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My Shoes Keep Walking Back To You; 05/24-afternoon-(Steve, Sharon, James)
Topic Started: Sep 10 2014, 08:01 PM (570 Views)
Jessica Jones
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Original Coma Girl
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Seriously, though. Seriously. She’d barged into the middle of Sharon’s reunion with the man who- hell, god, she was in love with Captain Fucking America, and hell, he wasn’t actually dead, and… oh hello, what do you know, Jessica Jones is walking right into the middle of that reunion. Gah!

Why hadn’t Sharon pulled a gun on her yet? Really? Especially since her friend probably knew too well that she was at least generally bullet-proof. And it was Sharon. Sharon, who had tried to fly a car into her not even two hours ago.

So… yeah. She could - well, she could offer to take James now, but she really didn’t want to say that that way in front o him, so straight to option 2, where she could just go. Come back later. Mostly go, and get the hell out of their hair.

Their very very blonde, all American hair. And their sweatpants.

Aaaaannnnnd, pointing out as much got an immediated shared look going between the two of them. Sharon and her Captain America. And okay, that was kind of freaky. Vulcan mind-meld freaky. She hadn’t just gone deaf, had she? Like they were actually having a conversation, out loud, like normal people, and not communicating by means of significant eye movements?

“No, we've had time to work some things out," Sharon answered, so okay. No. Not deaf. But what the fuck had just happened there?

This was not a thing the universe meant for Jessica Jones to find out, apparently. What she got, instead, was Sharon disentangling herself, and heading over to James. Or to her. Oh fuck, now she was looking at her? “If you're up to it," she added, with a look that said exactly how bad all those attempts to scrub away evidence of her leaking fucking eyes had gone. Fuck. Fuck. Sharon wasn’t actually going to bench her on this, was she? Because fuck knew how she’d fucking keep herself together if that happened.

“I think it'd be better for James to go with you for a while,” her friend continued though, leaving Jessica only narrowly avoiding sighing with totally-moment-inappropriate relief, “We’ve got other things to go over.”

They… like… what- oh, fuck. Fuck. ‘Welcome back to the disaster world after five years’ fucking things. Yeah. Right. Of course. Gah. Being useful. Being useful to the woman who’s one of the nearest things you’ve had to a best friend in a long, long time.

“Yeah, can do,” Jessica managed to say, then gritted her teeth together and found something actually real. “Holding my shit together is Item Zero on the afternoon agenda Pepper gave me. Not fucking her around on that, I know better.” Joke. Bad one. But they both knew about having to deal with Pepper on the days when your life was falling apart and you just wanted to not have to care, so… at least it was a shared bad joke, right? Except, yeah, she still owed her friend at least some kind of explanation for turning up at her door looking like Break-up Barbie when she was supposed to be there for James. Didn’t want to say it out loud, though - not in front of James, who was way too damn for his age - so Jessica only mouthed the word at Sharon. ’Peter’.

Enough fucking said, right?

Hopefully, and Sharon was turning down to her kid, promising that ‘we’ (god, see, it was we already. Mind-meld. So weird) would come to get him, and yeah, James clearly didn’t really like that, but he still didn’t put up a protest beyond checking that… oh god. Checking his ‘Dad’ would still be there? Looking over there, and Captain fucking America, looking lost for words but nodding the hell out of his shiny blonde, all-american head.

You know what? Fuck everyone who’d had anything, even the slightest thing to do with keeping them apart for James’ whole life. Fuck them all. They could rot in hell for the rest of eternity.

Sharon had it together though - who the fuck knew how she managed to do that, but she did, the way she always seemed to be able to do, and there was a hug, but once that was done, James was squirming away, looking all fresh and renewed in some kind of excitement. “Can I tell Aunt Bacon?”

Wait… what? Because if it was ‘my Dad’s Captain America’ again, well, she loved James to death, but they were going to have to have some conversations about how Aunt Bacon wasn’t actually suffering from dementia, and could remember things for a whole three hours at a time. And why the hell was Sharon mind-melding with Captain America over there again?

“You can tell her, it's not a secret, I don't think.”

“Tell me what?” Jessica asked James, but… nope, he was gone. Over to his… dad, in the middle of the room. More hugging. God. Yeah, seriously. Fuck everyone who’d been part of this being the first day this got to happen.

Sharon was looking at her though. Was she alright? She looked… odd. Not like the Sharon that they all knew and loved (sometimes from a safe distance, behind a good amount of bullet-proof but loved all the same). “Not one damned thing went the way I planned," Sharon told her friend with no small amount of bemusement. "But I only punched Steve once, so it could've been worse."

For a second, Jessica could only stare, while her mind roamed (fruitlessly) for a possible explanation of how the hell something like that happened. Even with Sharon. Though - on the other hand… “Oh thank fuck,” she said finally, breathing out in relief that was only mostly exaggerated. “I was starting to think you’d got replaced by Skrull-Sharon-of-the-corn.” Because seriously. All that smiling? Not even getting started on the secret non-verbal silent language thing she was working there.

She’d actually punched him, though? Not that Jessica was going to let that be the question she asked her friend though. Fuck no. “You only did it once?” That was what she asked, and did her best to add a considering look on to it, like this required some reevaluation of the lingering Skrull hypothesis. “Hmmm.”

Yeah, okay. That was about enough attempting at messing with her friend. Jessica shook her head, dismissing the joke. “Don’t listen to me. Smile,” she instructed her friend, “you deserve it.”

More than plenty of people, even Resistance people, would ever know. But yeah… not going to get into it. Especially not because- whoa, holy shit, what the fuck had James racing back over here, looking like he might burst from excitement or glee or duty or… something?

Even weirder, it was to her he headed, not his mother, claiming her hand with one little four year old paw (man, his grip was getting way too strong), and tugging urgently. “Come on, we’ve got to go!”

“Wha-“ was all Jessica managed, before the tugging to so urgent that she had to take a step, just to not be the person responsible for making Captain America’s kid burst, right in front of him (while he was wearing sweatpants!).

“It’s a mission!” James ‘whispered’, full of urgency and striking for the door, towing a still-blinking Jessica Jones after him. “I’ll tell you when we’re there!”

Okay. Apparently she was going on a mission, then. After opening her mouth and making general fish-like faces didn’t solve this, Jessica… gave up. Or gave in, lifting her free hand in a kind of mute, kind of surrender-y goodbye wave, both eyebrows raising as she was half-led, half-dragged backwards out of the door.

Looked like she was getting her wish about disappearing out of here after all.

[And exit JJ (and James). I think we will see her next in Lessons Learned, most likely.]
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Sharon Carter
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A brief nod from Steve, familiar blue eyes holding hers.

Sharon was tempted, sorely tempted, to say to hell with it. Thank JJ for checking by, apologize to her for making her run all over the place, tell her they'd bring James to her later. Take back some of the time they should've had all along. Let the rest wait. Let it go to hell for all she cared, because this man and that little boy were her world.

But there were things that wouldn't wait, they both knew that. Already, she'd seen the shadows of all those questions move through Steve Roger's eyes more than once. Found all the things they needed to talk about sitting on the tip of her own tongue the same way. It wouldn't get easier for putting it off. It would only be that much more difficult.

With a last pass of her hand against his back, solid and real to the touch, Sharon slipped out of his arms and cross the short distance to JJ and James. They'd had enough time to settle what really needed to be settled. If JJ was up to it (and Sharon thought she was; she always seemed a little for James' company), it'd be better for him to go with her for a while. Let her and Steve get through this. They couldn't do it with him in the room. Not the way it needed to be.

“Yeah, can do,” Jessica managed to say, then seemed to dig down for a little more, the way Sharon had seen her do other times. “Holding my shit together is Item Zero on the afternoon agenda Pepper gave me. Not fucking her around on that, I know better.” That brought an uneven, knowing smile of agreement to her own face.

"Funny, that was Item Zero on my assigned morning agenda." Thank god for Pepper, who always seemed to somehow know when you needed those reminders. And didn't give you the choice of not paying attention.

Then, JJ looked at her and mouthed one word. A name. Peter. Oh, oh god, that...of course. How the hell could something like that actually slip her mind? With dawning comprehension, the former SHIELD agent lifted a hand, settled it on the shoulder of the woman who'd become such a good friend to her, and to James. Nodded slightly and gave it a squeeze, expression gave, as she held JJ's eyes for a few seconds.

After those seconds, she turned to her son. Knelt down and smiled, tried to ease away the conflict she could see in those eyes that were so much like his fathers. Assured him that they'd come get him later, tried to answer those fears that tore at her heart that his father might not be here when he got back. He would. They both would, and she looked back to Steve briefly. He looked almost as lost in all this as the little boy in front of her, but he nodded without any hesitation to seal that promise and Sharon hugged her little boy. Their little boy. For as long as he could stand before he squirmed away and asked excitedly whether he could tell Aunt Bacon the news. To James, it was The News.

