Sharon wasn't a big party girl, especially after the Snap. Too much happened, she had to adjust to so much change in such a small time. Wasn't great for a former spy turned enemy of the state to return to a strange place after disappearing for five years with half the population. However, she was told she needed to make an exception for this party at the newly rebuilt Avengers Campus. She couldn't exactly tell Nick Fury and Maria Hill to fuck off, especially when they made sure she was pardoned for her crimes and even thanked by the President for aiding and abetting Captain America.

The Avengers were back together – sort of. Steve apparently broke a few time travel rules when he returned the stones to where they came from. He may have told 2012 Tony about what was going to happen and to figure out someway to keep the gauntlet from killing him so he can watch his daughter grow up. He also somehow managed to bring back Natasha. Luckily for them, the Time Variance Authority was more pissed over Loki escaping with the Tesseract in 2012 and creating a million alternative timelines than Steve saving two Avengers from an untimely (and unfair) death.

"If you plot your escape too early, you'll miss Thor and Rocket's party games," Clint said as he walked next to her and handed her a new drink. "Rocket's a hoot, especially when he tries to steal Bucky's arm."

"A hoot you say," Sharon smirked. "I guess I'll just have to take your word for it."

"You could stay," Natasha said as she joined her former S.H.I.E.L.D. colleagues. "Not just for the party. The team could use you around here. Most of us are retiring anyway."

"I don't know."

"I could use you around here," she said quietly, causing Sharon to pause her retort. Clint left the two to go talk with Nebula and Rhodey.

"Nat," Sharon said with a sigh. "It's not that simple."

"You've been pardoned. We all were fucked by the government and on the run up until the Snap. Hell, I died and all I got was a bench thrown in the river by Banner that no one bothered to scoop out. You're not the only one who has a grudge."

"I know, it's not that," Sharon said and downed her drink, waving Natasha over to the bar to grab the good stuff she knew Tony hid on the bottom shelf. She poured them each a drink and Natasha waited patiently for Sharon to continue. "I know Steve made a pit stop before returning the Soul stone."

"He did."

"He went back to Peggy. He told her everything, including how he could stay with her and they could finally have a chance together. He almost stayed until he slipped and told her about me," Sharon explained and watched Natasha's face stay neutral as ever. Steve told Natasha all this already, Sharon was sure of that by the way she was assessing the conversation. "She made him come back to this time and continue living his life here because if he stayed in the past, he'd continue to be a man out of time."

"How specific," Natasha mused. "You know this all how?"

"She wrote me a letter," Sharon said, pulling the letter from her pocket and dropping in the on the bar. She's had it on her every day since she found it in one of the books Peggy loved to read to her when she was a kid. Sharon had been cleaning out one of Peggy's many homes when it felt from the back of the book. She had been planning on confronting Steve about it, but she couldn't do it. It just made her angry (and heartbroken if she was being honest with herself) every time. Natasha picked it up and started reading it quietly.

"I did tell Steve to talk to you," Natasha said quietly when she handed the letter back. "You and Peggy were too close for her not to tell you something like that."

"He can't just trade Carter women depending on how he feels and which one wants him in that timeline," Sharon said with a scowl.

"He wasn't doing that," Natasha said. "He was in a bad place."

"We all were."

"I was dead, yes," she said with a smirk. "He's wrong, and your anger isn't misplaced."

"I'm sensing a 'but' and I don't know how much I like reasonable you," Sharon said with a sigh.

"But," Natasha grinned. "We lived for five years without a lot of people important to us – him especially. Bucky, Sam, you – all of you were gone. Then when we finally have hope, he loses two more friends in this grand plan to save everyone else? There's only so much trauma a super soldier can take. Plus, your anger has skewed your understanding of the letter. She didn't make him go back, he made the decision on his own."

"So I'm just supposed to forgive him for going back in time and trying to become my great-uncle after everything we went through on the run," Sharon asked and Natasha had to agree she made a point. "He went back in time knowing damn well we had sex many times, and that if he married Peggy I'd be his niece in some alternate timeline he decided to selfishly create."

"Yeah when you put it like that, that's totally fucked up, you're right."

"Plus he's been staring at me all night," Sharon said as she caught him again. "Hey Rogers, I don't know if time travel melted your brain, but staring is still fucking rude!"

