for the 2016 sharon carter secret santa gift exchange. sadly it has nothing at all to do with christmas, but i hope you'll forgive me

Took the breath from my open mouth
Never known how it broke me down
-Novo Amor, Anchor

It's in the middle of browsing the fucking pregnancy tests in the feminine hygiene aisle that Sharon remembers who it is she saw when she'd power walked through the automatic doors of the closest CVS in town to the highway twenty painful minutes ago. It was late, ridiculously so, and all she wanted was to get what she needed, get out, and bury herself in her bedsheets for the rest of the weekend.

It was a false alarm; it had to be a false alarm, because Sharon couldn't take it being anything else. She was living in a shitty apartment nowhere near as clean or wonderful as she remembers her old home to be, working a job that she loathed, in a town that she swore she'd never come back to after her Aunt Peggy died. After everyone died. And yet here she was, back in this place that she'd thought she'd outgrown, scanning the aisles in the same CVS that she'd bought her first tampons in, all because she fucked a guy in the one and only club in town in a moment that could only be described as sheer desperation.

Sharon had thought that she'd recognized the sloping jaw and sandy hair of the man behind the counter, but she'd been so frantically caught up in her mission at the time, scared that she looked suspicious and basically losing her mind, that she hadn't really thought about it. She practically drops the pregnancy test out of her hands when she puts the pieces together.

She hasn't seen him since graduation almost seven? eight? (Sharon never claimed to be good at math) years earlier, when she'd grudgingly told him that maybe he wasn't as bad as she made him out to be for those four painful years.

Surprisingly, Sharon can still still see it now, can smell the freshly cut grass of her graduation day, the moment that she thought her life could change for the better. Because that's what she thought college would be like; what she thought adulthood would be like—a change for the better.

It was unfortunate, or so her thought process had been back then, that Steve was friends with the majority of her friends. She had loathed him with a passion that was all-encompassing in her own, teenage way; had resented the fact that he was always better than her, no matter how hard she had tried. But she'd let the feelings of the day overtake her, ignored the fact that he looked like a complete dork in his graduation cap, and decided that she could be nice, just this once.

"Steve," she'd called after him, before he left for good and she would never see him again. "I just… I wanted to say that… you're not an asshole, okay? I'm sorry that I was so horrible to you all this time." She'd shaken her head, confused about what she was trying to say, especially when he was smiling at her in that way of his, the way he made everyone seem like they were the only person in the entire world, his entire focus fixed on them. "I guess what I'm trying to say is… good luck out there, okay? Wherever it is you end up going."

He'd just smiled at her, but she remembers thinking that he looked sad, and she couldn't fathom why. She never thought that her stupid comments actually had an effect, but that was high school for you. "I'm going to miss you, Sharon," he had said, laughing slightly to himself.

She'd never forgotten that.

There's no way that she can go up to the counter like this, not now. Steve Rogers was a golden boy. Is still a golden boy, or as far as she wants to believe. The way he had always seemed to her, at least back then, was the epitome of everything that she could never have. He was the star of the track team, and the football team, and somehow managed to be top of the class. In contrast, Sharon had been deeply broken, the loss of her parents marring her high school career from the beginning.

She'd hated Steve for his perfection back then. They had fought endlessly, Sharon constantly antagonizing him, wanting to rile him up. He never seemed to get upset over anything, and she just wanted him to crack, just once. Wanted to see his unflappable exterior break, to see the person he was underneath.

And now, seeing him like this, working the night shift in an empty CVS almost eight years later, she's not sure how to feel. She never thought that after college she'd be back in her home town, buying a pregnancy test after being stuck at the office late, at a job that she didn't even like. She never thought that she'd be this much of a mess for-fucking-ever. She never thought that she'd see him again.

The last thing she'd heard was that he had gone off to fight in the war, something that she would never be brave or selfless enough to understand. She has no idea what he's doing back here, or why the universe hates her enough to force her back into contact with him. Possibly pregnant. Fuck.

She's still debating whether or not to embarrass the shit out of herself by going to the counter, ignoring the fact that it's three fucking AM in the morning and she'd just finished a horrible day at work, choosing instead to focus on the fact that perfect Steve Rogers might know that she could be pregnant, when the devil himself shows up in the aisle. She can feel her face turning beet red, the cherry on top of her absolutely perfect night.