This time, when she looked back to Steve, she was smiling and he was meeting that smile with one of his own. Steve Rogers. She was going to marry him.

“Tell me what?” Jessica asked James but he was already darting around her to his father for another hug and Sharon just stopped and watched them for a second as she stood up, before turning back to JJ. Nothing about this, nothing at all, had gone how she'd planned. Not one thing, but she'd only punched him once in all of it. It could've been worse, all in all.

And now JJ was staring at her. Sharon raised her brows a little. Really? After the car thing, she was surprised? “Oh thank fuck,” she said finally, breathing out in relief that was only mostly exaggerated. “I was starting to think you’d got replaced by Skrull-Sharon-of-the-corn.” Oh god. Why would...on second thought, it was probably better that she didn't know.

“You only did it once?” JJ asked next, like that evidence needed to be weighed and measured and held up against a chart of 'could she still be a Skrull?' “Hmmm.”

Keeping her expression smoothly considering, the blonde looked from JJ to Steve and James. Who were in some kind of deep, conspiratorial-looking conversation that had that softer, slightly wistful smile making a brief reappearance on her face before it vanished again. She turned back to JJ, shrugging her shoulders negligently. "He'd have seen the second one coming." the former agent shook her head, folding her arms lightly. "I'd have never landed it," she explained dryly, but with the corners of her mouth moving up to give her away.

JJ shook her own head then, pushing the joking aside. “Don’t listen to me. Smile,” she instructed her friend, “you deserve it.”

Drawing in a breath, she did smile at her friend then. "God, I hope so, JJ."

Regardless, she wanted it anyway. Whether she deserved it or not, she wanted what was in this room and she knew that James did deserve it, and so did Steve.

Whatever those two had been up to, they were apparently done and, with a last hug for his father, James came racing back over. Bursting with excitement and insisting, “Come on, we’ve got to go!” and started trying to bodily drag a confused JJ out the door.

“Wha-“ said the drag-ee in question, and that got her the excited, bursting with purpose information that, “It’s a mission!” in that same 'whisper' of James that just left his mission partner blinking in helpless confusion and Sharon trying not to laugh. “I’ll tell you when we’re there!”

A few attempts to open and close her mouth and JJ gave in to the dragging, confusion and all, waved goodbye, or maybe just to let them know she'd surrendered, and they were out the door, Sharon shaking her head after them and letting out a soft chuckle as she closed it behind them.

"A mission?" she asked Steve, still with that amused smile and one brow working it's way upward again as she turned back to face him. No wonder James was bursting at the seams. He was on a mission for Captain America. God help JJ.

Still across that short distance, she stopped momentarily, then. Just looking at Steve. Standing there in the middle of her room. Exactly - exactly - how she remembered him. Alive. Whole. Here. Five years later and no hope that she'd ever see him again, except in pictures and memories and dreams, and he was here. Right there, not much farther than arms reach away.

The smile faded slowly to something...softer. Maybe a little shaky, if she'd admit that, and Sharon swallowed around another, unexpected lump in her throat. Moved away from the door and across those few separating feet with the speed of purpose. Not running, but she might've if he'd been any farther away. The way part of her had wanted to run to him in DC.

Wrapped her arms around him and held onto him tight when she got there, because he was warm and alive and real. Here. Steve.

"God, Steve, I've missed you," she told him, the way she should've in Washington. Catch in her voice that was hoarse with emotion. All the things he'd always made her feel, and want, and sometimes not know what the hell to do with or about.

She'd missed him. Every single day.
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Steve Rogers
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He’d thought that might be an appealing idea. After one last hug that was tight, but still over too soon, James had dashed off across the room toward where Sharon and Jessica were speaking. A kind of sixth sense told Steve it would be a conversation he probably would be happier not overhearing. Something about the way they were standing, maybe. Still, it was over the moment James reached them, instructing his ‘Aunt’ urgently “Come on, we’ve got to go!”

“Wha-“ the obviously bewildered brunette sputtered, as the little boy did his best to pull her along with him.

“It’s a mission!” That didn’t immediately change the speed at which his ‘sidekick’ was moving, but James wasn’t letting that stop his tugging. “I’ll tell you when we’re there!”

Jessica looked like she might be trying to think of something to say to that, but nothing emerged from her mouth any of the times she opened it. A second later, she’d given in to what Steve (with perhaps a little touch of pride) had to consider the inevitable, and followed the determined, remarkable, happy little boy out of the door, waving to Sharon as she disappeared.

The door closed, and almost as soon as the soft click that marked it catching, something - a feeling - caught in Steve’s throat. Out of sight, the idea of that little boy - his son - seemed suddenly beyond remarkable. Impossible. An unrealized wish imagined, etched in the kind of perfect detail that defied any kind of expectation he could have made and still claimed reason. Not unreal, unprecisely, but carrying an echo of unreality and impossibility that caught in his throat, speeding his heart, daring him to panic.

Steve did what he could to overrule that, resisting the wild fear of a creeping unreality. Looking toward Sharon, seeing her amused and chuckling helped. A sudden feeling that the room was made of paper, that if he moved too fast or too far he might put a foot right through a piece of scenery, was just that: a feeling. When he focused on her, solidity flowed back into the world, reality dominated once more. This was Sharon. Nothing could counterfeit her.

She was on the other side of the room, but she was smiling at him.

“A mission?” she asked, and Steve had no choice but to smile too.

He looked toward the door, lifting his chin briefly to try to indicate the room across the hall he knew their son had disappeared toward. “I thought he might like to look after the shield while we were… here.”

In this room. Facing Sharon across a pair of yards. No more than a couple of steps to go to her and remind his arms what his eyes knew with certainty: that she was real. For the first time in years, she was real. Yet he couldn’t seem to make himself move and risk that possible paper scenery, and instead it was Sharon who swallowed and then moved, closing the distance between them and wrapping herself close against him.

Contact released his hesitation. His arms moved themselves to enclose her, needing no instruction to hold her. Tight and then tighter, trusting instinct and memory to know not to hurt her, because his thoughts began and ended at the warmth of her, and the way she fit against his chest.

“God, Steve, I've missed you," she told him, with a roughened edge on her voice that stole away most of his words before he could find them. After all that time… this was real.

“I’m here,” he whispered into her hair. To himself, as well as her. Denying the power anything else - not the last five years, not the room with white walls - could have over him when Sharon was in his arms, real and willing to be with him. Willing to marry him. “I’m here,” he repeated a little more strongly. Still half-needing it spoken to shore up the conviction. It had been so long. So many times he’d imagined that it could happen, a hundred thousand different ways and not all as sweet and tender as this one.

Steve fell silent. Eyes closed, resting his cheek against her soft hair, letting his lungs fill with the scent of her. Needing to breathe, and to find his thoughts. They danced just out of reach, refusing to be captured for expression. “I thought…” he began again, halting almost as quickly, “if I could only see you again…” Just to see her. “One more time, it would make it…” but he couldn’t find the word, or wouldn’t let himself say it. Bearable? Understandable? Real? He told himself he didn’t know, and shook his head to clear that part of the thought away.

“…and I’m here,” he said. “With you.” He pulled away just enough to be able to tilt his head and see her face. “Sharon.”

After all that time, it was actually real. Not his imagination, but truly Sharon.
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Sharon Carter
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James was on a mission. For his father, Captain America. God help JJ.

Whatever that look was that was on Steve's face when she turned toward him again - one that put a catch in her chest - it receded in favor of a smile. A smile that she'd missed being turned her way for five long years.

Eyes shifting toward the door behind her, his chin lifted toward it. “I thought he might like to look after the shield while we were… here.” Here. Alone, just her and Steve. With what came next. What had to come next, regardless of what her rathers might've been. Or his.

Sharon knew what they'd have both chosen, if they'd been the kind of people who'd ever been able to put everything else aside for their own considerations. They'd never been that way, though, and the former Agent 13 didn't see that changing now. Maybe especially now.

"I think 'like' is probably an extreme understatement," she told him, the man standing not much more than a few steps away. Looking exactly the same as he had the last time she'd seen him. As if he'd stepped out of her memories. The smile on her face shifted to something...not as steady as she'd have liked it to be.

Not as sure as she wanted it to be. Her steps were sure, though, as she crossed that space. Put that distance behind her as she proved to herself one more time that the man she'd always loved and always would - and that she'd thought she lost just when she'd finally let herself admit that again - wasn't a memory. Or a figment of her imagination. He was as real and as solid and substantial as he'd always been. The same presence that filled the room and her life and that had left an empty hole the size of a canyon when he was gone.

Steve was all of those things as her arms wrapped around him. Familiar. Steady. The weight of his arms circling her, holding her tight. Then tighter again still, while her voice faltered. She'd missed him. God, how she'd missed him.

