Work Text:
Candor
Sharing a meal with Steve Rogers feels like it shouldn’t be this easy.
It helps that you’d passed a vintage movie theater playing The Mark of Zorro from 1940 on your way to the deli. You’d expressed surprise that the franchise started that long ago, prompting a discussion about the notable parts of each version the other hadn’t seen (Rogers: Just her hair left to cover everything ?!) . Now you’re both sharing anecdotes from your late teens over some seriously delicious sandwiches, him telling you about his co-founder Barnes, and you sharing about growing up with your sister Jennie.
Rogers' easygoing charisma makes it far too easy to forget that he actually runs the company you work for, especially when he’s laughing. It’s only when he holds out a hand to interrupt the story of your sister’s first catastrophic job interview that his business side kicks in.
The counter is only a few feet away from your table, and he leans over, intently listening. That’s when you hear it-- the soft, frightened voice of a young woman defending herself against a furious male voice.
Rogers shoots to his feet, striding over with the remaining bites of his sandwich in his hand. The manager steps over right away, his frown fading away when he sees the tall, well-dressed man at the counter.
“What can I do for you, sir?”
“I want you to observe OSHA standards, to say nothing of human decency,” Rogers says evenly. The manager presses his hands together in a blatantly fawning apology, but it’s too late. In an ever-increasing tone, your lunch companion lists out three different violations. At least one customer leaves nervously before Rogers adds a strong suggestion that the manager treat his young female employees with more respect. “I have rarely seen the same employee more than twice in the two months you’ve been open, and I hope for your sake it’s because they know their rights,” he says sternly. “Your food is good. Your management is going to run the place into the ground.”
There’s something about his voice of command that completely stomps the manager’s bravado. Seconds later, the employee who’d been yelled at comes out of the back room with a light jacket on and a purse, her face blotchy from crying. You offer her a tissue from your bag and clean up the rest of the table, which works out well when Rogers steps close and asks if you’re ready to head out. Once outside, he spots the young woman walking nearby.
“Give me a second,” he tells you, jogging over to her before she can cross the street. They have a short exchange while you wait, and you can see him give the woman a business card.
When Rogers comes back, you’re both quiet until he opens his car door for you and settles in on his side.
“That was a good thing you did.”
Rogers sighs. “I try not to throw my weight around. I’ve been watching conditions there deteriorate for weeks, and I guess that was the last straw.”
“You offered her a job, didn’t you?”
He turns and smiles, and the brightness of it reminds you of the way sunlight spills into the lobby at Star Industries.
***
“You’re going to spill that all down the front of you!” Marcia frets as you wobble your way to the door after work. The takeout container you’re precariously balancing is your peace offering to your sister, since you have a date on Couch Potato Movie Night.
“Don’t worry, I won’t be wearing this for long!” you say in an attempt to reassure your coworker.
“TMI!” the older woman says, playfully putting her hands over her ears.
“No, no no no--” The words cut off as you nearly bobble the styrofoam in a bid to whirl around in protest. “Doesn’t everyone change into comfy clothes after work? See you tomorrow!”
It’s a total obfuscation, but Marcia isn’t able to object before you escape through the rotating doors.
You won’t actually be wearing ‘comfy clothes,’ mostly because the black ensemble you’re planning to wear on your date has more exposed back than anything you’d ever worn in public before. The truth is, you look and feel great in it-- but comfy it is not. You haven’t worn it in a while (barring the try-on you did two days ago), and you’re already looking forward to the way the skirt flutters around your ankles. Its style is as close to the red dress from Only You as you could find, and you’re pretty sure Marisa Tomei would approve.
You’re hoping Steve Rogers approves, too.
Tonight’s plan is unconventional. The gala he’s invited you to is the last event of a conference for tech companies, and he was one of the keynote speakers for their final wrap-up. Rogers told you he couldn’t miss the networking for the ninety minutes between that and the start of the gala, so you’ll be arriving separately.
Honestly, if it were anyone else, you’d have tried to beg off. You’ll have to show up dressed to the sevens (the nines are way beyond your price range) and find him in a sea of very important people and other hangers-on. It’s a recipe for a fairy tale either way--either you’ll see each other across a crowded room or someone’s rich stepsister will cut you to verbal shreds. The only way to make that image to go away is picturing Rogers acting like a storybook hero vanquishing all your villains.
