Title: We'll Figure It Out From Here
Rating: M
Word Count: 4,900
Characters: Sam/Sharon
Summary: She texts him not a minute later, and all she puts is a smiley face, but her contact is in his phone already and he doesn't remember when she even did that. It makes him laugh.
A/N: I swear this was only meant to be a drabble.
We'll Figure It Out From Here
This thing that they're doing kind of goes against every ounce of gentleman his mom raised him to be, even if he thinks that word doesn't mean nearly as much today as it used to.
It does to him, though, and he thinks that Sharon Carter is the kind of woman that would at least appreciate the sentiment.
So, yeah, his head is kind of telling him one thing but his gut is telling him another, and he's survived this long by going off of his gut, so that probably means a little more.
The first time it happens, it's almost too quick for him to catch. It's the first time he's seeing her since, well, everything, and the fact that it's at a Stark Industries party is ridiculous if you think about it, since they all know whose side the two of them picked when it all went down. Maybe Pepper forgot to have their names taken off of the default guest list, or maybe she was never told to, because he still gets invited to Stark Industries events and so does she, apparently, because she's here now and doesn't look as weirded out by it as he feels.
She smiles at him, looks genuinely happy to see him, and it feels nice. It's been a while since he's gotten that.
She's familiar enough that it feels comfortable walking up to her and having her step into his arms for a hug, but she's also kind of a perfect stranger still, and she's gorgeous, and he's not immune to the appeal of either of those things.
They pretty much only talk to each other for the rest of the night, and then she downs her champagne, takes his hand and asks him to take her home.
He tries to hold off. He lasts the cab ride to her place, but then she sort of tugs him down by his tie and kisses him in front of her door, so.
He cards his fingers through her hair as soon as they get inside, tangles it and totally ruins the up-do she had going on, but she lets out this noise and grasps the buckle of his belt as her back hits the wall, so he thinks she probably doesn't care. Her dress is made out of this fabric that clings to her skin but still stretches pretty easily, which he doesn't really get, but it makes it easier to bunch it around her hips and keep it place when he wants to put his hand between her legs. Fuck, they should really be doing this on her bed, or at least the couch or something and not against her wall. But also, she's kind of been pushing and pulling at him all night to see how much he would react, and now he's wound a little too tight right now.
He dips his hand into her panties and slides his fingers down her folds and she sucks in this gasp, digs her nails into his biceps and throws her head back as she breathes his name.
He makes her fall apart like this, her hips working against his fingers, and she's totally shaking and he's not sure how she's still balancing herself on her thin heels right now even with most of her weight against the wall. It's impressive, really.
"You okay?" he asks. Her head is tipped back and her lips are parted as she tries to catch her breath.
She's really, really gorgeous.
"Yeah," she says after a moment. Her cheeks are all flushed and her hair is kind of this beautiful mess around her face. "Yeah, just give me a second."
"Of course." He presses his head onto her shoulder and listens to her breathe. He kind of needs her right now, but if she needs to take a moment, he's going to give it to her.
Then her hands get his buckle undone, pushing his pants down in one quick motion, and he sort of yanks his head up and knows he's got this surprised little grin on his face because this laughter bubbles out of her when their eyes meet. "I said I only needed a second," she says, voice playful, and he breathes out a laugh of his own as he kisses her.
... ...
The morning after, he only sees her for a second, because he wakes up to find her already changed and slipping into her flats. She has a meeting or something, but she says he's welcome to the coffee she just made in the kitchen and tells him she trusts him to lock the door behind him, and then she grabs her purse and is gone.
She texts him not a minute later, and all she puts is a smiley face, but her contact is in his phone already and he doesn't remember when she even did that. It makes him laugh.
... ...
He sees her a week and a half later, because she goes to London with Nick for some kind of business and then Steve says that there's an extraterrestrial lead to be investigated in South America, so he goes with him and Natasha to check that out.
They've been texting, so it's not like things are weird between them after everything. They don't really mention that night, but, somehow, he gets that it's not her trying to avoid the subject or whatever. It just hasn't come up, and then she's the one inviting him out when they find out that they both have today off and neither of them have had lunch yet, so she suggests this Italian place he knows she loves because Natasha told him when he mentioned it by name. She also gives him this little smile that makes him wonder if Sharon might have said something to her about them. He doesn't even know if those two talk, but then again, Natasha and Maria are pretty close and he only found that out a few months ago, so.