“I’m here,” he whispered into her hair as her own arms drew tighter. Here. Steve was here, with her and with James. “I’m here,” he repeated a little more strongly, for himself, or for her, or maybe both of them.

"So am I," Sharon assured him, voice soft but steady this time. Right here. As there was quiet, only the rise and fall of his chest, steady and even. Her own heartbeat in her ears. The press of his face against her hair and the soft cotton of his t-shirt against her cheek. Eyes closed, Sharon let this, just this, begin to cover over old memories like a fresh coat of paint. Memories of a sunny day that had only left her cold and hollow. Row after neat row of white grave markers and the steady, slow beat of a drum as she somehow put one foot in front of the other. Clutching a folded flag to her chest as she'd taken it from Nick Fury with shaking hands, Sam's arm around her shoulders the only thing holding her on her feet.

There was someone (and she would damned well know who, and she would know it soon) in that grave, in that bronze coffin, in Arlington, but it wasn't him. It wasn't Steve.

It wasn't Steve.

“I thought…” he began again, halting almost as quickly, “if I could only see you again…” She nodded, a brief motion of her head. For agreement. Understanding. For the words she didn't have of her own right now. “One more time, it would make it…”

Nothing past that, and his words trailed off again and Steve shook his head. One of her hands moved up, palm settling at the back of his head, holding him close. Whatever the words might've been, or could be, she thought she understood what was behind them. The night before, the thing at the forefront of her mind, above all else, was the need to see him again. Bring him back, alive and whole. To tell him about James, the way she should've been able to tell him years ago.

To see him, just see him. One more time.

“…and I’m here,” he said. “With you.” He pulled away just enough to be able to tilt his head and see her face. “Sharon.” Here and real and alive.

Looking at her as Sharon looked back up at him. Familiar eyes. Familiar face. Familiar arms. Everything that had ever been home to her. "So am I. I'm right here." Both of them. Right here. Whatever he'd been through, whatever they might've done to him during all those years (and she knew about that, in her own way), it was over. He was home. "I'm staying right here, and we'll get through the rest, Steve." Together. Exactly as he'd said before.

Tilting her head a little more, she kissed him. For all the times she'd wanted to, and couldn't, maybe. For all the times she should've, and didn't. And that...that was real, too.
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Steve Rogers
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Missing her went without saying. He didn’t say it; he’d focus on what was now. He was here.

He was here, with Sharon in his arms. He was here, and this time, it wasn’t imagined. After all the times and all the ways he’d envisioned it, this was real.

“So am I," Sharon assured him, voice soft but steady this time, as Steve held her, and breathed in her warmth, and tried to absorb the fact of her presence. She was here. They were here together, as though the elastic cord he’d sometimes imagined connecting them had finally snapped back once more, bringing them both home.

And he’d thought… if he could only see her again. He’d told himself that just one more time would be enough, and that he could a way to face it if he’d just had that.

He’d been so wrong. So… damn wrong. Temporary wasn’t ever going to be enough. It never had been, even when he’d tried to tell himself that it could be. This was real, and he needed it to be real, right now and forever.

He was here. With her. Sharon, the woman who’d had half his heart in her keeping since nearly the moment he’d met her, cradling his head in her palm like she understood the words he couldn’t let himself say. And in spite of everything they’d both weathered over the years, together and separated and apart and separated again, that had never been any less than true. Sharon Carter had a piece of him that went with her wherever she went. Being with her, seeing her turn her face up to him with that old, familiar look that had been too long only a thing of his imagination, was being whole.

Just thinking that, an extra steadiness began to return in his sense of himself, and it was only strengthened when she spoke again. “So am I. I'm right here.” Not being drawn off. Neither of them panicking, neither of them being tugged by a duty they wouldn’t deny. “I’m staying right here, and we'll get through the rest, Steve.”

“I know,” he told her. It was only the truth. This time, he knew it as a certainty. They’d both always got through everything, one way or another, but together would be better.

He tilted his head down further, thinking to kiss her, only to find that one more time, he’d been anticipated by Agent 13. She was already there, kissing him, so one more time - not the first, and not the last - Steve Rogers followed her lead, kissing her back, with all that steadiness that he could feel again. This was real, because it was true, and it was certain.

Finally, he pulled back. He unwrapped one arm from Sharon’s back, still holding her close with the other, and smiled at her, running his fingers lightly over the side of her face before taking her hand in his.

They’d get through the rest. And they’d start now. “Tell me,” Steve said softly, looking into her eyes. He didn’t think he needed to explain what he was asking; they knew each other too well for that. “All the parts I need to know.”

There was no one he’d trust more than Sharon to do that.
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Sharon Carter
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One more time.

How many times had those words run through her own head over the course of the last five years? A regret. A wish. A prayer. An epitaph.

A plea. Last night, it had been that, too. One more time, to tell him everything she should've and hadn't been able to. And then Steve had been there, in front of her, standing with the rubble of the National Mall as a backdrop. Nothing like she'd wanted or planned or intended, but alive. Real. Uniform, ridiculous beard, shield and all.

It could've never been just one more time.

It didn't have to be. Neither of them would have to settle for that, because they were here. Steve was here, as solid a presence as he'd always been. So was she, as she lifted her head to look into his face and his eyes. The way she'd done more times than she could count - as Agent 13, as Sharon Carter - still as natural to turn her eyes up to him as it had ever been. That urge to run was gone. She was staying right here and they'd get through the rest. All of it. What she knew about and what she might not yet. They would get through it.

“I know,” he told her, sounding sure, now. Certain. As certain as Sharon felt herself. For so much of her life, she'd loved him. That had never changed and it had never left. Not over years and separation and both of their deaths. Could anything be more real than that?

As real as the kiss that came next, Steve's head already bending down toward her as she tilted hers up. With her, the way he'd always had been when she'd let him, when he hadn't been one step ahead of her instead. Damned right she was going to marry him.

It was a steadiness and a certainty they were going to both need, Sharon knew, as Steve pulled back and she did too. One hand settled at his shoulder briefly as he smiled, reached up to trace his fingers along her face. Canting her head toward that light touch, that was natural, familiar, too. So was the smile that came out to meet his as his hand dropped back down to wrap around hers. Ready for what they both knew had to come next.

“Tell me,” Steve said softly, looking into her eyes and there wasn't any doubt about what he meant. After. Everything that came after. “All the parts I need to know.”

This, it was familiar, too, wasn't it? All the briefings and debriefings they'd been involved in over the years. This was one Sharon wished desperately that she didn't have to do, that she could've put off. At least for a while. If for no other reason than to give Steve more time than to step from a cell to a battlefield to a son he'd never known about to right into this.

But this was Steve Rogers, Captain America - America's Super Solider, who'd fought through nearly all of World War II and who'd never stopped fighting for what he believed in - and he not only wanted to know, but he needed to know. It was who he was. As much as not trusting anyone else with the task of passing that information to him was who she was.

"I have a file with all the details," Sharon began, arm still around his back, hand still in his, still looking up at him as her smile faded and vanished. A file she'd put together for him and that she'd get soon. He'd want all those details, the same way she would've wanted them. "Everything we know, and everything we've found out since last night. Everything we got from the SHIELD files that were downloaded from the prison Hank Pym built in the Negative Zone."

But she was getting ahead of herself, so Sharon paused, backed up to the place she knew that it needed to start. "When we buried-" you, the former Agent 13 started to say, hand tightening on his, but caught herself. No. That wasn't Steve. Hadn't been Steve. "-someone we all thought was you in Arlington that day," she settled on instead, "any real opposition to the SHRA fell apart. It couldn't stand up under the loss of Captain America, or what had happened that night demons took over New York."

Something Hank and/or Carol would've known. Something they'd taken advantage of. The reason they'd locked Steve away and made a PR martyr out of his memory. "It should've been, I don't know, a time and a reason to start putting all the pieces together again, if anything," she explained, remembering those days as not much more than a blur of pain and grief and confusion. Helplessness. "Instead, all of it got worse. Tony went on a crusade like a man possessed." That, Sharon guessed, had been real. At least if what they'd learned in Manhattan was true. Like Simon and Nat, she tended to believe it was. "The SHRA got pushed through in an emergency Congressional session. Tony and Carol and Hank took over administration of the Commission on Superhuman Affairs. They started building Camps to house anyone who wouldn't register."

Pausing, Sharon Carter let out a long breath, dropped her head and unwrapped her arm from around Steve long enough to rub at her eyelids with the pads of her fingers. Not good memories, but they'd both been through those before, too. "And he used your memory, Steve," the blonde woman continued, raising her head again and arm sliding back around him. "They all did. And...the memory of your 'fiancee'." If that word was bitter and hard, still, she hoped Steve could forgive her under the circumstances.

