Ready Set Breathe (A Steve Rogers Destruction Story)

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.