A/N: I ship it.
When it is dark enough, you can see the stars. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
It's his luck, being less of a man and meeting her—Peggy Carter, more than a woman.
She's a hero, and there are stars behind her eyes.
(Stars in her heart, too, now and forever—stars and stripes, and the captain who saved so many people he didn't have time to save himself).
(Sousa's not a bad guy. He served his country and he loves his friends and he does his duty, but really, how do you compete with that?)
He hates how the others treat her. Hates the sneers, the sarcasm—worst of all, the disregard. He admires her more every time she lifts that angled chin of hers, tells him that what matters to everyone else isn't what matters to her.
He'd like to believe that. Like to believe that the limp doesn't matter—and worse, knows that that's not what makes her overlook him. Peggy sees him as a friend, as an equal. But the war took something from everyone, and maybe Peggy left her hopes somewhere before the war was won.
It isn't that he couldn't love her. It's that he doesn't think he should.
And West goes Sousa, to a land of sunshine and shadow, with stars in his heart and all around him, but none behind his eyes.