There was no deadliness that accompanied the end of one of the bloodiest and definitively one of the most brutal wars seen by any one nation in the modern realm of history. Casualties continued to occur as the end of the war neared, but their occurrence had become expected over the past five years of the war that spanned across most of the populated continents of the modern world. In fact, casualties on both sides were indeed anticipated by both sides, but the raising of white flags and the shouts of surrender yelled from behind enemy lines by terrified enemy leaders came as a shock to even those leaders who had anticipated the nearing of the war's end for months. After being at battle with much of mankind for over half of the current decade, it was very hard for either side to imagine a world in which the continent of Europe wasn't a battleground on which every nation played as though they were God and deaths were more common than survivals when it came to famine, illness, and casualties experienced by soldiers and civilians alike. It would indeed be a much different era during in which the words collateral damage were rarely used when speaking of military forces and their plans, and it would certainly be a change to experience anything resembling kindness or courtesy from anyone with any connection to the opposing side of the war.
There were no true victors in the war, though, despite the fact that, according to paperwork and memories expressed by veterans and civilians involved in the war effort whatsoever swore that the allied forces had won. There could be no clear victors because there was loss, destruction, death, famine, and brokenness to be found wherever one chose to look following the beginning of the reconstruction of a world nearly destroyed by a war fought for reasons even those who battled fearlessly for their nations couldn't quite explain. And, when the smoke had settled and the death toll had been taken and mourned, it became obvious that the end of the war had come alongside a mutual desire to allow for a continuation of mankind and therefore prevent its destruction.
The allied nations celebrated, of course, drinking more than their bodies could tolerate to erase the painful and traumatic memories that coursed through their brains every other millisecond. Their families waited for years for them to return and yet they came home battered with memories of a war they had been forced to participate in. The knowledge that no one had returned home from that war as whole as they had left to participate in it was obvious whenever one looked a veteran in the eyes and saw eyes focused on a place far away, a battle long forgotten by all those who had not participated in it.
Agent Margaret Carter had been alongside those colonels, generals, and other military and political officials as they had welcomed home returning and exhausted soldiers. She had cried when fathers met their children for the first time and stood alongside brides and grooms as they wed in fear of being apart again. She had never known such a mixture of sadness and exhilaration could exist side by side, but she was very happy that such a feat was possible.
Despite this, though, she still felt a sadness she understood completely, and she was very aware of what was its cause. There had yet to be any discoveries made of planes crashed in any ocean across the globe, and there had been no investigations between the nations of Germany and America, both prominent forces on opposing sides of the war. Until there was a discovery, though, she would continue to be lost.
She had known that Captain Steven Rogers would die himself before he would allow anyone else to be harmed. He had been chosen due to his selfless acts committed during training, and he had continued to display emotional and physical strength alike, as well as the ability to both prioritize and focus on the subject at hand. He was a warm man, a good man, a man who had lost so much, including possibly his life, in such a short period of time, and yet he displayed such strength that it made her adore him more than she had ever imagined possible.
Adoration and affection for a man who was believed to be dead by most of the population was a sad thing. She watched Howard throw himself into his work and research, determined to fine one of his closest friends. She saw other members of their team drink themselves into stupors every night and stumble into work with bloodshot eyes in the morning. She saw Colonel Phillips, the man who had once despised Captain Rogers, demand that he be found.
As for her, she simply tried to get on with her life. She would fly out to wherever Howard insisted they had a chance to find the captain every few weeks and fight the disappointment she always felt when they failed. She and Howard would go to a bar and get extremely drunk and mourn the loss of their closest friend. It went on like this day after day after day, until, one day, during what she was sure was a temporary bout of insanity, she listened to several of the doctors on the team that Howard had organized when Steve was still an average man.
She had been strolling along the streets of Brooklyn, her trench coat hugged tightly around her due to the frigidness of the temperatures, when two doctors in lab coats, both of them young and experienced, hurried in her direction, their coats flying behind them when they broke into runs and arrived in front of her within fifteen seconds. She knew for a fact that she looked increasingly annoyed as they did so due to the look of fear on the face of the female scientist as she paused in front of her.