"She's pissed," Bucky said quietly as he sipped his drink and looked at his friend who had the decency to blush when he got caught staring. "Can't imagine why."

"She knows," Steve said with a sigh.

"Oh, that wasn't a question," Bucky smirked. "Of course she knows. I didn't actually mean for you to take all the stupid with you. That was just a funny thing we say."

"I didn't actually stay, that should count for something."

"You don't know what Peggy told her, man," Bucky told his friend, who looked shocked. "Come on. You only told me and Nat about your lapse in judgment. I didn't say anything and Natasha didn't say anything. How else would she know?"

"She's really good at guessing?" Steve tried but winced at his friend's face. "Well, then I should really just hang it up and go into hiding. Live out the rest of my life in a cabin."

"It's not the worst place to live. Until your peace and quiet is disturbed by former fugitives who show up and start talking about time travel and the quantum realm," Tony said as he walked next to Steve. "Agent 13 seems very displeased by your presence. Didn't you two used to bone? Was it not good for her? It's very important to keep your lady happy in the bed in the 21st century, Steve. Can't do the ol' pump and dump in two minutes anymore."

"Tony," Steve said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Not the right time."

"I caught the end of that and I don't even want to know," Natasha said with a disgusted look on her face. She smacked Steve hard on his chest and when he looked down he saw there was a piece of paper there. "I'm not playing the middle man between you two."

"Are we in second grade passing love notes in class," Tony smirked.

"Oh, it's much worse than that," Natasha said, her eyes not leaving Steve. "You did a really dumb thing. You hurt my friend. You made shit real weird."

"I know."

"She's angry with good reason. You should take a look at that," she said before turning to Bucky and Tony. "Sharon already dug into the good liquor, so might as well finish the rest."

"Damn Carter women," Tony said with a smile. "Peggy used to drink my dad clean out of his top shelf too."

Steve decided to call it a night so he didn't piss off Sharon anymore, and he was tired of the looks he was getting himself from the rest of the group. He laid the letter on his nightstand and sat down on his bed, putting his head in his hands. He didn't plan to do what he did. It was an after-thought, really. He needed help returning the Tesseract and he remembered where Peggy's office was. He was so overwhelmed when he was explaining to her what was going on as she held him at gunpoint. It all came out in a jumble, he wasn't thinking when he said he'd go back further in time once the stones were returned to be with her. He lost so much, he was nervous about what would actually happen if he put the stones back – if everyone would disappear again. He told her how he lost Bucky again, how Tony had died saving everyone, how he collapsed when he heard Sharon was dusted with the rest of the people he loved.

He looked over at the letter that he didn't want to read, but knew Natasha gave it to him for a reason. He wanted to figure out a way to fix things with Sharon. Maybe this was the start. He opened it up and smiled at the familiar cursive.

My dearest Agent 13,

It's strange to be writing this to you right now, but I feel that I must before my memory truly disappears. You've just joined S.H.I.E.L.D. and you're going to do the most amazing things during your time there. One of those amazing things you'll do is meet Steve Rogers. You'll protect him, stand by him, and maybe fall in love with him. I know he's fallen in love with you, and unfortunately I won't have the opportunity to find out if those feelings are reciprocated.

Steve showed up in my office in the 1970s one day, and he was telling me the most fascinating story. That he needed help returning the Tesseract that Tony Stark took, so he had no idea where it came from or how to get it back. How time travel existed and that he could go back to the '40s so we could be together. How a being from outer space gained the ability to make half the world's population disappear into dust. How Bucky Barnes was one of the lives taken, how someone named Sharon was one of those lives taken. When he mentioned you, he seemed shocked to even had said your name, like he was trying to avoid to do that because it hurt to say it. I wasn't sure why, until he told me Sharon was you – my niece. It was like a dam broke and he started to tell me everything about you, how wonderful you are, how headstrong and stubborn, how beautiful.

He glowed when he started to talk about you, and was utterly devastated when he told me he had to go five years without seeing you because of what this celestial being did. He didn't have to tell me that he loved you, even though he did say those exact words. I could tell you were someone so very important to him by the way he talked about you unprompted. When I finally lowered my weapon, he told me he wouldn't be able to meet me for that dance in the '40s after all. I was glad that he was able to come to that realization himself. He always said he felt like a man out of time when he came out of the ice. He would forever stay that man out of time if he went back in the past.

