cookies and cake
Sharon was not a rookie. No, she was a very capable agent who had fought her way through the ranks of SHIELD despite being both a woman and the niece of Peggy Carter, the division’s founder, fighting both sexism and accusations of nepotism along the way.
Long story short, she was a mother fucking professional.
She also did a lot of baking.
Sharon found, as an agent of SHIELD, there was a lot more downtime than she would have liked. Different agents had different ways of spending it. Playing poker or chess. Sparing. Reading. Using SHIELD’s language acquisition software to learn an obscure African dialect. She liked to bake. Of course, not all missions were in places where she could bake, but when it was possible, she did. And anyone working with her had always appreciated it. (Especially that one time they’d used the heat of the oven to muck with their target’s infrared surveillance cameras, which allowed them to keep their cover.)
There were problems with this hobby, the first and biggest being that after baking, she ended up with large amounts of baked goods that she would never be able to completely eat before they went stale. This problem was usually solved by giving the products of her hobby away to whoever would take them.
So when she was given a long term undercover assignment watching Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, there was a lot of downtime. So she did a lot of baking. It wasn’t long before there was a large surplus of bread and cookies (and cupcakes and scones) in her apartment.
Obviously the easiest way to get rid of these baked goods would be to give them over to Steve and his super soldier metabolism. Sharon had seen the man carrying groceries into his apartment. He ate a lot.
But, as previously stated, Sharon was a motherfucking professional, and she did not break protocol just to alleviate her baking problem.
Unfortunately, that meant she ended up throwing away what she couldn’t give away, and, as an undercover SHIELD agent, she couldn’t give away much without engaging in unauthorized contact with civilians. So her trash was often full of baked goods, and she felt immensely guilty every week she had to take it out.
Then Steve Rogers solved her problem.
She was posing as a nurse and his neighbor, and he said hi to her every time they met in the hall, because Steve Rogers was everything Aunt Peggy always said he was. It was like someone dared God to make the perfect man, and then God actually did it.
But Sharon tried not to think that way. 1) See “motherfucking professional” above. 2) He kinda/sorta dated her aunt back in the day, and, even if she was in a position to date him, it would be weird. She’d worked her entire career to make a name for herself, not to continue Aunt Peggy’s legacy. She hadn’t worked so hard in her professional life just to allow herself to be an Aunt Peggy substitute in her personal life.
And every time Steve said hi to her in the hallway, no matter how busy he looked or how tired, or how many times he offered to help her carry her things either up or down, (offers she always declined: unauthorized contact with the subject) she vigorously reminded herself of these two things.
Especially when he had just come back from a run and he was all sweaty and wearing a ridiculously tight shirt. With his hair all messy. Like he was right now.
“Can I help you with that?” he asked, nodding to her trash.
She smiled genially and shook her head. “No, thank you. I’ve got it.”
He frowned at her. “Throwing away an awful lot of food there,” he said.
She blushed. “Well… I couldn’t eat it all.”
“Why did you buy so much?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t. I made it.” She blushed again. “I’m a stress baker. I get home from a tough shift and I bake things. Unfortunately, it’s been pretty hard at work lately, and I have all this stuff I can’t eat.” Now, she couldn’t offer it to him, because that would be unauthorized contact with the subject.
But if he offered to take it, that was different. That was maintaining her cover. A tiny, and quite frankly ridiculous, loophole that Sharon was hoping Steve would take advantage of please please please. Then she could get rid of baked goods, keep a closer eye on the subject, and those were the only two reasons she mentally did a happy dance when Steve said, “I’d love to take some off your hands, if you’d like me to.”
She beamed. “That’d be perfect, thank you. How much do you want?”
Now it was Steve’s turn to blush. “All of it?” He backpedaled. “As much as you’re willing to give me.”
“I’m willing to give you all of it,” she said. “Just give me a second.” She dropped the bag and left Steve standing out in the hallway. Back in her apartment, she rushed to pack up a batch of scones, several kinds of cookies, and some prune and cherry kolaches she made last night. She walked back out of her apartment with all of it bundled in her arms to find her trashbag gone and Steve standing there. She frowned and he shrugged.
“Seemed like the least I could do,” he said. “Since you’re giving me all this food.”
“It’s my pleasure,” she replied. “Believe me, I felt really guilty about throwing all that away. Here.” She extended her arms and he took the bags. “Some if it might be a little stale.”
“That’s fine. Wow, you really bake a lot.”
“Yeah,” she said sheepishly. "I'm a little ridiculous."
“Well, I’m thankful for it. I eat a lot.”
I noticed, she thought but was careful not to say out loud. “Well,” she said, smiling one of her undercover I-am-innocuous smiles, “feel free to stop by when you run out. I’m sure I’ll have more for you. And I’d appreciate any feedback.”
“Sure,” Steve said, standing there awkwardly for a second, bags of baked goods in his hands. “Well, I, uh, better shower so..”
“Right,” Sharon said, blushing. “I’ll, uh, see you later.” She ducked back into her apartment, acknowledging Steve’s “see you later,” with another shy smile. And anyone who questioned her about it later would just have to suck it up. She was maintaining her cover, damnit!