"Doctors, what can I do for you?" she asked, inflicting the coldness into her tone that she often showed the outside world. She was a trained agent for one of the most dangerous and least famous government agencies in America. She wasn't allowed to show any emotion, much less be weak, in front of anyone capable of betrayal. For Peggy, those capable of betrayal were those of unknown background, and she had yet to read the files of the two brilliants that stood ahead of her.
"Mister Stark called, ma'am, and said that you've been experiencing some strange things with your aging. Is there any way that you would allow us to run tests on you?"
"What tests would you run? What do you believe has happened?" she questioned, her eyes narrowing at the scientist before her.
"Ma'am, Captain Steve Rogers was considered an ageless man. Those who exchanged bodily fluids with him-blood, sweat, saliva-their aging would likely stop in much the way that the captain's has. Did you exchange any of the listed bodily fluids with him?"
"The only time I ever kissed him was before he went to defeat HYDRA," she said. "It was only moments long."
"Was he bleeding, sweating?" the doctor asked, her expression insanely focused as she stared at the superior agent.
"Doctor, he was facing his death. I imagine that the captain was doing both. What the bloody hell is this about?" she questioned, her eyes narrowing at the confused and exhilarated expressions sported by both of the young members of the team that stood in her line of vision.
"We are not yet aware. He may have paused your aging, ma'am. We do need to run blood tests and other exams, though. Would you like us to request for Mr. Stark to return home from holiday?"
"No, let Howard be," Peggy sighed. "Come. Let's do the bloody tests."
The waiting room was as sterile as every lab in the nation was, and Peggy felt the chill of cleanliness slowly causing her to shiver incessantly. She had hated being in offices of doctors ever since her childhood, and the fact that she had no understand of the reasoning behind her being there at that moment didn't help much at all. She simply stared at the white walls until a kind nurse stepped from behind a curtain and gestured for her to follow.
Peggy sat on the exam table, wincing silently when the woman drew blood, and then resting her head against the pillow when the woman had stepped away to deliver the sample to one of the dozens of doctors in the facility. She had no idea what they were testing for, or whether or not it would have much of an influence on her at all. She didn't know much of anything anymore.
"Agent Carter," the doctor said, stepping into the room once again accompanied by the nurse that had drawn the blood. "Much like Captain Rogers, your aging has been paused. It was likely during an exchange of bodily fluids. We are unable to determine the point at which you stopped aging, but you have. We will continue to examine the samples given. We believed, for quite some time, that the exchange of bodily fluids would cause aging to increase dramatically, but it has done the opposite."
"You're telling me that, much like the man crashed in the middle of an ocean, I will no longer age?" Peggy asked, arching an eyebrow.
"Yes, ma'am, you have. We will continue to monitor you, but it seems as though you will need to find things you like in life, because yours will be quite long."
Peggy sat on the table for over an hour after they left, shocked by the news she was given, and wiped away the single tear that fell down the paleness of her cheek. How could she enjoy life when the man she loved may never be found?
1967
She had been living in Berlin when Howard had called her with the news of his impending marriage. She had been thrilled when she had flown home and attended their wedding as the maid of honor. Despite the knowledge that he was in his fifties and his wife in her late thirties, she was expecting an announcement from one of them. The fact that Howard didn't desire to be a father didn't mean he wouldn't become one.
She received the call early one morning three months after the wedding while sitting in a hotel in Paris. She smiled at the panic in her friend's voice, the sheer terror uttered within those five words. "I'm going to be a father."
She had listened to him ramble for over an hour and heard his wife's accompanying laughter in the background as he panicked over every mediocre detail of parenthood. She had finally promised to be within driving distance of them throughout the endurance of Maria's pregnancy and had climbed aboard a plane the next day, leaving behind Europe for America. It was one of the best decisions she had ever chosen to make.
Anthony Edward Stark, named by his mother, father, and godmother, was born on a stormy morning the year after his parents' wedding. Peggy had been the third person to hold him, behind only the doctor and his mother, and had smiled at the beautiful infant that had blessed her best friends. She knew, as she stared into the dark orbs he had inherited from his father, that he would influence her life in many ways.
