May 2012, New York
Natasha's logic was undeniably sound and every muscle in her body was aching now, so she left her phone with Clint and returned to her apartment.
JARVIS could let her know if anyone needed her urgently before the morning - and she wasn't planning on speaking to anyone but Steve until then anyway.
She found Steve on the couch, deftly navigating a Stark Pad like he'd been doing it for years and hadn't just been shown that morning.
(Was it that morning? Or was it the morning before?)
His hair was damp and he too had managed to find a change of clothes.
"Anything interesting?" Peggy asked, letting the door slide closed behind her.
"You know you said the information SHIELD gave me about Tony was inaccurate?" He asked in response.
Peggy raised an eyebrow. "Well, he's moved from 'Stark' to 'Tony' so I'm guessing I was right."
Steve looked up at her, his eyes dark. "They didn't mention any of this stuff. They made it sound like Iron Man was something he started for kicks, nothing about Afghanistan, or Hammer, or anything. Why would they lie to me?"
"Because Tony can't be controlled," Peggy said simply, calm despite the anger coursing through her. "Neither can you. If the two of you teamed up, you'd be a very big thorn in their side. Was there a change of clothes for me?"
"Excuse me, Agent Carter," JARVIS said, before Steve could. "But Sir had the apartment fully stocked for you. You will find them in the bedroom."
"Oh, thank you," Peggy said, reaching up to unzip her uniform. Her ribs protested angrily at the movement, and she flinched involuntarily, a soft gasp escaping her.
"Are you alright?" Steve asked, setting the Stark Pad aside.
"I'm …" Peggy tried once again, but conceded defeat with a sigh. "Steve, I need to ask you for a favour, and I swear that I mean this in the most innocent sense right now, but can you help me out of this uniform? I have bruises in places I didn't know I had."
Steve blushed, but he got to his feet regardless, approaching her slowly. "Are you sure? I'm sure Agent Romanov …"
"Natasha is patching Clint up," Peggy interrupted with a smile. "It's fine, Steve. I trust you."
Peggy bit back her sigh - she wasn't frustrated with him and it wouldn't do to make him think that she was. "Why? Because you find me attractive? Because you're going to look? That's not a reason not to trust you." She touched his face, drawing his eyes back to hers. "We are coming at this from two very different times, Steve, so things are going to be strange. I suggest we both stop thinking about what society says we should be doing and start thinking about ourselves."
"What do you mean?" Steve asked, a small note of helplessness entering his voice.
Even when he was ninety pounds dripping wet and shorter than her, she never heard him sound helpless, and her heart ached for him.
Oh, darling, just take what you want for once.
"Trust me," Peggy said quietly. "Trust that I will tell you if there is something I am uncomfortable with, and I will trust you to do the same. In turn, we will trust each other to step back or stop if we need to. Okay?"
Steve nodded, instantly relaxing. "Okay."
"Now," Peggy said, smiling, "would you be more comfortable if I asked Natasha to come and give me a hand."
"No," Steve said, deftly undoing the clasp at the top of her spine. "If yours is built anything like mine, it's a pretty tough set-up."
"Well, yours definitely seemed more complicated," Peggy said, her breath catching as he carefully peeled Kevlar away from her skin. "All straps and buckles and … Shit!"
The pain in her side was not, as she had assumed, a bruise, but a gash of some kind, the uniform sticking to her skin with blood.
Automatically Steve dropped to his knees in front of her, gently wiping the blood away to reveal an angry scar. "Looks like it's mostly healed already."
"Can't have been too bad then," Peggy said, her smile turning wicked when he glanced up at her and shut his eyes. "Something wrong, Captain?"
"You - uh - you failed to mention that you - uh …"
Peggy's smile softened and she lifted her hands to cover her naked breasts, taking pity on him. "No room under the uniform, Steve."
It had been a sticking point with the original uniform, but her current one had been designed by Tony, and was as effective - if not more so - than any sports bra.
She had a feeling he had asked Pepper for input, and half-wished she had been a fly on the wall for that discussion.
"If you want, I can handle the rest myself."
For a second, she thought Steve would turn the question back on her, but he hesitated, chancing a peek, and relaxing when he realised she was preserving her modesty. "I guess if you had a problem with me seeing you undressed, you woulda asked one of the ladies to help."
"Yes, I would," Peggy agreed, fighting to keep her hands still. It wasn't easy - Steve's accent had always become thicker when he was struggling with any kind of strong emotion, and it still shot straight through her.
That, and the sight of him kneeling before her, had her body responding in ways she wasn't sure it should, given its injuries.
Her resolve was threatened even more when he unzipped one of her boots and gently eased it off her foot.
