August, 1951
In which James is not a happy camper.
Peggy opened the front door and was greeted by a loud, miserable wail. It would seem James was not having a pleasant evening. "Steve?" she called, raising her voice to be heard over the noise. "Steve?" she called again, louder when there was no answer.
Steve appeared in the door from the kitchen, a red-faced, screeching baby in his arms. "Peggy?" His appearance startled her more than the noise James was making. Babies did cry, after all, but she didn't think she'd ever seen Steve looking so frazzled. Actually, 'frazzled' was…well, that was putting it kindly. Steve's eyes were wild and looked rather manic, his hair was sticking out every which way, and he put her in mind of nothing so much as an escapee from an asylum.
"Are you alright?" Peggy asked.
"Yeah," Steve said, bouncing James up and down and patting his back. "We're good. It's fine. Everything's fine." He sounded more as though he was talking to himself and trying to convince himself of that fact. James did not appear to concur, and howled his disagreement.
"What's going on?" Peggy asked. James wasn't really one for tantrums, and she assumed that if their son had been hurt enough to provoke such a reaction, Steve would have led with that.
"I don't know," Steve admitted. "He's…" He took one hand off of James and ran it through his hair, pushing it out in even more directions. His eyes drifted out of focus for a few seconds before coming back to meet hers. "He's been crying for seven hours, Peggy. He hasn't slept all day and he doesn't want to eat, and I've checked everything I can think of but I can't find anything wrong with him. I don't know why he's crying, and I can't get him to stop. He…Seven hours," he repeated, his eyes sliding out of focus again.
"Alright," Peggy said. "Let me take him."
"No, no, it's okay," Steve assured her, patting James's back again. "You, I know you had that big meeting at work today, and you've had a busy day, and…"
"Steve," Peggy said firmly. She appreciated the sentiment behind his protest, but while a day of office politics and deciphering Polish mafia codes was tiring, she still had a great deal more of her sanity left than Steve appeared to. "Give him here," she said. Steve did so, and James paused in his crying long enough to register the exchange, then picked it up again.
"Alright," she said, kissing James's head and cuddling him close to her chest. She looked back up at Steve. "I want you to go outside and take a walk."
"What?"
"Outside," she said, pointing at the door. All day with a crying child would wear on anyone, but with as sensitive as Steve's hearing was, Peggy could only imagine the headache he had right now. "There has been a small child shrieking in your ear for seven hours. Go out where it's quiet for a bit; get your head back on straight." He looked like he was going to protest, so she continued. "At least one circle around the block. That's an order, Captain." She smiled reassuringly. "I can manage here."
Steve didn't seem able to form a response to that, so he nodded and headed for the door. James continued to cry, and Peggy turned her attention to him as she heard the door shut behind her. "What's wrong, then, love?" she asked. James let out a wail in response, and the miserable look on his face sent a pang through Peggy's heart.
"Oh, I know," she said, stroking the back of his head. "You've had a hard day. You're not ill, are you?" She knew Steve would have already checked for any signs of illness or injury, but Peggy felt his skin, his head, his neck, his stomach, just so she could form her own baseline of where they were. No fever or lumps or anything out of the ordinary. She stroked his hair and held him close and whispered sweetly in his ear for a bit, in case today was just one of those days where only Mummy would do.
"Oh, I wish I knew what was wrong, love," she sighed when his crying continued. "Are you hungry? You must be—Daddy says he can't get you to eat." James was usually very good about switching back and forth between a bottle and breastfeeding, but he did have his days where he got picky. "Is today just one of those days where a bottle is no good? Let's see if Mummy can help." She settled down into her rocking chair and untucked her shirt, tucking him in close against her chest. That seemed to work for about a minute—just long enough to make her think she'd figured it out. He started crying again, but not before she felt a couple of sharp pinches that made her exclaim, "Ow!"
James was looking up at her sadly, his little hazel eyes begging her to stop his distress, but he allowed her to slip a curious finger in between his lips. He sucked at her finger, still whimpering but not screaming, and Peggy moved it curiously along his gums. "Oh," she said, finding what she was looking for. It hadn't broken through the skin yet, but there was a hard, slightly sharp-feeling spot on the lower left-hand side. "Oh, sweetheart," she said, kissing his forehead, and allowing him to keep sucking at her finger, since it seemed to offer a small level of comfort. "You're getting your first tooth, aren't you?"
James whimpered sadly in agreement.
"That must hurt, mustn't it?" she asked.
James whined and pushed her finger out of his mouth, not finding the relief he was seeking.
