Nice to Meet You
By Misha

Disclaimer- Not mine. I'm not making any money off this, so please don't sue.

A.N- This is the Steve/Sharon/Bucky companion to "So You're the One". Chapter One starts after the events of "Winter Soldier" and about 7 or 8 months before "So You're the One", though the two will intersect after a while. I change a few things from "Winter Solider", which will be obvious in the Prologue. I also played with the idea of soul marks here and decided that soul marks are the words that would be said, not a guarantee that they will ever be said. I hinted at this in "So You're the One" with Wanda's vow never to speak to her soulmate unless he proved himself, though most people wouldn't have the knowledge to make an active choice. However, fate could intervene and one potential soulmate could die before they could meet. The prologue is a different tone than the rest of the story since I use it to set up the idea of soulmates and cover the events leading up to "Winter Soldier".

Spoilers- Up to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D episode 2x10 "What They Become" and "Captain America: The Winter Soldier".

Rating- PG-13/T

Summery- Companion to "So You're the One", this is the story of Sharon Carter, Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes after learning they were soulmates.

Prologue

Steve Rogers had been born without a soul mark.

It wasn't something he ever really thought about. At that time, soul marks weren't common, only about ½ the population were thought to have them. Or at least that was what the military scientists told him and even having words was no guarantee of happily ever after. Between two wars, an influenza epidemic and the starvation of the Great Depression, there were a lot of people who never got to meet their soul mates.

Like Peggy Carter. She'd had words on her left ankle, but they were grey and faded.

She'd told him that they'd gone grey before she turned nine. Long before she'd ever heard "so you're the dame causing all the trouble" and she'd told Steve, that she wasn't sure that her soulmate sounded like much of a prize anyway.

Still, he knew she wondered about the soulmate who might have been and it made her a little more cautious. But at the end of the day, she seemed prepared to make her own destiny and Steve hoped that destiny would include him.

He didn't need words on his skin to tell him Peggy was special.

But then he crashed that damn plane and woke up sixty years in the future and suddenly he had a soul mark. In fact, he somehow had managed to have two sets.

"Who the Hell is Bucky?" was etched across his shoulders in a scratchy, masculine hand-writing. The words made him wince, though it felt right to have his friend's named tattooed on his skin, a permanent reminder. The other words were written in a neater, more delicate script across his right bicep, "You must be new here, so let me be the welcoming committee."

Steve dutifully mentioned the words to Col. Fury, knowing that it was military procedure to record soul marks.

"Soul marks have become more common than they were in your day." Fury told him. "Now 75% of the population has them and most soul pairs will at least meet, though not all of them stay together."

It was just one more way the world had changed in the time he had been gone.

After his initial surprise, Steve felt optimistic about the words on his skin. He'd loved Peggy, he always would, but she was almost 90 and physically he was in his 20s and he was man enough to admit he wanted a physical relationship, the type that was no longer possible with Peggy. So in some ways it was a relief to know that there was someone out there waiting for him, but who and under what circumstances would they come into his life?

Sharon Carter had always believed that you controlled your own destiny. It was one of the many lessons she'd learned from her great-aunt Peggy.

So despite the fact that Sharon had been born with two sets of soul marks, she was determined not to let them influence her. Maybe she'd end up with her soulmates, but maybe she wouldn't. Nothing was set in stone, not even soul marks.

She wondered about her soulmates though. She'd been born with both sets. "You're even prettier than Steve said you were" was scrawled across her back, while "nice to meet you ma'am" was written on the top of her left foot. From the hand writing she'd say both of her soulmates were men, though one set of writing was much neater than the other and he was obviously very polite. Teenage Sharon couldn't imagine anyone calling her ma'am and she worried she wouldn't meet him until she was really old, but then she told herself that it didn't matter if she did or not. She could have a happy fulfilling life without a soulmate.

After all, look at her Aunt Peggy. Her soulmate had died before she ever met him and she'd gone on to find love twice after that. Then there was her sister, who was divorced with two kids despite marrying her soulmate. More proof that you soul marks didn't guarantee happily ever after.

Sharon grew up and followed in her aunt's footsteps, joining S.H.I.E.L.D as soon as she was old enough. Her work became her life and the idea of meeting her soulmates went on the back-burner. Until the day she got a new special assignment.

