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“So you got a phone in your shoe?”
Sharon bends to look at Sam on the other side of the mirror. “You weren’t this annoying before.”
“You were more of a desk jockey then. Less of a- OW!” He catches her hairbrush before it falls to the floor and looks at it in surprise. “Did you just throw your brush at me?”
“No, it appeared there by magic.”
He shoves her brush in a pocket. “Just for that, you aren’t getting this back. Miss Magic hands.”
She leans over again, shoving earrings into her lobes. It's been so long since she’d worn such jewelry that she has to push harder than usual. “If I had magic hands, you’d be knocked out right now.”
He mock shudders. “I’m gonna go hang out with the Buckster. Not as chilly there.”
He leaves her hairbrush behind, though. She does need to get ready still, and dressing herself up as the femme fatale isn’t as easy as it used to be.
“I could be a spy,” he says as she works the crowd, looking for their prey. “Put on a tux. I look good in a tux.”
“Do you ever shut up?” she murmurs.
“No,” Bucky interjects. “No, he doesn’t. And letting him know he’s getting to you just makes it worse. You have to ignore him.”
Bucky distracts Sam enough that Sam starts bickering with him instead, and Sharon works her way through the room.
She’s stopped by a heavy hand on her arm.
She turns and looks up at a man with a scarred face. “Crap,” she mutters, and the bickering stops immediately. She barely notices as she raises her voice to be heard above the noise. After all, there’s no use pretending she isn’t who the guy thinks she is; he clearly recognizes her. “Hi, Sal! Don’t tell me your still upset about your new face decorations. Remember what you said before? Chicks love scars?”
He growls, and before he can lean over to grab her – he’s huge, possibly the tallest, biggest guy she’s seen outside of Wilson Fisk – she knees him in the groin.
“On my way,” Sam breathes. He turns and runs as Bucky tells him not to draw attention to himself.
By the time he gets there, Sharon is setting her hair to rights, and Sal is on the ground, unconscious and bleeding. She turns toward Sam as he stares at her. “Do I look all right?” she asks.
“Yeah,” he says automatically. He rouses himself. “Yeah. Um. Blood on you.” He points at part of her dress.
She looks down, then her eyes rove around. Finding something sharp, she tears off a strip of her dress. It had already been short. Now it’s almost sinfully short. One look at her legs, and Sam forces his eyes upwards.
“You’ve been through shit since I last saw you,” he notes.
She smirks and tosses the strip of fabric into the trash. “Let’s-”
The door opens, and part of the criminal syndicate she and Sam had infiltrated the club to find walk in and close it behind them. Judging by their body language, they're friends of Sal’s. Crap.
Sam raises his hands and talks to Sharon and, over the comms, Bucky. “I didn’t blow our cover.”
The shortest of the men, evidently the leader, sneers at Sam. “We literally saw you running here and followed you. Sam Wilson. The wannabe Captain America. Did you think we didn’t know who you were?”
“If you knew, you’d know I’m not a wannabe anything.”
Sharon moves to attack the man nearest her, simultaneously hitting a couple others as the opportunity arises, and Sam refuses to let her have all the fun. The window breaks as bullets pass through, and within seconds, Sharon and Sam are the only two left standing.
She tugs the skirt of her dress down from where it’s ridden up during the fight, and he shakes his head and hands her his jacket.
“You can’t go out dressed like that,” he tells her.
“Who are you, my dad?” Nonetheless, she puts the jacket on. It definitely covers more than her dress.
He gives her a look. She doesn’t take the bait, and before he can explain she’s rifling through the men’s pockets.
“You have no spy training whatsoever,” she admonishes him.
“More of a soldier,” he admits. “I’d make a great spy, though.”
She sighs.
“Me in a tux. I’m just saying. Me in a tux.”
Over the comms, Bucky says, “See?”
Sharon sighs louder.
It turns into a movie night. It’s supposed to be them working and eating dinner, sorting through intel. Of the group, Sharon is the only one who’s up-to-date on modern-day hacking, and she’s doing most of the intel-gathering while Sam and Bucky sort through everything she finds. And while they eat and work, they might as well have some background noise on. Sam’s chosen Independence Day, because Bucky needs to learn to appreciate Will Smith.
“Welcome to Earth,” Sam says in time with the movie. He’s seen it enough times that he doesn’t have to watch to talk along with the script, and when he next raises his head, Bucky and Sharon are both looking at him.
