Sharon - November 19

[theycallmecap]

Steve is very aware that Sharon would probably have hated him for this, even if he hadn't done it on his birthday. But he's been toying with the idea for days, because it's been a few weeks since they last talked about this, and there's giving her space and then there's just letting nothing happen. So for once, he's thankful for something about the Proserpina: the fact that they are now getting warned for people's birthdays.

It's the trigger he's been waiting for to put his plan in motion. Well, plan. It's a big word for it, when all it is really is mostly a hope that Sharon won't stalk right out of the schoolroom, but still. He spends a lot of time in front of the replicator in his room, until he has decent popcorn. He spends even longer in the schoolroom, until he's loaded a decent movie on the computer that's on the wall. The decent movie, in this case, is better than decent; it's Casablanca.

And then finally, when it's time and he figures she's had dinner already (popcorn is no proper meal), he goes and warms up the popcorn in the kitchen, sends everybody but Sharon an e-mail that he rereads three times to make sure the phone's auto-correction feature isn't messing with him, asking people to stay out of this schoolroom tonight, and then only rereads the text he's about to send Sharon. This one he actually rereads five times, just in case. Thinking fo the coke debacle still makes him blush.

The text just says, "Level 3 schoolroom. Emergency."

He's hoping that she won't stop to think about the fact that if this were an emergency, the last thing he would do is take the time to text anyone.

Comments

[withmyshield]

Sharon arrives, out of breath, shoes thrown on over what are basically pajamas [she'd come home from a little dinner and just changed into them, assuming she was in for the night], including a robe which is done up hastily and askew. She runs to the school room because when she sees an emergency text from Steve's phone, her first thought is that someone else sent it, because he's been maimed by some new horror the station cooked up while she wasn't paying attention.

When she sees him standing in the room by himself, she's super confused, which, as usual, makes her really eloquent.

"What the hell, Steve?"

[theycallmecap]

"You should know better than to fall for that," Steve tells her, even though he doesn't mean to, just because he didn't really expect to see her arrive and he says it before he can think better of it. And she's there in her pajamas and a robe, disheveled and, honestly? Beautiful. "Especially on your birthday. Please don't go," he adds hastily, before she either slaps him or stomps off, and picks up the bowl. "I've got popcorn?"

[withmyshield]

The deception is an unusual move for Steve, and honestly Sharon's too stunned to flee. Jury's out on whether she'll slug him, but for the moment, she holds off.

"You've got popcorn." She repeats dumbly. "You lured me up here...to eat popcorn?"

[theycallmecap]

"And watch a movie," Steve completes, with a tilt of his head in the direction of the screen on the wall, which is for now, black, but the kind of black that's a little dusty. It's clearly not a turned off screen, but a freeze black frame in an old film.

And Steve looks uncharacteristically nervous, as he puts the popcorn bowl down, just in case she decides to punch him after all, given what he's about to say. "I thought... it could be a date."

He doesn't quite wince as he says that, but close enough. He really does expect to get hit.

[withmyshield]

Sharon's jaw drops open, and she immediately snaps it shut before she can say something thoughtless and mean.

Are you serious? You date-ambushed me?

She looks around at the scene he's clearly put a lot of effort into, and then down at herself. She decides to stay almost without inner resistance; faced with Steve looking so pleased, and the fact that he'd actually gone to all this trouble...

"This is why you warn girls you're trying to take them on a date: they actually get dressed. And they don't kill you for scaring them."

[theycallmecap]

"I thought you wouldn't come if I asked you out," Steve answers, very sheepishly. He really would have preferred to, but the station's e-mail had cut short any doubts he had had.

So he looks very sheepish, and offers, "Happy birthday?"

He really doesn't care what she's dressed in. He just wants her to stay.

[withmyshield]

He's probably right, there. Given any sort of warning, she probably would have said no, found an excuse, avoided him some more. She's really awfully chicken when it comes to Steve.

She smiles, pretty sheepish herself, that he's got her number so thoroughly after such a short time.

"What are we watching?"

[theycallmecap]

The question makes him break, at last, into a genuine and full Steve Rogers smile. He gestures at the couch he dragged in from the nearby rec room, and puts the bowl of popcorn down in the middle, waiting for her to come over and sit down before he does so himself.

"Casablanca," he says, very hopeful that she will like it, especially given how long it took him to get the Cortex to spit it out. "Have you seen it before?"

[withmyshield]

She grins as she sits on the couch, legs tucked underneath her, sort of perched against the side so she's leaning away from him [she knows the movie theater trick, thanks].

"Yeah, I have. It's pretty much a classic." Basically everyone born in the 20th century has seen it, but she doesn't want to burst his bubble. She likes it better than a lot of 'classic' films because it doesn't force a happy ending. It's a great choice, but actually...

"Wait, have you?" He was out of commission starting in 1943, so he might have missed it altogether.

[theycallmecap]

"It's the last movie I saw before..." He trails off for a few seconds, as he grabs the remote for the computer and sits on the couch, on the other end of the couch, because the last thing he wants to be is oppressive. "Before I became a Capsicle," he finishes, using Tony's phrase for it with a half-smile.

