this is a long time coming tbh. i'm the biggest sharon stan and even bigger steve/sharon stan (see my steve/sharon tag on tumblr, i'm jessaminelovelace on there. i love these two so much and this fic is basically what i would like to happen in an ideal world, if i got everything i wanted and marvel didn't disappoint me.

"Her smile, I'm sure, burnt Rome to the ground." - Mark Z. Danielewski

Sharon knows that it's hard for Steve to reconcile the different versions of her inside of his head. Or, at least, she assumes it is. Because there's so many different ones that even she has a hard time keeping track. There she was, night after night, as Kate, even though she had no clue who Kate even was, outside of being a nurse. And that had been strategic, anyway. His mother was a nurse. It had made him more sympathetic to her, or at least that's what SHIELD had written in the file they gave her.

Then she'd blown her cover that night she'd tried to warn him about his intruder, no matter how necessary it was. And then there she was, Agent 13, in her corporate getup at work, him walking right by her. Neighbor, he'd said, no trace of the kindness he'd shown her outside of their respective apartments that night. He still had no idea who she was, then, she'd decided after that exchange. It had made her double take, sure, but it wasn't surprising. Months of dodging him had led up to that moment, and afterwards it all went to hell anyway. It didn't make much of a difference for her to keep her cover after that.

It had been really hard for her to lie to him. She didn't like doing it, but it was her job. It was easier for her to justify it to herself when she thought that she was just doing it to keep him safe. Those nights where she knocked on his door to ask for sugar or milk or eggs, or whatever it was flighty Kate needed to bake those nonexistent cookies, they were lies. She'd really just wanted to check on him, make sure he was okay. More than one night she'd heard him crying, which broke her heart. She'd spent lots of nights doing the same, before she was assigned to be his watcher.

The extra visits were a little outside of her job description, but she couldn't help it. What did SHIELD think, really? That they'd sit her right next to him and expect her not to want to get to know him? Fat chance.

He was different than Aunt Peggy had made him out to be. Sadder, definitely. But still kind. And still awful with women, even though he was a complete gentleman. What she'd really wanted to do was invite him inside, take him up on that coffee offer. But that would've been weird. Wrong, somehow. She knew her boundaries. She knew he still loved Peggy, despite the years between them. And she knew how special Aunt Peggy was. Sharon had been obsessed when she was younger, wanting to be just like her. She supposed, in a way, she was more like Peggy than her own mother. Especially when it came to SHIELD.

Sharon remembers the conversation she had with her parents when she told them she wanted to join. "It's not your job to protect anyone," her mother had told her, but she didn't get it. Sharon wanted to do something important. She wanted to help people, to make a difference. To prove that she could be as good as Aunt Peggy.

So she knows what it's like to love Peggy, to practically worship her. Peggy's an incredible woman, memory loss or not. Sharon doesn't know what kind of person she'd be without her. She and Steve have that in common, at least.

Sharon decides to keep her apartment after everything. After the disaster with Steve, after the fall of SHIELD, after she ends up at the CIA. It's the one thing she has that's hers, even though SHIELD found it for her. And she's half hoping that maybe Steve will come back. She knows about Bucky, though. She's not an idiot, and she's friends with Natasha. He has things to deal with, so if he does come back, it won't be anytime soon, if at all. She's half hoping that he doesn't, so that she can just forget about him and move on.

Too bad the universe has other things planned.

Sharon opens the door in a pair of blue pajama shorts and her CIA t-shirt, hair thrown into a disheveled bun. She'd been lazy after work; hadn't felt like getting changed. She was expecting the Chinese food delivery guy, so she's in for a huge shock when she opens the door and Steve Rogers is standing there, casual as can be. She's had a few glasses of wine, not enough to make her incapable of going to work the next day, but enough to make her think, god, he looks so good. She'll never get tired of seeing him in regular clothes, dressed like he's not Captain America in his spare time. She's never met a man who could make a white t-shirt look like it was tailored to him specifically.

She fumbles with the money in her hands that she was supposed to give to the delivery guy, almost dropping it. A stray bill manages to slip out of her grasp and he leans over to pick it up, gentlemanly as ever. She's still sort of in shock, but she manages to get out a surprised, "Steve", as he hands her the money back. Their hands brush and she pulls away as fast as humanly possible. She doesn't want to make it weird, although she realizes after she does it that her action might've had the opposite effect.

