Avengers: Endgame Writers Reveal There’s Was a Captain America and Sharon Carter Relationship in Early Script Draft

Avengers: Endgame brought the first volume of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to a rousing and beautiful close – but that doesn’t mean the film was able to neatly wrap up every single MCU storyline in a neat little bow. A lot of fans have raised their voices about one character in particular who was missing from Endgame‘s story: Sharon Carter (Emily VanCamp)!

Well, thanks to Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame writers Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus, we now know that Sharon Carter actually did appear in earlier script drafts:

During an interview with Yahoo, McFeely and Markus were describing the exhaustive process of exploring story ideas then shaving them away, in order to get the tightest and most propulsive story they could for both Infinity War and Endgame. That’s when McFeely revealed the following about the role Agent 13 / Sharon Carter almost had:

“…but again, cast your mind back to ‘Infinity War’: Anything that was not about Stones, Thanos, ‘We’re in trouble – this propulsive narrative – got jettisoned. We tried to sew up all sorts of things; we had first drafts where Steve was living with Sharon Carter, and it wasn’t going very well.”

It’s hard to pinpoint from the conversation whether this domesticated Captain America idea was part of the early ideas for Infinity War or Endgame – but either way it would be an awkward fit. Infinity War as a major bridge between the finale of Captain America: Civil War and Steve Rogers’ “Nomad” phase with his ‘Secret Avengers’ squad. Seeing Cap settling down after the commitment he made in Civil War would’ve been jarring, to say the least. Endgame would have been harder to fit Sharon into, thematically, as Cap never settling down and building a life (like Tony) was a major part of the character arc. It would’ve been downright awkward if Endgame started with Steve being romantically linked to Sharon – only to end up jumping ship and settling down with her great aunt Peggy in the 1940s by the end of the film. In fact, that would’ve been an awkward arc for Cap across the entire Infinity War / Endgame saga, so it’s perhaps a good idea that Sharon Carter was kept on the bench.

Sharon Carter still is a fan-fav MCU character, after we saw her cunning, skill, and patriotism on full display during her debut in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. However, since then, we’ve only seen her and Steve Rogers / Captain America share a passionate kiss in Captain America: Civil War – one of several MCU plot threads that ultimately went nowhere. That doesn’t mean Agent 13 is done in the MCU: in fact, it’s recently been announced that Sharon Carter we’ll be featured in the Disney+ Falcon and Winter Soldier TV series, along with Daniel Brühl returning as Civil War villain, Zemo.

Avengers: Endgame and Captain Marvel are now in theaters. Spider-Man: Far From Home hits theaters on July 2nd. Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3 is slated for release in 2021.