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Then.
Steve always wondered why Kate was so grumpy.
When he moved into the building, she presented him with a charming smile and the biggest fruit basket he'd ever seen. She told him her name was Kate, and he hesitated, but he introduced himself, taking the basket from her hands and ducking his head so she couldn't see how embarrassed he was.
He always found her to be pretty.
She had a dainty laugh, would wave him a friendly hello, and he felt comfortable around her enough to ask for help on a few things and whenever he was having trouble with working his stereo or finding the on switch to his laundry machine.
She never made fun of him.
So Steve didn't understand why her mood suddenly turned sour whenever he was nearby. It happened over time, of course. He first noticed this change when he returned home after a mission with S.H.I.E.L.D. and found that she wasn't in the best of moods. In fact, she told him she wasn't.
A few days later, he returned home and found her nearly slumped and leaning on her front door. His instincts kicked in, and at first, he panicked. He didn't pick up on her face right away, and a thought occurred to him. She had her forehead pressed against her door, and he couldn’t see her face clearly. Was she.. in tears? That was the first thought. The second was that she was possibly hurt or injured. That one had his chest twisting painfully, because who in their right mind would hurt a nurse?
His, "Kate?" sounded just as panicked as he felt.
When she turned to face him, he noted the bags under her eyes and the frown on her lips. He asked her if she was alright, and he inched closer. Kate only shrugged her shoulders though, and she mumbled a dismissive goodnight and turned her doorknob. The door closed behind her, and Steve was left scratching his head.
The morning after the second incident and the oddity of Kate's behavior, he paced around his living room. He was thinking all night, listening to the soft instrumentals that reminded him of home and his time, and all the while he hummed the tune, he thought of this woman next door and how utterly miserable she looked.
For the first time, Steve didn't give much thought on what he lost. He spent months doing that. It was all that ever ran through his head, the people he would never see again, his comrades, the war.. but today he had a mission.
Kate was kind.
If anything, her smiles and perky personality made him feel less alone. Working in a hospital was tough. He knew she worked long hours, and constantly playing a key role in the health of sickly patients was difficult. He admired her dedication. There weren't many people he knew that were determined to help anymore.
So today, he decided he'd try to make it a bit better for her.
Unfortunately, when he knocked on her door with a scone tucked into a paper bag and a cup of coffee, he was disappointed to find she wasn't home. He barely slept the night, and he didn’t hear her duck out, but perhaps she was quiet and ducked out while he was too lost in his thoughts.
His head moved to the end of the hall, and he waited a good minute. Perhaps she would be back soon, or.. Steve sighed. He really should have thought this through.
In the end, he decided to leave the pastry and coffee outside her door with a note. He needed to head out for a quick mission in the afternoon, but he would return that evening. Maybe he could pick her up something from Seattle on the way back.
"Don't you have your own apartment?"
Sharon grumbled at the throw pillow that was chucked against the side of her cheek. Her head hurt, and she was tired. Muttering a few curses, she buried her face in the raggedy fabric. She desperately wanted to disappear and sink into the couch.
"Go away," she mumbled.
Another pillow smacked her on the head, and Sharon growled, flinging her arm out to swat it away.
"Leave me be," she managed.
"I don't know if you've noticed," came Natasha's drawl. "But this isn't your apartment."
"So?"
Natasha smirked. " So ," she started. "The least you can do is make me breakfast." She pushed Sharon's legs to the far corner and wriggled to sit. "And you really shouldn't be here. Steve could come by at any moment. We're due for Seattle in the afternoon."
Sharon's head perked up. "He'll be away for a while?"
"We should be back this evening." Natasha raised an eyebrow, and Sharon groaned and dug her face into the couch cushion. "Don't tell me you're raising the white flag already."
"No," Sharon grumbled, and she angled her head with her cheek pressed against the cushion. She pursed her lips. "But he's driving me up the wall."
"Oh? I thought you were doing a marvelous job with those assassins," Natasha piped up.
Sharon hummed. "Not that," she mumbled. "He's drowning me in 40's ballads." There was chuckling, and Sharon twisted her neck back to glare. "It's not funny. During the day is bad enough, and I barely get any sleep as is, but last night he had it on loop. " She made a face.
