Chapter Text
The rules in your shared office space were very clear, and to be honest they had never even been a problem for Steve until you came along. There had been a considerable amount of outrage when it was announced that all office romances were to be discouraged and/or registered if they were already under way. People cried out that it was a breach of privacy, but when you worked in an undercover industry the way you did it seemed prudent to know who could be tied with whom.
Explicit details were not expected when registering, and employees were hence forth to keep their distance from romantic entanglements with one another. When the pamphlets started circulating among agents there was a quiet rage that permeated most departments, but it quickly progressed into something of an office joke. In fact it had been a running joke amongst the other Avengers, who were mostly annoyed with the new policy, that of course the Cap didn’t have a problem, it’s not like he’d seen anyone in over half a century.
The new rules dictated that agents were not allowed to engage in sexual or otherwise romantic relationships with other members of the company, even if they were in entirely different departments or might rarely come across each other and especially not if they worked in close proximity. Anything deemed as misconduct would result in immediate termination for either or both parties. It was harsh but it kept the workplace clean and running smoothly from that point forward. Even if there was dissent amongst the employees over it.
This had not been a problem at all for Steve. It didn’t really matter all that much, he just went about his business as usually. Until you transferred in following a field injury that left you unable perform. At that point Steve had relentlessly checked these rules over and over again. Right after you had joined the company, in fact, and frequently since. Searching for some sort of loophole that would allow him to ask you on a date. His friends had noticed his obvious behaviour, especially when he was suddenly joining the voices that protested the new policy when he had previously been uninterested.
It wasn’t exactly subtle.
He had been quite taken with you right off the bat. The day you walked in and you had been introduced he knew that he needed to know more about you. When you had gone about introducing yourself to his fellow Avengers he had been dumbfounded when you reached him. You had outstretched your hand for him to shake after introducing yourself, looking up at him expectantly, and he just stared. He was stunned by the clean lines of your red lipstick and then charmed by the warmth of your personality. He was no expert, but he thought there might be some interest stirring in you as well, from the way your lips curled into a sweet little smile and you blushed when he snapped out of it and seized your hand in both of his larger ones.
However, seeing as he was literally Captain America, he was pretty sure if anything were to happen between you and you were caught that he had enough job security that it would be you who ended up losing their job. That was the last thing he wanted. You were perhaps the sweetest woman he had ever met, and the last thing he wanted to do was cause trouble for you.
Without a second thought Steve would have taken the risk in a heartbeat if it were only him facing the consequences, but he could not do that to you. You were utterly married to your work, and it was blatantly clear to anyone who spoke to you that you were deeply in love with your job. So, with no other options, he had no choice but to keep his mouth shut.
That wasn’t to say that he stopped being interested in you. He tried, and everyone knew it when suddenly he stopped talking about you all the time, when he stopped trying to invite you to spend time with everyone as a group, and when he actively tried to stop finding you in a crowd whenever people were grouped together in meetings and the like. Despite himself and despite the regulations he still found himself utterly smitten with you, but he tried much harder to hide it.
You saw this drawing away from you as something a little more offensive than what it really was. It seemed like one minute Steve was warm, sweet, and utterly infatuated with you. All the signs pointed to him having something of a crush on you, and you couldn’t have been happier. You had tried to encourage him into asking you out, gravitating towards him whenever you were having a conversation, laying your smaller hands on his arm whenever you were walking somewhere together, and then suddenly he was running cold. He stopped coming by, and when you were in the same room he was careful to stand as far from you as physically possible. This would usually allow for some flirtatious eye contact from across the room, where he might watch you warmly with this boyish grin on his face from his position on the opposite wall, but suddenly Steve always seemed to have something much more important to paying attention to.
That was essentially the structure that led you to today.