"Oh, I know. I know," she soothed as he began to cry again. She stood up and resumed the bouncing and rocking Steve had been doing earlier. She knew what the problem was, but she wasn't quite sure how to fix it. "Ah!" she said as an idea landed. "What you want is something cold for your poor little mouth," she said, moving for the kitchen. There wasn't much in the freezer that seemed suitable for a baby, which they would have to rectify later, but for now…
"Here we are," she said after some searching. She pulled out a bag of frozen peas and sat down in one of the kitchen chairs, settling James into her lap. She snatched a tea towel off the counter and wrapped it around most of the bag, leaving one corner free. "Here you are, love," she said, keeping one hand on the packet as she offered it to James. He immediately stuck it in his mouth. "Let's see if this does the trick."
James began gnawing at the bag before it was completely in his mouth, sucking at it with enthusiasm, and after a minute, he let out a satisfied little noise. Peggy smiled and kissed the top of his head. "There we are," she said, stroking his arm. "It won't feed you, but at least it will stop it hurting." She kissed him again and they just sat there for a few minutes, her humming softly and him chewing on the bag of peas.
The front door opened tentatively. "Peggy?" she heard Steve call cautiously.
"In the kitchen," she replied.
Steve stepped into the kitchen, and though he still had the general appearance of someone who'd stuck a finger in an electrical socket, his eyes were at least back to normal now. "You…You got him to be quiet," he said in awe, gaping at the baby sitting on her lap and making no more noise than the occasional smack of his lips as he gummed the frozen vegetables.
Peggy smiled. "He's cutting a tooth," she explained. "His poor little mouth is hurting."
"Oh," Steve said. It seemed to take him a few seconds to absorb that, then he stepped forward and crouched down in front of them, lifting a hand to stroke James's soft hair. "Oh, buddy, I'm sorry. You've been hurting all day and I didn't do anything about it. Daddy's so sorry."
"Steve, no, don't do that," Peggy said, shifting James and his bag of peas to the side just enough for her to lean forward and kiss Steve. "You didn't know, darling. Don't do that to yourself."
Steve sighed and shook his head. "I'm glad you figured it out," he said, pushing himself up to his feet. "I'll get started on dinner."
"Let's just do sandwiches tonight," Peggy suggested. She didn't feel like cooking, but she hardly wanted to make Steve do it either after the day he'd had.
"Okay," Steve agreed. He set to gathering meat, vegetables, cheese and condiments.
Peggy frowned. He was taking his failure to anticipate James's problem hard, but now wasn't the time to sort it. James was no longer in pain, but his hunger was going to get the better of him before too long. Best get him squared away before another round of screaming ensued.
"Would you take the mouthpiece off one of his bottles and put it in the freezer?" Peggy asked. "He still needs to eat, and if that's chilled, maybe he can suck on it without it hurting."
Steve nodded and did so. After he did that, he emptied out one of the ice trays in the freezer and refilled the cubes with the contents of one of the bottles that was sitting in the door of the fridge. "That's a good idea," she said. They couldn't really trust James to hold on to an ice cube, but she or Steve could hold one end of it and let him suck on the other.
"Thanks," Steve said. "Ham or turkey?" he asked, holding up the packets of meat.
"Turkey, please," she said. "And could I have two—"
"Two slices of cheddar and one of pepper jack?" Steve finished for her. "Already got it," he said, and there was a small smile at least.
"Thank you," she told him.
They ate their dinner, taking turns holding James and periodically shifting the bag of peas to help him find a colder place to chew. By the time they'd finished eating, the freezer had chilled the bottle top enough for James to accept it, and once he realized it didn't hurt, he latched onto the bottle eagerly.
Peggy fed him, and Steve cleaned up dinner and went and had a shower. He was looking more like his usual self by the time he emerged, and they switched off and he got the baby ready for bed while Peggy went and got cleaned up herself. He was sitting in bed reading when she came back into the bedroom, and she sat down in front of the mirror and fixed her hair.
"What is it?" she asked when she was done, climbing into bed and sliding an arm across his chest. She thought she knew, but she wanted to give him an opening.
"What?" he asked, sounding somewhat distracted.
"I came in here twenty minutes ago and you have yet to actually turn a page," she said, nodding at his book.
Steve sighed and set the book down on the nightstand. "I just…" He sighed again. "My son was in pain for seven hours today and I couldn't fix it."
"Darling, you didn't know," she said, tightening her arm around him in a quick hug.
"He was screaming for seven hours, Peggy," Steve protested. "I checked everything I could think of, but I didn't think of that. For seven hours. It took you all of five minutes."
"Steve, don't do that to yourself. You had a baby shrieking in your ear for seven hours—I'm impressed that you weren't shrieking too by the end of it." He did not smile at her attempt at levity. "It was an honest oversight," she told him. He said nothing and she studied his face for a moment. "It doesn't mean you're some sort of terrible father for missing it," she said, guessing at what was going on inside his head.