He's glad that it's a classic, because he feels that it should be, but there's one thing he still doesn't know. Just because it's a classic doesn't mean that... "Do you like it?"

[withmyshield]

She's really amused by the 'Capsicle' part, even though there's no way he came up with it himself.

"Yeah, it's great." She reaches for the popcorn with a sidelong glance at Steve, sliding the bowl most of the way to her end of the couch [all of two feet closer].

"Don't suppose you got anything to drink?"

[theycallmecap]

"Yes!" he answers, a little more enthusiastically than would be natural for most people, but he isn't most people. He's out of his seat and reaching back for a couple of beers, rather than sodas, because he's figured out by now she liked those best, and he holds one out to her as he sits back down, and he's glad to let her have the popcorn.

He's honestly glad that it seems to be something that hasn't gone old-fashioned, like Casablanca.

[withmyshield]

As the overture starts, she turns to Steve, reaches her bottle over to clink against his.

"Thanks for this. It's really great." Again, that pleased look on his face makes her say something dumb. "Almost makes me forget I'm an extra old lady, as of today."

[theycallmecap]

"Looking pretty good for extra old," Steve assures her, easy as can be, with a trace of warm humor to it, but without any self-consciousness. It's the truth; there's nothing to be self-conscious about.

[withmyshield]

"Hmm," Sharon smirks; she might put up a cool facade, but she's pleased. Also kind of proud of him for being halfway smooth.

"I'm just gonna pretend you're talking about the movie, OK Slick?"

She drinks her beer and shuts up as Bogey takes over. Dead and video-recorded or not, nobody can compete with that.

[theycallmecap]

Steve would rather she didn't, but when he looks at her and sees the glint in her eyes, he figures she knows better than to really do that. He just smiles, and leans back against the couch, his arm lining the back even if it's too wide for that to mean touching her. It's still a subconscious attempt to be closer to her, and it turns out that he's not the only one with that kind of subconscious urges.

Or maybe they're conscious, but he's glad enough to find that Sharon has scooted closer by the time they're a half hour into the movie that he's not going to ask for much more than that. Now her hair is sort of brushing his hand, and he looks back at the screen and doesn't dare move, save from the occasion drink from his bottle, just in case it might scare her away.

[withmyshield]

Sharon knows exactly what she's doing, cause as much as she'd like to be above this kind of persuasion, it's pretty brilliant. Probably even more so because he doesn't know he's doing it. By offering her something tangible [a real live date] instead of just professing his Feelings [god, does she hate Feelings sometimes], Steve found the weak spot in her defenses. It's a date, it's fun and easy and she's finally relaxing just a little.

Around beer number two she decides it's dumb to keep sitting so far away, like they're teenagers in somebody's basement, paranoid of getting caught by parents. She puts the popcorn bowl out of the way and scoots in to rest her head on his shoulder.

[theycallmecap]

Steve is not going to hide it; he is very surprised when Sharon suddenly makes it a very conscious decision, and moves the popcorn out of the way to snuggle up to his side. He is not at all against it, though, far from it, and as soon as he recovers he puts his arm around her, fingers curled loosely against her arm. When he tilts his head towards her a little and focuses, he can smell her shampoo, and it makes him smile, before he focuses back on the movie.

Or tries to, anyway, because he's giddy as a schoolboy, inwardly, and it's very difficult to focus when your inner self wants to burst into song like a character right out of Show Boat.

[withmyshield]

"If you don't get on that plane, you'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow; but soon, and for the rest of your life..."

This is the major problem with Casablanca as a date movie; sure it's romantic, but the end makes everyone cry. Sharon does it as surreptitiously as she can, wiping the tears with the back of her hand, making sure she's relatively normal looking as the credits roll.

She turns to Steve, whose face is less than a foot from hers [and would be less if he didn't have such massive shoulders].

"Well done, Cap. You just took a girl out on a date."

[theycallmecap]

Cap. Most people call him Steve, or Captain, some of them Rogers, but very few call him Cap. It's like they're part of a small, exclusive club, except when Sharon says it, he finds that he likes it better when she calls him Steve. Her Steve doesn't mean the same to him as everybody else's.

He smiles at her congratulations (and at her, so close to him), and would have shrugged if she hadn't been right there against him. "Who knew it would take being stuck on a space station."

[withmyshield]

Sharon laughs at that one, because it's actually the Steve-taking-out-a-woman part that's more preposterous than the space station part. She's a little flushed from the beer, but mostly just endorphin-high, and she drapes her arm over his shoulder.

"Being unable to escape probably helped a little." She smirks, teasing him. "I mean, where was I gonna go?"

[theycallmecap]

"I was afraid the answer would be anywhere I wasn't," Steve admits easily. "So all in all, I think the date went well. We're in the same room."

Never mind that she couldn't be closer to him without climbing into his lap; he really doesn't have a problem with that either.

[withmyshield]

The hand on his shoulder reaches out to comb through the back of his hair.

"So, did you have a plan for this point in the evening? Or were you pretty sure it wouldn't get this far?"

Because Sharon Carter is nothing if not a total jerk.

