The SSR base was tucked neatly in the basement of an older building in the middle of London. No one would have thought none the wiser that there was an entire wartime organization running covert and overt operations out of this building. In fact, Steve wouldn't have known if Ada hadn't led him towards a man reading the paper next to what looked like a storage closet.
Ada approached the man and smiled up at him sweetly. "The last time I saw this much sun was at Saratoga!"
Without a word, he stepped aside and swung open the door for them to enter. Down the heavy steps revealed an entire underground headquarters. Suited agents flitted back and forth passing on messages and orders and discussing over maps.
"Come, Peggy has the maps ready for us. I only know of two base locations but you probably have more insight," Ada explained as she led him through the buzzing crowd. Agent Carter was standing next to a table with a map of Europe set in front of her.
"Agent Carter will assist you in placing the locations. I need to go discuss with Phillips about a current op we're running in London." Ada turned to walk off but he still held her wrist in his grasp. She turned back with a confused look on her face and Steve stammered out a response. "I...I need to ask you a question about that later."
Her jade eyes searched his face and she nodded. "Of course. Now go, Captain. You have work to do."
One short and succinct discussion ended quickly and Ada found herself following Colonel Phillips back towards the maps. The colonel stopped at the small group that formed in the middle of the room and addressed Steve.
"Rogers, you just embarrassed a United States Senator in front of a room full of reporters and ten members of Parliament," he announced. Steve glanced to Ada for help and she merely bit her lip and cast her gaze towards the ground. Phillips let out a small chuckle and held out the box containing the commendation. "You deserve a medal just for that."
Phillips then looked to the adult child standing next to him who was fiddling with one of the glowing cartridges that Steve had nabbed from the HYDRA facility.
"Figure out what that is yet?"
"Well, if you believe Rogers, it's the most powerful explosive known to man," Howard Stark replied.
"If?" Steve challenged.
"Well, either you're wrong or Schmidt's rewritten the laws of physics."
"Howard, I threw a guy through a wall with one shot of that stuff," Ada defended Steve.
Howard winked at her and headed for the lab. She rolled her eyes, ignoring Steve's gaze that bored into her skull. Instead, Ada headed to the map at the center of the room.
"These are the weapons factories that we know about," she announced.
"Sergeant Barnes said that HYDRA shipped all the parts to a facility that isn't on this map," Steve added.
"One that I've been trying to track down," Ada muttered to herself in frustration.
"Agent Carter, coordinate with MI6. I want every Allied eyeball looking for that main HYDRA base," Phillips ordered.
"What about us?" Ada asked.
"We are going to set a fire under Johann Schmidt's ass. What do you say, Rogers? It's your map, you think you can wipe HYDRA off of it?."
"Yes, sir. I'll need a team."
"We're already putting together the best men."
"With all due respect sir, so am I. And it starts with Agent Kennedy. This is her fight too."
Before Ada could even think about arguing, Peggy was piping up with her agreement. "Schmidt has his eyes on both of you. With both of you in the field, it would give us a better chance. Ada has the experience, Steve the serum."
"If I hear one thing about you two screwing around on the field, I'm pulling Kennedy," Phillips warned.
"Understood sir," Steve answered as the older man walked away, discussing next steps with Peggy. Ada whirled around, her sharp eyes cutting a harsh glare into his face as she stared him down.
"What the hell are you thinking?" she hissed.
"I'm thinking that you've been in the field far longer than me, you know Johann Schmidt, and you're trained more than anyone they would give me for the field."
Ada opened her mouth to argue and then immediately shut it, a frustrated look passing over her face as she grimaced. "Damn your logic. You don't...you don't realize what you're going to see Steve. I am not the woman you thought you married."
He leveled his eyes with her and shrugged, the tight material of his suit jacket straining against his muscles. Ada's gaze darted from his to his shoulders and then back to him. She set her jaw firmly and tilted her chin up defiantly.
"Maybe that's exactly what I want to see. I can't truly know you if I don't see all parts of you."
And yet another time Steve Rogers left the feared Spitfire completely and utterly speechless.
He didn't see her anymore that day, not with Ada leaving for her mission. All she had said was that she was relaying information from British lines to the French resistance fighters while receiving information about supply lines and morale.