Peggy had never considered undressing (at least, the act of undressing itself) a particularly sexy or seductive activity.
Maybe it was just Steve, she thought, as he slipped her other boot off as well, and peeled the rest of her uniform down her legs.
Despite Peggy's best intentions, any thoughts she had of keeping things chaste were going to Hell in a hand-basket (although, admittedly, asking him to strip her almost naked was not the best start in that respect).
Standing before in in nothing but a small pair of panties (unlike anything that existed back in the forties), it would have been so easy to just slip into his lap and start something.
Easy, that is, if it weren't for the aches still plaguing her.
"I should take a shower," Peggy said, her voice trembling slightly. "I'll just …" she trailed off, lost for words for the first time in a long time, and stepped through the door, shutting it firmly behind her.
As she did, she caught sight of her reflection and grimaced. This was hardly the way she imagined Steve seeing her (almost) naked for the first time, but it seemed about right for them.
The shower was the perfect temperature and pressure when she got in, her sigh of relief mingling with the water as it soothed her aches and pains.
Tony (or, more likely, Pepper) had made sure the bathroom was fully stocked, and a shower gave her time to check her injuries.
There were fading bruises here and there, any cuts like the one on her side had already healed, and there didn't seem to be anything that would require a longer healing period. Her ribs hurt a little when she touched them, but the hot water was helping, and she came to the conclusion that they weren't broken, just battered.
She emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel, feeling cleaner than she had in months.
She found Steve stretched out on the couch, and sighed. "You're not really planning on sleeping there, are you?"
Steve gave her a sheepish smile. "Never good to make assumptions."
Peggy rolled her eyes, jerking her head towards the bedroom door. "Come on, soldier. After today, you deserve a proper bed."
"I don't know whether I'll sleep," Steve warned, following her regardless.
"You need to try," Peggy said, rummaging in the chest of drawers. "You must be exhausted."
Despite her invitation, Steve stopped in the doorway, leaning against the frame. "How did Tony have clothes in everyone's size?"
Peggy glanced over her shoulder. "I don't know." She wouldn't have said his clothes were his size - they seemed very tight around his chest and shoulders, every muscle clearly defined, especially when he folded his arms like that …
She hastily looked away, taking a few deep breaths.
"Are you alright?" Steve asked quietly.
"I'm fine," Peggy said dismissively. "Nothing broken. A few cuts and bruises. Nothing that won't heal by morning."
"That's good," Steve said. "But that's not what I meant. You got a little … fatalistic out there."
"You mean when a giant missile was going to wipe out Manhattan while we were still in it?" Peggy asked, chuckling wryly. "Imagine that."
Steve didn't respond, and she heaved a sigh, dropping the towel to slip into a pair of sweatpants and a tank top. She heard his sharp intake of breath when the towel pooled at her feet, but he said and did nothing.
When she turned around, he was examining something interesting on the ceiling.
"I'm decent, Steve," she said fondly. "But for future reference, if I do something like that after I invite you into a room, you are allowed to look. Especially after earlier."
Steve lowered his eyes to hers again, but said nothing, waiting for her to answer his question.
"Last night," she said quietly, "if it was last night - I've lost track - I told you that we should stick to anything that wouldn't make us want to shoot ourselves for not saying if one of us died today. No," she added sharply, when Steve finally made a move towards her. "No, if you want me to answer, I need you to stay there, or I won't be able to." She waited for his nod and hopped up on to the dresser, slowly towelling her hair dry. "And I thought I covered everything. I missed you. I love you." She shrugged. "That about sums it up. Except it doesn't.
"That Saturday, after you died … because you died," she added. "I mourned you - we mourned you … I went to the Stork Club. I went because … even though I knew you weren't coming … I had to be there, just in case … if by some miracle, you weren't …" She swallowed the lump that forced its way into her throat, forced herself to keep talking. "And I sat there for half an hour, and then I went back to my room on base and barricaded the door. And I thought about all the times that you and I did't talk about it, or act on it, because of other people, or reputations, or the circumstances, and I … I wished I'd just ignored all that and said something, because none of those consequences could ever have been as bad as that, as sitting in the dark and wondering, because the plane probably would still have gone down, but I'd know what I lost. No one tells you how to cope with losing 'almost'."
"Peggy …" Steve began, his voice pained.
"And everything that happened in my life," Peggy continued as though he hadn't spoken, "everything I did, I thought about you. And you saved my life, Steve, more than you think, because it wasn't easy, watching everyone grow old around me and die, and there were points on ops where I'd think it was over, and I only kept fighting because I promised I'd bring you home." She cut herself off hastily, the towel falling from her grip. "And I've never actually said that aloud to anyone before."