While the group waited for the meeting to start, a briefing about an upcoming mission that he, Natasha, and Barton would be cooperatively performing, Steve found himself unable to keep himself from looking around and fidgeting. Searching would likely be the term most people would give it, though he would adamantly deny it should anyone try to call him out on his behaviour. Neither Natasha or Clint commented, but there was a look exchanged between the two as Steve twisted in his seat to see who was coming in, and the looking disappointed when it apparently not who he was waiting for. While these types of meetings were not exactly his favourite thing, they were sometimes the only time that Steve could see you at work. Lately you were more of a secretary than an agent, handling important documents and working behind the scenes due to you recent injury. So you were usually brought to meetings to keep the record and maintain the relevant documents to ensure they were not passed through too many hands.
When you finally arrived, clutching a stack of documents to your chest and opening the door by yourself with your hip, his breath caught in his throat. Your hair was all over the place and your cheeks had a healthy glow that suggested you had probably sprinted here. The limp in your leg was also more pronounced, suggesting that it had probably hurt you to do so. Steve chewed his lip but firmly cast his eyes away from you and stared at the glass of water in front of him. There was just something about you that always forced him to take a moment to stop and stare, and he could not have been more obvious. Time stood still, the world would freeze, his heart would double its pace… He cursed quietly under his breath as his face heated up.
There are strict rules in place against dating coworkers for a reason. He tried to convince himself. Steve had to keep telling himself you were off limits, a personal mantra, despite the dull aching feeling that stirs in his chest. As you apologize for your tardiness and hurry around the large table he cannot help but smile to himself. You place papers down and begin scrawling on some of them. Natasha, who had noticed his eyes following you when you walked in, took his arm when he moved to stand politely as you set up the table in front of you, and told him the same thing he had been telling himself just before you sat down across from him.
“Steve,” she whispered, “you know she’s off limits. Be careful or you’re going to get her in trouble.” Natasha had come to quite like you, and while she wasn’t a fan of the stupid rule either she didn’t want you getting fired because Rogers couldn’t control himself.
She was right, of course, but that didn’t mean Steve had to like it either. He nodded at his red-headed friend and turned his eyes back to the agent at the head of the table, a short man whom he had completely forgotten about, who was front-running this particular briefing. He had scolded you for your tardiness, so Steve already had a particular dislike for him. However since you had arrived, the meeting could begin.
With an air of professionalism, your pen flew across a form that you had placed in front of you, and then you slid it across the table to him. Then another to Natasha, and another to Clint in rapid succession. You kept the pad of paper in front of yourself and scrawled neat cursive notes rapidly across the page as the frontrunner spoke. Your tongue poked out from between your bright red lips while you wrote, focused so completely on the task at hand. Steve smiled gently, completely losing his own focus in favour of watching you work. You seemed tired, based off the vaguely haggard look on your face. He also noticed how your lips curled slowly around the words as you were writing them. Your non-dominant hand hung somewhere below the table; he imagined it rubbing carefully at your injured knee to ease the pain so it wouldn’t distract you, and suddenly he felt protective over you.
“Are you alright?” he whispered, ignoring the pointed look he got from Natasha beside him. He ignored her and pressed on. “You look like you’re still hurting pretty badly. Have you had someone take a look at that?”
You looked up between him and her briefly, your mouth falling open slightly, surprised that he was actually speaking to you for the first time in probably a few weeks. You nodded quickly, glancing up at the front-runner as he cleared his throat and glared at you for seemingly distracting his agents. You missed the angry look that Steve gave him as you went back to writing, sparing Steve one more look and then casting your eyes down.
Steve wet his dry lips and went to ask you something else, eager to have your eyes focused back on him again for some reason, but Natasha jabbed an elbow in his side. He inhaled sharply but took the hint. For now.
