Archive of Our Own ^beta

Sharon studies him. The noise in the club is loud enough that the music is more a series of reverberating percussion and something that might pass for vocals. Several people are pressed around the bar as apathetic bartenders chat up some and ignore others. For the occasion, Sam has worn a nice dress shirt and a comfortable pair of jeans. It seems good enough.

Her eyes narrow.

Sam pretends he doesn’t notice and holds his glass up to his lips.

She breaks away from her part of the bar, and the crowd quickly fills in the vacuum she’s left behind.

Without thinking, he continues to hold the rim of the glass against his lips as he watches her move closer. Is it just him, or are her hips swaying a little more than usual? And he knows she has weapons, but where she’s tucked them in a sheathe dress that barely covers anything…

She stops in front of him.

He lowers the cup and wonders when his mouth went dry. Eyes on hers, Wilson. Eyes on hers.

“Your glass is empty.”

He blinks. Blinks at her, then at his empty glass.

She places a light finger on the rim of his glass. “It was empty before you even tried to drink from it, Sam.”

He clears his throat. “It’s my conversation starter.”

She gives him a withering look.

“Don’t tell Bucky.”

She shakes her head and turns to leave.

He licks his lips, only to jolt when the bartender yells at him for his order. “Now you care?” Sam demands. He shoves his glass across the counter and follows Sharon out.

“I don’t need to know how to do this,” Sam says, trying to get the lock pick to work. He should be able to do this. He can fix Redwing. He can fix his wings. He should be able to pick a lock. Why do his hands feel so clumsy?

“Yes, you do.” Sharon’s voice is steady, calm. She already has a series of different kinds of locks open before her and is working on more. “You wanted to develop your skills. You wanted to train to be more like a spy. That means learning how to pick locks.”

“I can just shoot out a lock.”

Her eyes flick upwards. She doesn’t look like she’s about to kill him, but she certainly looks like she’s running through all the ways she could. “Without drawing attention?”

“Bet I could,” Sam says fervently, ignoring his doubts.

Her eyes narrow. “Let’s go on a mission and find out. Bucky and I will cover you in case you’re wrong and they try to kill you.”

Sam turns over the padlock in his hands a couple times. “Sure. Just after I get this one.” Maybe by the time he’s done with this lock, she’ll have forgotten.

He manages to get the lock over an hour later.

She doesn’t forget.

He gets shot at so many times that Bucky - Bucky - feels bad enough to buy him a beer.

The training gets worse. There are times Sam thinks he could handle it if Bucky weren’t ribbing him for it – or worse, consoling him over it. She’s training Bucky in spy techniques, too, because apparently being an assassin and sniper aren’t spy-territory enough. Unlike Sam, Bucky tends to pick up everything pretty quickly, though.

But no. Sam’s progress with locks is too slow. His undercover work is sloppy. His technique is poor.

It’s the night they’re trying to get information on each other without giving up any on themselves when Sam cracks. He’d been doing well, or so he’d thought, and now Sharon and Bucky both have lists about him, just from this one night’s conversation.

He feels like a failure. There’s not much more he can say.

He gets to his feet. “A word?” He keeps his tone pleasant, but he must not be as good at that as he thought he was, either, because the two of them look at each other expectantly.

“Don’t kill him,” Bucky says. “We haven’t gone over how to hide a body yet.”

“Good way to learn,” she says, and leads the way outside.

Sam keeps his mouth closed until the door is shut. “What’s going on?”

She turns and looks at him, eyebrow raised.

“I get that I asked for training, but this is something else,” he presses. “There’s more to it.”

She leans against the railing, watching him. “You said you wanted to learn.”

“Yeah, but this isn’t helping me learn. I feel like an idiot. I’m not an idiot, Sharon. And you’re not letting up.”

“Do you want me to let up?”

He frowns at her. He knows that question is a trap. “To learn this stuff, you’re my only option. Buck can’t teach me all of this stuff. But the way you’re teaching me isn’t helping.”

She crosses her arms. “Pretty sure I’m not treating you any different than my teachers trained me.”

“Oh. I can handle drill sergeants. I’ve had those. I don’t mind it. But this is something personal. And I want to know why.”

Part of being a spy is not drawing undue attention to yourself. He suspects that’s why she’s so still while she watches him. “Bucky won’t always be around,” she says at last. “I won’t always be around.”

His eyes narrow.

She meets his eyes and doesn’t shy away.

He shoves his hands in his pockets. The nights here are chilly. “Are you worried what will happen when you leave me, or when I leave you?”

Her lips thin.

“I’m not abandoning anybody, Sharon.”

“You need to learn to do this on your own. All of it.”

“So you want to abandon me.” He grins, though there’s no joy in it. “Oh. That makes way more sense.”

“Sam.” Her voice makes his grin disappear. She sounds tired, pained. “Bucky’s tougher, sure, but he can still die. And I know I can die.”

He makes a face. “You didn’t die.”

“But I know I can. You can’t count on us to always be there. Even if we want to be. It isn’t always a choice.”