“What? I can’t have taste?”
Sharon turns back to the computer monitor. “You know we saw what you chose to wear earlier, right? We both have eyes. Two of the three of us have eyes.”
Bucky smirks.
“One of us has legs,” Sam notes.
They look at him again.
“All of us have legs,” Bucky points out.
Right. Sam had said something stupid. “Did you see her in that dress earlier?” He nods at her. “You made it look good. Glad I had my jacket. But yeah.”
“You want to try it on?” Not looking away from him, she adds, “Didn’t he say he could make anything look good, Bucky?”
Bucky’s grin is slow. And decidedly evil.
Sam points at him. “No.” He points at her next. “No. You know what? I’m going to bed. Because you guys are insulting my look from earlier tonight, and I’m going to spend time with people who have taste, even if it’s only me.” He escapes to his room and stares at himself in the mirror after splashing his face with water. What the hell? Talking about her legs like that? He was better than this. He was usually better than this.
He sighs and forces himself to go to sleep.
After a couple days, Sam has to admit that he might have a problem. The problem is about 5’8”, taller with heels. The problem is able to walk in heels. Very high ones that make her legs go forever. She’s blonde, usually, with brown eyes. And a chip on her shoulder. Soft cheeks. He vaguely remembers dimples that appeared when she smiled, but he hasn’t seen her do that lately.
They’re on another mission, and he’s partnered with her. Again. Bucky and Sharon are more trained at spywork, and he knows that they don’t let him work alone because they don’t take him seriously as a spy. A fighter, sure, but not a spy. He can’t help that he attracts attention.
This time, he sits with her at a bar. They’re keeping an eye on a magnate’s son who’s palling around with some anarchists and possibly funding them. To the magnate’s son, the death the anarchists’ cause means nothing; the anarchy is just a bit of fun, a brush with the wild side.
Sam’s hands shouldn’t be sweating. He’s handled worse.
No, he hasn’t.
Because he can’t think of a damned thing to say and Sharon is right here and everything’s too damn quiet. His mind is a cacophony of quips that aren’t quite right, and one lone brain cell screaming to stay focused.
“So…” he says, taking a sip of his beer and hoping it looks cool. He tips it a little too soon and quickly sets it aside. “You like…” He tries to think of spy things. Natasha was a spy. Natasha had… “Catsuits?”
The look she gives him tells him that wasn’t the right question.
“Codes? Weird guns?”
“Jesus,” Bucky mutters over the comm. He’s sitting in a booth by the exit, ready to clear the way before Sharon gets the mark out through the exit door.
Sharon pushes away from the bar. She stabs a finger at Sam. “Stay. Buck, I’m going in.”
“I get why,” Bucky murmurs. “Sam. Get the van.”
Sam makes a face and mimics Bucky under his breath, but he goes to get the van nonetheless. Stay focused, his brain cell screams. Just stay focused.
“Okay,” Sharon says when the mission is done. The look she gives Sam isn’t a happy one. “You and I need to talk.”
Sam’s one brain cells screams that Sam should run.
Sam wonders what would happen if he took his brain cell’s advice. He doesn’t think running would help the situation. Particularly because with his luck, he’d trip just as Bucky came to see what was going on.
She leads him outside and then turns on him. “Okay. What the hell is with you?”
“I have to work some stuff out,” he responds. That’s true enough.
“You aren’t like this with anyone else. Don’t pretend you walked into a doorway yesterday because you were looking at Bucky. You’re only like this with me.” Her voice falters on the last word, as if she’s only just put it together.
“For the record,” Sam says glumly, “I walked into that doorway because I was avoiding looking at Bucky. He was cutting his toenails.”
Instead of engaging, she steps away. She looks pained. “Don’t, Sam. Not me. Find someone soft and nice. Someone not a fugitive, for starters.”
“You won’t be a fugitive forever.” Is it just him, or is the air deathly silent?
“You don’t want me, Sam. Trust me.” And then she’s gone, back inside. By the time Sam follows her, she’s almost succeeded in acting like everything is normal. She’s talking to Bucky about the next step of the plan, and she includes Sam almost as she normally would, though her voice is a little too loud at first. She goes to bed early.
“What the hell?” Bucky asks, looking at him.
Sam drops onto the couch. “I might be attracted to Sharon.”
“Oh. Yeah. I got that. Ages ago. I mean, what happened out there?”