Natasha's eyes danced. "Maybe he doesn't know how to turn it off. It's not a record player. Those stereos are just so much harder to operate.” She smirked. “Did you point him to the instructions manual?"
"Again, not funny."
"Well, we'll be out all afternoon, so you can head on back and get some sleep," Natasha told her.
Another grumble came from the couch cushion. "Someone's probably just going to sneak in again. I swear, do they really think the element of surprise will get him?"
Natasha played with the ends of her hair. "He is advertised as being nearly a hundred."
Sharon huffed and moved to sit. "If he runs that thing again tonight, I can't be responsible for my own actions."
"You're grumpy, you know that? You're supposed to gain his trust. Be adorable, be nice. He's probably attracted to that type," Natasha said.
"Yes, because that's exactly what I'm trying to do." Sharon let the sarcasm seem through, and she bit back a yawn. "And for your information, I am nice, and I'll continue being nice unless he decides to run that track again. I haven't slept for two days."
"You were sleeping a while ago," Natasha pointed out.
"That doesn't count. Your couch is shit."
There was a knock at the front door, and Natasha's chest rumbled in laughter. Sharon darted to her feet, made a face, and was out the window in a few seconds.
She ended up sneaking around the back of Natasha’s building to avoid running into them. If she was lucky enough, Natasha would be right and she could get some sleep before they returned that evening.
As she dragged her feet up the stairs, Sharon held back a yawn and fumbled with her keys until she got to her door.
She blinked.
There was a yellow post-it note stuck underneath the #3 on her door.
She squinted.
Sorry.
Sorry? Sorry for what?
Sharon took a quick look around the hall. It was eerily quiet. She listened for anything or anyone moving inside his unit far longer than she should have, but there were no footsteps, nothing out of the norm, and it was just as silent as the foyer. Her lips twisted into a frown and she glanced down to her feet at the coffee cup and paper bag.
Was this from.. Steve?
If her stomach could cringe, it would. Perhaps he heard her grumbling the other night just as she was headed out the door and to Natasha's apartment. Yes, the music was frustrating, and yes, at the time she wanted to break down his door and throw that piece of junk stereo out the window, but she also knew that he was struggling. Waking up to a completely different world, alone, and discovering that everyone he knew had passed on.. or almost everyone, was difficult to swallow.
She'd seen him a few times coming home and looking defeated, and while Sharon was struggling with her own exhaustion and maintaining this secret life, she just couldn't help but try.
So she did.
She'd tell him a joke that he didn’t understand, he would scratch the back of his head, she would laugh nervously, and he would turn away, embarrassed. It was silly, really, but for a minute or two though, she saw that boyish smile on his face, so while it wasn’t much, a few seconds a day wasn’t bad in terms of forgetting. Distracted, was the better word, if she thought about it enough.
Sighing, Sharon picked up the cup and paper bag, tore the note from the door, and slipped into her apartment.
The coffee was cold, and it never did much to keep her awake anyway, but she still drank it. The pastry wasn’t bad. He must have gone down to the coffee shop a block away. She recalled mentioning it to him once when he asked for a suggestion on quiet places where he could disappear to. Sharon gave him a few ideas, but she never thought he would actually follow through with them.
She was glad he did.
Baby steps.
Her face had just hit the pillow when the drywall rumbled. Sharon stiffened, and her eyes fluttered open. Great. Another one.
She made quick work of the burly man waiting in Steve’s living room. Unfortunately, the damn stereo needed to be sacrificed in the process. And so Sharon let out a lengthy sigh, standing over another slumped body, and shook her head at the bits and pieces of metal and barely recognizable audio track on the floor.
She clamped a hand over her eyes.
Shit.
The body was easy to dispose of. She’d gotten so accustomed to S.H.I.E.L.D. not returning her calls, which by the way, she still had that bone to pick with Fury over, but the last thing she wanted to do was walk into an electronics store on a Saturday afternoon to make a purchase.