"Hey," he starts, probably, hopefully not recognizing her, "I'm closing up soon, so uh—not to rush you or anything, but—"

And that's when both of their phones start screaming at them.

Steve gets his out first, swearing when he reads what's on it. Sharon fumbles to find her own, putting the test back on the shelf to search for it out of her purse.

SEVERE TORNADO WARNING. TAKE COVER NOW! MOVE TO A BASEMENT OR AN INTERIOR ROOM ON THE LOWEST FLOOR OF A STURDY BUILDING. AVOID WINDOWS. IF YOU ARE OUTDOORS, IN A MOBILE HOME, OR IN A VEHICLE, MOVE TO THE CLOSEST SUBSTANTIAL SHELTER AND PROTECT YOURSELF FROM FLYING DEBRIS. TORNADOES ARE EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO SEE AND CONFIRM AT NIGHT. DO NOT WAIT TO SEE OR HEAR THE TORNADO.

"Fuck," Sharon hisses. Just her luck. "What do we do?" she asks him, because even though he looks annoyed and on edge, he's still the person that she knows will always keep his cool.

"Follow me," he tells her. Sharon spares one glance back at the aisle as she follows him to the front of the store, her stomach churning.

"So we're stuck here," Sharon deadpans.

"I mean, not technically," Steve tells her, but his eyebrows are furrowed together in a way that's shockingly familiar, and he has an apologetic look on his face. "But, uh. There's a clear procedure that I have to follow, and if I don't I'm basically fired. And also it's just… really bad out there."

Sharon had followed Steve to the checkout counter after they'd gotten the alert, where he'd checked the manual "just to make sure" (his words, not hers). Now she's standing behind the counter, which feels oddly illicit. Which really goes to show hold old she is, now, if her idea of danger is being behind a CVS counter with no one there to catch her in the act. What Sharon needs, she thinks to herself, is a really, really long nap.

She glances outside, seeing her lone, shitty car sitting in the parking lot. A grey fog seems to be creeping over the sky, engulfing everything in sight. Sharon feels like she's in the twilight zone. There hasn't been a tornado in Virginia since she was a little girl, and back then her parents had been around to help. It's awful, feeling just as helpless as she did back then, even for different reasons. She really thought that she'd have life figured out by now.

Steve tilts his head at her, done flipping through the employee manual. "So… are you staying or going? Because I really need to lock this place up. But, if it were up to me, I wouldn't let you go out there alone. It doesn't look safe." Sharon thinks of her shitty apartment, with its creaking stairs and annoying upstairs neighbors, and decides that a night at CVS probably won't be the worst night of sleep that she's ever gotten. And besides, even Sharon, with her impulsive streak and all, doesn't really think she can best a tornado.

"I'll stay," she tells him. "What do we do?"

Sharon doesn't know how to broach the subject, but she knows that she should, or this entire night is going to become painfully awkward. Not that it isn't already, but, you know. It's the principle of the thing.

She'd been following Steve around the store, locking up display cases and windows, making sure that there weren't any large, dangerous objects near the glass that could potentially fall over and hurt someone. Now they're making one last loop around the store to finally close the front door.

"Steve," she starts, and he looks up to catch her eyes. It's the first time she's said his name all night, and he doesn't even have his name tag on anymore. He'd taken off his uniform once they'd started locking up. "Do you… You know who… Fuck. I can't talk today. Do you remember me or not?" she asks him as bluntly as possible. "From high school. Sharon. Sharon C—"

"Of course I remember you, Sharon," he says, almost laughing a little. "I just didn't know how to, uh, broach the subject, I guess. We didn't really have the chance."

"Right. This isn't really how I'd pictured my night going," she says with a small smile. "Not that it's so awful being stuck with you. Not that we're stuck, either, I mean—" God. Sharon hasn't felt this tongue tied in, like, ever. She has no idea what to say to him.

"Sharon, it's fine. Let's just get this over with and get to the storage room. We'll be safe there, it doesn't have any windows." Sharon nods, biting her bottom lip. Steve's eyes linger on her face for a second before turning away and walking back towards the counter, flipping through his manual again. Sharon leaves him be and goes searching for snacks.

"What were you… looking for?" Steve starts, after Sharon had carried as many snacks as she could to the back room, roping him in on her mission. They've made a pretty decent den in the dark room, if you ask her, their pile of food spread out around them, along with bedding that Steve had found, a pile of blankets, and a ton of children's pillows. When Sharon raises an eyebrow at him, plastic spoon overloaded with ice cream sticking out of her mouth, he elaborates. "When you came into the store. You were back there for a while."

