"that woman she's got eyes that shine"
It started, remarkably enough, with Peggy's hair.
Perhaps she was vain but she knew that it was eye-catching, thick and soft, and she kept it immaculate not only because of protocol but because it amused her to catch the soldiers watching her. So she kept her hair softly but carefully curled, but to do that it took some time to ready it at night.
She was just preparing for bed when there was a knock on her door. Startled, she turned on her cot and stood, picking up the pistol at her bedside stand as she did so. It was close to lights'-out and she never had visitors this late.
It did nothing good to ask who it was. It would only alert any potential adversaries that you were onto them. Carefully she grabbed hold of the doorknob and swung it open just as there was a second knock-
"Rogers!"
She felt abruptly wrong-footed and out of sorts as she looked down at the blonde-haired young man standing there gaping in the doorway. And he certainly was gaping, looking just as taken aback as she felt, and abruptly he flushed a deep red and backed away, tearing his eyes away from her state of casual dress.
"I- I'm sorry, ma'am, I really am- I'd been told that this was Doctor Erskine's room-"
A prank then, a tasteless joke brought about by his lewd bunk mates. Peggy's confusion and indignation melted away into something softened with pity. "Well, your bunk mates may be having a laugh at your expense," she said primly, "but we'll just have to have a laugh about it ourselves then. Doctor Erskine's room is five doors down." She smiled a little to lessen the tension in the air and stepped away from the door. "Won't you come in?"
He was back to gaping again, thrown by the improper request. "I shouldn't. We don't know each other, and Doctor Erskine-"
"Is currently working on modifying the serum in his lab," Peggy interjected gently. "But I know a little bit about how it works so I may be able to answer your questions. Please, come in."
He closed his mouth around any other further protests and did so, shuffling his feet as he did so. Closing the door, Peggy looked over her shoulder to watch him walk. He was so small, practically nothing more than a waif, and somehow still practically swimming in the smallest shirt they had found for him. But there was something remarkably beautiful about that physical frailty, too, that this young man who suffered from so many physical ailments would have such strength of character. A sense of self, but a selflessness there that spoke volumes if someone would only take the time to notice.
His jumping on the dummy grenade when all of the other men had hidden had proven exactly what Steve Rogers was made of. "So what was it that you wanted to speak to Doctor Erskine about?" She gestured for him to have a seat at her desk and she settled herself back onto her cot. With the ease of long practice she rolled a lock of hair around her finger and pinned it into place.
Steve seemed to have completely forgotten what it was he was wanting to ask because in stead of replying with a question he instead said, "My ma didn't need a mirror to do her hair either."
He was one who she had noticed staring during the day while training. Peggy smiled. "After doing it for so long, you grow accustomed to it." She rolled another lock of hair and pinned it. She thought quietly for a moment about the use of the past tense when Steve had mentioned his mother. "Tell me about your mum, Steve. What did she do? Was she a lot like you?"
The melancholy of remembering a lost loved one that had lined his face softened with a small smile. "She was- warm. I don't know, I always seem to associate her with a warm summer day. I was always told I took after her in looks- I got her blue eyes and blonde hair. She worked as a nurse for a long time, but then things turned pretty rough." His grin turned wry and sad as he thought back. "It's funny," he said quietly, "when I was young I I sat and drew cartoons and escaped in my drawings. But Ma didn't have that escape. She worked two jobs just to make ends meet and on Sundays we'd sit inside the kitchen as she scrubbed the dishes, listening to the radio. I'd draw pictures for her, just to make her smile."
"You're an artist?" Peggy was surprised enough to loosen her grip on the curl she was pinning and it slipped free. "Oh, blast it all-"
"I could-" He stopped speaking abruptly before he could finish the sentence and flushed red again.
"You could." She found it quite endearing actually when she saw him so shy. So many men were loud and flashy around her, vying for her attention and unable to say a word in her direction without it turning lewd or flirtatious. But Steve...
He was real. She respected that very much. "I'll show you how," she said now.
His fingers, slim and nimble, were good at twisting her hair up but he didn't make them tight as he struggled to hold them in place as he reached for a bobby pin. By the last curl he had grown a bit more confidant in his ability, and when lights'-out was called she bade him good night and didn't redo them.
Her curls were less defined the following day, but she saw his smile the next morning and found them to be perfect.
"Agent Carter."
"Captain Rogers."
Colonel Phillips must have finally released the young captain from his debriefing then. It had been an almost three hour meeting between the two men, and most of the camp had already bedded down for the night. The makeshift infirmary was still bustling but with so many of the 107th's men needing medical attention it would be surprising if it quietened down tonight.
He smiled lopsidedly and she was able to see the frail, small Steve Rogers before he'd taken the serum. Doctor Erskine's creation had been incredible and she would never forget the procedure, but sometimes she saw the persona of Captain America and it was difficult to see Steve behind him.