She was the one to hold him when they drew blood from his heel that first day, the one to videotape his first crawling, standing, walking, and talking attempts. She was the one who held his hand as he approached the door of his daycare for the first time, the one who became a live-in nanny for both Howard and Maria when they were forced away on business. She became his confidant and, in most cases, more of a mother to him than an aunt.
He was five months old the first time that she realized that, much like his father, the media had developed an interest in him. His father was a brilliant scientist, his mother a beautiful and charming homemaker, and the protection of their child was not at the forefront of their minds. It was, however, at the forefront of Peggy's.
She spent large majorities of time with Tony at the headquarters of SHIELD, a government agency that she had helped to form, and he knew more about SHIELD than he did about Stark Industries. She sat through meetings with him in her arms and often took him as her date to official events. He loved the spectacle and the warmth between the agents.
When she couldn't protect him from the media, however, he simply smiled and preened for the cameras until he was in the vehicle or her arms, at which point he would cry. And in those moments, Peggy felt like a failure. Here was this little boy, being raised by one of the most brilliant scientists in the world, and yet Howard couldn't recognize Tony's longing for his parents above all else.
Despite his parents' emotional distance, Tony was a warm child. Peggy had no idea how; aside from Steve and Tony, she had never been able to bring herself to be warm to anyone. She was friendly with many people, but only Steve had been able to steal her heart to a point that she could be her caring self around him. Tony was a child in desperate need of comfort and affection, and it was for these reasons that she was warm around him.
She knew that Howard longed to be the one to comfort his son, to scoop him into his arms and whisper that no one would ever hurt him. He had no idea how to do so, though. Maria was the one who comforted their son when Peggy wasn't around, and Peggy was always around. She could see the pain in the eyes of both of the boy's parents, though, when he turned away from them in favor of their friend, the failure and remorse that they both felt for not being the exemplary parents they had planned to be.
There were a handful of people who were aware of the kiss that the captain and the agent he had enthralled had shared before his departure, and it was this select group of people that was made aware when Peggy was no longer able to hide the fact that she had ceased aging. In this select group of people stood Tony, Howard, Maria, the director and commander of SHIELD, and her friends, no others.
It was for these reasons that she and Tony grew as close as she and his father had decades before. He was like the son she had never had, she the mother that he hadn't been provided with. Despite Maria's outward warmth, she wasn't the most comforting mother, and it was obvious to everyone who spent even the smallest amount of time with her son. It was the philosophy of Tony being the child she had never been blessed with that caused her terror when he chose to become Iron Man. He fancied himself a hero, much like his father and the captain before him. He was also very much like them in the fact that he didn't recognize that terror coursed through her veins every moment that she was forced to watch him save people on television, every moment that she was made aware of the fact that he could be critically injured and she was unaware of whether he would live or die.
He was an amazing heir to the company his father had built from the ground up, as well. He loved the name his father had supplied him with if only because it was the only connection that there had ever been between himself and his parents. Stark Industries was in amazing hands despite the fact that, for most of the public, its owner was believed to be a narcissistic womanizer who had no respect for his wealth or his family. The cameras weren't there when he was standing at his mother's grave alone, when he cried as he placed flowers above the plaque with his father's name. They believed that they knew him because of who he was. They didn't even both to learn who he truly was.
Peggy did bother to know who he truly was, though. It was the reason that she wept when he told her that he was falling in love with his personal assistant, the reason that she smiled when he introduced them and when Pepper said that meeting her was much like meeting one of her boyfriend's parents. Tony informed her that it was better, because Peggy had actually bothered to raise him. Peggy had bitten back a sigh at that, hoping beyond hope that her godson was aware of how much his parents had loved him.
She smiled when he requested his mother's engagement ring, something he had trusted her with. She wept silently when he said that he felt as though he had found a home in the love of his life. She held him when he nearly died. She lived life as best as she could while merely surviving the loss of the captain she had fallen in love with.
Much as Howard had promised that it would, life continued on. It was abnormal, yes, to be the same as she had been at twenty-six when she was nearing ninety, but life went on as usual.
Until, one day, it didn't. One day, everything changed.
She had been assigned to Berlin when the call had come through. Coulson's hand had fallen from the phone and he had stared at her, half in shock and half in excitement, and she had laughed at his expression until he uttered the words she had been waiting nearly seven decades to hear.