Sharon wonders how many different shades of red her face is capable of turning in a single second. It feels like hundreds, especially when she chokes on the spoon and Steve's eyes widen as he dives over to her to pat her back. The spoon clatters to the cold floor as she coughs a few more times, reaching up to wipe the tears from her eyes.

"Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ," she mutters, and his face turns from concerned to amused. Sharon buries her face in her hands, trying to work up the courage to tell him, because for some reason, she actually wants to. And she hasn't told anybody, not Bobbi, not Natasha, not Tony. If Aunt Peggy were still alive, she might've considered telling her, but that's no longer an option.

"You don't have to tell me," Steve says, eyes crinkled at the corners as he watches her. "I was just curious, is all."

Sharon sighs, her face still tinged pink with embarrassment. "A pregnancy test," she blurts out, wincing at the way that his eyes widen in understanding.

"Oh," he says, shifting, his gaze noticeably trying to land anywhere but her face. "I didn't… I didn't know you were seeing anyone, is all," he murmurs, right hand reaching up to rub the back of his neck. His eyes meet hers, quickly darting away again, and now Sharon's the one that's surprised.

"I'm not," she says, letting out a breath. "That's why I was taking so long. It's embarrassing. I mean… I was embarrassed, yeah. There's really no other way to explain it."

Steve raises his eyebrows. "Why would you be embarrassed?" He looks genuinely curious, and Sharon's memory flashes back to the way that he would goad her in high school, the way that he constantly challenged her, eyes flashing in a constant dare. There's none of that now, just kindness, and she wonders what he's been through to trigger this change in him. (Or maybe, her mind whispers to her, maybe she never really knew him at all.)

"Shut up. You know why. You were always so… perfect. I don't know. I just didn't want you to see how much of a mess I was. Am. Whatever."

Steve's quiet for a minute, processing. "Go get it," he says.

"What?"

"Go get it, come on." He gestures towards the door. "There's a bathroom in here, and I'm sure it won't kill you to run out for a few quick seconds. I'll keep watch. It's not like we have anything better to do."

"O….kay…" Sharon scrambles to her feet, ignoring the hand that he offers to help her up. Her stomach turns, the amalgamation of snacks that she's been eating the entire night catching up to her. She's really doing this. Okay. Wow. "Will you stay with me? After?" she asks him, heart fluttering at the way that his eyebrows shoot up. "Like, is it just a single stall, or?

"No, it's, it's a real bathroom. Big enough for the whole staff."

"Okay," Sharon breathes. "I just don't know if I can… do it alone. I mean, objectively, yes. I can pee by myself. But you know."

"Yeah, yeah. Of course I will."

"God," Sharon practically moans, wanting to throw up as Steve watches her fumble with the test in her hands. His face doesn't change, remains calm as he watches her eye one of the stalls, but she knows that he's judging her. "Just don't."

"I didn't say anything," he says, peeking up at her from beneath those stupidly long eyelashes.

Sharon rolls her eyes. "No, but you were thinking it."

"Sharon, come on." He shoves his hands into his jeans pockets. "I don't want to fight."

"Yeah, you're not the only one who doesn't want to relive their high school self. I get it. But just because you've never made a mistake before doesn't mean that you get to judge me for making them. I've had enough of that over the years." Sharon crosses her arms, defensive. It seems to be her go-to stance when it comes to him, even after all this time. She does feel sort of stupid doing it with slippers on, though, but they were cute. And cozy.

Steve's gaze softens, his eyes scanning her face. She feels like he's appraising her, trying to figure her out, and it makes her stomach hurt. But there's also another part of her, a small part, that feels warm and fidgety under his gaze. He's still as handsome as he was in high school, even more so now. He's grown into his body, the large muscles of his arms and thick torso. God. This line of thinking is what got her into this mess in the first place. She's never having sex again.

"I thought we went through this. I'm not judging you," he says. After a moment of hesitation, he reaches out and takes one of her hands in both of his, making her jump. "You could be, you know, not pregnant," he offers, running a thumb over her knuckles. She knows that he's trying to help, but it's just making her more agitated, feeling the rough calluses of his fingers on her skin.

