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buckets-and-trees · 2 days ago

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EEP! Thank you, Missy! All I wanted for Steve in this storyline was a love story that was so beautifully normal after he had to live a life so packed with abnormal for so many years. 🥹

Steve and the Ballet

Characters/Pairings: Steve x Reader Word Count: 1,692 Summary: You are in for a very different Saturday with Steve.

Warnings: None

Additional Notes: THIS WAS A DRABBLE SERIES! Intended every piece to be 1k or less, a couple have crept up past that, but this one got away from me and my intentions! Because…well, because. I didn’t want to cut even any more small pieces from this episode. Next bit in the Steve vein of The Brooklyn Boys series.

The warm kiss of the sun on your cheek is the first thing you register waking up. You stretch one arm above your head, the tips of your fingers playing with the leaves from the pothos vines spilling down from the shelf above your bed while your other hand pushes your light-blocking eye mask off your face. You roll to the side of your bed and reach for your phone. It’s Saturday morning, a little before nine. Steve has usually texted you by now with whatever suggestion he has for the day, but there’s nothing from him yet.

You try and tamper down your thoughts before getting carried away.

He’s so fantastically old-fashioned when it comes to communicating that you would have assumed he would tell you if he were planning not to have plans with you today…

But he’s also Captain America. He could be called off to any part of the world at any moment, and it was honestly remarkable he’d been free every Saturday since you’d met now that you think about it.

Email has been checked, and you’re just starting a leisurely morning scroll through Instagram when the text notification appears on screen and your heart leaps.

STEVE: I know it’s not our usual, but I have tickets to the ballet tonight at 8. Meet me at Lincoln Center at 7:30?

You bite your lip. It is decidedly not your usual. Our usual he said – you like that. But what does this mean exactly? You didn’t peg him for a ballet guy, but you would peg him for the kind of guy to take a girl to the ballet for something like a real date. Then again, if it was supposed to be more like a date, wouldn’t he suggest dinner first? Or want to pick you up?

It probably wasn’t a date. Your other Saturdays hadn’t been dates. The two of you didn’t text throughout the week either. He would text more if he saw more between you. Except he didn’t seem one for a lot of texting, period. That was normal. You’d dated other men who weren’t big texters – not all of those relationships were winners, but a couple of the good and decent ones just weren’t that connected to their phones, and that wouldn’t surprise you about Steve. The Saturdays you had spent together were largely tech free for you both.

Your phone buzzes again, jolting you out of your thoughts.

STEVE: Unless you’re busy tonight? I should have asked earlier instead of assuming your Saturday night would be free.

You grin.

YOU: I’ll forgive your faux pas this time because, luckily for you, I am free. See you there.

After determining you have nothing to wear to the ballet, you quickly throw on something decent enough to go out shopping in, buzz through three different shops before discovering and deciding on a tasteful black dress that you instantly in love with. You drop in to get a manicure and pedicure at your go-to salon two blocks from your apartment. Having a fully free Saturday turning out to be a blessing and a curse as it affords you time to get ready for a night at the ballet, but also a full day to think about almost nothing else except the night ahead of you at the ballet with Steve.

Though you’d been out most of the day, you made sure you had enough time to shower, scrub, shave, wax, and buff everywhere. You riffle through your fridge for a quick dinner, which you eat in the cute silk robe you got from being part of a bridal party two years ago (one where the bride wanted those pre-wedding photos of all her bride squad getting ready together in matching silk robes). After satisfying your stomach, you spend too much time on your make-up and hair to end up with a look that’s only a shade more dramatic than your usual, but you also don’t want to go over the top when you’re still not sure whether it’s a date. Finally, you slip into your dress and some of your best heels – the ones that still look good but don’t kill your feet. You keep the jewelry simple – pearl necklace and earrings – and finish with a small gold watch that had been your grandmother’s, smiling until you see the time, and then frown and dash for your phone to summon an Uber. Before dinner you were doing good on time, but now you’re probably going to be late. Not late for the ballet, but late for the time you’re supposed to meet Steve.

