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Two weeks after leaving Thessaloniki, she steps off a plane at JFK and heads straight to the line of cabs waiting at arrivals. She doesn't have any luggage to wait for; everything she needs is in the tote bag she keeps slung over her shoulder.
"Downtown," she tells the driver, after sliding into the backseat. "Stark Industries offices, please."
He nods and pulls out of the line, glancing at her in the rearview. "Hey, you work for Stark? What's he like?"
She shakes her head, but there's a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "Just meeting an old friend."
Bless New York City cab drivers; he doesn't ask her a damn thing after that and she can look out the window in silence to watch as the city rolls by and turn her thoughts to her next steps.
Or try to, anyway: what really happens is that she's wryly unsurprised when they only return, as they have almost every time she's had a few moments to herself to think, to the subject of Bucky Barnes. She's stopped fighting it: it's been two weeks since he vanished through the door and he's still living rent-free in her head. She knows when she's beaten.
(At this point the theme of those thoughts is a dead heat between running over and over all their conversations, the way he fights like he's a one-man wrecking ball, and how it felt when his hands landed gently on her hips, how warm he was against her.)
She hasn't tried texting the burner phone – he's almost certainly ditched it – but if she's successful in her mission, she might give it a shot anyway. She's got no other way of contacting him, and she hasn't heard from him.
The thing is, she has to be successful first, so she muses on the problem at hand and lets her thoughts move lightly and constantly, like a river. The danger is when they try to swirl in one spot for too long; that she actively stops whenever it begins. Preoccupation is one thing. Distraction is another, and she can't afford it.
The cab drops her within a block of Avengers Tower and she tightens her grip on her tote to shoulder her way through the crowd of tourists and cosplayers and off-brand street performers. Maria Hill is expecting her. Steve isn't.
Hill's office is bright and airy and very obviously civilian, but the woman behind the desk hasn't changed an iota. Sharon taps on the glass door, smiling warmly without letting it reach her eyes. "Ready to grab some lunch?"
"Absolutely." Hill pushes herself back from her work and stands, mirroring Sharon's smile right down to the sharp study in her eyes. "Let's go. We've got a lot of catching up to do."
Lunch goes about as Sharon expected it would. Hill has questions, but she's willing to let Sharon dissemble or outright refuse to give a straight answer in exchange for a drive full of what she knows is invaluable intelligence.
Neither of them says the name "Fury," but they don't need to. And when they're done, Sharon walks Hill back to the offices and they actually do get a little catching up done. They've never been close, but they're too similar not to respect each other. If pressed, Sharon might even say she likes Hill.
She still doesn't tell her where she got the intel, though. And Hill knows just why Sharon's accompanying her back: she's the one who contacts Steve and tells him to come to her office. And she's the one who glances politely away when Steve arrives and he and Sharon both spend a long second just staring at each other before he squares his shoulders like he's heading into a fight.
"I hear it's actually Sharon," he says, in a way that means I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed, and her stomach, which hasn't stopped flipping since he walked in, clenches.
"Yeah." She tightens her grip on the tote handle and offers him a winning smile that feels like a Hail Mary throw across three separate football fields. "I was thinking...how about getting that cup of coffee?"
Steve isn't anything like Hill. He's nothing like anyone she's ever known. He has a million questions, and once he's glanced at the drive and read through the note she hands him five times or more, his jaw clenching, he starts launching them at her like a pitching machine that's bound and determined to get through her swing and punch her straight in the gut.
"I don't know where he is," she says, for what feels like the hundredth time. "I don't know why he contacted me."
That's almost a lie, but not quite. But worst by far is when, after an hour or so, he finally stops asking and just slumps back into his chair, staring at the few words on the piece of paper and not even trying to hide the pain and fear and worry and loss that break across his face and don't stop.
She can't stop herself. Just like in Thessaloniki, she gets the impulse and follows it; leans across the table to take his hand and squeeze it, totally unprepared for how it feels like running face first into a wall when his blue eyes flick up to meet hers and his hand – warm, strong, capable – squeezes hers back without hesitation.
And then he says, simply and with absolute sincerity: "Thank you, Sharon." And something tight in her chest just ruptures.
Damn. Damn, damn, damn.
Damn Bucky Barnes for putting her in this position. Damn him and his secrets and his determination to be alone. Damn Steve Rogers and all his optimism and goodness and warmth. Damn his pretty blue eyes and strong shoulders and gentle hands.
And damn herself, most of all, for getting mixed up in any of this to begin with. And especially for when Steve asks, all uncertain awkward charm, if, if she's staying long enough, she'd like to take a walk in Central Park with him before she heads back out again.