"And that would make this better?" Sharon asks him, clenching her other hand around the cardboard box.

"No," Steve says, pulling his hand away. Sharon almost misses the warmth of it. "That's not… that's not what I'm saying. I mean… do you, do you want—"

"No, god. I don't want to be pregnant. I'm 25 years old. I just don't want you to… to think less of me. Like, here I am, still having sex with strangers and getting stuck in a CVS overnight, because I suck at my job and had to redo so much paperwork before I could leave. I just thought I'd be past this by now."

"In case you didn't notice, I'm also stuck in said CVS. And I work here. You… you're, what? Working at the CIA or something? How could I ever think less of you? I'm surprised you're still carrying around this idea that you have of me from high school." He lets out a small, self-deprecating laugh. "I'm just as stuck as you are, Sharon."

"Go get me a bottle of coke," she tells him, gesturing towards the bathroom door behind him and trying to change the subject. She's never been good with feelings; not back then and certainly not now.

Steve blinks. "What?"

"For the…" she looks towards one of the stalls.

"Oh! Right, okay. Regular or diet?"

Sharon laughs. "Do I look like I drink diet?"

"I don't know. Please don't ask me to answer that."

"How long do you have to wait again?" he asks her. He's sitting in the stall right next to her, for solidarity. It's silly, but it makes her feel better, just knowing that he's there.

"It says three minutes," Sharon tells him.

Steve lets out a breath. "Tell me something," he says. Sharon tenses up.

"What? Why?"

"I don't know. To get your mind off of it. Tell me something."

"Oh. Um. I'm not… with the CIA," she finally says. "Well I mean, I am, but not exactly. I'm a secretary," she sighs. "They never told me it would be so hard, you know, after college. I thought I'd just be in and be great. Stupid," she mutters with a shake of her head.

"You're not—" Steve starts to say, but then Sharon's phone beeps. She'd set an alarm, using up some of the precious battery that she had left.

"Oh, god. Oh man."

"Hey," Steve says from the other side of the stall. "Breathe."

It's odd, what his presence is doing to her. Like it's actually helping. If you told high school Sharon that she'd one day be stuck in a CVS for a night with Steve Rogers, actually enjoying his company, she'd deck you in the face. Life is weird that way, how fast things change.

"I'm not pregnant!" she yells, jumping off of the seat. She runs out of the stall and Steve follows suit, until they're standing face to face. Sharon can't help it. She lets out a squeal, throwing her arms around him. She's still holding the test, realizing too late that this might be sort of gross, but Steve pats her back all the same. "Sorry," she gasps, pulling away. "Pee, pregnancy test, ew." She has no idea what she's saying, just gestures with her hands wildly. Steve just smiles at her.

"Congratulations," he tells her with a laugh.

"What a relief," she says, looking down at the floor and shaking her head. "It's not that I don't want kids," she tells him. "I'm just… not ready."

"Sharon," he tells her, putting his hands on her arms, making her shiver with the contact. "Like I said, not judging you."

Sharon nods. "Right."

"But maybe you should take the other test, just to make sure."

Her mouth falls open slightly, but she nods again. "Right."

"You could sleep," Steve tells her, maybe an hour or two after she takes the second test; still negative, to her extreme delight. They'd settled back into their man-made den again, sitting in silence for a while. Sharon had used up the rest of her phone battery playing mindless games and checking the weather forecast, while Steve had tried to read in the dying light of the candles that Sharon had lit earlier. "I don't bite," he adds, "if that's what you're worried about."

A bolt of lightning strikes at that precise moment, as if to emphasize the point that Sharon's about to make. "I want to," she stars, jumping when another bolt goes off, "but I can't. Too nervous."

"I'm pretty sure there's a ninety percent chance that we won't die," Steve tells her. He's stretched out on a makeshift bed, and his t-shirt is slightly hiked up, showing a bit of skin. Sharon tries not to stare at it.

"And the other ten percent?" she asks him?

"Not sure," he says, eyes catching hers. "But I like to account for unexpected possibilities."

Another hour. Sharon's weary, needing sleep, but every time she closes her eyes she can hear the storm raging outside, can feel the strength of it in her bones. She's never known time to pass this slow, besides the three minutes that she'd had to live through only a few hours ago. They'd been the longest three minutes of her life, but this entire night now feels like an eternity, too.