Not so now.
She smiled. "It's a bit late to be sneaking to the door of my tent, don't you think?"
There was the slight blush spreading across his cheeks that delighted her so much, and now it wasn't difficult at all to see that the serum really hadn't changed him at all. "I couldn't sleep," he muttered, looking down at his feet. "Too much happened today."
"How is your friend, Steve? Sergeant Barnes?"
"Bucky's fine, thank God. He's already been checked over and there's nothing wrong with him except for lack of food and water. He's sleeping right now."
"I'm happy to hear that. He must be very dear to you." She stepped aside and gestured for him to join her. He had to bend down in order to avoid hitting his head.
He turned to meet her eyes and she could see how happy he was just by how relaxed his posture was. His gaze was bright and clear. "We've been friends for years. Practically grew up together on the streets of New York. When you told me most of the 107th was captured... I couldn't leave them. And I'd hoped..."
It had been a hope that had been answered. She spared a thought for Michael, her brother, before firmly turning her thoughts to other matters. "You're a very optimistic person by nature, Captain Rogers. It's one of the many reasons why you were chosen to be Project Rebirth's prime candidate."
"Colonel Phillips would say that optimism can get you killed on the battlefield."
"Well, so can anything else if you live long enough. Colonel Phillips is a very respected man in the army but he's seen enough to let it harden him. A bit of optimism is never a bad thing." She sat down on the cot in the corner and looked up at him. "I'm glad you came back, Steve."
"So am I."
She smiled softly to herself as she brushed her fingers through her hair, parting it to the side to pin it up for the night and stopped herself. She looked up at him. "Would you?" She held up the bobby pins in offering.
It wasn't right. It certainly wasn't decent, and they would both be in more trouble if they were caught now than when she had helped Steve slip past enemy lines. But Peggy had never been one to entirely follow the strict rules that men wanted to follow, and she had never entirely acted like a lady.
Steve had never been one to always play by someone else's rules, either, which was why he didn't protest this time and only sat down beside her after taking the bobby pins.
His fingers were still slim and nimble (artist's hands, she recalled) but there was still a strength there that she didn't remember being there before. He still seemed unsure but he clearly remembered the first time he had done this.
Peggy ruminated in silence for a long moment, thinking back on his determination throughout his training and Project Rebirth and she wondered. It wasn't so surprising that he had gone after the prisoners of the 107th after all- that wasn't a Captain America decision. That was Steve Rogers through and through.
"What made you so willing to fight in this war, Steve?"
Behind her, he smiled as he rolled a lock of hair and pinned it. "Mark Twain."
"Never read him," Peggy admitted. "I thought he was a fictional writer."
"He was, but he wrote a lot of essays in between novels." He was quiet for a long moment, pondering, then he spoke again. "I was just a kid. Maybe twelve. While still writing under his real name of Samuel Clemens he wrote, 'If you alone of all the nation shall decide one way, and that way be right according to your convictions of the right, then you have done your duty by yourself and by your country. Hold up your head, you have nothing to be ashamed of.'"
"If you start running, they'll never let you stop," Peggy said softly.
"Ma called it the River of Truth. It's a Biblical term, I think. It made me think, especially now, what with Hitler and his hate, and Schmidt's HYDRA. It doesn't matter what the politicians or the mobs say. When the mob and the press and everyone tell you to move, you're supposed to stand and tell the whole world, 'No, you move.'"
"Very inspiring, Captain Rogers," she teased him, but her tone was warm. The last bit of her hair was twisted and pinned up, tighter this time than before, and she stood up to straighten her shirt. "Thank you, Steve. I appreciate it."
He stood as well, sensing the subtle goodbye. For a long moment they had been able to ignore the outside world but the sound of footsteps on the footpath near her tent had brought it jarringly back. They were in the midst of war on the edge of enemy lines, and they couldn't afford to partake in risky endeavors.
Or so Peggy told herself, when all she really wanted to do was kiss him and kiss him hard enough her red lipstick would be stained on his lips.
"Thank you for letting me in, Peggy. Have a good rest of your night." He looked like he wanted to say something else for a moment but he seemed to lose his nerve at the last second. He merely smiled at her and ducked back out of the tent.
Turning back to the cot, Peggy listened to his footsteps as they faded into nothing and reached up to touch one of the messy pin curls. There was to be a celebration soon to commemorate the 107th's safe return and Steve's heroism. She smiled to herself and imagined what she would wear for that evening. Something striking. Maybe her red dress.
And her hair loosely curled, and unpinned.
"No, you move," she said quietly, thinking about what he had said. Good words. A good thing to live by. Steve was Captain America but he was also so much more than that, and he may have his faults but Peggy loved him all the more for it.
That woman she's got eyes that shine.
Like a pair of stolen polished dimes.
She asked to dance I said it's fine.
I'll see you in the morning time.
'I and Love and You', The Avett Brothers