But what he wasn't expecting was for her to show up in the doorway of the pub he was in after convincing his new team to join him out in the field. The singing had fallen silent, catching the attention of both Bucky and Steve and ending their conversation. The two men turned to find the familiar blonde standing there, her hands demurely curled around a clutch that Steve was positive held a gun. Her blonde curls were brushed out and pinned in soft waves, brushing against her shoulders and framing her heart shaped face.
Steve felt the breath in his lungs stutter for a moment when his eyes trailed down her form to find her clad in a silken dress the color of her eyes. It clung to every soft curve of her body while simultaneously draping delicately over her strong muscles. A necklace hung at her decolletage, one that he distinctly remembered giving her as a wedding present. His mom's old necklace.
"Hello boys, not causing trouble I hope," she greeted, strong and sure yet soft all the same. It was such a unique trait of her voice and Steve marveled at her ability to command attention and mollify a person in the same sentence.
"Agent Kennedy," he greeted as she joined them. For someone who once stood two inches taller than him, he now revelled in his ability to look down at her. Ada tilted her head up in greeting, a small curve to her pink lips.
"Captain," she responded in kind. "Stark has some equipment for you to try. Tomorrow morning."
"Sounds good."
Steve tore his eyes away from below her neck and coughed to clear his throat. "Mission went well?"
"Yes, I just returned from debrief. Easy in, easy out. All information acquired."
"Good. That's...good."
Ada glanced over at the other room where the men's singing had picked up once more. "Is that our team? I see they're prepping for duty."
"Not a fan of music?" Bucky teased.
"The last time I was in a bar with you two, I distinctly remember a chair being thrown," she retorted. "And that chair was directed at you, Barnes."
"Eh, he had it coming."
"I enjoy music. I just came from a dance hall, actually. It's quite lonely without a partner." The end of her statement was directed at the blond man standing before her. He watched her carefully, catching onto the glimmer in her eye.
A crack in the wall. She was giving him an opening.
"I've never taken you dancing," he admitted hoarsely.
"We've hardly had the time."
"After the war, I'll take you dancing."
"Is that a promise?"
"Yes, ma'am. One I intend to keep."
Her only response was a small smile and a step back from him. Ada turned to leave, her head tilting to the side to see him once more. "0800, Captain. It might be easier for you to arrive on time if I am there to ensure it."
Steve yanked out his wallet and threw down a handful of pounds onto the counter before quickly following her out to the sound of Bucky's protests.
"And I'm back to being the third wheel," he groused.
That night, Ada assured him that shame was the last emotion she felt when looking at him. While she never once regretted or felt ashamed of his old body, she certainly wasn't going to deny him now. Because his heart had never once changed and no matter how many times she expected him to leave, he never once pushed her away.
She found herself staring at the ceiling, his strong arms caging her into his chest as she traced invisible shapes against his skin. She sighed against his skin and he tilted his chin down so he could see her better.
"What are you thinking about?" he asked gently.
"Colonel Phillips in that suit," she said dryly. He pinched the skin of her hip and she grunted out a puff of air. "Are you sure you want me? On your team?"
"I want you on my team and by my side. I told you...I vowed to you that I'm not going back home without you or Bucky."
Ada pushed herself up on her elbow so she could be face to face with him, resting her weight on his broad chest. He ran his hand down her back, mentally cataloguing the scars that ran along her skin.
"I've done terrible things, Steve. And I'll keep doing them. I'll do what I have to do to survive," she whispered.
"You rescued a stray cat from a dogfight. You brought home not one but two injured birds and took care of them until they could fly. You helped Mrs. Crenshaw and Mrs. Mavis without complaint. You even held the jump rope for some of the girls. I think you're a much better person than you let yourself believe that you are. I also think that you could have left so many times and yet you've always stayed. So why do you think I'm going to leave?"
Her hand raised to gently brush against the furrow of his brow and down the slope of his nose before tracing against the fullness of his lips. In this moment of time, it was like the whole world had disappeared and it was just the two of them. He could see the walls around her slowly slide away, revealing the sheer, raw pain concealed in her soul. Steve was almost too scared to speak in case he said the wrong thing and she shut down once more.
Ada bent down, her lips softly capturing his own in a kiss that felt more searing and more heartbreaking than their wedding and farewell kisses combined in one.
And when he woke up to find her still pressed against his side, Steve counted that as a silent victory.