crisis. He barely has time to rinse off and get back into his uniform.
He does a double-take on his way out of the helicarrier showers—is that Tony? The curve of his hips—the small of his back—the way his towel hangs from his hips—the way his hair curls at the ends—
Without meaning to, Steve backtracks toward the lockers to catch a better glimpse.
Of course it isn’t Tony. Tony’s in his cell on the Raft. It’s a SHIELD employee, one Steve has seen a hundred times since he became Commander. If Steve bothered, he could even conjure the man’s name.
The day barrels on, one emergency after another. He makes coffee at his desk and eats vending machine snacks instead of taking lunch. Every time he sits down to work on his backlog of paperwork, another catastrophe raises its head.
Steve climbs the steps of the townhouse he and Sharon share. He isn’t home early.
Still, he’s here, and it’s barely past 8, which is earlier than he’s made it in weeks. Sharon will still be awake. She texted him that she was ordering takeout, so he’ll get to have dinner with her, too.
He smells soy sauce and spicy chili when he opens the door. Perfect. He can’t get enough of the Sichuan restaurant in their neighborhood. They live in DC to make his commute easier, and they picked Georgetown because Sharon’s physical therapist is at the university hospital, but he misses the variety of offerings in New York. The restaurants here are more interested in image than good food. He’d trade any number of la-di-da cafes and French patisseries for a block of hole-in-the-wall New York eateries.
He hopes Sharon got him at least two orders of Taibai chicken.
“Sharon?” he calls, setting his keys down in the dish by the door and starting to peel off his harness and boots.
“I’m in the tub!” she calls back.
That’s good, he thinks; it’s important for her to take care of herself. Then it clicks. “What about dinner?” he says, approaching the stairs up to the bedroom and master bath.
“I already ate!”
Reaching the second floor and entering the kitchen, he sees that’s the case. Empty takeout containers cover the kitchen table.
He checks the fridge, the oven, the microwave. Then heads back to the stairs.
“Did you order any for me?” he calls to the third floor.
“Sorry!” she calls down. “I didn't know when you'd be home.”
That’s okay, he tells himself. They deliver.
He goes to the fridge, where the menu is held in place by a magnet with the SHIELD logo. Unlocking his phone, he starts to dial their number, then sees that they stop taking orders after 8:30. It's 8:29.
“Goddammit,” he mutters, and checks the fridge again. He’ll have to stop for groceries after dropping Sharon off at her PT appointment tomorrow.
He makes a ham and cheese sandwich and eats it over the sink, since the dishwasher is full and there aren’t any clean plates. It’s not bad, but fails to live up to his fantasy of fragrant, piquant chicken.
There was this spot in Manhattan Chinatown, where he and Iron Man used to go after fights. Iron Man would blow on his tea to cool it, while Steve watched, entranced by the idea of the man living and breathing under the armor.
Sometimes he wishes he’d never learned who was underneath.
Buoyed by her bath, Sharon joins him in the master bedroom that night.
“How was you day?” he asks. He’s settled in bed with a tablet, reviewing the reports and memos that have reached him in the last couple hours.
Her hair is up in a towel. She sits at her vanity, applying lotion to every inch of her skin, using the light of his bedside lamp. He loves this ritual of hers, how thorough she is.
“Not much to tell,” she says.
“Didn't you have that interview?” He’s sure it was today. “For the logistics manager position?”
Sharon frowns. “Oh, I cancelled that.”
“What? I thought you wanted to get back to working for SHIELD. You could do it from home, the house’s internet has already been—”
“It’s just not what I want, okay?” she snaps, then sighs. “Please drop it.”
“Okay.” He’s not ready for a repeat of their argument about her applying for disabled parking. He remembers having mobility issues, himself; he just doesn’t understand Sharon’s attitude about hers.
“How about you?” she says, conciliatory. “What’d you get up to today?”
“The usual,” he says. Then he sets down his tablet. “Actually.”
She raises an eyebrow at him in the mirror.
Steve sighs. “The oversight committee want to release Stark.”
“This again?” Sharon turns her face away, pumping another handful of lotion. “Haven’t they been through that before?”
“There’s a lot more support this time,” he says, looking down at his hands. “He single-handedly disabled a fleet of invading Skrull ships before they could reach Earth.”