"Peggy, they found a plane in the ocean. It looks like the one designed by HYDRA all those years ago. They think they found Captain America."
Only Phillip Coulson would refer to Captain Rogers as Captain America, and she laughed at his words before realizing the severity of them. They had found Captain America. Steve had been found.
She was on a plane within the hour.
She arrived at the classified location of the SHIELD Hospital and ran through its entrance, ignoring the warnings shouted out by guards. It was only an agent, one of the younger ones that she herself had observed the training of, that paused her in her mad dash for the floor on which Steve had been placed upon his arrival in the hospital.
"Ma'am, Captain Rogers is quite frostbitten, something we expect to go away. He is also suffering from a bout of hypothermia. He will need to remain warm for the duration of his stay. If you do enter the room, please be kind enough to keep any and all drafts from coming in."
"Will he be all right?" she questioned the younger agent, one she recognized as a recent graduation from the scientific academy sponsored by SHIELD.
"Yes, ma'am, he should be fine. He is healing at an exceptional rate, something we had anticipated, but he may be quite sore when he wakes up. Director Fury, sir," the agent said, standing at attention when her superior appeared behind Peggy's shoulder.
"Agent Carter," Director Nicholas Fury said calmly.
"If you believe for one moment that I will walk out of this hospital at even your orders, let me remind you that your position was one given by me. I am the only remaining founder of SHIELD, and you do not want to get involved in this." Peggy glared hardly at the man in front of her. "Commander Hill," she greeted the younger woman standing next to Director Fury.
"Ma'am," Commander Hill responded, and Peggy couldn't help but smile. Unlike most agents, she was treated with more respect by Director Fury and Commander Hill than they were treated with by her. "We haven't come to force you to leave, ma'am, we've come to inform you of our plan."
"Captain Steven Rogers crashed into an ocean almost seven decades ago. Much has changed in the world since then. We wish to protect him from that as long as possible. Exposing him to the truth is not healthy for anyone involved. Do you promise to help us?" Director Fury asked sternly.
Peggy scoffed, shaking her head. "Steven Rogers went against direct orders from our commanding officer to save his best friend. It was considered a suicide mission. He was ridiculed on that base. They were all believed to be dead, everyone said, so why risk his own life. He returned with four hundred men. If you believe that you will ever be able to keep anything from him, you are sadly mistaken."
Fury hesitated before nodding. "Fine, Agent, you get the victory. Do try not to terrify him, yes? He is the first Avenger."
She smiled sweetly at him. "I trained him, Director. I know very well not to terrify him." She sighed as she gestured towards the closed door. "May I go in?"
"Yes, Agent Carter," Director Fury said. "Congratulations for this moment," he said. "Most people don't receive it."
"I know," Peggy said softly. "I'm very grateful for it."
"You should be. He was awake for a moment before they put him under. It was unbearable pain he was being forced to endure. He was thawing from being frozen for over six decades, nearly seventy years. But when he spoke, he asked for you. It was the only word he uttered. I'm suspecting that you and Captain Rogers had something before that tragic plane crash."
"We had the beginning of something," Peggy said, sighing as she walked away.
"Agent Carter," Fury said from behind her, and she turned. "It's been seventy years without him."
"That's a lot better than forever without him," she said.
Pepper and Tony both approached her quickly as she neared the door, wrapping her in their arms one by one. Pepper let go of her the moment that Tony arrived, knowing that they were the closest thing to family there was without blood. In the arms of her godson, the boy she had considered a son from the moment that he was born, she allowed one tear to slip down her cheek.
"I'm so happy for you!" Pepper said, her voice hushed but the excitement obvious. "How is he?"
"He has a bout of hypothermia as well as frostbite. He was awake for a moment when they brought him in. They gave him pain medicine that caused him to feel faint. He's likely asleep at the moment. I haven't seen him yet." She smiled. "Captain Steve Rogers has survived a lot worse than frostbite and hypothermia."
"You should go see him," Pepper said, nodding towards the door. "He probably wants you there."
A doctor exited the room, a smile on her face as she caught sight of them. "He's awake, Agent, and asking for you."