"Steve," she says, catching his attention. He looks up at her. "Why are you, you know," she nudges his foot with her own slippered one, "working here? Last I heard you were off being all heroic."

He smiles at her, something he's been doing all night, like he can't believe she's there. Sharon tugs her blanket tighter around herself, turning her head and trying to focus in on him like he's so good at.

"It was hard to… be back, after the war," he tells her, shifting so that he's laying down, both of them on their backs next to each other. "Hard to force myself to work, to do anything, really. Turns out that not a lot of people want to hire a kid who never went to college." He shrugs like it's no big deal, but Sharon knows that it is.

"Do you regret it, the war?"

Steve shakes his head. "I don't regret it. I was doing what I thought was right. But I did… I lost a lot of people over there. A lot of good friends. It was so hard, coming back. I'm not even sure I am back, if that makes any sense." Sharon's never heard him like this, never heard him repeat himself before. That's how she knows that it's serious.

"No, it does. I know what you mean. Sometimes I feel like… like a spectator in my own life. It's stupid, but I just don't… I'm not in the place that I want to be. And it just doesn't feel real sometimes." She shrugs. "And it's just… I don't know. Every day is literally the same. Wake up, go to work, get bossed around. The last thing I thought before I left for work this morning was, 'I just want today to feel different than yesterday'. That's all I wanted."

"Well," he asks her, daring to run a hand down her arm. Sharon doesn't stop him. "How are we doing so far?"

"Definitely getting there," she breathes out, the moment heavy between them. Sharon has no idea what time it is, doesn't really care just this second. Her breath stutters in her chest as Steve leans in closer. "Steve," she whispers as he leans in.

It's the most intense kiss that she's ever had, when he finally does it, her entire body heated all over. She knows that kissing is what got her into this mess in the first place, but she can't remember why she had ever thought it was a bad thing, not when he's kissing her like this.

He chases her mouth every time that she tries to pull away from him, and every time he does it she can't fathom why she'd ever want to get away in the first place. She fists her hands in his shirt, their breathing coming out in short, uneven bursts, and it's intoxicating, how he can't seem to get enough of her.

Sharon lets out a whine when his mouth moves down her neck, along her jaw, near her ear. She's on top of him and she can't even remember when it happened, his warm hands stroking her bare back under her top. He nips at her bottom lip and she makes a surprised sound, tangling her fingers in his hair and tugging in response. She didn't know he had it in him to tease her like this, but every touch makes her want more.

She finally manages to pull herself away, catching her breath. Steve looks up at her, eyes slightly glazed over like she's sure her own are. His hands rest on her hips, fingers stroking the bare skin exposed by her top. "I can't…" she tries to say, running a shaky hand through her hair. "I can't do this, not after what… not after the whole thing with the test and the bathroom and—"

"Sharon," he says, sitting up and letting her fix her position in his lap. "I don't need you to. I just… I need to know that this is going to be different. That this changes things, between us." Sharon narrows her eyes, trying to understand. "I don't want this to feel like high school," he explains, and it almost breaks her heart, how the understanding crushes into her. "But the second I saw you walk in I was that kid again, so nervous and so stupid. Jesus, Sharon. You really had a way of making a guy feel like everything he said was wrong."

"You liked me in high school?" she asks, voice small and uncertain.

Steve curls a piece of her hair around his finger. "You're kidding, right? Sharon, come on. I was halfway in love with you from the first time we fought."

"That's unhealthy," she quips, trying to distract him, change the subject. Something that she can't stop doing, because it's the only way that she can cope.

"I didn't have the best way of expressing it. And you—you hated me. So I just, I let you have that. Because I didn't even know what I'd do if it was the opposite."

"And now? Do you know now?"

"I know what I want to do. I just need to know what you want."

"I told you, silly, didn't I? I want things to be different. And you're… you're the only exciting thing that's happened to me in years. I don't want to give this up."

"This isn't just a game to me, you know?" he says, and Sharon puts her hands on his shoulders, leaning in close.

"It's not for me either, okay? When I said different I didn't mean, like, different as in a quick fuck and emotional high, or whatever. I meant different as in… I can see myself with you. I really can. And I don't know what forces worked together to get us stuck in here tonight, but I'm glad they did, okay? I'm really, really glad."

Steve puts a hand around the back of her head and pulls her in, kissing her deep and slow. "Me too. God, Sharon, me too."

no proofreading we die like men