"I'm sorry, Steve," she added, pausing for a squeeze of his hand, expression softening, as she looked into his eyes and at least remembered who that woman whose name and picture they'd used had been to him, once upon a time, "but Bernadette Rosenthal didn't make it through that night in New York." Along with thousands of other people, but she'd been one that Tony, Carol, and Hank - but mostly Tony, she was positive of that - could use. To try to head off the potential problem of Sharon Carter. If only they'd known. "They used the two of you as the faces of the entire disaster and steamrolled over anyone or anything that got in their way."

And she would've been a problem, the biggest goddamned problem Tony Stark, Hank Pym, and Carol Danvers had ever seen. Casting Bernie Rosenthal as Steve's 'fiancee' wouldn't have changed that or stopped it, because Steve would've loathed what they were doing. She would've been their worst nightmare, except for the one thing they didn't know about. James.
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The parts he needed to know. The same thing he’d asked from Jess and Clint, back in… whatever that place had been… but this was Sharon, and now there wasn’t that same sense of hurtling through a temporary calm place between rapids there had been then, that question was different. Bigger. Filled at the edges with all the scraps of information he’d assembled so far, and the ghosts of things that had been too obviously missing.

He’d hear it from her now, Steve was resolved on that. Sharon was too, he could see that, even though there was the hint of reluctance that hung about her when he asked. No, it shouldn’t have been something they had to do now. But it was, and so they’d do it. Just like they always had.

”I have a file with all the details," Sharon began, arm still around his back, hand still in his, still looking up at him as her smile faded and vanished. Steve managed to make one of his own to replace it, squeezing her hand in mute thanks. “Everything we know, and everything we've found out since last night. Everything we got from the SHIELD files that were downloaded from the prison Hank Pym built in the Negative Zone.”

Hank Pym. SHIELD. The Negative Zone. None of them were part of we. Doing his best to not let his mind catch and halt too long on any of those details, Steve nodded, letting Sharon go on without him interrupting. She’d tell him, when it fitted.

“When we buried-" you, the former Agent 13 started to say, hand tightening on his. Though the pause in her voice said something bad was coming, he still wasn’t ready for it when it did, and the next words hit like falling bricks, “-someone we all thought was you in Arlington that day," she settled on instead. Steve squeezed her fingers with his own, free hand closing tighter on her shoulder, throat closing even now at the memory of what it had felt to stand on green Virginia grass and say goodbye to what he’d thought was her, and let her words keep coming, “any real opposition to the SHRA fell apart. It couldn't stand up under the loss of Captain America, or what had happened that night demons took over New York.”

Demons had taken New York? He remembered demons. Were they still there? And then… those demons he’d seen in ‘Limbo’… where had those come from? Were they everywhere now? Spreading out? If they were, Sharon wasn’t saying; she was moving on, talking about a time for rebuilding, and putting pieces together. Maybe not, then.

“Instead, all of it got worse. Tony went on a crusade like a man possessed.” Worse than his city taken by demons. Worse than the Midwest? And Tony - he could see that. Had seen sees of it, after Apocalypse, and after James Rhodes, and from there, it was all too easy for Steve to picture. Tony never looked backward. Even when he should have, he never did. “The SHRA got pushed through in an emergency Congressional session. Tony and Carol and Hank took over administration of the Commission on Superhuman Affairs. They started building Camps to house anyone who wouldn't register.”

“Camps,” Steve echoed dully, watching from behind eyes that didn’t feel like his for moments as Sharon pulled her arm free to rub at her eyes. Jess had mentioned Camps too. Camps. In their country. In his name?

Tony… and Carol… and Hank. They’d built them.

She slipped her arm back around him, and the world was more solid again, as real as the pair of blue eyes that were looking at him. “And he used your memory, Steve," the blonde woman continued, as he built himself back from that core of stability that was knowing it was Sharon with him, whatever other news had coming or might still be coming. They’d used his memory. You’d think he should be used to that by now, shouldn’t he? ”They all did. And...the memory of your ‘fiancee’.”

Jarred out of his line of thought, Steve blinked, refocusing on her. “Huh?” he asked, not very intelligently. His fiancee? But Sharon had only just agreed to marry him. It was only now he’d asked her.

“I’m sorry, Steve," she added, pausing for a squeeze of his hand, expression softening, as she looked into his eyes, and confusion and a panicking dread that all this was going to disappear before him wrestled in his stomach for control of his emotions, “but Bernadette Rosenthal didn't make it through that night in New York.”

Feeling his mind working too slowly - slower than even his birth certificate might have suggested - Steve had to work to tie those thoughts back together. “…Bernie?” he asked, brows furrowing at the effort it took to draw together a mental picture. Brown curly hair. Earrings. A voice laughing… the rest was indistinct. “Bernie died?”

He supposed he had been engaged to Bernie once. If it came to that. He hadn’t thought about that in a long time, and it had been a long time. Even before Sharon had burst back into his life when he’d thought it was over and turned it out anew, it had been a long time - but…

“They used the two of you as the faces of the entire disaster and steamrolled over anyone or anything that got in their way.”

The entire disaster?

“I don’t understand,” Steve said slowly, measuring out his words while he looked at his fiancee (his real fiancee), trying to decipher the flashes of thoughts he could see snapping in her eyes, and letting his fingers reassure themselves that they were still with her by stroking lightly down her back. “Go back. Right to the start.” It didn’t happen all that often that they were so far off the same page that what he needed to know wasn’t what she chose to tell him, but he couldn’t let it go like it had when she’d come back into his life, only to spend months talking in a conversation that wasn’t the one he’d thought he’d been having. “Demons took over New York?” he prompted. Right back to the start, but if he hadn’t understood that, maybe he hadn’t understood as much of the rest as he thought he had either? “Where are we now?”

Was the Helicarrier not in New York? He’d thought… no, he was getting ahead of himself again. He squeezed Sharon’s hand, took a slow breath of his own, and tried again.

“What happened that night?” The simplest question he could ask to start. To make it start from there, and with that, because then it occurred to him that maybe, if Carol and Hank were… if it was them in the midst of this… that the real way to do this might begin with him. “I remember things on the street when I came out of the safehouse I was using…” he began, musing over the fuzzy and incomplete memories he’d treated and retreaded inside his head a thousand times in five years. “I followed a call that I thought was from you.”

Different than their usual patterns for drops and rendez-vous, but as soon as he’d gotten onto the street he’d known that there was something wrong in the city, so it hadn’t seemed any more out-of-place. “Then…” Steve paused, feeling over the gaps of memories that should have been there, “-I was fighting John Walker. He’d lost his mind - even more than he had before - and I was losing.” Augmented, and demented - the man was too strong. Too fast. That he remembered, and what had happened next. “I had to bring the building down on us, or he’d have killed me,” Steve said slowly, flexing his hand as though he was releasing his shield the way he could still see in his mind’s eye, calculating how to hit each one of the building supports and bend back to his hand so he could use it to protect himself from the weight of the falling masonry.

He stopped again, meeting Sharon’s eyes once again. “Carol saved me,” he said. Simply, because it was simple, and though he’d been dazed, he knew that was his memory, and he knew that it had happened. Carol had come, and she’d pulled him out. “She got me out of there, and she took me to Hank, and he was fixing me,” Steve continued, asserting the truth of that to himself, but feeling no comfort from it. Camps, and a Commission on Superhuman Affairs. Carol and Hank. His mind was fumbling for a way to explain those things as separate, but finding nothing.

“That’s all I remember, Sharon. I woke up in a room with white walls,” he told her, and then all there was left was to ask again softly, “What happened that night?”
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“Camps,” Steve echoed dully and she couldn't have said exactly what he was seeing behind that look that said he was only half-with her, if that, for that moment. As she lowered her own head, rubbed at her eyes like she could rub the tension, and the memories, away. No, she couldn't have said, but she could guess. Another war. Different Camps, but not so much different. Not nearly different enough.

They'd brought that onto US soil. And they'd used Steve's memory to do it. His memory and the memory of his 'fiancee'. The words almost tasted as bitter as she knew they had to sound. Even after all these years and she wasn't proud of that, but Sharon's expression softened as she looked back to Steve. There'd been a time he must've loved Bernadette Rosehthal. She remembered seeing the woman's picture in his apartment, after she'd come back. Wondered about her, and the one in the other picture there next to it. She'd met Rachel Leighton eventually, but she'd never met Bernadette.

“…Bernie?” he asked, brows furrowing and Sharon frowned, searching his face. Squeezing his hand again. This wasn't grief, this was...confusion? Surprise? More than she'd expected. “Bernie died?”

The former Agent 13 nodded slowly, confirming that with a, "Yes." Died and then been used as part of a public propaganda campaign to justify anything and everything that those three wanted pushed through. Used it to steamroll over any opposition. And, as she said that, watching him, Sharon was left wondering if this was too much. Too much, too soon. God, what had they done to him?