Sharon is already seated when he arrives at the restaurant and she looks just as gorgeous now as she did the other night.
"So," she says. The waitress has already taken their orders and brought them their drinks and a basket of garlic bread, and Sharon rips a piece off and tears a bite out of that as she tries to put the words together in her head.
He laughs easily. "Look, this – thing, I guess – doesn't have to be anything if you don't want it to be."
She gives him this smile but looks a little bit surprised. Yeah, he put some thought into this, and really, they weren't exactly friends before they slept together, but he kind of wants a chance to get to know her because he thinks they'd get along pretty well. He doesn't mind taking a dozen steps back and starting where they probably should have, anyway.
"You really are sweet," she says. She sounds like she's finishing a thought from before, but he doesn't ask what it was. "But that's kind of the opposite of what I was going to say."
He raises his eyebrows a little. "Really?"
She nods, pops a piece of bread into her mouth. "I mean, I want us to be friends. But I think that other night was pretty great." A grin tugs at his lips in response, and she just smiles a little more, too. "It's healthy, and honestly, after everything we both went through? I think it's what we both needed. So why not keep going with it for a little longer?"
"We still barely know each other," he points out, because he feels like he should, considering what she's suggesting right now. Not that he's against the idea all that much.
She arches an eyebrow. "Is that going to be an issue?"
He should probably say yes. It almost sounds like a trick question, except, somehow, he can tell it's not.
"Nah," he answers, and she smiles like that's exactly what she'd wanted to hear.
... ...
It takes another week for him to see her again, because their schedules are crazy and that's just how it's going to be for a while, he thinks. He's an Avenger and she's pretty much one too, though she still works frequently with the CIA. They both like it this way, even if that means neither of them has much of a life when they're not on an assignment, but that's not a problem for any of them, really. Hell, he lives with Steve and sometimes doesn't see the guy for a couple of days. That's just how it goes, and sometimes it sucks, but they deal with it.
He's been on edge lately, but it's not because of anything in particular. It just happens sometimes because the job is so unpredictable.
He likes that Sharon is on the same page, or can at least sense that he needs a distraction when he's over for dinner, because she stops him in the middle of pouring her a glass of wine, kisses him with her hips pinning his to the edge of the kitchen counter and says he has twenty minutes before the delivery guy comes with their pizza.
He goes down on her right there in the kitchen, because he's wanted to ever since that first night, and the smile she gave him when he asked if he could was her sexiest yet.
"Shit," she breathes. He's still between her legs, looking up at her as she comes down from her high, and she's even prettier after an orgasm than he remembers. She tugs at his collar a little, so he stands up straight, hands smoothing over her hips.
"Good?" he asks.
She laughs. "Let me get some pizza in my stomach first, and then you're doing that again."
He chuckles, slides a hand down her thigh and squeezes her knee. He could definitely get used to this arrangement.
... ...
They text often enough (not exactly once a day, but pretty close) and he sees her in passing at the facility a few times a week, if the lag time between assignments overlap, which it usually does. But they haven't really hung out, unless you count the handful of times he's gone to her place for "dinner" and spent the night not even eating, which he doesn't.
She laughs a little when he mentions this, and it makes him chuckle, too, because he knows she isn't making fun of him or anything.
"Free time isn't exactly something either of us have a lot of," she reminds. She says it factually and that's exactly how he takes it, because it's true. That's kind of the whole point of this, them, other than, you know, actually being friends. Which they pretty much are at this point. He thinks he knows her well enough, even more than he's known other people he considered himself close to before, and yeah, the fact that they have sex probably has a lot to do with that. But he mostly just enjoys her company and he'll take it any way he can.
Tonight she came over to his place for the first time, which is mainly because she lives alone and he lives with Steve and it's easier to have her place to themselves than it is to have his, especially at the hours of the night they hang out in. Also, Sam hasn't told Steve anything about this, and that isn't because he's ashamed or something else ridiculous like that. They're both adults here, and they're not doing anything wrong. This just isn't really the kind of thing someone brings up in casual conversation, either, he thinks. Sam doesn't even really know what to consider their situation, and as much as he's confided in Steve before, he's pretty sure there's some kind of line that should be drawn for this kind of stuff, right?