I do hope you didn't find this letter too early in life (or too late). I hope that when you're reading this, you have returned from the dust and you're settling back into the beautiful life you've built for yourself. I hope that your life experiences haven't hardened you more than necessary. I hope that in your heart, you realize that people make mistakes – even the great Captain America, because at his core he is still Steve Rogers, an awkward boy from Brooklyn who was a good man. Who is a good man. A good man that clearly loves you, even though he lets his past continue to haunt him and blind him from what he has in the present.

You deserve to feel however you feel toward him. Hell, I shot at him for much less in my day. But darling, never feel like you're a replacement for me. Never feel that you're second best. I was never an option for him, not really. I was not the Carter he was destined to be with. I was just a way for him to prepare for the Carter woman he'd meet in the future. I was an ideal he held on to because he was so lost. He was more lost than I've ever seen him when he traveled to the past, and the fear I saw in his eyes was something I had never seen before. I hope he finds what he's looking for so he's no longer lost. It's not back in the 1940s. It's in your time – and hopefully with you.

Whatever you choose, I'm proud of you. I love you, and I want the very best for you. You've never let the Carter name affect your decisions, don't let it now.

Love always,

Aunt Peggy

P.S. – Enemy of the state of aiding and abetting Captain America? That's my girl.

"Well, shit," Steve said quietly as he wiped at his eyes.

Peggy didn't hold back anything, and she was spot on with everything she said. She was an ideal he held onto. A life he thought he should have had and was stolen from him. He never truly took the time to appreciate this second chance at life he was given, with friends who became family to him over time. He was constantly looking for the next fight and easily found it. After Thanos, he needed to learn how to settle and that scared him because all he wanted to do was settle with Sharon. He really fucked this up.

He was startled from his thoughts when he heard a knock on his door and saw the doorknob start to turn. He figured it was Bucky or Natasha, maybe even Wanda if she felt his thoughts and wanted to see if he needed to talk.

"Um, hi," Sharon said as she peeked her head through the door.

"Hey," he stammered. "You can, uh, you can come in."

"I just wanted to get my letter back," she said, looking down at her hands. "I know Nat gave it to you, so now you know why I'd like to stab you repeatedly."

"Oh, yeah. I just finished reading it," he said awkwardly, handing her the letter. "I'm sorry, Sharon."

"I'm sure," she nodded, folding it gently before putting it back in her pocket.

"You don't believe me."

"I don't believe that you're sorry for what you should be sorry for," she said and he looked at her questionably. He could tell she was drunk by the slight slur in her voice. "I think you're sorry that you got outed. I think you would have never told me that you tried to stay with my aunt, knowing the relationship we had. I think you would have tried to get back in my pants, and I would have let you if I didn't find that letter, and then I think we would have just continued the half-assed relationship we had on the run because you'd find some new excuse to not commit to me."

"I wouldn't have done that."

"Maybe not, but I'm not sure I can trust that," she said with a shrug. "It also felt great to know that you could tell Peggy that you loved me, but could never muster up the balls to tell me to my face."

"It wasn't fair for you to read that, you should have heard it from me," he conceded. "I do love you, Sharon. Not because of your name, not because I got caught. I love you because you are my world and losing you nearly destroyed me."

"And yet you still tried to leave after I was back."

"I don't have an explanation for that," he said, hanging his head. "I wish I did."

"Maybe you just wanted to compare me to my aunt some more. You never got to fuck her back then, so you wanted the opportunity so you could decide which Carter you wanted."

"Let's not be crass," he said and she snorted. "You're drunk."

"And you're a selfish asshole," she said, approaching him slowly and placing her hands on his chest.

"How are you getting home? I can drive you, or you can crash here and I can sleep on the couch," he said, taking her hands off his chest and holding them in his larger ones. "Maybe we can talk more in the morning."

"Maybe I'm done talking," she said and pushed up on her toes to kiss him.

He reacted on instinct and leaned into the kiss, cradling her head gently in his hands. Once the shock wore off, he pulled away from her and smiled sadly.

"Why don't you go to bed," he said softly as he moved further away from her. "You're welcome to anything in my dresser if you want to change into something more comfortable. Bathroom is over there."