Peggy breathed in deeply as she stared at the closed door. She squeezed both Pepper's and Tony's hands before she approached the door.
She had no idea how the captain she had loved for so long would react. He had been her closest friend, her confidant, and the only love that she had ever known. She knew that it would likely induce a panic attack, knowing how long he had been asleep, knowing what had happened to Tony's parents, one of which was his best friend. She didn't know how she would cope if he turned her away, though. She was an independent person, but seventy years without him was already much too long.
She pushed open the door and prepared to face the man she had loved blindly for so many years. Upon seeing him, she blinked back tears.
He was awake when she walked into the room, his eyes focused on a focal point in the midst of the whiteness of the walls. His eyes didn't focus on her when she entered, nor did they flash to her when she closed the door. He simply stared at the wall, no emotion showing on his face, until she sat next to the bed in the uncomfortable chair provided for guests.
Then, with a flicker of emotion, his eyes flashed to hers, holding decades of confusion, compassion, affection, and love, and she nearly sobbed with relief when she caught sight of the familiar warmth hidden in the blue depths. He had been frozen for nearly seven decades, had nearly died to the drops in temperature, and yet he was still the same kind man she had come to love all those years before.
"Hello, Captain Rogers," she said cordially, blinking back tears that threatened to fall. "I hate to admit it, but we missed you a bit."
"The doctors said that it's been seventy years."
"Yeah," Peggy said with a smile. "It's a good thing you're too much of a gentleman to walk around kissing people, love, because your bodily fluids cease aging in those who receive them." She smiled at him. "I truly missed you."
"I missed you, too."
"You've been asleep, darling." She smiled at him.
"On the plane, I missed you," he corrected her, and she grinned at him. "I hear that you didn't stop searching."
"No," Peggy said. "Howard and I were both very focused on finding you. He became more focused on his business eventually, but he spent every spare moment with investigators searching the icy portions of the oceans. I went with him occasionally, but mostly his wife did. I stayed with their son and helped the best that I could."
"You didn't give up."
"No," she said. "I would never give up on you, Steve. It would be the equivalent of giving up on hope, and we both know I'm much too stubborn to do so."
"It was seventy years, though."
"You have never given up on anyone, Steven, not even at the darkest points of history. Until he tried to kill you, you believed Red Skull could be a decent man. He wasn't, of course, which is the reason I believed you were mad. But you don't stop believing in the goodness of humanity. I couldn't stop believing in you." She blinked back tears.
"Peg," Steve said, his voice full of compassion and love. He stroked her cheek, brushing her messy locks away from her face, and then took her hand, kissing the tip of every one of her fingers. She smiled at the fact that his lips were warm. "I'm sorry I caused you so much pain."
"You had no say in it, love, don't mention it." She sighed as she smiled at him. "I think that's enough heaviness for now. Did they tell you about what Howard and I did?"
"What did you and Howard do?" Steve asked, his eyes as animated as his tone, and she remembered one of the reasons she had fallen in love with him. He found joy in the happiness of those that he cared about.
"I helped to found SHIELD, a government organization designated to work against foreign forces like HYDRA. Howard founded Stark Industries, which is the reason he quickly became a billionaire. It seems engineering runs in the bloodline. It's what Tony majored in, as well."
"Tony?" Steve asked, his interest piqued.
"Anthony Edward Stark, the only child that Howard and Maria Stark ever bothered to have. It was very good at times. He was a bit lonely in his childhood. Now, though, he's very much like my son. He hates the name Anthony, though, so don't bother to call him that. Pepper and I are the only people who are able to get away with it, and that's because he's terrified of both of us."
Steve chuckled at this information. "I'm glad Howard was able to be happy. How is he these days?"
Peggy felt her heart break at the prospect of telling him, but she still did so. He would be angry if she failed to do so.
"Both Maria and Howard were killed in an automobile incident several years ago. It's the reason that Pepper found Tony; he needed someone at that point. I'm sorry."
"It's fine. I should have expected that. It's been seven decades," he said, shaking his head. "So, are you still an agent of SHIELD?"