As the meeting went on, Steve found that he wasn’t actually paying any attention at all. Which he knew was terrible of him, but maybe he could just ask to see your notes on the meeting later. At the prospect of having a legitimate reason to talk to you after this was over he was even less invested in listening to the short man yammering on. Having you sitting so close to him was difficult. Just because he could not date you without getting you into trouble did not necessarily mean he couldn’t look at you sometimes. It’s not like he could get you in trouble if he thought about you sometimes. Or if he thought a little bit about kissing you, holding you, listening with bated breath while you sighed breathlessly against his…
Steve shook himself and turned his gaze away, which had fallen to the part of your blazer that opened just enough to reveal the pendant laying at your throat, returning to pretending his attention was on their upcoming mission. He stared at the paper you had placed in front of him several minutes ago uncomprehendingly and scolded himself and the warm feeling that had started pooling below his belt.
It wasn’t right for him to think of you like that, but with you sitting so closely to him that he can smell the perfume you dabbed on your skin wafting towards him it was hard to keep his mind from wandering. If he had read you correctly, you were interested in him too. It was hard to stop having feelings for someone when you were fairly certain the potential woman of your dreams was looking at you too. He swallowed large gulps of the water he’d taken earlier and resolved that he would have to do better to compose himself. For your sake.
—
You find yourself completely confused at this point. In your peripheral gaze you keep catching the blond man across from you looking at you with an intensity that sets your skin aflame, but this simply doesn’t add up.
First Steve seems like he wants you. You found yourself gravitating more towards him than anyone else. Then he’s running cold and won’t give you the time of day. Now here he is sitting across from you looking at you like he could tear your clothes off and press those lips anywhere he can reach right here. There’s a warmth behind his eyes that sends your head spinning, and a tension in the way that he’s sitting that leaves you wanting. Steve apparently has a way making your heart pound painfully beneath your breast without even trying, and it didn’t even seem like he knew what effect he was having on you.
Steve rubs the back of his neck, stretching slightly in his seat, looking vaguely tormented and uncomfortable all of a sudden. He taps his closed fist against the table a couple times, and then slouches. His shirt bunches tantalizingly around his broad shoulders, which is where you catch yourself. You inhale sharply and try to keep writing your notes, but it gets more and more difficult to keep your eyes and your hands to yourself. Especially when you know he’s checking you out too.
—
Despite everything, all the talking that he has to do defending himself and you for his interest, all the warning he’s received throughout his investigations of all the rules and regulations that keep him from pursuing you too seriously, something in him just won’t give up. It had been so long since he had actually been interested in someone the way that he was interested in you. The time that he had spent with you so far left him wanting to know more and more.
The confused, hurt little look that you had been giving him in response to his backing off made him want to forget everything and make you his. The idea of someone on the outside being able to take you out and show you a good time made him furious, but there was nothing he could do about it without jeopardizing your position. Especially when he was doing so without knowing if you were even interested in him too.
Despite it all, by the end of the meeting Steve knows there might be hope for him when he allows himself one more quick look at you, maybe to thank you and ask you for those notes. He starts when his eyes meet yours staring curiously back at him with this soft glazed look, your pen poised above your pad of paper, your cherry lips slightly parted. A blush creeps noticeably across your cheeks at being caught before you duck your head and quickly returned to fervently signing your notes and tearing off carbon copies to give to everyone, which you had apparently had the forethought to provide.
You rush out the room, blushing hard and scattering papers behind you when you throw yourself against the door to open it. Steve glances down at the carbon copy you placed in front of him and sees a little note you’ve left with careful handwriting in the corner that simply reads: If you don’t stop biting your lips and staring at me like you’re going to rip my blouse open, I’m not going to be able to stay away from you. Is that what you want?
His heart literally skips in his chest, and hot arousal shoots down his spine. As everyone else clears out of the room Steve decides that he needs an extra moment to compose himself and carefully pushes closer into the table. He folds the paper and tucks it into his pocket, but makes no move to stand. The rules be fucking damned, this was happening. He would make sure of it.
However, you had (in your haste) apparently forgotten how carbon copies worked, since you handed both Clint and Natasha the same papers without a second thought. If they noticed anything they didn’t say a word.