“She turned me down.”
Bucky nods. “I get that, too.”
Sam raises a finger. His middle one. And just for fun, because he needs that right now, he wiggles it around.
“So,” Bucky says. “You like… Pause for an awkwardly long time... bird costumes?”
He can’t sleep. It’s three in the morning and he’s still as awake as he was at eight at night. He sighs and gives up. He might as well try to get some work done. He might not be a super spy, but he still has at least one brain cell that sometimes has good advice.
Sharon’s already at the table, flipping through pages. She freezes when she notices him in the doorway.
“Thanks for not killing me,” he murmurs, keeping quiet so as not to wake Bucky.
“I wouldn’t kill you. Bucky hides it, but if I killed you, I’d have to find him a new friend.”
He makes a face at her, then puts a hand on the chair beside her and gives her an inquisitive look. At her nod, he sits. “Being told not to like you doesn’t work. Turns out I don’t care that much that you’re not soft and nice. I mean, I know exactly when this went from us working together to me being weird about it.”
She looks sideways at him. He can’t tell if she’s amused or not. He hopes she’s amused.
“You kicking that guy’s ass,” he barrels on. “That was hot. Nothing to do with you being nice or soft.”
She raises an eyebrow. “You want me to kick your ass?”
He grins. “I mean, I’m not sure I’d say no.”
She turns to look at him, nonplussed.
Sam sobers. “I’m not going to push. But I’m not going to give up, either.” He gets up. “It’s on now. You’ll see.”
“Jesus,” she mutters, turning back to her papers.
He finger-guns her, feeling more bravado than brave, and retreats to his room.
She tries to pawn him off on Bucky on missions after that, but Bucky can only handle it for so long. Besides, there are some missions where they need Bucky on the perimeter, and Sam – according to some - doesn’t make a convincing femme fatale. Someone has to watch Sharon’s back.
True to his word, he doesn’t push. In a way, declaring himself takes a weight off. He can flirt with her a little more openly, too, though she doesn’t seem to enjoy that. He has to admit he sees why – for whatever reason, his flirtation game around her is weak. He’s better at conversation. And maybe looking at her a little too long. She doesn’t seem to mind that so much, so on their missions together he talks about his family and his school days. And slowly, he thinks it’s working. She opens up. Only a little. Telling him about her family. Some of her days before SHIELD.
When they go on a mission and get so absorbed in a conversation that Bucky has to snap at them both to pay attention because their mark just left, Sharon looks embarrassed and takes off, and Sam follows with a grin on his face.
“Admit it,” he tells her before they part that night. “You’re starting to like me.”
She activates her comm as she stares at Sam. “Shoot him,” she tells Bucky.
There’s a soft knock at his door. It’s too soft to be Bucky, who would blast the door down.
With a frown, he gets up to open it. Sure enough, it’s Sharon, standing there in an old, oversized T-shirt that does nothing to hide her legs. Which he doesn’t look at. Even though he now knows her feet are bare. But he’s not looking. Because her eyes are up there.
“Seriously?” he asks. The shirt is thin with age, and her eyes are up there, up there, up there. Focus on her eyes, Sam. Focus.
She gives him an impatient look and slips inside. “You don’t want me,” she says, keeping quiet so they don’t wake Bucky.
Or maybe Bucky isn’t the reason. “Shouldn’t I get a say in that?”
Again, there’s a faintly pained expression. “The last guy who liked me was Steve, and he went into another timeline rather than-” She cuts herself off. She doesn’t look at him.
“Just because Steve has terrible taste, you think all men do?”
“Not all men,” she says. “The dead ones were unavailable for questions.”
This time, he gets to give her the nonplussed look. “Be honest. Do you think I’m like Steve? I know I look better, but really.”
She looks at him. At length, she holds up her fingers, almost touching. “Maybe you’re a little better.”
“Maybe,” he echoes. “Maybe.” He watches her. She wouldn’t be here if it meant turning him down completely. He doesn’t think so, at any rate. He’s seen her when she puts her foot down – literally and metaphorically. “Want to try it? And if it doesn’t work, we’ll handle it like adults. No creating other timelines.”
Her eyes narrow. “Wouldn’t it depend on the timeline?”
Was that a tease? “No creating another timeline without the other person being consulted and involved all the way,” Sam amends.
She doesn’t move away, just watching him.
“Leave no man behind,” he clarifies. “Even one with legs like yours.”