You exit your taxi a block away from the venue, amused and diverted by the mental image of your CEO date wearing medieval armor and wielding a sword and shield. The night is warm for early fall, with a light breeze that pleasingly swirls around your skirt and filmy shoulder wrap. You’re left wishing you could wander through Central Park with him, looking at the first leaf changes instead of feeling out of place at the event.
As you walk, you ponder what a modern-day heroic Steve Rogers would look like. This version can definitely wield his power like a weapon, offering that young deli worker a better job or calling on his fellow manufacturers to use more sustainable materials, something Star Industries recently made news for. You’re preoccupied in coming up with a shield analogue for him when you approach your destination.
“Excuse me, miss?” a familiar-sounding voice says. You lift your head to see that it’s Rogers.
“Oh! I didn’t at all expect you to meet me out--”
“I couldn’t take it in there anymore. Place is full of opportunists who think I’m naive for not taking more advantage of our disabled clients,” he says roughly, stripping off his suit jacket as he speaks. “It seems they thought I was faking nice for the past few years. I’m sorry to disappoint.”
“You could never be disappointing!” The words come out before you can vet them, but even if you had, you’d have said them anyway. He throws his blazer over his arm and looks at you with what you can only describe as professional exhaustion. You suspect more went on in that conference than he’s willing to say, and that makes you want to be more honest with him, for some reason. “There were two things going on in my mind on my way over here, would you like to hear them?”
His tone is guarded. “All right.”
“First I was picturing you as a kind of medieval warrior on a mission to fight the kind of villains you just described--”
“No pressure or anything,” Rogers murmurs.
“The other thing was wishing that I could take a walk with you through Central Park. The leaves are starting to change, there’s a nice breeze--what do you think?”
“I think you shouldn’t lift me up as some kind of hero,” he finally says, “--but I would very much like that.” Rogers holds out his arm for you, not unlike the way you pictured him leading you around the gala.
As you take it, you decide to go ahead and say, “What would Barnes say about whether you’re a hero?”
“He’d call me a punk with delusions of grandeur, but he’s the one who turned down the position of CEO,” Rogers says, but though his tone is amused, his expression doesn’t really show it.
It’s information you’re not sure is even public, so you focus on keeping up with his big strides as you make your way to the Park. Everything about his body language tells you that there’s a lot going on under the surface, that he might be close to coming unraveled. There’s no good way to say, ‘it’s okay to be quiet if you need to be.’ All you can do is stay quiet and hope he feels supported. The resulting silence isn’t comfortable, but it’s not awkward either--and after what he’d said about the population of the party he left behind, the twilight beauty of the park has to be an improvement.
A gust of wind finally changes the contemplative mood when it blows your shoulder wrap up onto his chest and into his face.
“Crap, I’m sorry,” you rush to say, fighting with the thing to make it stay put. Through your fussing, he stands with his hands out, a small smile haunting his face. It’s the first one you’ve seen from him today, and you decide to comment on it to test the waters. “I can’t help but be nosy and notice you don’t seem much like yourself tonight.”
Rogers’ body language closes up and his facial expression tightens, but he nods. “I’ve had to button up for the conference. I guess it’s just harder to shrug it off, tonight.”
It suddenly occurs to you that you don’t really know him very well, and you’ve walked yourself into a semi-private section of the park with him, at night. At the same time, you still recognize the man you ogled as he sweated and worked in the foyer of his own building as ‘just one of the guys.’
Hadn’t you hated a job so much your sister said it ate you alive?
“I can’t pretend to know what it’s like to hold a position at your level,” you say, in the world’s greatest understatement, “What I do know is that you made a decision to protect me from having to deal with something that clearly made you miserable. It sounds like those people were judging you as a bad leader because you want what’s best for your company and its clients. For the record, I think standing up against that is plenty heroic.”
Rogers looks down at his feet for a second, letting out a quick breath before meeting your eyes again, this time with a wistful kind of smile on his face. “It’s nice to know there are people who still see that kind of idealism in me. Thank you.”
“That’s the most polite ‘I disagree’ I think I’ve ever heard,” you retort. “Just to pile on, I also get the impression that you lied to me earlier.”
Now you have his full attention, blue eyes capturing yours with a laser focus you imagine is even more intimidating to a direct subordinate. “Oh?” Clipped, doubtful.
You could love this man, but you have the distinct feeling that he’s having some sort of crisis you’re not privy to. As such, you could be helping here, or you could be making it very easy to leave you on the curb needing a new job.