She didn't even know. Nothing. Nothing in the files or notes to tell her that. Had they-

“I don’t understand,” Steve said slowly, measuring out his words while he looked at her, thinking. Working through it in a way she recognized and that calmed a little of her concern. But only a little. “Go back. Right to the start.” What? “Demons took over New York?” he prompted and she blinked, taken aback like she rarely was. Taking her turn with confusion. “Where are we now?”

No, she hadn't mentioned that, had she? Hadn't thought to, when they were coming in from DC and she knew he didn't mean where they were literally standing right now, in the helicarrier.

"Out over the bay," Sharon answered automatically, hoping that at least would be some reassurance, since that was information she didn't have to put any thought into. She'd parked them there, after all. "Near the city." God, he didn't know, though? He didn't remember? Not any of it? They'd kept him all those years and...what? Told him nothing? Just left him wondering, these people that had been his friends?

“What happened that night?” Steve asked, direct and to the point the way he'd always been. “I remember things on the street when I came out of the safehouse I was using…” he began, as she watched him wrestle with the confusion behind his eyes. “I followed a call that I thought was from you.”

Mutely, she shook her head. It hadn't been her. Had they somehow lured him out, pretending to be her? Carol Danvers and Hank Pym? Something tight and hot and angry reared it's head. "It wasn't me. I tried, but I couldn't get through."

Nothing had been working like it should then. Not electronics, not even machinery. She'd tried, desperately, to reach him, but couldn't. She'd thought that was why. Now, she wondered if it really was.

“Then…” Steve paused, feeling over the gaps of memories that should have been there, “-I was fighting John Walker. He’d lost his mind - even more than he had before - and I was losing.” Augmented, and demented - the man was too strong. Too fast. That he remembered, and what had happened next. “I had to bring the building down on us, or he’d have killed me,” Steve said slowly as something in her chest twisted, moved to her stomach and made her feel suddenly nauseous. Watching him flex his hand, mime releasing the shield, the way she'd seen him do a thousand, a million times.

John Walker. USAgent. He hadn't been at that building site. She'd made absolutely certain that pile of rubble was gone over with a fine tooth comb. Every brick, ever speck of mortar, every splinter of wood. Looking for reasons, looking for answers. Looking for hope, but there hadn't been any of that. It was the last official duty she'd performed before she'd walked away from SHIELD.

John Walker hadn't been there, crazy or otherwise, dead or alive, so where the hell was he?

Steve turned his attention to her again as she tried to swallow that down. Process it. “Carol saved me,” he said, simply. A statement of fact that was anything but simple. “She got me out of there, and she took me to Hank, and he was fixing me,” Steve continued, confirming the answer to questions she'd had since Manhattan but hadn't had a chance to voice. Carol. And Hank. Tony probably had been telling the truth. “That’s all I remember, Sharon. I woke up in a room with white walls,” he told her, and then all there was left was to ask again softly, “What happened that night?”

A room with white walls, and that was all, and Carol and Hank had left him like that. For five years, they'd left him like that. Stood over his grave and grieved and all the while known he was-

At that moment, Sharon Carter could've quite happily gone straight to the brig and put a bullet in the middle of Carol Danver's face.

Right now, however, that wasn't important. Steve, getting through this, what he needed to know and what she needed to tell him, that was important. There was, at least, only one real place to begin and so Sharon took a breath, willed the tension back out of her shoulders, uncurled her fingers that had fisted in the back of his shirt. "Scott Summers left his wife, Madelyne, and their infant son and went back to Jean Grey," she began again, keeping her voice even. "Madelyne lost her mind completely. Somehow talked Cyclops' brother, Havok, into helping her and made a pact with demons. Then they unleashed hell on earth, literally, in the middle of the city. She sacrificed her little boy to do it."

How - how anyone could do that was beyond anything she could understand. Evil blacker even than the Red Skull or Zola or Zemo. Sharon had to pause, take a breath. Try to shake the scenes from that night that were still too vivid out of her head. The screams and the terror and the streets running blood red.

"That was her revenge." Lifting her eyes back up to Steve, she gave her head a physical shake, then. Inexplicable. Horrific. She'd thought she knew the meaning of those words. "The X-Men tried to stop her, we all did, but it was too late. Madelyne Summers died insane and fighting before she could finish what she started, but no one could undo what she'd already done. The demons were sent back where they came from, but they left thousands dead. Thousands and thousands, Steve," she repeated, hand tightening on his again. In the morning light, the whole city had been a charnel house. "The Empire State Building gone, what seemed like half the city not much more than a pile of rubble. It was-" Something there were no words for, and Sharon shook her head in helpless frustration again.

And that brought them, more or less, full circle to where she'd started. "Then Carol and Tony broke the news that you'd been found in the rubble of that building. That they hadn't been able to revive you," her throat tried to close again, leaving her voice thick, but her eyes hard as she pushed through it. A lie. It had all been a lie. "Hank Pym confirmed that it was you. We held your funeral three days later and the X-Men barricaded themselves in the estate at Westchester, refusing to talk to anyone."

From there, it had been ridiculously simple for Tony to push it all through. Using the pull he already had, backed by the fear and panic that had been slowly building up to a boiling point since the Phoenix Incident and a public that was sick of disaster after another, with metahumans at the center of them.
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Bernie. Had he really forgotten about Bernie? No. Of course he hadn’t. Not that way. But that engagement - if you could really call it that - had been over a long time ago. A long time before any of what Sharon was talking about here, surely she knew that. Steve knew that. He thought he knew that.

He really needed to understand this better though. Back from the start. When she’d said… demons took over New York? So where were they now?

”Out over the bay," Sharon answered automatically, so at least he hadn’t been so far off in assuming he’d understood their location, “Near the city.”

Steve resisted a brief urge to ask if the city was still there. She would have said. That much, under the circumstances, he was reasonably sure of. Accept that part of it, and move on with formulating the next one, as logically as he could. Demons took over New York. New York was still there…. what happened on that night? He had only his own memories to go on, and there were few enough of them, and those fragmented. He’d seen Brooklyn streets turning into insanity. He’d followed a… call. One from her, he’d thought.

Sharon shook her head. Answer enough - and the way she did it said there was anger building - not emerging yet, not focused, but building. He knew her too well not to see that. “It wasn't me. I tried, but I couldn't get through.”

Had he done the same? The edges of his own memories of that night were still tattered, and all Steve could tell her were the parts he did remember. Fighting John Walker. Collapsing the building on top of them both. Carol. Carol, and then Hank, who between them had saved his life, getting him out of there, patching him up. And then… he’d woken up in the room with white walls.

So. What had happened that night?

There was that anger again, resonating through every inch of how Sharon was holding herself, right down to the fingers that clenched tightly against his shirt, but still it didn’t explode. Steve wanted to do something for her, but didn’t know what that would be, except staying where he was, holding her. So that was what he did, watching her take a breath and feeling that tension that was flowing through ease back into something a little less close to the surface.

“Scott Summers left his wife, Madelyne, and their infant son and went back to Jean Grey," she began again, keeping her voice even. Steve tried not to frown. That… didn’t sound like stellar behavior, but why did he need to know about the private lives of X-factor to understand-

Of course, that was coming next. “Madelyne lost her mind completely. Somehow talked Cyclops' brother, Havok, into helping her and made a pact with demons. Then they unleashed hell on earth, literally, in the middle of the city. She sacrificed her little boy to do it.”

The words were simple. Unbelievable. No - they should have been unbelievable, but there was nothing but the truth in Sharon’s voice as she spelled it out in those few sentences. Steve felt his own fingers stiffening around her, pulling her closer without thinking about it, because he was trying (and failing) to think about what… about how anyone, whatever had happened to them, could break their mind so far that they could even consider killing their child.

“That was her revenge.” She turned her eyes up to him again, giving a shake of her head he would have echoed, if he could have moved at all in that moment.

“What kind of…” he tried to say, working to get his thoughts into words, but failing in the end. Even questions seemed to be insufficient, in the face of that kind of information. So it was Sharon who had to keep speaking, picking up the thread of her story. “The X-Men tried to stop her, we all did, but it was too late. Madelyne Summers died insane and fighting before she could finish what she started, but no one could undo what she'd already done. The demons were sent back where they came from, but they left thousands dead. Thousands and thousands, Steve," she repeated, hand tightening on his again. In his city. “The Empire State Building gone, what seemed like half the city not much more than a pile of rubble. It was-“

Indescribable. But still, he could imagine something of it all the same, as stark images in his mind. His city, in rubble. The Empire State Building… he’d gone to see its completion ceremony as a twelve year old. So much of the city had changed after he’d come out of the ice, but its spire had said that underneath all those changes, it was still the city he’d grown up in. The one he loved.

