the americans is such a good show filled with pining and angst and russian. what more do you need really need? i just wanted to write this short thing bc philip/elizabeth is like a dark twisty version of staron and i had to do it
Sharon looks the most like her old self when she's sleeping. When the lines on her face, the ones that he's watched her gain slowly over the years, smooth out. When she's not yelling at him or disappointed in him or ignoring him. So sometimes (more often than Steve would like to admit), he waits until Sharon's asleep next to him so that he can take the time to look at her like he wants to.
They hadn't always slept in the same bed. Steve remembers a time, when they first moved to the U.S., when Sharon flat out refused to be near him. They had sex on designated days in order to maximize the chance for pregnancy; orders from higher up, of course — Americans had two children on average. But Sharon liked to keep to herself. It would be harder to do that now with the kids around, but Steve doesn't mind. He knows that she does, though, which is why he sneaks into bed after she's fast asleep, if only to forgo another argument.
He watches her for as long as he can, her chest lifting up and down, up and down, until the rhythm lulls him to sleep, too.
Steve is always in awe of Sharon. The way that she can get people to trust her, to do what she wants. Daniel is a sidekick, a nobody, a spare set of eyes, as he and Sharon work. He's someone that the Center sent over for them to train, but sometimes Steve and Sharon get so into their own groove that they forget.
There's a flash of her pale skin through a window four stories above them, and Steve's off, taking out two men like clockwork.
Daniel's hit, a slip in Steve and Sharon's calculated cruelty, and Steve shoves him in the car and runs to start it before Sharon comes back down. He'll need to replace the plates later, maybe give it a new coat of paint sometime overnight. There's no way that someone hadn't seen or heard them.
Maybe he'll even ditch it altogether. The kids have been asking for something more stylish, anyway. They think that their dad's old car occasionally pulling up to their school is uncool. He pulls out the second Sharon jumps in, ignoring her incredulous stare after she gets a glimpse of Dan in the backseat.
"We have to drop him off at a hospital," she snaps. Unbelievable. Of course she's angry with him — when is she not angry with him?
"We won't make the drop-off," Steve grits, turning the wheel for a sharp right turn.
Sharon lets out a frustrated sound. "Stop the car." Steve does. They're partners. This is what they do, how they've always done things. Sharon turns to Dan in the back. "There's a hospital a block from here. You can walk. Don't tell anyone anything. You'll be fine." Dan says nothing. "Go."
Steve watches him limp away before slamming the gas pedal again. They miss the drop-off anyway. He watches Sharon in the seat next to him as she closes her eyes, letting out a soft sigh. She turns to him, and she's not angry.
Because that is Sharon. One minute she's holding a knife to his throat and the next she's swinging a leg over him in their wanted car, tugging down his fly and sliding onto him, and what else could he want? What more could he ever ask from her but this, the slick and heat of her, the softness of her mouth. The sounds that she makes.
He'll take it. Anything that she gives him, he'll take it.
"Ellie! Ian! Get down here or you'll miss your bus!" Sharon's making breakfast, the picture-perfect American wife. Steve's drinking coffee — always coffee, never tea — while he helps her pack their lunches.
Ellie's down first, a spitting image of her mother. It almost hurts, the way that Ellie reminds him of Sharon when she was younger. Her prim skirt and pink sweater, the intense intelligence in her eyes. She doesn't have the sarcasm quite down, yet, but she's getting there.
"Hey, kiddo," Steve greets her. Ellie rolls her eyes good-naturedly. She's getting to that age where it's embarrassing for kids to love their parents. Steve wants her to stay this age forever, just so that she can never grow up, never resent him the way that other children resent their parents. That's not the future that he wants for her.
Sharon studies them together, lips pursed. Ellie pretends not to notice.
"Where is your brother?" Sharon asks her. "Your father and I have to be at work early today."
"I'll get him," Steve offers. Sharon nods, absently setting the table. She's done it so many times that it's become a habit, one that Steve knows she's desperate to break. Despite it all, the way that she looks at the children while they're eating can't be faked. They're their greatest accomplishment, the children. Fifteen years of missions and this is the only honest thing that they have ever done.
Sharon kisses Ellie on the forehead before the kids run to catch their bus. The mask falls instantly from her face, but her love is still there.
She's tense, he can tell. Still upset about that night with Daniel. Steve had been out early this morning to use the payphone in the park, trying to see if Dan had made it to a hospital safe. There hasn't been any news yet, which probably means that he's dead.
Steve tries to loosen Sharon up, anyway, comes up behind her while she washes the dishes, but she whirls on him, knife in hand. It's such a contrast to how they are when they're sleeping, soft skin on skin, the slide of her nightgown against his bare legs. The knife is pressed up against his throat, a threat but not a meaningful one. He wants to dare her to just do it.
