ten

The rustle of sheets woke him before the first peeks of the morning sun had a chance to rouse him out of his slumber.

Steve opened his eyes, settling them on the woman lying next to him. She was still fast asleep and Steve couldn't help but notice how peaceful she looked. He wouldn't have believed that the last twenty-four hours happened if it weren't for the physical proof right there next to him.

He was with Sharon.

He didn't know what he expected to happen when he flew out to New York. All he knew was that Sharon wasn't coming back to Washington and too much time had passed between them without them seeing each other. It had almost felt like she was saying goodbye to him over the phone but the gnawing feeling he kept getting whenever he thought about it was enough to tell him that he couldn't let that happen.

They had eventually gone back to Sharon's apartment for the night, Sharon insisting that it wasn't necessary for him to get a hotel. He even volunteered to sleep on the couch but the look she gave him told him otherwise. Secretly he was glad, but he still stayed respectful, kissing her a few times before they both fell asleep.

He rolled on his back and stared up at the ceiling while she slept, content to just be there with her.

Half an hour later, Sharon woke up. He turned to face her as she blinked sleepily at him. Her golden hair was a little mussed from sleeping, making him smile.

"Good morning," he said softly.

"Morning," she said smiling back. "What time is it?"

"It's still really early. The sun is only starting to come up."

She inched her way over until she was snuggled up against his chest and Steve was only happy to oblige by wrapping his arms around her. It wasn't much longer until they both fell back asleep.

The second time he woke up that morning, Sharon was no longer in the bed next to him. He found her in the kitchen and was surprised to see her making breakfast for them. Leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed, he thought he could easily get used to this.

"I thought you didn't cook," he said.

Sharon looked up at him, her eyes narrowed. "I happen to be very good at flipping pancakes and I make a mean scrambled eggs," she said pointing out to the plate of eggs she had already prepared. "That makes two out of four things that I can cook, thank you."

Steve chuckled. "What are the other two?"

"You'll just have to stick around if you want to find out," Sharon replied cheekily.

Liking the sound of that, he moved to stand behind Sharon and placed a kiss on her shoulder. "I plan on it," he said.

Sharon spun around smiling, "let's eat before the food gets cold." She gave him a quick kiss before stepping away, grabbing plates as she went.

At the table, they spoke about all the plans laid out to rebuild S.H.I.E.L.D. He could tell how eager she was to get started.

"The hardest part is finding agents that haven't been compromised. We have to take extra precautions to make sure we're not letting in any sleeper agents for Hydra and I'm sure anyone we approach will be suspicious of our intentions. "

Steve nodded, remembering what Natasha had told him about getting new identities. "They would have gone into hiding."

"Exactly. Trust is a very fickle thing among spies and we don't have the same resources we once did so it would be like trying to find a bunch of needles in a haystack. The number of Hydra agents that were revealed the day the Triskelion went down was unbelievable," Sharon admitted. "The only quick way to determine Hydra agents from S.H.I.E.L.D. was to see who followed Pierce's lead and who followed yours."

"I'm sorry that it had to go down that way," Steve said. At the time, he had only been doing what he felt was right but he never imagined the consequences it meant for the lives of all the agents that had dedicated their life to S.H.I.E.L.D.

Sharon placed her hand on top of his. "It's good that it did," she said. "S.H.I.E.L.D. had been compromised from the onset, but at least with Hydra exposed we can put an end to them once and for all."

She seemed convinced and the guilt Steve felt started to ebb away. Feeling grateful, he flipped his palm over and interlaced their fingers. "You're amazing," he said.

"I know." Sharon smirked at him. She jumped up at the sound of her phone beeping but Steve stopped her and gently tugged her back towards him.

"I want to help," he said.

Sharon gazed at him curiously.

"If it would make the agents more trusting of your intentions by having me on your side, then I want to help in any way that I can," he explained.

"Fury will be ecstatic," she said before leaning down to kiss him.

Steve was laughing in between kisses. "I was hoping to make you happy too."

He had pulled her down towards him until she was sitting on his lap, surprising both of them by his bold move.

They kissed, exploring each other's mouths and at one point Sharon moved to face him, her legs straddling his. He ran his hands down her back, placing kisses along her neck. He couldn't remember a time when everything felt this right.

"There's something else I was cleared to do yesterday too," she said as she rolled her hips against his.

Full of nervous energy, Steve paused and buried his face in the curve between her neck and shoulder.

"But we can take things slow," Sharon said softly. She was stroking the back of his head, her fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck.

He looked up at her then, his gaze burning with intensity. Kissing her as he stood, he carried her as he walked them towards the bedroom. "I think we've reached our capacity for going slow," he said as he laid her down gently.

She kissed him, wrapping her arms around his neck and as they let each other in, sharing the only thing they had left to give, Sharon couldn't have agreed with that sentiment more.

Waking up for the third time that morning brought another unexpected surprise that Steve was definitely sure he could get used to. Sharon was sitting up in bed next to him, tablet in hand and wearing nothing except his shirt.

"I have something for you," she said, her eyes still on the screen in front of her. She waited until Steve had sat up beside her before continuing. "It was the message that came in on my phone earlier before you decided to detour us to the bedroom."

Steve chuckled as he took the tablet from her. "You didn't seem to mind."

He flipped through the various images and reports on the screen. The easy grin he had been wearing was suddenly replaced by a frown.

"Is this all recent?"

At Sharon's nod, he went back to read over some of the reports more closely. They were all sightings of a man that fit Bucky's description.

"How did you get all this? Sam and I haven't been able to find anything for weeks. Everywhere we looked led us to a dead end."

"That's because you and Sam are a couple of do-gooders. I had a lot of time on my hands after I was taken off active duty to recover so I started digging around and called in a few favours with some of my more...shadier contacts," Sharon explained. "One of them finally pulled through for me this morning."

Eyes bright, Steve leaned his head towards Sharon and kissed her slowly. "Thank you," he said when he pulled away.

They stayed in bed for a while, Steve going through the various reports trying to determine where to begin while Sharon flipped through the messages on her phone. After a while, Sharon started to get out of bed.

"I have another physio appointment today and I should probably check in with Hill at some point."

When Steve looked up at her, she was standing at the foot of the bed, her eyes sparkling.

Taking in her expression, he couldn't help but narrow his eyes at her. "You look like you're up to something," he commented.

Sharon only grinned. "I'm not," she said. "But I was just thinking something. How's this for an updated headline? Captain America Gets Laid."

He shook his head, thinking back to an earlier conversation they had when she had teased him about being rumoured as the oldest virgin in history. "Not so fast," he said as he tackled her back to the bed before she had a chance to get away.

She made what she considered to be a valiant effort to escape from under him but they both knew it was pointless when she finally gave in to his kisses.

"It's good," he said after a while, "but I don't think there's enough material for that yet."

Sharon laughed. "Then we should get on that."

She ended up being late to her appointment and Maria hadn't been all too pleased with her when she finally made it out to the tower.

Steve managed to dodge most of Sam's questions until Sam had finally settled on simply giving him a knowing look whenever he would grin ridiculously out of nowhere.

None of that mattered though, because even though they didn't know what the future entailed, one thing was for sure. Steve and Sharon weren't about to let each other go.

The End.

A/N: And that's that. Thanks for all the love along the way!

PS: the title of this story came from a song lyric by Interpol called 'Pace is the Trick'. Call it a theme song if you will ;)