Steve looked over at her sharply. "I never said it did."
"You were thinking it," she replied calmly.
Steve didn't argue with that, deflating with a sigh. "Yeah, I was thinking it," he sighed. "I just…" He shrugged. "I love this," he said. "This life we have here. I love being able to take care of you, and take care of James, and making a home for us here. It's…It's everything I ever wanted and everything I never thought I'd get," he said, and Peggy smiled sadly. Steve had been fighting since 1943, and it had taken a toll on him. Blissful as their life was, it had taken a long time after he arrived on her doorstep for that weariness to lift.
"And now…" Steve sighed again. "Now I can't even do that right." He smiled in an attempt at a self-deprecating joke, but it only made him look sadder. "He's the right age to start getting his teeth in, and I just let him hurt all day because I didn't even think of the obvious answer."
"You didn't 'just let him hurt' all day," Peggy said. "It's not like you set him on his blanket on the floor and left him to howl in misery. You did everything you could to try to make him feel better. That does make you a good father." She kissed the side of his face. "And missing something doesn't negate that. We're bound to miss things every now and then. There's a hell of a learning curve with this parenting thing."
"You didn't miss it," he pointed out.
"I sort of did," she said. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion at that, and she smiled, feeling color rise in her cheeks as she elaborated. "It didn't occur to me to check and see if he was teething," she explained. "I just thought maybe it was one of those days where he didn't want his bottle, so I thought I'd have a go at feeding him and see if that would help. It did not, but I worked out he's getting a tooth because he bit me with it."
Steve huffed a surprised laugh at that, and Peggy smiled. "It doesn't mean you're a failure of a father or that I'm a better parent than you are. It just means it was my turn to have a stroke of luck figuring a problem out."
Steve did smile then. "I still feel bad it took so long, though."
"That's because you care so much," Peggy said. She kissed him again. "That makes you a good father too."
Steve chuckled. "Thank you." He settled down against his pillow a little more, looping an arm around her shoulders. "You said you almost expected me to be shrieking with him, and you weren't too far off. He's got the saddest little face I've ever seen, and just looking at it was enough to make me want to cry."
"That's because he's his father's son," Peggy said. "His eyes may have my coloring, but those puppy-dog eyes are all yours. They make it so much more beautiful when he's happy, and so much more heartbreaking when he's sad." She tapped a finger against Steve's nose. "Just like you."
Steve laughed and blushed and shook his head with a smile.
He fell asleep not long after, though Peggy sat up and read a bit longer before turning out the light. She woke up a few hours later to James crying down the hall, and if she'd needed any proof that the day had worn Steve to the bone, she could see it now in the fact that the sound hadn't stirred him in the slightest.
Peggy picked up James and took him downstairs to the kitchen. In the past couple of weeks, he'd started sleeping through most, and occasionally all, of the night without needing to be fed, so she imagined it was more that his tooth was hurting him again than it was him after a midnight snack. Still, he hadn't eaten properly that day, so she popped a couple of the frozen cubes of milk out of the ice tray and put them in a bowl, then carried them and James over to her rocking chair.
He sucked happily at the frozen milk as Peggy held it up to his mouth, his pained whimpers stopping almost immediately at the cold relief. He gummed his way through two and a half of them before his little head started to droop. "Getting sleepy, are we?" Peggy asked with a smile. She kissed his soft hair and set the bowl with the remains of the milk cubes on the coffee table to pick up in the morning. "Good," she said softly. "You need your rest after a day like today."
By the time they got upstairs, James was nearly asleep. One of his chubby little fists was bunched tightly in the front of her nightgown, and though Peggy could have probably loosened it and gotten him into his crib without waking him up, she decided not to risk it and took him back to her room instead.
"Ssh," she soothed as she settled back down into bed and James let out a sleepy little squeak. She kissed his forehead and made sure he was properly situated against her and the pillow. "Daddy's had a hard day too, love," she whispered. "Let's don't wake him up."
Steve made a snuffling sound and rolled over onto his back, and Peggy shifted just enough so she could rest her head on his shoulder, nestling James securely between them. Steve mumbled something that sort of sounded like a question, and Peggy stretched her neck up and kissed the side of his jaw. "I love you, darling," she whispered. "Go back to sleep," she said softly, even though he wasn't really awake. He mumbled something again that sounded a great deal like, 'love you too,' before dropping back into deeper sleep.
Peggy smiled, kissed his face one more time, then kissed the top of James's soft hair and shut her eyes, letting the sound of her sleepy boys breathing lull her to sleep.