And it had been destroyed. He hadn’t been there - and that, in the end, was nothing to do with John Walker, or Carol, or anyone except himself, and the stubborn streak of pride that had made him walk away from the Avengers, doing what he could to take others away from the team. For what? To make a point in that he didn’t see eye to eye with Tony?

“Then Carol and Tony broke the news that you'd been found in the rubble of that building. That they hadn't been able to revive you,” Sharon continued, and the pain in her voice broke through Steve’s reverie, yanking him forcibly back out of it, and into her moment. He knew for himself about living through that pain - and trying to live through finding out that all of it hadn’t ever been real, but something someone had invented. There wasn’t anything to be done, except to survive it, however you could, and that… she was doing that.

Unsteady in her voice, maybe, but the determination that was in her bright blue eyes was pure Sharon. She didn’t stop for long. “Hank Pym confirmed that it was you. “We held your funeral three days later and the X-Men barricaded themselves in the estate at Westchester, refusing to talk to anyone.”

Steve watched her eyes for a second, before finding his voice enough to pick up the thread that he thought he could now see linked into the rest, “And then the SHRA passed…” he said slowly, turning the idea over as he said it, “and then, Camps.” Thousands dead in New York City, and that only months after what had happened in the Midwest. That would be justification enough for some people. Perhaps for many of them.

That explained - or at least, gave some reason for - the Camps. But… still, the rest lingered, confused and out of phase with any kind of sense he could make of it. “But what about you?” Steve asked, putting words to a part of his confusion that seemed paramount at the moment. She’d survived the night, and he couldn’t even start to let himself think about how grateful he was for that, given what she’d described here, but… the pieces still lay there, refusing to form into a pattern.

“I don’t understand,” he told her. Y”ou supported the SHRA. You were pregnant- with my child.” That… had to have been the case, for obvious reasons, and it fitted with what she’d said earlier about trying to tell him, when he’d gone. That, he understood. The rest… “Why would they be talking about Bernie?” Steve asked, frowning as he tried to make that piece fit. “Were they trying to protect you?”
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The beginnning. Start at the beginning. God she couldn't believe they'd kept him all this time. Told him nothing.

It'd turned her stomach then, it still did now, and Steve's solid, steady presence was something else Sharon was grateful for as he drew her in closer. As baffled now as she'd been then, and as baffled as she still was. She'd seen war and death and cruelty she couldn't even put words to, but nothing that would ever eclipse that.

Madelyne Summer's revenge, and all Sharon could do was shake her head wordlessly. There weren't any words for what that woman had done. When she thought of that baby, less than a year older than James...

It made her sick. Physically sick. It had then, it tied her stomach into knots again now.

“What kind of…” Steve tried but didn't finish. There wouldn't be any answers she could give him, anyway. Not after five years, not after fifty. Incomprehensible. Instead, she picked up the story with the facts she knew, detaching herself from them as much as she could, even though it wasn't enough. How the X-Men - how everyone - had tried to stop Madelyne Summers. How she'd died, completely insane and still fighting, before she could send the whole city the way of her son. The Empire State Building just gone. Rubble where half the city had been. The former Agent faltered, groping for a way to put that into words and not finding any. Looking up into Steve's face, his eyes. Maybe a little grateful in a way that he'd never had to see that all in the harsh light of dawn. It would've killed him, to see the city that way. It wouldn't be anything close to easy now, but at least he'd be better prepared, she hoped, sliding her own arm around him more securely.

What came after that were days and days that weren't much more than a blur for her. Tony and Carol, breaking the news that Steve was dead. The funeral that she'd walked through like a fog. The public outcry and the X-Men barricading themselves into that mansion in Westchester, refusing to give any sort of accounting or answer any questions. Voice cracking but eyes hard as flashes of memories and emotions came back with force, for a moment throwing her back to those awful, endless days. Like prodding an old wound, but one they'd both lived through and the feelings passed.

Steve's eyes were on hers as he digested all that. No, this sure as hell hadn't been the homecoming she wanted for him. “And then the SHRA passed…” he said slowly, turning the idea over as he said it, “and then, Camps.”

Her head bobbed in a slow nod, fingers tightening on his again briefly. "And Sentinels," Sharon added. He'd seen those, a lot damned closer than she'd have liked, in DC. "Tony redesigned them. Put them out to patrol the streets and help 'keep the peace'." Take some of the pressure off of an overwhelmed SHIELD and National Guard. That was the reason they'd used. That had only been the start, though. There were worse things after that, and worse things after those.

Confusion still played behind his eyes and over his features and she felt the enormity of what was still left like the weight of a building on her own shoulders. This was only the start. Would even Steve Rogers be able to digest something like this all at once?

“But what about you?” Steve asked, with all that confusion still hanging there. “I don’t understand,” he told her. ”You supported the SHRA. You were pregnant- with my child.”[/b][/i] That was all true and she could understand that part of the confusion, at least. “Why would they be talking about Bernie?” Steve asked, frowning as he tried to make that piece fit. “Were they trying to protect you?”

Oh, god. God. It just drove home how much he really didn't know or hadn't guessed yet. Even after...everything. A short, soft, forceful exhalation of breath and Sharon shook her head. "No. No, they weren't trying to protect me, Steve. They were trying to replace me." Tony Stark had tried to spin it like they were doing her a favor. Giving her peace and a chance to grieve. She hadn't bought one damned word of it. "Their way of trying to make sure I couldn't use my connection to you against them."

But she could understand why Steve would come to that conclusion and it was another part of the story he needed to know. "I supported the SHRA right up until they started building Concentration Camps in your name in the Bronx." She'd objected and she'd objected strongly right in Tony Stark's face. "Until they threw basic human rights out the window and officially turned anyone not registered into a terrorist. No rights, no due process. Not even officially people anymore. Freedom Force," she continued. Little more than a band of government sponsored thugs, "sent out to hunt people down like animals because even Nick Fury wouldn't have any part of that."

She'd have stayed and she'd have fought and she'd have kept fighting, Bernie or no Bernie, because none of that was anything she'd ever supported. Or that Steve would've ever supported. Except for one, very very important thing that changed everything.

"I never told them I was pregnant," Sharon added, head tilted back and eyes still on his. "Almost no one knew about James until this morning. I couldn't-" risk letting James be used[/i ] that way. The way they'd used Steve. Breaking off, she reached up to press the pads of her fingers to her eyelids again. It hadn't been an easy decision, but it'd been the only one she felt like she could make. "It didn't take long to see what was coming. It got out of control fast. I couldn't raise our son in that."

She might as well have painted targets on both of them.
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The wrong question.

Steve could see it in her eyes, even before the short soft exhalation put it beyond a doubt. He was missing something - or rather, because he was already well aware that he was missing not one, but many things, the more accurate thing way of putting it might have been that he’d got something so hopelessly tangled that Sharon was hardly recognizing it.

Well, to be honest, neither was he. Some pieces seemed to fall and follow together, so that he could see the links. The whole, though - that stubbornly kept refusing to fit its links together into something coherent. Something that would take the world he last remembered, the one with Sharon working with SHIELD - and Tony - to support the SHRA, to one where Camps were open in New York, Sentinels were patrolling the streets, and Tony was telling the public about he and Bernie.

To protect Sharon and their child?

Of course it had been the wrong question. He knew enough already to have been able to guess that, but nothing like enough to know what the right one might have been.

“No. No, they weren't trying to protect me, Steve. They were trying to replace me.” That was her answer. Steve felt himself pause, just holding back the frown that was hovering on the edges of his expression. Replace her? Why would they ever have needed… the edges of the missing pieces gaped open wider, taunting him with just how little he could imagine of what might be inside them. “Their way of trying to make sure I couldn't use my connection to you against them.”

Despite his best efforts, Steve’s frown broke through then, creasing his brow downward as he tried to follow. Could… was she really saying that all of it this - or rather, all of that part of it - had come from some kind of power play between her on one side, and Tony, Carol and Hank on the other?

No. No, he didn’t believe that. That wasn’t Sharon’s style.

And whatever it was, he trusted her to tell him all of it, however it was she needed to go about doing that. Indeed, she was already speaking again. “I supported the SHRA right up until they started building Concentration Camps in your name in the Bronx.” This time, his frown was quicker, stiffening with an edge of anger that simmered just below the threshold that was all he was determined to allow it. In the room with white walls, he’d had to learn to let anger go; it hadn’t served anything. Now though…

…they’d built Camps. In his name, they’d built camps to cage human beings.

“Until they threw basic human rights out the window and officially turned anyone not registered into a terrorist. No rights, no due process. Not even officially people anymore. Freedom Force," she continued, a name Steve remembered from before, and wished that he didn’t. ”sent out to hunt people down like animals because even Nick Fury wouldn't have any part of that.”

Freedom Force would have, though, wouldn’t they? A group that had literally called themselves ‘the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants’, repurposed into a government task force, for no better reason than… no reason at all, at least that he’d ever understood. Sidewinder and the first instantiation of his so-called Society would almost certainly have been an improvement compared to that.