At 7:25 your driver is not far from Lincoln Center, but your estimated arrival is not for another fifteen minutes. You send a text to Steve, apologizing and giving him your ETA.

STEVE: Don’t stress about it in the slightest. I’ll see you when you get here.

He also shares his location with you, which will make it easy to find him once you arrive.

He didn’t choose the option to share his current location only or to share for one hour or until the end of the day either – he hit ‘share indefinitely,’ which makes you grin. That’s a lot of access.

Friends or more? Could go either way. Also could have been an accident. For the hundredth time today, you tell your brain to put on the brakes and stop launching scores of different trains of thought out of the station.

When you finally arrive, you see Steve before he sees you, and though you were a little breathless trying to rush to meet him and make up for being late, you stop for a moment because the sight of him, side profile in a very sharp suit, steals your breath away.

Or you thought it did.

Because since he senses someone looking at him from across the lobby, and he turns to look your way, and when he sees it’s you, he smiles, and then your breath truly stops. He quickly makes his way over to you.

“I finally made it!”

“You look stunning,” he says, stepping close in the din of people milling about – hundreds of others meeting people and mingling and making their way to the theater.

“Sorry again for being late,” you say.

He shakes his head. “No, we have more than enough time.”

“I know, but – “

He stops you with a low murmur of your name and placing his hand on your shoulder. “You’re here now.”

It’s nice having to stand this close in the crowd, and you’re caught looking into his warm blue eyes. That look and the warmth of his hand melt away your annoyance and nerves from running late. You’re truly in the moment now, and it’s almost like any of your other Saturdays with him.

He finally says, “Our seats are this way,” and turns slightly. His hand moves down your shoulder to your elbow, and then brushes back to rest lightly at the small of your back as he gently maneuvers you through the thick part of the crowd in the lobby. When you get to the first usher, he removes his hand so he can get your tickets out to show them to move into the theater.

You don’t hold hands but your shoulders touch often as you each turn to talk with one another before the show and during the intermission of the production of Sleeping Beauty. The dancers of the New York City Ballet are world renowned for a reason, you’ve always loved Tchaikovsky, and everything with the beautiful production ultimately stirs a few tears in your eyes for how powerful a performance it is near the end. Steve leans close, shoulder touching yours again, to offer his handkerchief. All of it is close, intimate, sharing this experience together in the theater tonight. You’ve been to movies and plays and performances on dates before, but you know the difference between when it feels connected and when it doesn’t. This does.

Right as the performance ends, you turn heads to look at each other, a soft smile on your face, but a slightly strained smile on his. He speaks immediately though.

“It’s getting late, but I wondered if you’d want to go get something to eat?”

“Always,” you say, smile turning to a grin, and you see the tension release from his face with your response. Your chest feels warm seeing that smile

You take a cab to a diner in easy walking distance from your apartment – as always Steve has done his homework. Each of you order a plate of pancakes, and the conversation is easy as it always is. You love being in this casual place – a place you’ve been to plenty – in a cozy booth sitting across from Steve, both of you dressed up, late at night. You will remember this. And not just because he looks so good, so handsome, so real in this moment it makes your heart want to burst out of your chest. You talk and laugh. You bat his fork away as he tries to steal a bite from your plate.

By the time you leave the diner, the heat of the day has burned off, and it’s just a touch on the cool side, cool enough that Steve shrugs his suit coat off and offers it to you, and you nod and let him drape it over your shoulders. Your conversation continues as you walk side by side to your apartment.

“This is me,” you state simply.

“I’ll say goodnight then.”

You slip off his coat. “I had a really, really nice time, Steve.”

He drops his gaze for a moment, taking the coat back from you, an easy smile on his face. “We should do this again.”

“Yes.”

You wait, holding your breath.

Steve leans in close and gently kisses you on the cheek. You feel heat blooming there where his lips brushed, and it blossoms in your core as well.

“Goodnight,” he says.

“Goodnight.”

You go to sleep with certainty. That was a date.

You wake up and are certain you are in so much trouble.