His lips curve downwards. "Agent Carter," he greets her, and she grins at that, trying to lighten the mood. No more hiding, then. Natasha probably spilled the beans. Or Sam, for that matter. It seemed like everyone always figured out news before he did, which was totally unfair. Steve had always been too trusting for his own good, though; this she learned from months of observing, even after she'd pretty much inferred the same thing from Aunt Peggy's stories. "Special insight", her supervisor had called it, right after he'd handed her her new assignment.

"So," she asks, finally pulling herself together and leaning against her door, "who told you?" His eyes flick down towards her chest, and she selfishly wishes it were for a reason other than the letters printed there. He probably didn't know about her sudden job change, but a girl has to make an income somehow.

"Fury, actually." The way he says it is nonchalant, sort of smug, and she suspects he wanted her to be surprised by the information. She's not, though. Nick Fury has always been a stubborn old man, he wouldn't let himself get killed that easily.

"Huh." Sharon doesn't know what to do then, with the silence. Did he come here for an apology? Did he want to tell her off? She definitely wasn't anticipating that he would show up at her door, no matter how much she silently hoped for it. She never thought this would actually happen.

"Do you want to—"

"Would it be alright if I—"

They both go to speak at the same time, and then laugh simultaneously at their stumble.

"Come inside," she tells him, not even bothering to phrase it like a question. She holds her breath when he walks by her, although not really sure why.

He looks absurdly large on her sofa, broad shoulders and all, and she wants to laugh but doesn't want to ruin the moment.

"So," she says, plopping down on the opposite end of the couch, depositing her money on the coffee table. She feels slightly more herself, now. "Do you make house calls often?"

He gives her an embarrassed laugh, looking down at his hands, which are currently resting in his lap. It's oddly endearing, to see him so shy, even though she's been on the receiving end before. It's more… real this time, at least to her. It's amazing to Sharon that there are so many layers to him that she still doesn't know, even after months of observation, after years of listening to Peggy talk about him. It's incredible to her that he can be Captain America and also the guy who snarked at her at work and the same guy that showed up at her apartment to tell her—well, she doesn't know what exactly, but he's here.

"I just thought we got off on the wrong foot, you know?" he says, and yeah, she does know. It's mostly her fault, too, not that she was doing anything particularly wrong.

"I didn't want to lie to you," she tells him. In different circumstances they probably could've met each other on better terms. Peggy might've introduced them, even. But they both worked for SHIELD, and it's not really known for its transparency. "I just had to do my job."

"And what exactly was that job?" Steve snaps, looking up and catching her eyes. The wine churns in her stomach. Where the hell is the delivery guy with her food? He would be a welcome distraction at this point. She knew Steve would be angry, though, somewhere deep down she knew that. He's been lied to so much, and she's just another person that has disappointed him.

"Just to watch you. To make sure you were okay. To make sure you… were adjusting well, I guess."

"Adjusting," he deadpans, smirking a little. That's better. More like the Steve she'd (sort of) gotten to know.

"Right." She looks down, bites her lip, tries to hide her smile. Looks back up and glances at the door. Anything to not have to deal with his intense stare.

Finally, finally, the blessed doorbell rings, and Sharon practically leaps off of the couch. She grabs her money off the coffee table and runs to the door, paying the man in a hurry and grabbing her food. She busies herself in the kitchen just to buy some time. Talking to Steve is intense, to say the least. His presence is almost overwhelming, the way he takes up a room without even meaning to. He's just so honest, she doesn't know what to do with it.

Of course he walks over to help, anyway. Because that's the kind of guy that he is. She makes him up a plate, with extra helpings, of course. She's seen the way that he eats. A side effect of the serum, probably. She's never been in the right position to ask.

They do all of this in silence and make their way back to the couch. Sharon's just shoved a forkful of noodles in her mouth when he speaks again.

"So what do you think, then?" he asks her with a wry grin, "Am I 'adjusting'?"

"You could afford to loosen up a little," she teases, shrugging, "but yeah. Sure."

"So, your insomniac aunt…" he takes a pause, but she knows where it's headed. "Peggy?" She answers him with a simple nod. He nods to himself, looking down at his plate, and takes another bite, as if he knew all along.

"I don't blame you," he finally says after he's done chewing. All of his food is gone now, and she's only halfway through hers. "You were just doing what you thought was right. You couldn't have known about everything going on with SHIELD and Pierce. The infiltration." He frowns at that. It must've been horrible for him, to see everything that Peggy stood for go down in flames. It definitely hurt her, but she figures it just hit him closer to home. He'd been in it since practically the beginning.

