notallthosewho-wanderarelost:

I rewatched Civil War a few months ago, and I’ve been meaning to make this post ever since. It’s been sitting half-finished in my drafts for at least 2 or 3 months.

I want to point out something in Sharon’s interactions with Steve and Sam. It’s never actually said explicitly, but everything about how they interact implies that Sharon has spent considerable time with both Steve and Sam between TWS and CW. Possibly they were all running missions together, or maybe she was helping them try to track down Rumlow and/or Bucky, but that’s heading into speculation territory.

The first and most important thing is that when Steve and Sam are at Peggy’s funeral, when Sharon gets up on the podium to deliver Peggy’s eulogy, Steve is looking down and Sam nudges him to look up. Sam clearly recognizes Sharon and is surprised to see her there, and just as important, he thinks Steve needs to know she’s there. Which means he knows Steve is interested in her. It’s not a “hey, pay attention” kind of nudge, that would be unnecessary and OOC for Sam, who’s a counselor and knows when people need their space. Steve is grieving and Sam knows that; it’s very clearly Sam wanting Steve to specifically see Sharon. But how would Sam recognize Sharon when he didn’t meet her during TWS? And how would he know about Steve’s feelings for her? The only answer that makes sense is that all three of them spent time together doing something. (Possibly also with Natasha, but that’s neither here nor there.) And it would have to be enough time for Sam to pick up on Steve liking Sharon, so it wouldn’t have just been a chance meeting in the hallway or a quick passing-on of information. Steve might be awkward but he’s not that awkward anymore, Sam wouldn’t have picked up on his liking Sharon from a two-minute business-like interaction like an info drop.

Second, not as obvious, but the scene after the funeral and after Steve and Sharon’s chat by the elevator, when Steve and Sam see the Vienna explosion on the news and Sharon gets the phone call to go to work, the three of them coordinate way too well for that to have been the first time they all interacted. The way they’re all standing together and the way they move around each other suggests that they’re comfortable with each other. And the same goes for all their other scenes together. There’s the scene where Sharon passes Steve the file, the one where she gives Steve and Sam their equipment back (they would’ve had to easily be able to get in touch with each other to set that up, or have had a protocol in place for where and when to meet), and especially the ones at the Task Force HQ, where Sharon tells Sam and Steve what their political status is and helps them figure out what’s going on with Bucky. They all work so well together, not just physically but also intellectually, in figuring out Zemo’s plan, that they had to have spent time together to have that kind of teamwork.

(As an aside, Sharon’s tag team with Natasha during their fight with Bucky also suggests that that friendship has carried over from comics too. Which makes a ton of sense, they were both SHIELD agents and their personalities mesh well together. I really hope we see more of their friendship on screen at some point, because it’s great. And ditto for Sharon and Sam.)

So what does all this mean? It means that all the people who say Steve and Sharon’s relationship came out of nowhere just to “prevent Steve and Bucky from being gay” are ignoring not just all of Sharon’s development and all of Steve’s interactions with her in TWS, but also a lot of things in CACW too. Should it maybe have been more obvious, and should Sharon have had more development, both on her own and also with Steve? And with Sam, Natasha, etc. Yes, of course. But it was also clear enough that the only way it could’ve been more clear was if they had explicitly said it in dialogue. IMO people who say there was no development at all for Sharon or for her relationship with Steve aren’t seeing it because they don’t want to.