They look at each other. Inside, Sam can hear Bucky washing the dishes. “You’re doing this…” he says slowly. “Because you’re afraid for me.”

She shrugs. “You’re Captain America now. More people are going to come after you than ever before. You’re a target on a bigger level than ever before. And that means you need more skills than ever before. Even if you don’t think you’ll use them, you have to know you can do them. I have to know you can do them. Spying is about doing what you need to without getting noticed. You’ll live longer if people who want to kill you don’t know you’re there.”

He leans forward, trying to sort out his thoughts. He buys himself time with, “I know people notice you when you’re undercover. Trust me.”

For that, he gets another withering glance. “You failed Seduction 101, remember?”

He raises his eyebrows. “Your version, maybe.”

Her eyes narrow.

“All I’m saying, is that it sounds to me like you’re teaching me because you care about me.” He pauses at her startled expression and grins. “Come on. Say it. Admit it. Say you care about me.”

She tilts her head to the side. She heads back inside. “Anybody ever tell you that you have a punchable face?”

“Denial is the first step toward acceptance.”

She stops in the doorway and turns back toward him. “You think this is grief?”

He points at his face. “I know you’re not gonna punch this.”

Her eyes narrow. She’s going to punch it. Sam skips over all the stages and goes straight to acceptance. Somehow, some way, she’s going to punch his face. “I’ll see if I can work out a different teaching approach.”

And then she’s gone.

Sam rubs his face. Not punched, but he can’t help but think something else just happened.

They leave for a mission a couple days later, but Sharon forbids them from engaging.

Bucky points toward the bad guys. Their targets are eating in a little cafe, seemingly without a care in the world. It would be easy to walk over and beat the crap out of them.

She shakes her head and leads the way to a bar down the street. The three of them order drinks and sit on the outside patio where they can watch their targets. “We don’t know how long they’ll be here yet. Ordinarily, once they sat down, we’d sit nearby and keep tabs on them that way. If we knew they’d be a while, we might take a table at the restaurant down the street. But bars and cafes are faster than restaurants, so you look like you belong sooner.”

Bucky takes a sip of his beer. “Aww.”

Sam and Sharon look at him.

He freezes, then puts his beer on the table. “She’s trying to include us to teach us more gently,” he tells Sam. “Because she hurt your feelings.”

“Not my fault she’s mean,” Sam says with a grin. His eyes dance as he looks at Sharon. “Are you seriously?”

She sighs. “So we’re going to keep our distance and watch,” she says as if she hasn’t noticed their interruption at all. “It’s easy to beat them up and leave them for the authorities, sure, but we don’t know who they work for or what their ultimate goal is. So unless you want to come back here every couple days to put out a small fire, we’re going to focus on taking down the arsonist in charge.”

Sam nods. “What’s the plan? How are we going to watch them? I’ve been practicing lock picking.”

Bucky snorts.

Sam takes some of the condensation from his beer bottle and flicks it at him.

Sharon reaches over and takes their beers away. “We’re going to learn real-life scenarios for this. So for now, watch me.”

She grabs her purse and hurries down the street toward the cafe.

Sam and Bucky look at each other, then take their beers back, with Bucky flicking some condensation at Sam in revenge.

“How are you so immature?” Sam demands.

Bucky looks at him incredulously.

Sam looks back in challenge.

Bucky’s eyes narrow. Challenge accepted.

Sam makes a face. “If we miss what Sharon’s doing…”

“Look away in three.”

“On three or-”

Bucky makes a face and looks away.

“Hm.” Sam thinks he should have done that, but he thinks it would look worse if he mentioned it now. He looks over toward the cafe and blinks. Sharon’s in one of the cafe uniforms, her hair done up in a messy bun. Large glasses perched on her nose. Slouching. She’s changed her gait, too. If he hadn’t been looking for her, he wouldn’t have seen her. He watches as she meanders around the cafe patio, refilling people’s waters. When she gets to the table with the targets, she does the same, only taking away their bread basket. One of the men says something, and Sharon smiles and nods apologetically, putting the bread basket back on the table. She clears some of their more obvious trash, nervously dropping it before she goes more than a foot away. She drops to the ground after it and quickly gathers it up again. She hurries back into the cafe as if embarrassed.

Sam and Bucky look at each other. Their phones buzz, and Sam holds his to his ear. He looks around and leans in to Bucky so they can listen to the men’s conversation.

It’s almost twenty minutes later that Sharon joins them at the table. She’s in her usual clothes, her chin held high and her shoulders back as usual, her curls free, her glasses gone. The only difference is that now she’s wearing a baseball cap.

They stare at her.

“How did I get the bug there.”

“Bread basket,” Sam says. He looks to the table.

She shakes her head. “Try again.”

“Under the table,” Bucky says. “When you leaned over to fill the water glasses.”

“Misdirection,” Sam says with a nod. “Nice.”

She shakes her head again.

“When you were on the ground,” Sam tries again, less sure this time.