After she moved the car in the alleyway and hauled the damn body bag down the fire escape, she chucked him in the trunk and slid into the driver's seat. There were a few seconds of silence as she rested her head on the steering wheel. She was tired and hungry, and she groaned at the thought that Steve’s pastry was sitting on her kitchen counter and would likely be stale by the time she returned. She really should have taken more than one bite.
Cursing under her breath again, Sharon turned the key, and grumbled the entire drive to the nearest store. The items provided to Steve by S.H.I.E.L.D. were all mass produced, so thank goodness for that. She’d be able to find the blasted stereo and hopefully return to get a few hours of sleep in. Saturdays were never her favorite day anyway.. She worked constantly, so the concept of a weekend just didn’t apply to her, but she’d almost forgotten just how busy these stores were during these times. She grumbled again, peering at the lengthy line at the till, and stalked to the audio aisle.
“Ah, there are you are.” She grinned to herself.
Her hands reached out to the large box on the shelf, and as soon as she tugged it down towards her, it was pulled back.
Her eyes narrowed, and she pulled again. The box jerked, and Sharon peeked around the shelf. A woman poked her head out from the other side.
“I’m taking this,” the woman said.
“I’m sorry, but I had it first.” Sharon tried to give a friendly smile, she really did. She wasn’t sure what it looked like though.
The brunette woman yanked the box away, and Sharon’s mouth fell open.
“Hey-Hey! Excuse me!” She rounded to the other side of the aisle and to the woman who held the box protectively against her chest.
“Not quick enough, lady.” The woman waved a hand and turned the other way.
Lady?
Sharon’s eyes narrowed. This was not happening. This.. This.. woman was getting in between her and the--She glanced at her watch--four hours she had to sleep before Steve came back. She needed that stereo.
Taking a few large steps, Sharon casually fell into stride next to the horrid woman who had taken to the end of the line at checkout.
“Please,” she started. “I promised my grandpa I would come back with this.”
The woman arched her eyebrow. “Your grandpa is still alive? What is he? A hundred?”
In fact.. Her mouth fell open again. What was wrong with a thirty year old having a grandpa? She may look like a drowned cat with her eyes dull and clammy and her hair uncombed, but she wasn’t old enough to not have a grandpa.
She remembered now why Fury held off with sending her on diplomatic missions. She clenched her fists, but managed a sweet and stiff smile that made her cheeks hurt.
“Something like that. He’s very old and frail, and he just needs to listen to this god awful 40’s classical music that keeps me up all night. It’s terrible, but it makes him happy and lulls him to sleep,” Sharon told her.
It wasn’t a lie. Sure, she didn’t have the faintest idea if Steve needed to listen to this particular track to get his beauty rest, but he did seem more cheery in the morning after he spent countless hours of having it on loop.
“Please,” she said again. “He’s a veteran.”
She was going to hell. She really was. But again, not a complete lie.
The woman sighed. “I promised my son I'd get him something for his birthday.”
Sharon’s eyes perked, and she reached for the item on the nearest shelf. “You don’t want that. It doesn’t even have bluetooth.” She stuck out her hand. “Here. This’ll be more his style. It connects to headphones, and it’s portable.”
The woman frowned. “It’s twice the price of this one.”
“I’ll pay the difference. How about that? It’s a good deal.”
Sharon watched her ponder for a moment, and she resisted the urge to tap her foot against the tiled floor. “Come on. Old, grandpa, a hundred something, veteran,” she said again.
The woman rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she said. “But you’re paying the difference.”
Sharon was lucky she had cash on her, and as she counted the bills, she cursed Steve Rogers. A two hundred dollar difference? Why was she assigned to this again? She was no babysitter, and she certainly was no errand..lady.
Huffing to herself, she carried the box under one arm and rummaged through the audio soundtracks. Steve had his CD in the stereo when it met its unfortunate end, and tried to piece it together, but it wasn’t recoverable. Sharon skimmed through the titles, her finger flipping through each casing and..
She groaned at the empty slot that stared back at her. This day was just.. She glanced over her shoulder at one of the clerks who was rolling a dolly down the aisle.