"When I can be. Agents with Level Seven Clearance and above are aware of the fact that I'm Agent Margaret Carter; others are convinced I'm her niece Sharon." She smiled at him. "Our latest mission was a very successful one."
"What was your last mission?" Steve asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Our last mission was finding you. Director Fury and Commander Hill were very dedicated to the cause, as was I. Agent Philip Coulson, a close friend of mine, is a huge fan of yours. It's actually quite hilarious." She smiled at him. "I'm sorry. I don't particularly know what to say to you. You're overwhelmed and it's unfair for me to worsen that."
"Hey," he said. "Say whatever you want."
"Perhaps we should continue tomorrow, love. You look absolutely exhausted. I'll come back."
"No, sweetheart, please stay," Steve pleaded, his eyes wide. "We've been apart for a long time. I don't want to be away from you any longer than I have to be."
"Fine," Peggy said, smiling. "I do need to send away Tony and Pepper, though, or they'll sit out there all night, and someone has to be responsible enough to run Stark Industries. It's going to be Pepper. It's always Pepper," she informed him as she walked towards the door.
"Tony is here?" Steve questioned, eyes widening. "Why?"
Peggy chuckled aloud. "You're his father's best friend and a large part of my life, as well. I'd suspect it's for moral support. And Pepper is here to support him."
"Can you send them in?" Steve asked.
"Yeah," Peggy said, approaching the door with a smile on her face. She pulled open the door and exited the room to find her godson and his girlfriend. "Hey," she greeted them.
"Hey," Pepper said with a wry smile, brushing her hair away from her face. "How is he?"
"He's fine. He wants to meet Tony," she said, hugging both of them tightly. "Are you ready?"
"Yeah," Tony said, nervousness rarely seen by anyone other than his family.
"Okay," Peggy said, opening the door and allowing him to enter.
"Hello," Steve said from the bed, a smile on his face. "Peg tells me that you're Howard's son. I'm sorry about your father."
"Thank you," Tony said, nodding as he accepted the condolence. "It's good you're back. I thought Aunt Peggy was going to go insane."
"I wasn't that horrid, was I?" Peggy asked, embarrassed as a smile took over her features when her godson chuckled. "Anthony Edward Stark, get out of here," she said, hugging him tightly and then patting his cheek before hugging Pepper.
"We'll come see you tomorrow. Should I leave the tower unlocked?" Tony asked sarcastically. One of the guards would allow her in if she was late.
"Like you would ever do such a thing," Peggy said with a smile, shooing him out of the room. "Will the both of you please take care of one another?"
"Yes, ma'am." Pepper smiled at her as she pulled away, both of them waving as they walked outside, and Peggy smiled adoringly at them.
"You're a natural-born mother," Steve said when the door closed behind them.
"Tony is like a son to me, and Pepper is his girlfriend. They're the only family I've had for quite some time." She glanced at his expression and smiled wryly. "Despite all of this, Steve, we were trying to keep from overwhelming you. Fury and Hill both wanted you to have a clear head."
"Is that why they sent you in?" he asked.
"They didn't send me in. Fury didn't want me to come see you. Hill's too terrified to voice her opinion; I trained her, which means that she has more respect for me than she does for him. Being a founder of SHIELD helps, as well. I chose to come and see you. Your doctors approved; I would never risk your health, but this was my decision. I missed you. I'm trying to keep from overwhelming you."
"It's not that horrible if you do overwhelm me, Peg. I can handle it." He flashed his sweet, sunny smile, and she resisted the urge to kiss his cheek and ask him to hold her. She was a trained spy, for goodness sakes! She should not be questioning whether or not they could both fit in that hospital bed.
"I'm trying very hard not to." She sighed. "There's so much going through my mind. I'm overwhelmed, and I can't imagine what you're going through."
"What's the first thing that's in your head?" he questioned.
"What?"
"It's something you taught me. Make people tell you what the trouble is. What is the trouble right now?"
"There is no trouble," she said with a sigh, rolling her eyes at his theatrics. "The first thought in my mind at this moment is whether it's too soon to tell you that I love you, but that ruins the purpose a bit, don't you think?"
He flashed her the happiest smile she had ever seen, reaching for her hand and kissing her fingers. "I love you, too," he whispered. "And you know something? You're right."