"Don't," she says, and that's the end of that.
They were only twenty when they met. So unbelievably young.
Mikhail Ivanovich had led Steve into an empty room to meet his new wife, and there she was, all — What? Ninety pounds of her? It couldn't have been more than that — blonde and beautiful and sad and strong.
And their handler telling them, no ifs, ands or buts about it—"It's better if you don't know each others' names. Your lives before this do not exist. You as you are do not exist. Steve Rogers, meet Sharon Carter."
Steve remembers the desperateness of their first night together, the newness of it. Air-conditioning, sheets that didn't itch his skin, the silk of her hair. Had she hated him right then and there, for wanting her and not knowing what to do to stop it? He would've hated himself, too. Still does.
For not being what she wants, for not doing this job the way that she wants him to. It eats at him and eats at him and he keeps doing it. Keeps going to "work" and hurting people on the side, lying and scheming and reporting it all back to the Center because it's his job.
She comes home, night after night, and expects him not to worry. Expects him to not get attached to her, to not care when she's hurt. But he does.
God, but he does.
Sharon comes home beaten and bruised and acts like it's nothing. He hears her rattling around in the garage and gets there before the kids do, in case something is wrong, and can't help the sound that escapes his mouth.
"What the hell, Sharon?"
Her top is torn, her neck is covered in bruises, there's a large bruise blooming on her left cheekbone, and her hands are covered in blood. She gives a new meaning to the phrase caught red-handed.
"It's nothing." She's so quiet. That's how he knows that it's not nothing. Sharon's holding back tears; not a first, but a rare occurrence. She is so brave and strong and he wishes that she didn't have to be. A beat. "I found him." Another. "And I killed him. He's in the trunk."
"Jesus."
Scraps. That is what she gives him. Scraps of love, scraps of herself, small moments when her vulnerability bleeds through and she can't stop them. He takes all of it, each tiny scrap, and hoards them like the desperate, hungry creature that he is.
Another unsuccessful day in the park. Steve comes home to the smell of something baking in the kitchen. Sharon calls out a hello.
"We have new neighbors," she tells him, like it's a briefing. "We're going over later to bring them brownies."
"That's nice."
"What did you tell them?" Steve hisses, angry beyond belief. He had trusted her, had loved her, and it had gotten them kidnapped and tortured by their own people. For what? He asks himself that over and over, wonders why they do what it is that they do. He would've died for the motherland in that room right along with her, if it had come down to it. For what?
"I told them that you liked it here too much."
Steve breathes in, deep and unsteady, before turning to face her again. "Is this because of what happened that night? Because I told you not to kill him? I knew it wouldn't matter. You killed him anyway."
"You're not my daddy," Sharon spits, awful and biting, the words chipping away at him like they always do. His eyes focus in on the cut on her lip, red and glaring. He wants to run his tongue over it, see if he can taste the bareness of her, the things that make her up, in her blood. "I can take care of myself."
Steve wants to hurt her back but he can't, he never can, he can only match her level of anger without the malice behind it. "No," he spits, chest heaving, "I'm your husband."
Their new neighbors are FBI agents, both of them, badges and all. Barnes and Romanoff. It's a Russian name, which is ironic on so many levels. (She hadn't changed her name when they married. Sharon smiles at that.) Steve wants to laugh at his luck, but he settles for smiling politely and accepting a beer.
Ian is incredibly excited. "That is so cool," he breathes at the dinner table. "My parents are just boring travel agents."
"Both of you?" Barnes asks, and Sharon nods.
"It's how we met."
"And you like it?" Natasha probes. "The travel business?"
"As much as you can like a job," Steve jokes, his smile tight around his mouth, the beer running down his throat. How are they going to lie their way out of this one?
"Ellie would be okay, don't you think?" Sharon asks this more to herself than to Steve, but he listens anyway. It's two days after The Incident. Steve capitalizes the words in his mind. It's the worst thing to happen to them this far, besides Sam.
Sharon's brushing her hair, a mundane task that he will never tire of seeing her doing. It grounds him in this moment, in this life. The fact that she still spends time on things like this when she could be doing so much worse. He raises an eyebrow at her, not really understanding.
"If something happened to us. She's adaptable. She could… figure things out. Help Ian. She's a lot like me that way." Sharon turns to look at him, the moment charged between them. He can't stop staring at her nightgown. He can't believe they let American women dress like this. (He's not complaining, though.)
"And Ian?" he asks Sharon, cocking his head.