“Excuse me,” she called out. The curly haired teen, hooked off one of his headphones, and she scrunched her nose at his blank stare. “Do you have any more of this in stock at the back?” She pointed to the sign.
The young man gave her an odd look. “You listen to that?”
Sharon resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “It’s for my grandpa.”
He shrugged. “Whatever’s out, is out,” he said.
She squinted. “You’re telling me that this is actually sold out?”
He looked over her shoulder and shrugged again. “Looks like.” He turned back to his dolly and his headphones were back.
“Some help..”
Sharon blew a strand of hair out of her face. She now had three and half hours remaining. Where the hell was she supposed to get a 40’s classic CD? The next music store was miles away from D.C., and the sold out sign online was already glaring at her from her phone screen. Why was this thing sold out?
She rubbed her temples and muttered curses under her breath when she returned to her car. The only other option was to buy it second hand, but the only copy she could find was a limited edition CD selling online for a few hundred dollars.
Again, who the hell sold CDs for three hundred dollars?
Either way, snarling at the damn listing wasn't going to help. It was the only one available in the area.
Sighing, Sharon sent in her offer and made the drive back to her apartment. The setup of the stereo didn't take long, and it was sitting atop Steve’s sideboard in the living room within fifteen minutes.
Her phone dinged.
"What the fuck?"
Someone was bidding on her CD!
Tapping on her phone, and sitting herself down on Steve's couch, she bared her teeth and sent in a counter offer of five hundred.
Ding.
Her eyes widened. This.. son of a.. bid another hundred over the five. Her chest vibrated in a growl that would probably scare away her downstairs neighbor's cat.
"Alright, you want to play?"
Six hundred.
Ding. Seven hundred.
Sharon seethed. Eight hundred.
Ding. Nine hundred.
She glanced at the clock. God. There were two hours left. What the hell was she going to do?
Frustrated, she ran a hand down her face. She knew she was assigned to protect him, but Fury would have another problem on his hands, because it didn't matter how kind Steve was, if she had to go through another hoop to make him feel comfortable, then she'd probably end up killing him herself.
She tapped angrily on her phone. One thousand. Dollars. She cringed and waited.
And waited.
Ding. A13, congratulations!
Her face brightened, and she launched a happy fist in the air in triumph.
"Take that , Grant0704."
Meeting with the seller would be relatively quick. The issue she had was that she didn't have the money. S.H.I.E.L.D. kept all their agents who were undercover on heavy finance watch. A few hundred a week was sent to the account, just enough for food, rent was already paid for, and weapons came by in person delivery. It was an awful process to keep agents focused. It was terrible, and was an outdated operation plan, if you asked her.
So Sharon did what she had to do, and she wasn't happy about it, but there were a few things she meant to pawn off. Nothing too valuable, but she was initially putting off selling anything until after her undercover mission with babysitting Steve came to an end. S.H.I.E.L.D. paid well, but the finance department was relatively slow in activating personal accounts after missions were complete, so the money she could have made from pawning off her personables was meant for a plane ticket.
A vacation trip.
Fury promised she could, and while Sharon never really thought about taking some time off, nearly a year into looking after Steve Rogers wasn’t as easy as she thought it’d be. This trip to wherever had started to become something she was looking forward to.
But plans changed, and she wasn't just missing out on the plane ticket, she was down a few hundred for necessities from the deal for the blasted stereo.
The pawn shop didn't give her much, only a couple of hundred over the thousand. She pocketed it anyhow and drove to meet the seller speedily. The car jiggled over a speed bump, and the body in the trunk thumped behind her. There was an hour left, and the bags under her eyes were starting to become so prominent, she could actually feel the skin clenching on its own.
The sale was fast. The scrawny thirteen year old, yes, a thirteen year old was selling his grandparents limited edition CD, met with her outside a convenience store fifteen minutes away from her apartment. He gave her an odd look when she slammed the crumpled-up bills in his hand, swiped the CD, and dashed back to the car.
That was fifteen minutes there, five minutes waiting for the pubescent teen outside the corner, and a fifteen drive back.
Sharon dragged her feet up the stairs. Her neighbor downstairs, the elderly lady who was perhaps the nosiest woman she'd ever met, made a comment about her hair and slumped posture as she made her way up. Sharon didn't need to be reminded. She knew.