"Peggy …" Steve repeated, taking a step towards her, horror shining in his eyes. "Peggy, I am so …"
"Don't you dare apologise," Peggy said fiercely. "You couldn't have done anything else, Steve. If you'd let that plane hit New York, yes you might have walked away, but all those people would have died and … And if you'd done that, you wouldn't be the man I love, so it wouldn't matter." She leaned her head back against the wall, closing her eyes. "I got … a little carried away just now. That only happened once or twice in the last twenty years. What I was trying to say is … I thought I covered everything last time we talked, and then today, for a moment, I thought that was it, and I realised that it didn't matter how many times I tell you that I love you - even if I had been able to tell you every day for the last sixty seven years, it wouldn't have been enough." She smiled wryly. "That, and it felt a bit like we're cursed."
"No, we're not," Steve said, his voice suddenly much closer, and her eyes flew open to take him in, standing before her, "We're here. We're alive. It took us a while, yeah, but we got here." He lifted a hand to brush away the tear that had escaped her efforts. "You didn't answer my question. Are you alright?"
Peggy took a shaky breath and tugged at the front of his shirt, parting her legs so he could step between them. "Yeah, just … Just hold me."
And he did, cradling her against his strong chest, and she closed her eyes, letting his heartbeat soothe her the way it had when she slept in his arms.
"I know you don't want me to apologise for the radio call," Steve said after a few minutes, and Peggy gave a little sigh, anticipating an apology anyway. "But I have to thank you."
Peggy leaned back in his arms, tilting his head back to see his face. "Pardon?"
"I know it's selfish of me," Steve said, his eyes fixed on the wall over her head, "but I was hoping I'd get to speak to you, to hear your voice one last time."
"That's not selfish," Peggy insisted.
Steve looked down at her, his hand leaving her back to caress her cheek. "I had a picture of you in my compass. I set it on the radio so … so I could see your face …"
"Steve …" Peggy whispered, leaning into his touch.
"I get it," Steve said in a hushed voice. "I thought just telling you would be enough, but it isn't. I could never begin to tell you how it felt the moment I laid eyes on you for the first time; the moment you tried to talk me out of the serum because you somehow saw worth in me without it; the moment you stole a plane for me to rescue my best friend even though it was a fool's mission and could have cost you everything if it hadn't worked. I wouldn't know where to start telling you how much it meant when you chose to spend an evening's leave sitting with me in an empty bar, despite me being pretty awful company." A tear of his own slipped out from under his lashes, and she wiped it away before he could think to release her. "The sound of your voice, Peggy … It gave me the strength to do what I needed, and I wanted to tell you right there and then, but I couldn't, because I needed to believe that I'd come home to do it."
Peggy sucked in a shaky breath. "I'm glad you didn't," she admitted. "If you had … yes, I would have known, but I would have known that you willingly went to your death and somehow that's even worse." She smiled a little, needing to lighten the mood, to lift them out of the dark depths they'd managed to descent to. "And you finally learned how to talk to women."
"Nah," Steve said with a self-conscious chuckle. "I still can't talk to women for shit."
Peggy's smile grew. Soldiers in general had potty-mouths, but they tended to watch their language around women, even fellow soldiers, back in their day. The Commandos had fast learned that Peggy's rivalled their own, and had stopped holding back.
It might be strange, but the day they had first started to curse in front of her was tucked away in a little spot in her heart, the day they had truly accepted her as one of their own.
"You seem to be doing alright, soldier."
"You're different," he said quietly. "You're Peggy, and yes, you're terrifying, and smart, and beautiful, and intimidating, but you're you and I love you. And this isn't me trying to be smooth or anything; it's just me telling you the truth. Figured I can't go wrong with that."
"No, you can't," Peggy agreed, her voice trembling a little. "You should be careful, Captain. I'm not a swooner, but you keep talking like that, and I might make an exception."
Steve's face lit up in a smile that had always been dangerous, at least for her composure. "You know I'd catch you."
Peggy laughed, craning her neck up to kiss him. "You awful man," she murmured against his lips.
She felt him smile, the hand on her face sliding back to tangle in her hair, the other settling on her waist to pull her closer.
Between Steve's rather hopeless manner with women and Peggy's rather abysmal love life (despite Maria Stark's better efforts, God rest her soul), neither of them were that experienced in this department, but Peggy had often found that instinct could be an excellent teacher if one listened.
It was certainly the reason for the way her hands roamed over his back and shoulders, and it was probably what prompted his lips to travel down her throat when they broke the kiss a few minutes later.
"I should warn you," Steve murmured, "that I have no real idea what I'm doing."
Peggy smiled, her legs encircling his waist and pulling him closer. "Neither do I, darling. But I would very much like you to take me to bed."