Anyway.
It was almost midnight when Sharon came over, after some sort of dinner party Nick convinced her to go to, and he hadn't been expecting her to show up on his doorstep, but he wasn't exactly complaining.
Their wine glasses are still outside on the coffee table, barely touched, and the navy blue dress she wore is on the floor somewhere, and she looks really pretty right now with her curls fanned out over his pillow and his white sheets tucked up around her shoulders. She has her eyes closed, this soft smile on her face. He doesn't think he's seen her so relaxed.
"Not that I don't want to go out with you," she adds a moment later, almost as an afterthought.
He slides his hand over her stomach under the sheet. "Yeah?" he asks. She hums in reply. "We'll find time eventually. The job just comes first."
"The job comes first," she echoes.
He flexes his fingers over her skin, dipping downward, and she sucks in a breath, eyes fluttering open to meet his. "Just not right now," he says, and then feels himself smiling a little too widely when she arches off of the bed a little, hips nudging against his fingertips.
... ...
He takes a bullet to his shoulder in Colombia, and it's nothing that serious, really. He's been hit worse, and all he needs is a few stitches and a bit of rest and he should be fine. Steve tells him to take it easy, says that he actually has the luxury of taking time off so the thing can heal so he might as well take it. Sam isn't going to argue with that.
Sharon lets herself in sometime in the afternoon, and he thinks that maybe he ought to have a key made for her so she doesn't have to pick the lock whenever she comes over.
He's on the couch with a bottled water in hand and the TV turned onto some special on the Discovery Channel that he's not really watching, and she slides herself onto his lap, legs straddling him as she slants her lips over his. He hums into the kiss, smooths his free hand over her hip and squeezes a little, and she presses her hands flat against his shoulders. She's being careful with his injured shoulder, he can tell, and he can feel her fingertips gently tracing over the edge of the bandaging that's poking out from under the V of his shirt.
"Poor baby," she says, and he breathes out a chuckle. He knows she's teasing.
He also knows that she's been on the road for at least four hours because she had a meeting in Washington DC, and when she called him earlier to find out how he was, he told her he was fine. He wasn't expecting her to stop by today because he figured she'd want to get some rest.
She gives him this smile when he tells her this, too, like he's sort of missing something. "I can rest just as easily over here," she tells him. "Unless you'd rather I leave."
"Stop," he laughs, bringing their lips back together. She sets a hand against his face and nips at his lower lip. "Thanks for coming over."
"Where else would I be?" she asks, eyes sparkling as she arches an eyebrow at him. He wonders if she can feel his heart thump in his chest with the way they're pressed together.
... ...
They get put on the same mission in Rome, investigating traces of extraterrestrial chemical signals that had been caught on their radars. They're given three days to get the job done before the discretion of their assignment is compromised, and he and Sharon do it in two. They sniff out the smugglers the same day they land and track them down to their lab, and they're in and out with the chemicals and a hard drive of their research the next day. Nick gets them a sooner flight, but that still isn't until noon tomorrow, so they're not in any rush.
Part of him wants to do a little bit of sight-seeing, but that'll be too much of a risk with Hydra still in the city, especially when they discover their lab was cleaned out.
Sharon orders them dinner from room service, and they eat with the TV turned onto some Italian drama that he doesn't understand, but she does, mostly, so she translates it to him for a little bit until they get carried away talking about other things.
He gets a little chocolate smudged on his lips when they finish dessert, and she licks it off of his lips, then pulls back just enough to meet his eyes.
He's pretty sure they shouldn't be doing this on an assignment, even if, technically, theirs is already over, and the time between now and their flight is entirely theirs.
She's kissing him again before he can think too much about it, and she sucks down on his bottom lip, sort of scrapes her nails down his chest through the thin material of his shirt, and he knows she's distracting him. He also knows that he's not an idiot. If he and Sharon have this hotel room and a night in Rome to themselves and this is how she wants to spend it?
He's got no complaints.
He tugs her back into the room, pushes her pants down her legs and presses her against the mattress, and she lets out this yelp as he licks right up her center.
She curses in Italian and it's one of the few words he does know, so he breathes out a laugh, presses her legs a little further apart and listens to the foreign syllables roll off of her tongue as his circles her nerves, her fingers digging into the duvet.