All of S.H.I.E.L.D had been buzzing with the news that Captain America had been found after all these years and that he was alive. Sharon had grown up hearing the stories of the great Steve Rogers, her Aunt Peggy's lost first love, and that was one of the reason she'd agreed to Director Fury's request that she move in next door and keep an eye on him. It didn't feel entirely right, especially since she'd be going undercover, but it was part of the job and she couldn't resist the impulse to find out what Steve Rogers was like.

On her first meeting the legend, she smiled and held out her hand. "You must be new here, so let me be the welcoming committee."

Steve blinked and Sharon wondered what she'd said, but after a second he shook her hand and said, "It's nice to meet you ma'am."

Sharon stared at him. How was this possible? Of course, her one set of soul mark did mention 'Steve', but she'd never in a million years considered that it meant Steve Rogers.

It also totally changed her mission. S.H.I.E.L.D protocols were that soulmates trumped anything else, unless it was a matter of national security, so Sharon immediately abandoned the planned ruse of introducing herself as a nurse named Kate.

"I'm Sharon," she said quietly.

"Steve." He told her and he seemed a little awkward, trying to figure out how much to tell her.

"I know," she told him, noting his surprise, "my name is Sharon Carter. Peggy Carter is my aunt."

Steve blinked, obviously that information through him off, but why wouldn't it? What were the odds that his soulmate would be the niece of his wartime love?

"I think we have a lot to talk about." He said finally.

"I agree," Sharon told him, "why don't you come in and I'll make us some coffee."

It wasn't an instant relationship, neither Steve nor Sharon was the type to rush into something just because the universe told them too. But they spent time together, getting to know each other and they discussed their third soulmate, wondering who he might be. Both of them were convinced it was a he, based both on the masculine nature of the writing and the fact that Steve was bisexual and Sharon was not.

A year passed without any sign of their third and a genuine friendship sprung up between them and in time their relationship became sexual, though Sharon knew that they both felt like something was missing. She knew it was a common problem in soul-triads, that if one member was missing the bond was unstable.

Though that was only one of the problems. Steve was also bothered by Sharon's insistence that they keep their relationship a secret, only informing Director Fury, because S.H.I.E.L.D protocol demanded that she do so, also because he needed to know why she couldn't go through with her mission.

"Aunt Peggy, well… Her relationship with you didn't do her any favors." Sharon had explained. "People had a hard time taking her seriously and I've worked hard to be where I am in S.H.I.E.L.D and I don't want people to suddenly start whispering about my personal life and wondering how that impacts my job."

Steve hadn't entirely understood, but he'd reluctantly agreed. However, a secret relationship came with its own stresses and the bond between them never quite grew the way it was supposed to. Sharon wasn't sure if it was the secrets, their missing third or just proof that soul bonds weren't what they cracked up to be.

Then Steve showed up at her apartment one day and informed her that Bucky Barnes was alive, that he had been programmed to be some sort of assassin known as the Winter Soldier and that he was their third.

"He doesn't know who he is," Steve told her quietly.

"You'll remind him." Sharon assured him. She wasn't sure how Bucky would fit into their lives. He had been Steve's best friend and occasional lover, but he was a stranger to Sharon. Would his presence bring her and Steve together or shatter their fragile bond?

Sharon didn't have much time to think about it because all Hell broke loose. HYDRA was revealed, S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, Fury "died", and the Winter Soldier saved Steve's life before disappearing again.

"What happens now?" Sharon asked Steve quietly after the fighting was over.

"Now I find Bucky." He told her quietly. "He's out there somewhere and he saved me for a reason, I just have to remind him of that. Sam's going to go with me, it's up to you, if you join us."

Sharon hesitated, she'd been offered a place with the CIA and maybe some distance was a good idea, and yet… The universe had picked these two men for her. She'd never met him, but as skeptical as she was about soul bonds, she was connected to Bucky Barnes and the least she could do was help find him.

"I'm in." She told Steve, placing her hand in his.

He smiled and held it tightly and suddenly Sharon had the feeling that just maybe everything would work out the way it was supposed to.