She was exhausted and almost too tired to even throw Steve's door open with the usual frustration she often did. Instead, the door creaked open slowly, and she stepped in, popped the monstrosity of a CD in the stereo, and made her way back to her apartment.
A few minutes later, she heard Steve fumbling with his keys at his door, and she sighed and fell face first on her bed.
Her pillow was strangely comfortable, either that, or she was just too worn out, because it had already lost its shape and was a flattened mess. That didn't matter though. What was important was that she was finally in bed and ready to--
Sharon's eyes snapped open.
The drywall was vibrating, and the awful classical tune started playing on the other side.
"Kill me now."
She buried her face under the pillow.
"So how'd it go? Did you take my advice?"
Steve cast a side glance at Natasha. She managed to find him as he was coming out of Fury's office, and she had that sly grin on her face again.
He resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
"And what advice was that?"
"The coffee. The nurse."
He frowned. "That's not really important."
"Oh?"
Steve pressed his lips together. "Aren't there more important things? Like discussing the details of this new mission for tomorrow?"
Natasha thought for a moment, and he should have known better than to believe she would be distracted by something so trivial as an extraction plan for a major arms distributor. No, this was much more important to her.
"She seems like the type who likes coffee," Natasha said, and her eyes danced.
"How would you know what she likes?"
She tilted her head to one side. "She's a nurse. She probably works long hours, doesn't eat well, and comes home exhausted. I'd say that warrants caffeine intake, don't you think?"
Steve's brows furrowed.
That could be the reason why Kate was so grouchy lately. He barely saw her the last few weeks, and when he did and waved a friendly hello, her upper lip would curl and she would glare, almost like he'd done something. But perhaps she was just exhausted like Natasha suggested, and it had nothing to do with something he did.
"I left her coffee," he mumbled quietly.
Natasha squinted. "You left her coffee?" she repeated. He nodded. "What the hell does that mean?"
This time, he did roll his eyes. "I left it outside her door a few days ago. Before we flew out."
She raised an eyebrow. "You left it outside her door," she mimicked.
"Are you just going to repeat everything I say?"
Natasha put a hand up to silence him, and Steve frowned. "You didn't give her the coffee?"
"I left it at--"
"Yes, I heard. You left it at her door," she said. "And why would she take this mysterious coffee from a stranger who left it on her doorstep?"
"I'm not a stranger, I--" He paused. "I left a note."
She gave him a pointed look. "A note?"
He made a face. "Are you done?"
"No," she said quickly. "And what did this note say?"
"Nat, that's private," he mumbled.
Natasha rolled her eyes. "Fine," she said. "But please tell me that you at least signed your name so she knew it was from you."
His lips parted, and he paused again and rubbed the back of his neck. His shoulders slumped. He didn’t sign his name. When he saw Kate the next day, he thought she would be in a better mood. However way she felt towards him, or whatever he thought he did, the coffee was a peace offering. He waved his usual good morning, but he was met with a curt smile that didn’t reach her eyes, and she quickly scampered down the stairs.
His face fell.
Natasha cringed. "Figures."
"I'll buy her another one," he said.
She shrugged her shoulders. "And here I was thinking you'd finally grown up."
He glared. "What does that mean?"
Natasha waved a hand. "Got me all excited too. You were so intense on your phone on the way back from Austin, I thought you had a texting buddy."
Steve frowned. "I wasn't texting. I was bidding."
She raised an eyebrow. "You know how to bid online?"
He rolled his eyes. "Unfortunately," he mumbled. "And it didn't work out."
She actually laughed. "It's a cruel world out there, Rogers. My advice is, ask the nurse for her number and don't waste your time on bids. Whatever it is, it's probably not worth it anyway."
Now.
"So you mean to tell me that this is the limited edition version that's been sitting here this entire time?"
Sharon watched his eyes twinkle, and he looked practically giddy. She crossed her arms over her chest.
"Yes, and you owe me a thousand dollars."
Steve grinned.
"Now pay up--Oomf."
He tackled her back into the bed.