“I never told them I was pregnant," Sharon added, head tilted back and eyes still on his. Abruptly a piece - a major piece, and possibly one that he should have guessed earlier - fell into place in Steve’s mind. Maybe. Probably. Too many scenarios, possibilities, personalities, all circling in his head at once, trying to imagine how that must have been back then. For Tony, or the rest of the Avengers. Most of all, for Sharon. “Almost no one knew about James until this morning. I couldn’t-“

She didn’t finish that sentence, but then she didn’t need to. It had been part of the numb fear that had been used to grip something in the vicinity of his guts every time he’d ever let himself think of ever having a child of his own. That someone - the Red Skull, Zemo, Zola - might think to take his child because it was his, and use it for…

…he’d thought about it before. Too much, maybe. But he’d… never thought that that person he’d imagined who’d do it would be his friends. Small wonder that Sharon had pulled her hands back, pressing them to her eyes again, but after a moment, Steve lifted one of his own to them, gently pressing his fingers to hers, trying to coax her to let it be. She didn’t need to think she had to try to find the words to explain this part. Not to him. Not ever.

“It didn't take long to see what was coming. It got out of control fast. I couldn't raise our son in that.”

And if she’d argued with them, if she’d split with SHIELD, and the SHRA, it didn’t take much at all to see the pattern that had been left that a memory - an invented memory - of Bernie might have filled. But now that he came to see it, none of it seemed important, beside the woman he was holding now, and everything she must have gone through to be here today, with their strong, bright, smiling son.

Steve bent his head down, pressing a light kiss against her forehead. “I wish I could have been there to help you,” he said softly, because it was nothing but the honest truth. No anger. He refused to allow thinking of Sharon and James to be tainted by anger. Not now that he had them, and the life he’d wanted more than he’d ever let himself imagine was settling into his grasp.

Instead, he pulled back a little, just enough to be able to see her face again. “Where did you go?” he asked.
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Sharon Carter
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There was a time she'd been better at this.

A time where she wouldn't have stumbled over her words as much. A time when she'd have been better able to detach herself, view it all from the outside looking in. Somewhere along the way, Sharon thought she'd lost some of the knack of it. The years away from SHIELD, away from the life an operative led. The little things, and the larger ones, that went with that.

Her skills had gotten rusty and she should've been able to do a better job of this. Of ordering and disseminating information in a way that was more concise. More organized and linear and clear.

On paper, it had been easier. Out loud, it felt like navigating a dilapidated maze of memories. Unpleasant ones. Painful ones. Ones buried under old wounds and old scars.

Maybe it wasn't her debriefing skills that were lacking after all, Agent 13 decided, rethinking that as she recounted to Steve how she'd come to part ways with her support of the SHRA, with SHIELD, with the career she'd worked for her whole life. Watched the emotions play over the face, settle behind the eyes, of the man she'd loved from the first moment she'd met him. Maybe it was just that she'd lost the knack of detaching herself from her own life.

No, they hadn't been trying to protect her, they'd been trying to replace her. While they built Camps in the Bronx. Violated basic human rights. Sent a gang of government thugs to hunt down friend and foe alike if they weren't willing to tow the party line.

Using Steve's name, Steve's loss, to push it all through. Shove it down the throats of a panicking, beaten, broken and weary public who swallowed it because they saw it as their only way out of another Midwest, another Dallas, another Inferno.

They'd never known she was pregnant. Not the Avengers, sure as hell not Tony Stark, Carol Danvers, and Hank Pym. No one, aside from Sam (and god, she missed Sam; right now more than ever) and Nick. Until this morning, only a small handful of other people had known about James. She couldn't-

Risk their child being used that way, but she wouldn't need to bother finishing that sentence, would she? Not for Steve. The knowledge was there, looking back at her from behind his eyes before she dropped her own. Pressed the pad of her fingers to them again. Not an easy decision, to walk away from it all, but the only one there was for her to make. The writing was already on the wall. It all went down so fast and she couldn't bring James into that.

There was the press of Steve's hand to hers and she lifted her head again, fingers wrapping around his again instead. Saw the understanding there as he looked back at her that was so much Steve and always had been. One arm wrapped around him again as his head dipped down, light press of his lips on her forehead. She'd lived without him, knew she could again if she had to. Knew he could, too, and had, and could again. But living and being whole, the way that this was being whole, were two different things. To throw that away wasn't a choice she'd ever make willingly again.

“I wish I could have been there to help you,” he said softly and Sharon nodded, just a slight movement of her head, arm wrapping a little tighter around him, drawing him closer.

"I know," she told him, voice equally as soft. She did know. She'd always known. She couldn't know him at all and not know that. "So do I." Nothing but a simple statement of fact, that was all. An acknowledgement that she'd wanted him there as much as he'd have wanted to be there. That life they could've had, if not for other people's agendas.

“Where did you go?” he asked pulling back again as Sharon let that go, or did her best to do that, and turned her eyes back up to him. That was something easier. Most parts of it.

"England." That brought something of a smile back to her face. That, at least, had been a good choice. "I liquidated what assets I could in a hurry," then the government had seized the rest, including the Carter family estate, but that was a detail she'd deal with later. It wasn't important now, "and Nick got me get out of the country." And Sam had gone with her, then, to help her get settled. But she wasn't quite ready to open that door. Not yet. "By then, they'd closed the US borders. To 'protect from foreign super-human threats'." A shake of her head accompanied that. An excuse, to effectively cut the country off from the rest of the world, make it easier to do what they wanted without witnesses, so to speak.

They were still standing in the middle of the room, Sharon noted, putting anything else she might've said on hold for a moment. As reluctant as she was to break contact, even for a few moments, she paused there and nodded toward the bed, instead. "Sit down," she interjected, and invitation and not an order, "There's still a long way to go with this." And there were parts of it that...would be better sitting down, she thought, making herself pull away, hand lingering at his back for a moment, long enough to cross the few steps to the small desk in the corner of the room. Slide the folder there across the surface and into her hand.

"While James was little, I did consulting work for MI-5 and MI-13," she picked up, turning around again and taking her own place on the side of the bed, shifting to face him and reaching for his hand, setting the folder aside with her other one. Out of the way, but within reach when he wanted it. "Something to keep me from going completely stir crazy." Steve knew her more than well enough for her not to need to explain past that, she was sure. Another slight pause, then, and another addendum, "Jacqui and Joey send their regards, by the way," Sharon added with an easier, wider smile. "If, that is, as Joey put it 'you're you, and not a bloody evil, booby trapped, fascist robot'."
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Steve Rogers
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There was no substitute that he knew of for this kind of closeness. Steve doubted that there could be anything that existed in any corner of the multiverse that could come close to standing in for this, the warmth of Sharon’s brow beneath his lips. Or the strength in the arm she wrapped back around him as he held her, and told her what was in his mind right now.

Wishing it had been like this then. That was first, and foremost too.

Wishing he could have been there with her, helping her do what she’d had to do.

“I know," she told him, voice equally as soft. "So do I.” And, for a few moments, it felt as though that was all either of them needed to say. An acknowledgement of the truth, and of the moment that had come now, and felt too precious to spoil in bitterness, anger, or lost regrets. They hadn’t got the life that they’d wanted five years ago; now there was a chance to do that. That, more than anything, was what this moment stood for for Steve.

But moments ended, or at least took a place deeper in the back of the mind, allowing the smaller realities of facts and questions to return to the fore. And he still had questions - many of them, perhaps. But right now, just one.

Where had she gone then?

“England,” she said, lips curving into something that might have been a smile when she looked back up to meet his eyes. It was, in truth, in a little bit of a relief to see it. And maybe to hear that she’d been able to get to the UK, and not - well, she could have gone anywhere she’d wanted, and made her way safely. God knew she’d had to prove that to the world before now, but still.

”I liquidated what assets I could in a hurry, and Nick got me get out of the country.” Steve nodded, trying to hold his tongue on the urge to break the thread to ask about Nick - where he was now, what he was doing, what he thought of a Resistance to SHIELD that had hijacked his Helicarrier (or whether he’d ordered it), why she hadn’t mentioned him until now - because it was clear Sharon had more to say. “By then, they'd closed the US borders. To 'protect from foreign super-human threats’.” A shake of her head dismissed that for what it clearly must have been; an excuse to exercise total control.

She paused there, but before Steve could decide whether to try to bring his thoughts together enough to form another question, or to wait for Sharon to go on as she saw fit, she was nodding toward the… bed? “Sit down,” she suggested. “There’s still a long way to go with this.”