She smiles a bit, ever the seductress. "He's more like you."
"And what does that mean?"
Sharon shrugs, placing the brush down and heading towards the bathroom. "He's quieter. Not as scary." Steve laughs. "Still dangerous, though." It's the closest thing to a compliment that she's ever given him.
Sharon sneaks into Ellie's room in the middle of the night on a whim. She can't stop thinking about it, after they were taken. She would've died. If it wasn't the KGB, if it wasn't a test, she would've. Sharon would never say anything to betray the motherland, and she'd die with honor, the way that she was taught.
And then she thinks of Ellie. Sharon shakes her awake, her daughter bleary-eyed and adorable, a beautiful, precious thing created from something ugly. Sharon loves her. Her and Ian. This is all that she will allow herself.
"Do you want me to pierce your ears?"
"Wha—?" Ellie sits up in her creased pajamas, her face red on one cheek.
"My mother pierced mine, when I was little. It doesn't hurt at all."
Sharon's daughter pauses, eyes curious. "Okay."
That night, when Sharon sneaks back into bed, Steve pretends that he hadn't snuck out right after just to follow her. He only watched for a second, though, before coming back to bed. He hadn't wanted to disturb them.
"Everything okay?" he asks instead, and Sharon nods, curling up on her side of the bed.
"Of course."
Daniel is dead and now they have a pregnant wife to deal with. The worst part of it all is that the pregnant wife isn't the worst part: it's him. Sam. Steve had stewed in silence, letting his anger simmer underneath the surface. He never asked Sharon where she went at night, never asked her about her other relationships. Sam was Sharon's first recruit. He'd never betray them, Steve knows that he wouldn't, but that doesn't stop him from hating the man anyway.
He knew that Sharon was careful, that this is how she dealt with the life that had been given to her. It had taken everything in Steve's power, after that night in the car, to ask her if she was still seeing him. It burned his throat not to say it, to wonder whether or not she was being faithful to him, because after all this time she was finally, finally letting him in.
It didn't stop Sam from being an asset, though, because now they're all in this safe house and Steve's trying to decode one of Daniel's messages and Sam's right there, right in front of his face.
It's a tense silence, worse than the silences that he has with Sharon. At least Steve can guess at what she's thinking. This is so much different. Harsher.
Sam breaks the silence. "Do you love her?" he asks Steve, and it's dangerous, because Sharon's in the next room and Steve can't breathe and his Russian and American are tangled up in his brain, a collection of thoughts and feelings that he doesn't know how to string together. Steve stays silent.
"Because if you don't," Sam says, "leave her be." Steve wants to protest, wants to speak, but he doesn't. He is a master of missed opportunities, an expert in waiting too long, a wonder of stolen feelings. "And if you do," Steve's head snaps up, "leave her be."
It is always this: her words, sharp as knives. Her eyes, even sharper. And Steve's heart, loud enough for the both of them.
The quiet settles in so immediately, after the kids go to bed. It startles Steve every time, no matter how much it happens. There's no use in them going to sleep. The rendezvous time is in an hour, they'll just be more tired if they go to bed than if they hadn't.
It's dark and the kids are in bed and what Steve wants more than anything, is to slide his hand over her stomach and pull her against him in their bed, and just be her husband, her husband.
Sharon makes coffee.
Such an American thing, coffee. Steve misses tea, misses his grandmother's tea before she died. Before everyone that he knew had died. Now he has to settle for the lukewarm piss that occasional dinner parties try to pass off as tea.
Sharon settles in on the couch next to him.
"It's over with Sam," she says. Steve says nothing. He is bone-weary; elated; exhausted; overjoyed. "I ended it, after that first night."
"Okay." Sharon sighs, takes a sip of coffee and frowns.
"I was so young when we came here," she tells him, like it's not something that he thinks about every second of every waking day. Her long skirt, her long hair, the way she looked at him and didn't hate him, not yet. "I joined the KGB when I was fifteen, I had just gone through training, and this was a new, scary, place. America," Sharon laughs, "the land of dreams."
This is new. Steve drinks it in, all of her expressions and the silences and catalogues them in his mind until the next time that they have a fight, until she stops sleeping with him (near him) again. He never wants to fight with her, but as long as she's still breathing, they're going to fight.
"I was young and Sam was there and it just happened. He was… there, and I was lonely, and it just happened." Steve nods, tries not to shiver as she wraps a hand around his wrist. "It never… happened that way for us." Her eyes search his, deep and dark. "But I think it's happening now."
thought it would be funny to make the actual russian spies american fbi agents instead lmao. anyway tell me what you think! hope this wasn't too purple prosey fake deep or whatever