Set after Civil War. Howard Stark's attempts at sending Agent Carter back in time to save Steve have ended up with her thrown forwards to the 21st century instead. A few days after her arrival to the present, Sharon, as her closest relative, gets the *honour* of taking her shopping for the first time, and drags Natasha and Wanda with her. (Sort of) hilarity ensues. The Staron kiss did never, ever, EVER, E-VER happen.
"Are you sure it's not completely over the top?"
"I'm a hundred percent sure Tony's fortune can endure you buying three lipsticks, Peggy," Natasha said, trying her best not to roll her eyes. She just lacked the patience one needs to accompany a fossil from the 1940s on their first trip to a modern shopping centre and, somehow, there she was, for the second time in her life.
"It's just… this one compliments my complexion best of all, but this one is a lovely shade, and *this* one" she rambled while almost poking their eyes with the thing in the heat of the moment, "is liquid lipstick and once it sets, it doesn't transfer, which means it stays on for hours! Even if you eat!"
"It really is fine, Aunt Peggy, you just pick them all three. Maybe have a look to see if there's anything else you need," Sharon interrupted what felt like the millionth time Peggy Carter, of all people, agonized over lipstick, of all things.
"This is your fault," Natasha accused.
"How is it my fault that my time-travelling aunt is a nightmare to go shopping with?"
"I told you! I knew! This is how they react to modern shopping. Everything they see is ridiculously expensive, they think modern clothing is crap, and they obsess with hoarding the weirdest things."
"Hoarding?", Sharon made a face.
"They've just been through a war, rationing and all. Steve More-than-Three-Pairs-of-Pants-for-a-Single-Winter-is-just-Obscene Rogers used to store a completely ridiculous amount of instant coffee and chocolate at home because what if we ran out of it. *We* meaning the United States. Do you know how long it took me to convince him the odds of that were not very high? And now that I've managed to make an almost normal and functional member of modern society out of him, we have another nutter from the Stone Age, this time obsessed with red lipstick. And you have dragged me into it. Your nutter, your fault."
The trip to the mall had not started very well, exactly in the same way Steve's first contact with 21st century shopping had gone wrong years before. For people who had just arrived from not a very fancy point in history, they were incredibly picky when buying clothes. Everything was too tight, or too baggy, too colourful or too black, and too expensive. Above all, everything was badly cut and sewn, and what kind of person would want to buy a coat that was obviously not even going to last through five winters. Thankfully, the moment they arrived into the drugstore section, Peggy stopped complaining about how disappointing the future was in textile matters to look like a kid on Christmas Eve. Only Wanda's intervention to distract the shop assistant had saved them from her persuading Peggy into buying a whole MAC counter.
Now that she thought of it, Natasha was almost sure at a certain moment while she was talking to Sharon, they had heard Peggy "is it fine if I also buy three of these?" and they had just nodded, not paying attention to what it was. She supposed they assumed it was eyeliner, or whatever. The idea of what "these" really was did not even cross their minds until the cashier was emptying their shopping bag. And now Wanda, Sharon and herself were whispering to each other behind the car while Peggy was taking a seat.
"I'm sorry, but I'm not giving the sex talk to a senior citizen," Wanda said.
"This is just not the kind of conversation you have with your time-travelling dead elderly aunt," Sharon protested. They both looked at Natasha.
"Won't do it, Carter. But I'll be happy to watch while you guys go for it. Is it too late to go back inside and buy some popcorn?"
Mortified did not even begin to cover the look on Sharon's face.
"What the hell does she think they are?", she hissed.
"That seems to me like a wonderful starting point to your chat about the three packets of condoms your great-aunt has treated herself to", Natasha raised her eyebrows and ran towards the car before Sharon had time to come up with a reply.
It was a surprisingly not awkward ride back home, with Peggy back in full professional Agent Carter mode wanting to ask about all the points her intense catching up with Shield paperwork in the previous two days had not clarified. Or maybe it was only non-awkward for Natasha, as she was not the one in charge of having a bees-and-birds conversation with a woman who had just come from the 40s.
Seeing no attempt to begin said conversation had been made by the time they had parked, she glared at Sharon on the rear view mirror.
"So, Aunt Peggy, what did you buy at the drugstore?", the poor thing cringed while asking.
She gave them an all-too-detailed account of her encounter with 21st century cosmetics only to finally reach for one of the little blue packets at the very end and show it with a triumphant smile: "and also this!"
Natasha looked at Wanda. Wanda looked at Sharon. She sighed.
"Aunt Peggy, do you happen to know what that is?"
"Of course, darling, it's a packet of prophylactics," she stated to everyone's surprise. "You use them to have intercourse and avoid venereal diseases and pregnancies. And these ones are so lovely! Steve bought some and you can barely feel they are there. So much better than those horrid thick things Barnes used to get us. Not that we weren't thankful, but…" she seemed to become suddenly aware of the astonished young women surrounding her. "How do you not know about this? I know the only sexual education for females in the army in my time consisted on teaching abstinence, but I hoped modern women would get much more information about this."
They assured her they were indeed informed, thankyouverymuch, and did not need for her to explain how things worked any further.
"It's just," Sharon admited, "I guess we assumed back in the 40s most of you guys did not… do anything till marriage."
"Oh, sweetheart! There were thousands of young people thrown together all over Europe who did not know if they would make it to the next day, let alone their wedding night. How do you think that worked out?"