"Did Captain Rogers just admit that an agent was right?" she teased, smirking at him.
"You are brilliant," he said, kissing her palm. "When I said you were right, I meant about us."
"What about us?" she questioned, her interest caught.
"We've had seven decades taken away from us. I don't know about you, but I am not willing to waste another moment."
He kissed her with a fierceness she had never experienced, a fierceness she had never imagined. It seemed to portray passion, affection, lust, and above all, love. It seemed to say what he couldn't, words like I miss you and I love you and I want to spend forever with you. In that one kiss, he said more than he had throughout their entire relationship.
She certainly liked what he was saying.
He was released from hospital on a stormy night much like the first that had altered her life, and she smiled at his look of bewilderment when the nurses brought in a wheelchair.
"They do realize that I can walk, don't they?" he asked her when the nurse had left.
"They make women leave hospitals in them after giving birth. We can walk then," she pointed out, leaning down to kiss his cheek as she pushed the chair into the main lobby. She sighed when he climbed from it, refusing to allow himself to be seen outside in the horrid device, and she realized just how much he had remained the same. It was one of the reasons she loved him.
She drove him to Stark Tower, where, for some unknown reason, Tony had already decorated a floor of the tower for him. She had heard the disagreements between Pepper and Tony as she was preparing for the day the previous morning. Although Pepper's exasperated words were muffled, she did pick up some of what Tony had said.
"He's an American treasure, Pep! Why not have red, white, and blue walls with a shield?" he questioned, and Peggy had nearly laughed until she realized that he was serious.
Then Pepper had said something to him that had caused him to come downstairs pouting, and Peggy smirked as he laid his head on the table and muttered about 'she never understands the brilliance of my ideas.' Then Pepper and walked downstairs and whispered in his ear, he had perked up, and Peggy had exited the house without ever bothering to eat breakfast.
Whatever had been said there was not something she wished to hear in real-time.
Steve had greeted her with a jovial 'hello' and his sunny smile, and she had grinned when he stood and kissed her hair before informing her that he was allowed to leave. She had called Tony and arranged for the tower to be unlocked when they arrived before she gestured towards their car after Steve stubbornly refused to be pushed outside in the wheelchair.
"Hey, Peg," Tony said when they walked through the front doors of the tower. "Pep is making up the guest room. Apparently my design was not appropriate."
"Your design is the reason it will take you a long time to convince me to reproduce with you, Anthony Edward Stark," Pepper said, flashing a sunny smile as she walked down the stairs. "I made up the one on your floor," she said to the older woman, who smiled and nodded. "Call if you need anything," Pepper insisted before walking towards her boyfriend and bending to kiss his cheek and whisper in his ear.
Peggy smiled as she walked up the stairs, Steve close behind.
"How long have they been…" Steve looked at her, confusion obvious in his eyes. "I don't think the terms are the same," he said with a chuckle.
"They've been dating a little over a year. She's been around for much longer," Peggy said when they reached the second floor, the least electronic floor. She liked being able to escape from the modern world every now and again, and Pepper and Tony had both taken that into consideration when they had designed the floor. "She's been around longer than most anyone else has been. Tony knows quite a bit about being abandoned."
It was this notion that broke her heart. He did know much about being abandoned, and Pepper and Peggy were two of very few people never to have done so to him.
"He's like Howard," Steve said. Peggy smiled sadly at him.
"He searched alongside me every mission for years," she said. "He was the only one who believed in you as much as I did. He may have believed in you more." She glanced at the framed photograph of the family and herself on her fireplace's mantle.
"And Tony?"
"He believes in his father and his mother. He's made it his mission to honor them." She smiled at him. "It's been seventy years."
"Sixty-eight," he corrected, his tone obviously teasing.
"Yes," she said. "It's been almost seven decades and yet I look at you and I know that you're meant to be a part of my life."
He stared at her.
"The years have never stopped going on, and yet this is the moment that I will forever remember."
The kiss they shared was full of passion, of affection, of love. She was kissed by the man she had loved for decades in a way that was indescribable. The years may have gone on, but so did their love story. It was never paused. And love like that was meant to last forever.