He’s worth the try.
“You said Barnes turned down CEO. I think you took the job so he didn’t have to.”
The two of you look at each other steadily for a long minute, the tension of your possible mistake ramping up inside you until he strides over, nearly chest to chest.
“You’re right,” he says, almost breathless. He lifts his hand as if to touch your face, his eyebrows quirking up in a silent question. You nod, captivated by the battle he’s clearly fighting with himself. You hope you’ve earned the faith you can see reflected in his eyes.
He slides his fingertips along your cheek and into your hairline with the kind of gentleness a girl can only dream of, and then he kisses you, stealing away all other conscious thought. You sway forward, catching yourself on his chest and then clutching at his lapel when he angles his head. His lips are reverent but hungry, just on the edge of desperate, and as it goes on, your heart spirals away toward the abyss of yes, please, forever.
When he lifts his head, he’s finally smiling in a way you recognize, and holy shit it feels so much like a triumph that you’re probably in big trouble with this guy.
“How about a do-over?” he asks, offering you his arm again. The happiness in his eyes makes you impish.
“Of the kiss, or…”
With both hands framing your face, Steve takes thirty seconds to methodically ruin you for every other man on the planet. Afterwards, he bends down to pick up his jacket from the ground, slings it over his arm like nothing momentous has just happened, and then holds his other arm out just as he’d done earlier in the night.
“You’re an overachiever, you know that, right?” you say, taking his arm. He’s a few other things, but you feel certain there will be time to work on those.
“It’s chronic,” he says. “Shall we?”
The next half hour goes exactly as you’d originally pictured when you walked past the park the first time. Easy conversation, beautiful surroundings, and more sparks flying between you than a welder’s convention. He calls ahead for a car to meet up at a specific corner, and you end up having to borrow his suit jacket by the time you get there. He makes you promise to call him ‘Steve’ before he hands it over.
“Thank you for a perfect evening,” you whisper to him after he gets in the back seat with you. “For your sake I’ll try to remember the best parts, so I can recreate them when I wake up and it’s this morning again.”
“Does that mean you’ll meet me at the same time tomorrow, in that dress, so I can take you to dinner?”
Even your swoons are swooning. You manage to say, “I could never say no to an invitation that smooth!”
Steve reaches over and squeezes your hand. “You can always say no. It’s important to me for you to know that.”
He sounds so serious that you pull your joined hands up to briefly kiss the back of his. “There’s a story behind that, isn’t there?” As you say this, your conscience stabs you. Hadn’t you dreamed of a rich man to sweep you off your feet? Would he feel betrayed by that??
“Don’t worry about that. Just know I was starting to feel… How do I put it,” Steve says, sweeping his thumb across the back of your hand. “Don’t take this the wrong way--”
“I’m not going to steal Willy Wonka’s secrets, so you can forget about asking,” you quip.
Steve throws back his head in laughter, his hand tightening on yours almost painfully before he lets go. “I was starting to forget what it was like not to be surrounded by people who want something, even if all they want is to say ‘yes.’ That’s one of the few things money can’t buy.”
“Observation changes the results--or in this case, money does,” you say, nodding. “Well, I’m going to take that as a compliment.” The car stops, and for the first time after a long day, you are disappointed to see you’re in front of your apartment.
He unbuckles and leans over to give you a brief but searing kiss. “It’s a compliment.”
Steve gets out of the car, and for a brief moment you’re confused until he opens your door. It’s impossible not to be charmed. You reach out to take his hand and are reminded that you’re wearing his suit coat by how much of your hand it covers, even when you’re extending your arm. He helps you up, then helps you out of the coat, escorting you to the door of your building afterwards.
“See you tomorrow?” he asks, then says, “Wait. I already know you just well enough to suspect you want to prove you’ll say no to me.” You burst out laughing and nod. “All right then: do you want to stay home tomorrow?”
You grin. “No.”
“Good. Let’s push back by an hour, for a better reservation. Seven?”
“Yes.”
“See you then.”
Because your life is not a romance novel but a comedy, you walk in the door of your apartment two hours earlier than promised, your stomach growling in outraged hunger.
“What are you doing home already? Was that your stomach? Didn’t you eat?” your sister asks as you take your shoes off. “Well?” Jennie demands, when you silently head toward the kitchen to warm up some leftovers. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?” she realizes aloud.
“No,” you tell her, an indelible grin on your face.