Spoilers for Agent Carter season 2, episode 4, Smoke & Mirrors.
Camp is quieter than usual when Steve and his crew hike back in one sunny morning. The Alpine forest is lovely, as always, a rich flutter of green leaves under the clear blue sky. City-boy Steve has always found it hard to justify the tranquil countryside with the horrors of war around them.
The colonel takes their reports and waves them off, hurrying to meet the British unit that's just driven in, setting the quiet camp abuzz.
Once he's showered off four days of grime and put on a clean uniform, Steve knots his tie and goes looking for the face he's been missing since he got back. He usually finds Agent Carter in the communications tent, translating messages faster than all the other codewriters combined. But the young guy at the radio shakes his head. "She was here earlier, sir. But she stepped out when the British unit got here."
Steve scours the camp, but she's not in the mess tent, she doesn't seem to be in her own miniscule quarters, and one of the nurses goes into the ladies' facilities to check for her, but she's not there.
"I don't know, Captain." Nancy shrugs. "Did you check the fences? She sometimes goes to sit out at the perimeter when she wants a moment's peace."
So he follows the fences, picking his way through the rocky forest. Camp guards are stationed further in the treeline, so though the camp perimeter is as safe as the hospital tent, it feels entirely isolated.
"Peggy? Are you - oh."
Steve stops short, because Peggy's sitting on a rock, staring out at the forest. When she looks back, startled, she's hastily wiping tears away.
He's never seen her cry.
"Um. Did you need something?" she murmurs, trying to look away. "I didn't mean to disappear."
"Are you all right? Is something wrong?"
She takes in a long breath, and he sees a letter sitting beside her. "The unit that just came in - their commander gave me this. My brother wrote it."
Her brother?
"You have a brother?"
"Had." Her voice is so soft, he almost can't hear it. "I had a brother."
His heart sinks in his chest, a heavy weight pressing against his ribs.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked," he says quietly, looking down at his hands.
"It's all right. You didn't know." Peggy takes a deep breath, lacing her fingers together on her knees. "His name was Michael. He died at the front."
He wants to ask more, but stops himself. She clears her throat, though, smoothing her hand over the wrinkled, folded paper. "Commander Paulson had this for a long time, but he'd lost my address. He didn't know where to send it. He just gave it to me today. Michael had - left it. Just in case."
Steve has a sudden vision of pretty, innocent young Peggy, carefree and smiling in some perfect little cottage in England. A dark military car pulling up. A man getting out and pulling off his cap. The words I'm very sorry to inform you.
It hurts his chest.
"You know, Michael was the reason I came here?" She smiles sadly. "He always believed I should be out here, in the field. He recommended me to the SOE. And I turned them down at first."
"But - when you lost him -?"
She nods. "He was right. He was always right. You have to keep fighting. That's all you can do."
"He sounds like a good man."
Peggy lets out a soft breath, something that might be a laugh. "He was. You would have liked him."
She dabs at her eyes again, useless because she's still crying, and Steve fishes for the handkerchief he knows is in one of his pockets. He wants to help. He has to do something.
"Here."
She takes it with a grateful smile. "Thanks."
Maybe he should leave. Maybe she wants to be alone. She probably came out here so she could let herself cry in peace, after all.
He's desperate to do something, anything, but he's starting to understand that there are some things that even all the science in the world, every bit of muscle the chemists can cook up, can't fix.
There are times when everyone's helpless, no matter how strong.
"Is there - is there anything you need?" He holds his breath, waiting for I'd like a few minutes to myself, please.
But she looks up at him, even as tears stream down her cheeks.
"I could use a hug."
He catches his breath. "Oh."
Steve settles beside her on the rock, pausing for just a moment before he wraps his arms around her.
She sinks into him willingly, winding her arms around his neck and curling into his embrace, and it's so exquisitely, gently intimate that it makes him catch his breath. Peggy brushes her hand over his cheek, her thumb lightly tracing the line of his jaw, soft and warm. Her hair is soft against his neck.
She fits against him like his arms were made for her.
He's ready for the moment she pulls away, but she surprises him again, nestling against him like she wants to stay. She turns her face to his neck, and Steve holds his breath as her lips brush against his skin.
"Thank you, Steve," she says quietly.
"Of course."
"Do you mind if we stay here? Just a bit longer?"
"As long as you want," he tells her, catching her hand in his, squeezing gently.
Steve's comfortably aware that he's too close to falling in love with Peggy Carter.
And even if she doesn't feel the same way, there's no reason she can't be the best thing that ever happened to him.
He holds her close under the soft blue sky, and for a few minutes at least, there's nothing but this.