He never needs to know that she changes her flight to be able to say: yes.
"Downtown," she tells the driver, after sliding into the backseat. "Stark Industries offices, please."
He nods and pulls out of the line, glancing at her in the rearview. "Hey, you work for Stark? What's he like?"
She shakes her head, but there's a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "Just meeting an old friend."
Bless New York City cab drivers; he doesn't ask her a damn thing after that and she can look out the window in silence to watch as the city rolls by and turn her thoughts to her next steps.
Or try to, anyway: what really happens is that she's wryly unsurprised when they only return, as they have almost every time she's had a few moments to herself to think, to the subject of Bucky Barnes. She's stopped fighting it: it's been two weeks since he vanished through the door and he's still living rent-free in her head. She knows when she's beaten.
(At this point the theme of those thoughts is a dead heat between running over and over all their conversations, the way he fights like he's a one-man wrecking ball, and how it felt when his hands landed gently on her hips, how warm he was against her.)
She hasn't tried texting the burner phone – he's almost certainly ditched it – but if she's successful in her mission, she might give it a shot anyway. She's got no other way of contacting him, and she hasn't heard from him.
The thing is, she has to be successful first, so she muses on the problem at hand and lets her thoughts move lightly and constantly, like a river. The danger is when they try to swirl in one spot for too long; that she actively stops whenever it begins. Preoccupation is one thing. Distraction is another, and she can't afford it.
The cab drops her within a block of Avengers Tower and she tightens her grip on her tote to shoulder her way through the crowd of tourists and cosplayers and off-brand street performers. Maria Hill is expecting her. Steve isn't.
Hill's office is bright and airy and very obviously civilian, but the woman behind the desk hasn't changed an iota. Sharon taps on the glass door, smiling warmly without letting it reach her eyes. "Ready to grab some lunch?"
"Absolutely." Hill pushes herself back from her work and stands, mirroring Sharon's smile right down to the sharp study in her eyes. "Let's go. We've got a lot of catching up to do."
Lunch goes about as Sharon expected it would. Hill has questions, but she's willing to let Sharon dissemble or outright refuse to give a straight answer in exchange for a drive full of what she knows is invaluable intelligence.
Neither of them says the name "Fury," but they don't need to. And when they're done, Sharon walks Hill back to the offices and they actually do get a little catching up done. They've never been close, but they're too similar not to respect each other. If pressed, Sharon might even say she likes Hill.
She still doesn't tell her where she got the intel, though. And Hill knows just why Sharon's accompanying her back: she's the one who contacts Steve and tells him to come to her office. And she's the one who glances politely away when Steve arrives and he and Sharon both spend a long second just staring at each other before he squares his shoulders like he's heading into a fight.
"I hear it's actually Sharon," he says, in a way that means I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed, and her stomach, which hasn't stopped flipping since he walked in, clenches.
"Yeah." She tightens her grip on the tote handle and offers him a winning smile that feels like a Hail Mary throw across three separate football fields. "I was thinking...how about getting that cup of coffee?"
Steve isn't anything like Hill. He's nothing like anyone she's ever known. He has a million questions, and once he's glanced at the drive and read through the note she hands him five times or more, his jaw clenching, he starts launching them at her like a pitching machine that's bound and determined to get through her swing and punch her straight in the gut.
"I don't know where he is," she says, for what feels like the hundredth time. "I don't know why he contacted me."
That's almost a lie, but not quite. But worst by far is when, after an hour or so, he finally stops asking and just slumps back into his chair, staring at the few words on the piece of paper and not even trying to hide the pain and fear and worry and loss that break across his face and don't stop.
She can't stop herself. Just like in Thessaloniki, she gets the impulse and follows it; leans across the table to take his hand and squeeze it, totally unprepared for how it feels like running face first into a wall when his blue eyes flick up to meet hers and his hand – warm, strong, capable – squeezes hers back without hesitation.
And then he says, simply and with absolute sincerity: "Thank you, Sharon." And something tight in her chest just ruptures.
Damn. Damn, damn, damn.
Damn Bucky Barnes for putting her in this position. Damn him and his secrets and his determination to be alone. Damn Steve Rogers and all his optimism and goodness and warmth. Damn his pretty blue eyes and strong shoulders and gentle hands.
And damn herself, most of all, for getting mixed up in any of this to begin with. And especially for when Steve asks, all uncertain awkward charm, if, if she's staying long enough, she'd like to take a walk in Central Park with him before she heads back out again.
He never needs to know that she changes her flight to be able to say: yes.