Her eyes narrow.
“I really do have game,” he promises. “You should see it sometime.”
She takes a tentative step closer. “Show me. Because right now it looks like you accidentally went to the wrong stadium.”
He steps closer to her, the space between them disappearing. He carefully touches his hand to her cheek, but she doesn’t move away.
“You know I can kick your ass, right?”
He grins. “And you’d look good doing it.”
She makes a little sound in her throat, and before he has time to ponder what it means, her lips are on his. He lifts his arms respectfully, then realizes what he’s doing and holds her tight against him. Respectfully. And okay, his hand is on her ass.
He shifts the kiss, his tongue slipping into her mouth and exploring as his hands do likewise. He tugs her toward the bed. Her hands seem to be as curious but respectful – even hesitant – as his. They’re both being careful, both not daring to go too far too fast. But that’s okay. He can work with that.
He hits the bed sooner than he’d expected and falls sideways on it. He bounces, and she lands almost on top of him. He blinks at her, at her hair that’s already tussled by a lack of sleep, at her cautious expression, and he reaches to the hem of her shirt before he catches himself. “Too soon?”
She shakes her head and sits back, tugging her shirt over her head, and he stares. Respectfully, of course. Just like he groans respectfully. The two of them are very, very respectful of each other for the next while.
He’s a morning person; Bucky and Sharon can get up in the morning if they have to, but Sam has always been an early riser.
He wakes to find Sharon tucked against him, warm and soft and sleeping. When she’s like this, with her features relaxed, she doesn’t look so wary and hurt. She almost looks like the more idealistic agent he’d once known. Careful not to wake her, he wraps an arm around her bare back, his fingers resting against smooth skin.
He looks up at the ceiling, thinking. First, last night hadn’t been a dream. Second, fuck yeah last night hadn’t been a dream. Third, should he tell her that she is a little soft? At least in the mornings?
He remembers the time she stabbed someone with her heel in their eye while kicking them and decides that when he does tell her, it won’t be before she gets a coffee fix.
Speaking of, as much as he would like to lie here, they have things to do, and Sam can feel the morning slipping away. He crawls out of bed and dresses quietly, scribbling a note that he’s making breakfast so she doesn’t think he’s disappeared, and slips out of room.
It takes another hour before Bucky emerges, lured by the scent of coffee. They remain quiet, keeping their bickering to undertones, and then Bucky leans back in his chair and looks down the hall. “Hey, Sharon.”
She steps into the room, still wearing her T-shirt from last night. Her hair is more of a tussle than it had been, and Sam can’t help but be proud of his handiwork.
Bucky doesn’t take his eyes off of her as he takes a bite of his toast. “What were you doing in Sam’s room?”
His voice is too innocent. Sam glowers at the back of his head.
Sharon points at him. “Hush, or we won’t try to be quiet next time.”
“That was you trying to be quiet?” Bucky grouses.
She flips him off and heads to the bathroom, but she glances at Sam as she does. He instinctively relaxes. That hadn’t been the look of someone who was planning on calling it quits.
Bucky continues to look after her.
Sam leans forward and smacks him with a dishrag. “Eyes, man.”
Bucky twists to look at him. “You know I’m a light sleeper.”
“We know. We tried to be quiet, man!”
“You didn’t try that hard,” Bucky notes. He takes another bite of his toast. “So… How is this going to change things? Other than me getting a room farther away from you two?”
Sam shrugs and sets about making Sharon a plate and himself a second helping. “Play it by ear, I guess. Can’t account for everything.”
By the time he sits at the table, Sharon is out, her hair damp but otherwise ready for the day. She takes the seat beside Sam, and he absently touches her back. She tenses for a second, then relaxes and looks at him.
“Going to take getting used to,” she says after a second. “I haven’t been in a relationship in a while.”
Bucky leans forward. “Want to compare?”
She ignores him. “I didn’t really have a relationship before that one, either.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Sam tells her, and though his eyes are dancing. “I mean, before, I was willing to stick around just for your legs, but after last night?”
“Jesus,” she mutters. She takes a bite of her pancakes, clearly wondering if she should ask Bucky to shoot him again.
He takes her hand. “I’m not going anywhere,” he repeats, and this time there’s no hint of jest, only the weight of truth.
She looks at him as she chews, then swallows, taking her time. “Damn it. I guess I’ll stick around for a while, too.”