She smiles and points at him. “People don’t like to keep their briefcases on the table. And if there are no free seats available, they tend to put them on the floor. There’s still a chance they’ll figure it out. They’re good enough they didn’t make it easy.”

For the rest of their time at the bar, she takes them through the physical tells of how good the men might be at different things, how acting different ways in different situations can make people behave certain ways.

Sam listens.

It takes a couple days. She doesn’t lay off the lessons, but he hadn’t expected her to. Instead, she tries different ways to get him to learn. Positive enforcement, which for her is just bribing him with a beer or with a secret about Bucky (he never picked a lock faster than that night), or setting up little challenges for him.

He starts to feel like he’s making progress.

On the fourth day, the three of them follow their quarry to the boss in charge.

Sharon looks speculatively at Sam. “You’re Cap now. What’s the plan.”

“He doesn’t have a plan,” Bucky says. “He pretends to have a plan. But he never does.”

“She means my super-secret spy plan,” Sam says, sounding just a bit haughty.

Bucky makes a face. “So what’s your super-secret spy plan?”

“I can’t tell you,” Sam deadpans. “It’s super-secret.”

Sharon sighs and rubs her temples.

By the end of the hour, though, Sam presents them with a plan. It doesn’t incorporate as much spy stuff as he thinks Sharon wants, but it will get the job done. Sharon even looks a little impressed.

And it gets the job done.

“After this,” he says, “I want another crack at that Seduction 101 thing.”

She continues packing. “Please tell me you’re talking to Bucky.”

He grins at her. “We’re going dancing.”

“I thought you meant you and Bucky were going dancing,” she says, even though she’s wearing a dress with a flared skirt, and her hair and makeup are done.

Sam shrugs. “He had other plans.”

She frowns. “Did he really?”

“I gave him a flat tire so he couldn’t crash our night.” He grins and offers his room.

“Did you really?”

“No. I’m not dumb enough to mess with his motorcycle. He’d kill me.”

She grins, and he whistles.

“Cold,” he commends.

“Thank you.” She grins – at him, this time, and he grins back.

“You should prepare yourself, though.” At her curious look, he explains, “There aren’t actually a lot of places to go dancing. So we’ll have to start with dinner and take it from there. But I’m going to succeed this time, I swear.”

She raises an eyebrow. “We’ll see.”

He grins. “You will. I already know how the evening’s going to play out.”

She looks like she might challenge him again, but he takes her hand and leads the way down the street before she can speak.

Dinner is at a low-cost place, and he laughs about his job doesn’t pay that well. If someone’s with him, it’s because they like his character. Or his abs.

She looks at his abs through his shirt. “You must have a hell of a character.”

He grins. “You’ve noticed.” He eyes her. “What if we hit pause on the spy stuff for the night?”

She watches him and sips her wine. “I suppose. But how will you seduce me?”

He grins. “I can’t believe you still doubt me.”

“Or maybe I just want to see if you can earn it.”

He turns his head. It’s always been hard to resist a challenge. He leans forward. “If I were a lesser person, you’d be a very dangerous person for me to know.”

She grins. “We’ll see, won’t we.”

They flirt and debate their way through dinner, then dessert, then back to her place, and his eyes narrow speculatively at her door. He doesn’t make a move to kiss her good night, not even hug her good night. “You know, I bet there’s room to dance in there.” He looks at her, obviously thinking about other things, and she looks back, thinking the same.

“I guess you should see it. In case we need to train in there sometime.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Just in case.”

She opens the door and leads him inside. Everything is a little too clean, too orderly. Unlived in. She tosses her coat onto the couch and stops in the middle of the large living room with hardwood floors and too little furniture. “Do you know how to dance?”

“I’m dangerous on the dance floor. In a good way.”

“Tango?”

He sighs. “Training?”

“Maybe.” She holds up her hands, and he takes them, letting her guide him through the steps until he loses track, then balance, and ends up on the ground. He grunts as she falls on him.

“At least I broke your fall,” he says cheerfully.

She looks at him, her chin on his chest. “This… could be a bad idea.”

“Sounds like a challenge,” he says. She’s too far away, and he crooks a finger to urge her forward. After a moment, she moves cautiously forward, and he kisses her.

In the morning, he wakes first. At some point, they’d moved to her bed, and he tries to remember where he’d left most of his clothes.

He twists to look at her. She’s still asleep, her breathing even, her features not as drawn and intense as they usually are. He settles down again, watching her as he waits for her to wake up. She can be intense, sure, and tough, and intimidating, and pushy, but she can also be soft and careful and gentle. He moves closer and rests his chin on her shoulder.

She’s awake in a flash, twisting and straddling him, her fist raised before she even recognizes him.

“I know, I know. I have a punchable face. But hear me out.”

She blinks at him, relaxing as recognition dawns. Slowly, she lowers her fist.

He grins. “Admit it. I passed Seduction 101.”

She groans. “You know I’m going to make you shut up, right?”

His grin widens. “I’d like to see you try.”

She rolls her eyes, and she does. Neither of them are inclined to back down from a challenge.