She picks up a brush and starts pulling it through her hair with abrupt strokes. “And as I recall,” she says archly, “that was your idea.”
“Their virus had disabled security at the Raft, the Cube, taken out—”
Sharon cuts him off. “And then Stark swept in and heroically replaced all the systems with Stark tech.” He catches her eyes rolling in the mirror. “Tell me again how he and—”
“They’d replaced dozens of us—”
“I thought you didn’t want Stark freed?” she snaps.
Steve reins himself in. He doesn’t want to fight about this. “If the committee releases him, there’s nothing I can do.”
“Sure, Commander,” Sharon mutters.
He runs a hand through his hair. How did this turn into an argument?
Steve gets to his feet. Sharon watches him approach her through her vanity mirror.
He kisses the top of her head. “Hey,” he says, keeping his voice soft. He reaches for her hairbrush. “Let me?”
She hands him the brush. The tension leaves her shoulders as he pulls the brush through her damp hair in even, gentle strokes.
Sharon gets up a few hours later. “You okay?” Steve whispers, reaching for her hand.
She gives his hand a squeeze. “Going to the guest room,” she whispers.
“Take your gabapentin,” he reminds her. Her bare feet pad over the high-pile rug and out the door.
Steve sleeps fitfully after that. When he dozes, he dreams of handing Iron Man an electron scrambler, of blue light arcing across the armor, of Tony’s guttural cries of pain.
At four in the morning, he gives up on sleep, pulls on some sweatpants, and goes for a jog.
He starts off easy, jogging along the canals and across stone bridges. Then he circles around to the M Street stairs, running up and down their full height until he breaks a sweat.
After an hour or so, he starts to feel more like himself. He picks up a half-dozen croissants on his way home. What he’d give for a sesame bagel with scallion cream cheese and lox spread.
The townhouse is dark when he gets there. Inside, Sharon’s chair lift is at the top of the stairs. She must still be asleep.
In the kitchen, he tosses the take-out containers, empties the clean dishwasher, then wipes down all the appliances and counters. When they bought the place, he’d planned to replace the vinyl flooring and all-white countertops, but he hasn’t gotten around to it. Fitting a bathtub in the cramped master bath had been a project in of itself, and then they’d had to install all of Sharon’s disability aids, too.
Steve walks around the dining room, then downstairs to the living area, looking for more to clean. The only item out of place is a beige throw blanket. He folds it and sets it back over the couch. Thwarted, he heads back to the kitchen to start the coffee maker and eat four of the croissants. He should have more protein, but they’re out of bacon and sausage, and there’s only one egg left in the carton.
When Sharon makes it downstairs, dressed for her appointment, the coffee maker is bubbling with its third batch. He pours some for her, adding the last of the half-and-half.
“They didn’t have any almond ones?” Sharon asks by way of greeting, easing into a seat beside him.
“I thought you liked the spinach and ricotta,” Steve says.
She tosses her hair with a small shrug. “It’s fine.” She picks at one croissant, then offers the last one to him.
“I thought I’d get groceries after I drop you off,” Steve says. “Anything you want to add to the list?”
“What? Oh, Natasha’s taking me. We’re going to the spa after.”
“That’s nice of her,” Steve forces himself to say. It’s a Saturday, and he still won’t see Sharon all day.
“What’re you up to today?” she asks, taking a hearty gulp of coffee.
“Groceries,” he says. “And catching up on work, I guess.”
Sharon nods. She’s always understood how important work is to him—even these days, when he seems to spend most of his time reviewing an international organization’s worth of paperwork. Nick Fury made running SHIELD look adventuresome. But it’s a good thing that Steve’s directorship is less dramatic, right?
After bringing home the week’s groceries, Steve sits down at the dining room table with his tablet, laptop, and the hard-copy reports that were sent by messenger that morning. Besides the usual mission reports, requisition requests, and intelligence data, there’s also the Art Institute of Chicago to deal with.
Five or so years ago, they ran an exhibit that included a collection of his drawings from before and during WWII. Most of what survived from before the war were sketches for the WPA projects he’d been involved in, but a surprising number of GIs had held onto portraits he’d drawn for them. A wartime sketchbook of his made it, too, containing the figure drawings and face studies that had earned him the nickname “Rembrandt Rogers,” as well as his copies of the Escapist, the Swift, and other comic book heroes—plus his own superhero character, Cosmoknight.