"I was there," she tells him. He looks surprised to hear it. Guess he's not the only one sharing secrets tonight. "At the Triskelion. 'S how I got this," she tells him, turning to show him her right arm. The scratch Rumlow gave her is still a bit red, and hurts like a motherfucker. She'd tried to constantly treat it, at first, rubbing Neosporin on it daily, but had given up soon enough. She'd known going into this job that she'd come out with scars. She just wasn't prepared for the ridiculous amount of them that she'd end up with.

Steve surprises her by leaning in and running his fingers over the scar, making her shiver. Sharon doesn't know when they'd moved closer together on the couch. She also doesn't know what compels her to speak, (probably the wine), but she does anyway. "I wanted to say yes," she blurts, and his eyes flick up from her scar to meet her own. They're incredibly blue from this angle and she can't look away. "When you asked me for coffee. I wanted to say yes, but… it's complicated."

"You could say that again," he says with a laugh, letting go of her arm. "Seems like that's a recurring theme in my life these days."

"Get used to it, Captain," she grins, feeling giddy for no good reason at all, high off of him. Just him, and his overwhelming presence in her tiny apartment. The one thing she couldn't let go of, even though she'd given up everything else. "Welcome to the twenty-first century." He laughs again at that, and it makes her smile. She likes that she can make him laugh. He's done it more times in this one night than in his entire time as her neighbor. It gives her an extraordinary sense of accomplishment.

Sharon could tell that he was just lonely, when she first started watching him, and she sure as hell knows what that feels like. "Hey," she tells him, getting serious for a second. "If you ever need, you know. Someone to talk to, feel free to stop by. Or I could, um," she hates that she gets so tongue-tied around him. Like she had that night he asked her out. What kind of a person puts disease-ridden scrubs into a community laundry room? That lie had been so flimsy she'd been surprised afterwards that he hadn't figured it out right then. "Give you my number. We can get that coffee." She blushes at the look he gives her, but sticks out her hand for his cellphone anyway. She knows he has one, she's seen him use it.

He tugs it out of his jeans pocket and hands it over, and she quickly adds her number in, making a face for the camera afterwards to add as her contact picture. Maybe he'll look at it and think of tonight, instead of all those times she lied to him. Here's hoping.

"I should get going," Steve says, after they sit in silence for a few minutes. Sharon's life has been filled with so much noise lately that it's nice to just relax every once in a while. It's a surprisingly comforting silence, for the short amount of time that it lasts. "Thank you for dinner." She just nods, getting up to walk him to the door. She may have been tipsy when he'd first arrived, but she was completely sober now, and she wasn't an animal. She had manners.

Steve gives her a warm smile and a shy wave as he goes, and her breath catches a bit in her throat. Sharon watches him walk down the hallway and really just… doesn't want him to leave. She doesn't know where he's living now, since he's been more active with the Avengers and his apartment was compromised. She figured he wouldn't have wanted to live next to her, anyway, especially after he first found out.

He turns around to look at her, just for a second before he goes down the stairs, and she lets her mouth twitch into a smile, and there's… something. She doesn't know what it is, but it's her and it's Steve and it's something.

She gets a call from Natasha afterwards, and realizes that it's close to one AM. Her interaction with Steve had taken longer than she'd realized.

Nat doesn't say much, as is her way, but she laughs when Sharon tells her that Steve stopped by. "So he finally grew some balls, then," she says, and Sharon can practically see her smirk.

"Want to tell me exactly what that means?" Sharon asks, and Nat answers with a flippant, "Nah."

"You can ask him yourself, when he calls to ask you out."

"What makes you so sure he will?"

"Please, Carter. You're cute, and he liked you even when he didn't know who you were. The guy can't hold a grudge to save his life, trust me."

"Uh uh. We'll see about that." She stops with the banter then. "Nat… you're safe, right? You'd tell me if you weren't?"

Nat is quiet for a few seconds. "Of course. But don't worry too much, okay? I know what I need to do." Sharon nods, taking the information in. It's not completely reassuring, but it's Natasha, so it's enough.

"I'll see you around."

"See you too, Blondie."

tell me what you think! i'm not sure how many chapters this will be, as many as i feel like i guess. come visit me on tumblr and twitter to yell about these two! i'm always a slut for sharon carter headcanons