[theycallmecap]

"Unless things have really changed, I think I'm supposed to walk you back to your room, now," Steve answers. The fact that she is teasing him goes well over his head, possibly partially because the hand in his hair is being very distracting, and is making him want not to move from this couch.

He is in fact very reluctant to move from the couch. It's comfortable, sure, but mostly Sharon is snuggled up against him, and she seems relaxed and playful, and it's a hell of a good look on her.

[withmyshield]

Sharon kind of gapes, but what did she really expect? He missed the whole bra burning era; in his world, you really do walk the cute girl in the sweater set to her father's front door and steal a peck before skipping home, whistling. Well, the Leave it to Beaver routine is all well and good, but she thinks she's got a pretty persuasive counter argument.

"Thank goodness one of us has their priorities straight..." she mutters, and leans forward to kiss him firmly.

[theycallmecap]

Steve's eyebrows raise, and he's about to ask what priorities, but then it's become pretty clear. After a second's surprise, he makes sure that his priorities are the same, and kisses her back, fingers curling on her arm, his other hand abandoning his beer bottle to cup her face as the kiss naturally deepens.

The fact that she would have initiated it, this time, leaves a bundle of warmth to suffuse his lungs, and his heart is beating a little too hard, he's pretty certain.

[withmyshield]

Sharon braces her other hand on Steve's chest, slightly amazed at how her day is ending. She would have bet a million dollars against it this morning.

Not totally unexpected, but no less amazing, is how right it feels to have Steve's arms around her. It's probably the first time she's felt happy [totally, unreservedly, actually happy] since she got here. Hell, since New York.

She lets it go on as long as she dares, then breaks away, a little breathless.

"I should walk myself home, now." Before I climb into your lap and make your brain explode.

[theycallmecap]

It just feels so right, how she fits against him, with him, and he's incredibly aware of every point of contact between them. The kiss is more settled, more gentle than any of the other ones they shared, between death scares and attempts to kiss her into accepting this, just this, them, together, connection and warmth.

"You don't want me to?" he offers, eyebrows raised, and really very much wanting to. It's the way a date is supposed to end, yeah, but mostly he's got that warmth in his chest and he's reluctant to let it go, to let her walk away. He'll take a couple more minutes in her company.

[withmyshield]

Steve's face, combined with the steady pressure of his arms, makes Sharon second guess herself. She's suddenly not ready to see the evening end.

"OK," she presses her lips to his once more, then backs off. "But if I invite you in for a nightcap, you say 'NO', understand?"

I'm absolutely not to be trusted around you.

[theycallmecap]

"Are you trying to protect my virtue, or yours?" Steve has to ask, smile warm, a lot more teasing than mocking. He doesn't know the first thing about mockery, anyway. "I'll say no," he assures her, with a nod, and it doesn't sound solemn enough but it's still a vow of a sort, even if he already misses her proximity.

He stands up, and holds his hand out to her, not because she'll need help getting up, but because he misses the contact already.

[withmyshield]

Neither, really.

What Sharon is trying like hell to avoid is inviting Steve into her room and him actually going to the proverbial bar set to get them a drink. And as much as she's itching for more of Steve, neither of them is anywhere near ready for anything else.

"No trying to maul me in the elevator, either. I've got some standards." she accepts the hand up and keeps holding it, threading their fingers together experimentally as they leave.

[theycallmecap]

Steve hasn't been sure that she would leave her hand in his, so it's a welcome discovery that she is, that she goes as far as to thread their fingers together. That too is cause for warmth in his chest, and he is smiling warmly as he briefly and gently squeezes her hand.

"On my honor, I'll do what I can to refrain," Steve assures her as they head towards the elevator. Bucky wouldn't have been very proud, but Steve is not going to have to try very hard to manage. Not because he doesn't want Sharon - of course he does - but because he is who he is, and he wouldn't.

No matter how much he wants to kiss her again, and still will once they're in the confined space of the elevator.

[withmyshield]

They make it to her door without incident [though the HOLD button had been calling her name in the elevator, the hypocrite]. Sharon has no idea what time it is, but they haven't seen another living person so far. Which is kind of odd. She shrugs it off as she leans against the door frame, looking up at him.

"Another successfully completed mission. You're really on a roll tonight, Steve."

[theycallmecap]

"Hey, it's what I'm all about," Steve assures her, warm humor in his smile before he steps in close, because they're saying goodbye, and that means it's the time when he's supposed to kiss her. His free hand cups her face and tilts it back so he can kiss her, the thumb of his other hand stroking the back of her palm. "Happy birthday, Sharon," he tells her when he pulls back.

[withmyshield]

Geez, I guess so.

It's the first time they've kissed without a closed door between them and possible witnesses [and if she could stop thinking like an agent, she'd probably be a lot happier in general] and even though she's aware of that fact, she's strangely comfortable with it.

She's not really clear about the rest of their goodnight-ing [blame the buzz in her ears], but she's glad to be alone when she realizes she's grinning like an idiot, and blushing to boot.

Total fluffbrain. She chides, but she can't even fault herself; when Steve wants something, he has a way of eroding any and all resistance. Even hers.