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"So why'd you kiss him?"
Sharon's answering laugh was startled, unsure. "What?"
"Steve," Sam replied. His boot had come untied and he cradled the phone between his ear and shoulder to rework the knots in the laces. "How'd that happen?"
Silence stretched between them, rolled out lazily like a threadbare rug, tenuous but comfortable. They'd waded through much more difficult memories together, companions on each end of an intercontinental call. Sam knew the cadence of Sharon's breath by heart.
She wasn't offended. She was thinking.
"I don't know," she finally sighed. "Haven't you ever kissed someone who turned out to be a huge mistake?"
Sam grinned to himself and the owl in the nearby tree.
"Stephanie Parcell, tenth grade."
"That bad?"
"She had braces and I had an overeager tongue. You can imagine how well that went."
Sharon laughed. A quiet sound, muffled by what he could only imagine was her pillow or her mouth pressed too close to the receiver, but it was there.
He kept a notebook tucked in his gear on the Quinjet, safe from Natasha's prying eyes and Steve's furrowed-brow scrutiny, for nights like this. Nights when they didn't have a safe house to bounce to, when being on the run meant living a little more rugged, when Sam drew the short stick to stand guard overnight.
Towards the back of the notebook was a page filled with tally marks, each one an indicator of a laugh he'd drawn out of Sharon Carter. Nonsense to anyone else, but to him it felt like victory.
"It was stupid anyway," she yawned. Sam imagined her laying in bed, one arm over her head, toes pointed as her long legs stretched the length of the mattress. "I mean, look how it all turned out."
"Says the woman who ain't on the run."
"Yeah, well, it's not exactly five star motels and luxury living over here, pal," she reminded him.
She didn't have to. Sam was well aware of the sacrifices she'd made to help them.
Sharon insisted she didn't want to come along on their little road trip. She was plenty capable, Sam knew, otherwise she probably would have ended up on the Raft with the rest of them. He worried about her safety, sure, but mostly he worried if she was okay.
She balked at his concern during every phone call. Swore up and down she was fine, making the best of whatever undisclosed location she'd ended up in, that she was being smart and avoiding the feds.
But Sam kept calling, and Sharon kept answering.
"You got a nice cozy bed, at least?"
"Mhm." Her voice sounded filed rough at the edges, thick with fatigue. "Cozier than yours, I bet."
Sam chuckled. His butt had gone numb from the cold, hard ground an hour earlier and the flicker of the campfire he'd built was slowly dimming. He was freezing, his stomach twisted angrily, and a tingle up his back promised a spasm in the morning.
"It ain't so bad," he told her. "Company's decent."
Sharon let out a rush of air that crackled through the speaker, and Sam's fingers itched for his notebook.
"Just decent?"
"Yeah, she's alright."
A pause where he could almost feel her smile, and then, "If I could do it again, I wouldn't kiss Steve."
"Too much tongue, huh?"
"I don't know why I even talk to you."
"Cause I'm a bundle of fun," Sam reminded her. "For the record, I've tamed my tongue since tenth grade."
He heard another muted sound and imagined Sharon rolling over, blonde hair trailing over her pillow.
"Is that so?"
"I have it on good authority. Could always test it out, if you're curious."
Sharon laughed outright then, so loud and pure that Sam gave himself two whole tallies.
"I'm going to sleep now."
He grinned so hard his cheeks hurt. "Hey, that ain't a no."
"Goodnight, Sam." Sharon yawned again, the rest of her words a near afterthought. "Be safe."
"You too," he told her.
Sam tucked his phone away and checked his jacket pocket for a pen to scribble out his score.
He was still pretty damn cold, and he hadn't really gotten an answer to his question. There was no way of knowing how many miles there were between him and Sharon, or the next time he'd see her, or if she even wanted to see him.
But he knew the next time he called, she'd answer.