The exhibit’s been traveling the world, but now they need to know what he wants to do with the pieces. They’d belonged to Tony’s collection, but when he loaned them to the museum, his lawyers drew up some kind of contract that left Steve in charge of them once the exhibit was finished.
He gives up after an hour. It’s his day off, after all.
There’s plenty to do in DC. Or he and Sharon could plan a weekend trip to New York, catch up with old friends. Get some half-decent pizza.
For now, he texts Sam. He, Clint, and Luke, are dealing with a militia group in Colorado, but according to the mission brief, they should be wrapping things up by now.
Steve: how’s it going? we should get together sometime
Sam: are you asking as Steve, or Commander Rogers?
That’s not a promising reply.
Steve: just Steve
Sam: then it’s going pretty damn bad
they got wind of Hawkeye’s surveillance
tomorrow you’ll have my latest report and request for backup
even then we’ll be another week at least
Steve: you’ll get that backup
What was he expecting, anyway? It’s not like he and Sam have heart-to-hearts over the phone. Does he even want a heart-to-heart?
He thinks of early days in Avengers Mansion. Evenings in the library with Iron Man, reading or chatting as the mood took them. Waking after nightmares to find Mr. Stark tinkering in his workshop, always happy to have company. Knocking on Tony’s door and going on long walks through Central Park.
That train of thought can’t go anywhere good.
At least he can get out of the house. Be around other people.
He catches a bus heading downtown, just to go somewhere.
Steve ends spending the day at the National Mall.
Tired of crowds, Steve opts to walk home. Sharon and Natasha haven’t even started their dinner yet; they’ll be a while yet.
It’s getting dark, but that just means he’ll run into fewer people on the street. The air is cooling down, but he can deal with that.
He wanders north for awhile, rather than head directly west. He weaves around blocks and traffic circles, failing to take in the landmarks, office buildings, and stately homes.
An hour into his walk, the rain that was threatening all afternoon comes down in a deluge. That’s okay. He can handle a little rain.
Half an hour later, his clothes are soaked through and he’s grinding his teeth against the cold. He’s so close to home at this point that he could walk there in the time it would take for a bus to arrive. Besides, he set out to walk home; he’s going to walk home.
He waits at a red light, hiking the collar of his jacket up his neck for the millionth time. A man with a dark umbrella and raincoat crosses from the opposite block and stands beside Steve, waiting for the same pedestrian signal.
There’s something off about the man. The way the carries himself. The way he’s not standing quite in Steve’s personal space, but closer than he needs to at an otherwise unoccupied street corner.
Steve turns his head a fraction, stealing a glance at his companion. The man’s bald head is maybe a little large for his body size, but what gives him away is the glowing eyes, bright like twin flames in his shaded face. It’s not Uatu, but they have the same demeanor and ozone-scented presence.
The pedestrian signal turns green. Steve and the Watcher enter the crosswalk in time with each other.
“Can I ask what you’re here to watch?” Steve asks.
“I am not here to observe,” the Watcher says, and Steve unclenches his fists.
The Watcher nods in Steve’s peripheral vision. “There is a rule all Watchers must adhere to: do not interfere.”
When Steve turns to look at the stranger, he’s vanished.
Steve, home, showered, and wearing warm, dry clothes, drafts a report about his meeting with the Watcher. The experience doesn’t fit the report template for encounters with cosmic beings. Since he’s SHIELD’s Commander, he can get away leaving some of the sections blank, but it doesn’t feel right.
He’s still working on it when Sharon comes home, smiling, tipsy, and leaning heavily on her cane.
Steve sets aside his report to help her up the stairs—she’s ignoring her lift and clutching hard at the railing. She overextended herself, again, but he knows better than to say so. She deserves to go out with friends as much as anyone else. Pushing herself too hard during physical therapy is another story, but he doesn’t want to start another fight about switching to a different physical therapist. They can have that talk later.
Steve and Sharon get ready for bed together. They share kisses once they’re under the covers; she tastes like clementines and vodka.
The intimacy tapers off. She’s sore and eager for rest. Steve, despite having done little during the day, is exhausted.
Still, it’s nice to fall asleep side-by-side.