She's still sort of shaking from her orgasm when his length brushes against her folds, and she sucks in a breath, eyes flying open to meet his. He braces his elbows against the mattress, holds her gaze as he waits for her to collect herself, but she tips her head up and kisses him, hard, and that's all he really needs before he's pushing into her.
"Fuck," she breathes. It would probably take him nothing at all to make her come again, and he kind of really wants to, so he brings his hand between them and she gasps his name.
There's nothing that can really compete with how beautiful she is in the midst of an orgasm, but the smile she gives him right after she's coming down from her second one, her cheeks all flushed and her hair this elegant mess around her face – it comes pretty damn close.
He really, really needs to move his hips after feeling her fall apart around him, but he wants her to catch her breath first, so he presses his face into the mattress by her neck and swallows in an attempt to reign himself in. She takes this moment to roll them over, though, and he lets out this breath as he ends up on his back, her legs straddling his hips and her hands braced against his chest. He opens his eyes to find her smiling at him, her messy curls falling over her shoulder, but then she starts moving and he's squeezing his eyes shut.
He feels her bend forward, breath warm against his ear as she says, "Your turn," and this throaty laugh falls from his lips. She's going to be the death of him, really.
... ...
He and Steve take their morning run together for the first time in at least a week, if not two, and neither of them have anywhere to be today unless they get a call, so Steve says they should grab breakfast at this place a few blocks down from their building. Of course Sam is on board, and after they've showered in their separate bathrooms, Steve tells him Natasha might meet them there, which Sam doesn't mind. He thinks the last time they spent any decent time together was on their mission in Cabo two weeks ago, so it'll be nice to see her.
Natasha already has a table when they walk into the restaurant, and she's not alone, either.
Sharon is sitting across from her, sipping on her iced tea. She's in these little shorts that make her legs look even longer, somehow, and this blouse he knows he's seen in her closet before, but it looks even better on her, obviously. Her hair is up and her cheeks are a little flushed from the heat.
He's really glad to see her.
"Hey," she greets, grinning as he settles into the seat next to hers. She's got an elbow on the table, her chin in her hand. She looks as gorgeous as ever.
"Hi," he says. He didn't think he'd get to see her until the weekend because she was supposed to be in Texas. He doesn't mind the change in plans at all, though.
A waitress comes by to take their orders, and Sharon pushes her glass towards him a little without him even asking, and he grins and takes a sip of her iced tea. It takes them twice as long as it should to get through their food because the four of them are so busy talking, but nobody seems to mind that they're taking up a table, so it's fine. He sees Sharon eying his plate at one point, so he cuts off a corner of his waffles and slips it onto her plate, and she gives him this little grin before spearing it with her work and taking a bite. He leans back a bit when he's done, stretches his arm over the back of Sharon's chair, and more than once his hand ends up on her back or her shoulder just because, but she doesn't seem to mind it.
There's an outdoor mall a few blocks down from the restaurant that Steve suggests they check out since the weather's so nice, and he and Steve walk a few steps behind Natasha and Sharon. The two of them are walking pretty close together, laughing about something, and it's pretty cute.
"She seems happy," Steve comments.
Sam grins. "That's because you two finally stopped hiding and got together," he reminds with a bit of a laugh. "You're both happy."
Steve lets out a laugh. "Thanks, but I was actually talking about Sharon." Sam looks at him and Steve has this knowing grin on his face. "You're good for her. No surprise there."
"Yeah?" he asks.
Steve nods, tucks his hands into his pockets. "Whatever you're doing, it's working."
Sam shrugs his shoulders a little. "I'm not really doing anything. I'm just going with what feels right, you know?"
"And it feels right?" He knows Steve well enough to hear the real question, though. She feels right?
"Yeah," he says, feeling his lips tug into a smile of his own. He can see Steve smiling in his peripheral, but his eyes are on Sharon. "Yeah, it does."
... ...
He offers to pick her up from the airport when she mentions that she has to fly out to Florida for the day and won't be getting back until late. He doesn't usually like staying up, but he doesn't tell her this when she asks if he's sure he doesn't mind, and he figures he can sleep in and skip his morning run this once. It's kind of worth it when he sees her coming down the escalator from Baggage Claim, her expression brightening when she spots him. Her jacket is huge on her, unzipped and sort of falling off of her shoulders. It's actually pretty cute.