He nodded, and let her go, but slowly, drawing the last points of contact out for a little longer. If the hand that lingered at his back was anything to go on, so did Sharon, but finally she was out of his touch, and walking toward the desk on the other side of the room. Steve watched her for a moment, then did as he’d been bid, settling a little cautiously onto the somewhat rumpled bedclothes that seemed to be mostly lumped at the foot of the bed, where she’d indicated. In that she was still the same as she’d ever been, and he found that thought comforting too.

“While James was little, I did consulting work for MI-5 and MI-13," she picked up her story, and a dossier - the one she’d mentioned earlier? - too, before stepping back across the small room and taking a place next to him on the bed. Steve shifted slightly as he took the slender hand she’d offered him one more time. That was both to give her a clearer space, and because his seat really felt more lumpy than he’d been expecting, but that might have been nothing but the unfamiliarity of a real mattress, after what he’d been living in. Probably nothing important, especially compared to what Sharon was saying. MI-5, and MI-13, who must have been beside themselves to have got her for that time. And, if he knew Sharon-

”Something to keep me from going completely stir crazy.”

Steve smiled slightly, turning to meet her eyes. Yes. He knew her. And god, he’d missed her all this time. It was almost hard to believe that it was real, and that that was her hand wrapped around his, and that that had been her, only minutes ago, agreeing to marry him. Or it would have been, if that hadn’t been the surest thing in his world. She was going to marry him.

”Jacqui and Joey send their regards, by the way," Sharon added with the broader, more open smile that he’d always thought (whenever he’d got to see it, which was never enough, in Steve’s opinion) transformed her from a beautiful woman into the most stunning imaginable. “If, that is, as Joey put it 'you're you, and not a bloody evil, booby trapped, fascist robot’.”

Caught off-guard, or maybe just tangled in the midst of the thoughts of her, Steve blinked. Then the words registered, and he had to frown, though only slightly. Trust Joey to be able to break up a moment when he wasn’t even physically present. And… an evil, booby-trapped fascist robot?

“I’m-“ Steve began, finally. It would have been nice to not have to wonder about these kinds of things. Though in fact, that wasn’t actually why he ended up hesitating there. That had more to do with a lump that was pressing into his thigh in a way that didn’t feel like blankets. “…sitting on something,” he finished, shifting his leg out of the way slightly to give room enough to investigate that lump.

A few seconds rummage in the bedclothes ended when his hand found a grip on something that was soft, and perhaps slightly fluffy. Steve pulled it out, holding it up so that he could get a better look, and found himself staring into the black-masked gaze of a small brown bear. A small bear in a blue suit, with red accents. Not to mention four big red buttons, neatly sewn in two rows on the front of its outfit. Feeling the wheels switching on their gears in his brain, Steve stared at it a second longer, then turned to Sharon. “Jacqui had something to do with this, didn’t she?” he asked.
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Sharon Carter
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Steve nodded, let her go by degrees as she moved with her own reluctance away from him and over to the desk. Toward that folder that held everything that'd happened in the last five years spelled out in typed black words on a sheaf of white pages as she kept talking.

There was a lot to cover, they'd only scraped the tip of the iceberg, they might as well get to the rest sitting down. She hadn't gotten around to making the bed, but that wasn't anything that'd changed since the last time they'd seen each other. A few rumpled and bunched blankets shouldn't be a surprise, or anything Captain America couldn't handle, while she picked up that folder and went back over to sit next to him, picking up the thread of narrative in a way that was easy and familiar and took her back to other days, and other nights, and other conversations. When it was just the two of them at the end of a day.

Not nearly enough days, or enough memories, like that. There hadn't been time, but there would be now, and going forward from now, Sharon promised herself, and Steve and James, that as she turned back, recrossing that short distance, and taking her place next to Steve as she told him about England and working as a consultant with MI-5 and MI-13 while James was little.

As much as she loved their son, she'd needed something to keep her from going completely stir crazy. But she wouldn't need to explain that to Steve of all people would she? The hint of a smile on his face as he met her eyes, one strong hand wrapped up with hers, told her no. This man still knew her, and understood her, in ways that no one else would or probably ever had.

God, she loved him. Had always loved him. Would always love him.

Possibly, he didn't remember Joey that well, since his 'regards' did something that would've probably made Union Jack's week if he'd been here to see it. It caught Steve by surprise. Sharon's smile tilted a little one sided and her hand tightened on his. Maybe she should've eased into that one a little more and gave him a bigger margin to get his bearings first.

“I’m-“ Steve began and, god, he wasn't actually considering that was he and her brows sailed up before she could stop them. It was Joey. He'd heard one too many rampaging LMD stories. Steve hadn't seemed... “…sitting on something,” he finished unexpectedly and Sharon was the one frowning now as he shifted and fished around in the tangle of blankets and sheets that she and James had made of the bed last night.

After a few seconds of that, he came up with the culprit and, well, if second hand Joey Chapman caught him off guard, she could imagine what this was doing. There was James' favorite bear, staring Steve in the face and vice-versa. Sharon did what she could to cover her own reaction with a lift of her hand, a pursing of her lips, and a probably sad excuse for a convenient cough.

It wouldn't fool Steve, she didn't have any hope of that, but it did keep her from outright laughing.

“Jacqui had something to do with this, didn’t she?” he asked, turning toward her again and any faint hope she had of keeping the grin off her face was blasted all to hell.

Sharon nodded, confirming what he already guessed. "Jacqui gleefully had everything to do with that," she confirmed, managing to knock the grin down to an amused smile at least and following with a bemused shake of her head. "You should be grateful I vetoed the other one she wanted to have made." The Cap Bear. James would've loved it, but she hadn't been sure that was something she could look at every day.

"Steve Rogers," Sharon added, looking from him to James' bear and back again, waving a hand at the stuffed, masked bear, "meet Bucky Bear. Jacqui thought," as in insisted and wouldn't take no for an answer and arguing with her was a lot harder than it seemed like it should be, "our son should have something to remember his namesake by. James adores him."

And probably would've already been back looking for him if he didn't have Steve's shield to keep him mesmerized.
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Steve Rogers
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It was a bear that looked like Bucky.

Or it was wearing Bucky’s uniform, perhaps he should say, though some trick in the stuffed toy’s glass-eyed expression did seem to have captured something that said its feelings about the uniform might have been similar to the ones its inspiration had harbored about the original. Or maybe that was just Sharon’s sudden bout of something that would have been highly suspicious coughing if it hadn’t been very obvious that it wasn’t anything like a cough at all that made him wonder about that stubborn glint in its eye.

It was, after all, a bear.

On the other hand, maybe he could still put two and two together and reach some conclusions relatively swiftly, because before a pair of seconds’ staring at the bear were done, Steve found that he’d tallied up its existence, cross-checked to Sharon’s earlier statements, and arrived upon a theory that probably bore checking aloud. Though in truth, he had next to no doubts at all that he’d got this one right.

Jacqui - the Lady Jacqueline Falsworth Crichton, in point of fact - had had something to do with this bear’s existence. He was sure of it.

Sharon nodded, but she needn’t have - the grin on her face answered his question all by itself, and brought back far older memories of that grin helping Jacqui give Buck hell. “Jacqui gleefully had everything to do with that," she confirmed, though the flashback-like feeling that had made her look, just for a moment, more like Peggy than herself passed with the bemusement that came when she shook her head. You probably did have to have been there. “You should be grateful I vetoed the other one she wanted to have made,” she said.

Steve answered that with a quick smile, turning to meet her eyes for a moment before he looked back at the bear, wondering idly what that other one could have been. A Torch or Toro with real flame action? Perhaps not - and probably, it didn’t matter. Not beside whatever it was that Sharon was wanting to say, looking at them both (the bear and himself) like that.

“Steve Rogers," Sharon added, waving one hand between them, “meet Bucky Bear. Jacqui thought,” with a pause there that Steve, lost as he might be, could still find more than sufficient to fill in the background details of exactly what might have gone on there, “our son should have something to remember his namesake by. James adores him.”

It probably was a very adorable bear, by any objective standards. Jacqui would have done no less than the best. Still, Steve had to meet that introduction with a wry smile as he looked down at the stuffed animal. “Buck would have hated it,” he remarked, brushing the soft, but somewhat squashed fur on its face with his thumb. Take everything he’d ever complained about in being pictured and written about like he was twelve, and multiply it by a furry factor of cuteness, then go from there, that would have been Buck’s starting point. “Which I guarantee is the other half of exactly why Jacqui did it,” Steve added, wryness still very much intact as he looked back to Sharon.

But his smile might have taken on something a little more soft a moment later, looking back at the small bear that belonged to a boy called James. A boy that was his son. Thinking about that, more than what he was actually doing, Steve gently arranged the stuffed toy so that it was ‘settled’ on his thigh, propped against his stomach and surveying the rest of the room, before looking once more to Sharon.

“Jacqui and Joey,” he started again, finding the threads of what she’d been telling him again, then trying to gather them together. “You’ve been living with them?”
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