Steve turned around and saw she had fallen asleep the minute her head hit the pillow. Her soft snores made him smile and remember all the times they shared a bed. He took off her shoes and put a blanket over her to make sure she was comfortable. He took one last look before shutting the door and heading into the living room.

Sharon woke up with a start. It took her a minute to get her bearings, she couldn't place where she was until she started to remember last night. She groaned as she sat up in Steve's bed. Her head was pounding and she was embarrassed. She didn't mean to kiss him, she was drunk and he was there. She hated that he still gave her butterflies.

Sharon grabbed the letter off his nightstand and placed it back in her pocket. She could stop carrying it around now, trying to muster up the courage to confront him. She was relieved a little bit that it was out in the open and over with, but now she had to face a whole new problem. She groaned as she stood up and looked at herself in the mirror. Her top was twisted out of shape from sleeping in it. She went to his closet and started to dig around for something to wear.

She looked down and saw a box in the corner that had her name on it. That must have been where all her stuff went. She started to feel the anger rising again. He couldn't even text her to tell her he had all her personal belongings, that everything she held dear enough to travel with wasn't gone.

She resisted the urge to scream as she yanked a sweatshirt off one his hangers, inadvertently choosing the one she always used to steal from him when they were together. She grabbed her stuff and stormed out of his room, stopping short when she spotted him in the living room. They just stared at each other, too nervous to be the first person to say anything.

"I borrowed a sweatshirt," she said to break the uncomfortable silence that started as they just stared at each other. She had to get back to the city, afterall. She couldn't stand around here all day. "I can mail it back when I get home."

"No worries," he said. "Uh, did you want …"

"No, I meant when I said I didn't want to talk," she said quickly. "I didn't mean to kiss you, I shouldn't have. I was clearly drunk."

"That's fine," he said, fidgeting nervously. "Maybe I can drive down to the city one day, to uh pick up my shirt?"

They stood in silence for a little longer. Sharon was having an internal debate whether she should go off on him or just leave. She didn't want this to fester, she wanted to move on, whether it was with or without him. She was tired of being angry, but the other option was too much to bear right now. She just didn't want to deal with his puppy dog stare and attempts to rebuild what he broke.

"Wanna know why I'm so angry," she said suddenly and Steve knew from her tone she didn't actually want a response from him. "It wasn't five years for me. It was maybe a month since we were last in my safe house together, planning our next steps. You talking about passing on the shield to Sam, giving all of this up so we could start over. Together. I was talking about how Madripoor has no extradition. Both of us in bed, savoring the time we had together until you got called away Edinburgh and then everything went to shit.

"Then I come back and find out five years has passed and I was presumed dead. I find out my best friend died in her effort to bring us all back, and that Tony Stark is dead. All my belongings are gone so I have to go to Peggy's house to piece my life back together," she says and then hears this maniacal laugh come out of her that she can't control. "That's when I find the letter, and I find out the man that I love went back in time and almost stayed with the woman I've been compared to my whole life once people find out who I am. That's why I'm angry, Steve. That's why it hurts to look at you, and if I don't hold on to the anger still I think I'll fall apart. I can't put myself back together again just yet."

Steve just stared at her, not even thinking about how time passed so differently for them. His never looked past himself and the five years he spent without her. How he had to go back to her safe house and pack up her belongings so they didn't go missing. How he stared at the box with her name on it in the corner of his room for years until Natasha convinced him to move it into his closet to stop torturing himself. He was so focused on finishing the mission that he didn't even seek her out after the battle was won to see where she reappeared, what she needed from him. He didn't even realize she was back in the States until Fury told him, and then his world just collapsed from the weight of realizing what he did and almost did. He really was a selfish asshole.

"I'm," he started but was cut off.

"Don't tell me you're sorry again, I know you are," she said as she quickly wiped at her eyes. "This isn't easy for me."

"The least I could do is give you a stamp to mail the shirt back," he said after a moment, and he smiled when he saw her lips slightly quirk upward before they settled back into a hard line.

"Fury and Hill are trying to recruit me for whatever they're planning," she said. "I'll be in Brooklyn, they bribed me with a brownstone but I'm holding out for some more until I say yes. Maybe when you're in the neighborhood you can pick it up, and drop off the box of my stuff that's in your closet."

hi all. this story is also posted on AO3.