He takes the strap of her duffel off of her shoulder and hooks it onto his, and she blinks her long lashes at him.
"Thanks for coming," she says, smiling softly, and he sort of doesn't know how to respond for a second. She's gorgeous and he's always thought this, so he doesn't know why it catches him off-guard a little right now, but it does.
"Any time," he tells her, and then he slides his hand over her back as they fall into step. He just felt like he should, so he did, and she doesn't seem to mind.
She invites him to come up when they get to her building, and he pauses for a second, because he kind of figured she would want to go to bed right away. He know she wouldn't have even asked if she didn't want him to, though, so he tells her yes and she stays in the car rather than getting out and heading upstairs while he circles back around to find parking.
She pours them each a glass of wine, and he sits next to her on the couch, her body angled towards him and her legs tucked up under her as she sips on her chardonnay.
"Long day?" he asks. She doesn't seem all that exhausted, but she's definitely a little tired.
She shrugs a shoulder. "I've had longer," she says, and he breathes out a laugh because, yeah. He knows the feeling.
"Well, I'm still sorry to hear that."
"It's alright. I'm better now," she says, and then sort of tilts her head at him, hair falling around her face. He smiles at her and sips his wine.
They talk a little longer about nothing in particular, because she makes small conversation and he likes hearing her voice, so he just goes along with whatever thought crosses her mind. They've been texting, of course, but obviously he prefers this to talking over the phone. Her sentences are a little all over the place, when usually her texts are perfectly put together, and it's not that she sounds any less smart in person, but it feels more real, he thinks, listening to her pause and sort of trail off and trying to figure out what she's saying.
He also thinks that she has a really, really beautiful voice, and he just really likes getting to hear it.
"What?" he asks, because she's smiling at him in this way he's never really seen before, and he likes it, so he wants to know what it's about. He wants her to keep doing it.
She shrugs her shoulder a little again. "Nothing," she says, holding his gaze. "I'm just glad I got to see you tonight, is all."
She's usually the one to make the first move (this is entirely on her terms and has been from the beginning), but he sort of has to kiss her right now. So he does, and she reaches for his shirt with her free hand, gripping the material with her fingers as she parts her lips for him.
This time feels a little different, he thinks, and he thinks that maybe she feels it, too, because she sort of holds onto him a little tighter than she usually does. She lets out this little whimper against his lips when they're on her bed and he has his hands between her legs, fingers working slow strokes, matching the way his tongue presses against hers. It's unlike their first time, which had been hot and heavy against her wall that first night, but when she falls apart, hips working against his hand, he can tell it's just as intense. Then he's sinking into her and her back arches off of the bed, body still shaking, and he takes his time, musters every ounce of control and rolls his hips in slow circles as she's whimpering his name.
She keeps her arms around him after, eyes closed as they catch their breaths, and he presses his forehead to hers and kisses her lips gently.
"Sam," she sighs, sounding content, sounding happy. He pulls out slowly, and she's still so, so sensitive that this is enough to make her body jump, this little mewl falling from her lips as she shakes her head ever so slightly. "Sam."
"I'm right here, baby." It's the first time he's called her that, but it feels natural. He likes how it sounds. "Right here," he repeats, kissing her lips again.
She's sort of on top of him when she falls asleep, head pressed against his shoulder, breath warm against his skin, and he drifts off to the sound of her steady breaths.
... ...
He feels her fingers tracing over his skin as he's waking up the next morning, and he blinks his eyes open, squinting against the sunlight that's filtering in through the gap in the curtains. She sort of shifts on top of him, folds her arms over his chest as she lifts her head, curls falling over her shoulder and down her back as she smiles at him.
He could definitely get used to her being the first thing he sees in the morning, eyes blinking all slowly as she shakes off sleep, a content smile on her lips.
That's how he knows that there's no going back now, but honestly? He probably hit that point a while ago.
He slides his hands over her hips, squeezing gently. Her eyes are sparkling. "Sharon, would you like to go out on a date with me?"
She laughs, and it's without a doubt his favorite sound.
She dips her head down and kisses him, softly, slowly, this hum coming from her throat. It's all the answer he needs, really, but then she pulls back a little and says, "I was wondering when you'd finally ask," against his lips and he breathes out a laugh, kissing her a little harder.