Chapter Seven

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Peggy always considered their engagement as having begun in that early dawn outside her apartment building.

Steve, on the other hand, counted their engagement from the cloudy day a week and a half later, when he got down on one knee in Central Park and formally asked Peggy Carter to be his wife.

He'd spent the interim determinedly courting her —"I don't want you to rush into any decisions, just because I'm back," he'd insisted—so they took things as slowly as they could bear to. He found a job on a construction site and began to earn a small paycheck. They went out for lunches, and to the movies. He drove her getaway car when Jarvis was out of town, and she had him over for Sunday dinner.

They held hands whenever they wanted to. They kissed each other goodnight at the foot of her apartment stairs.

They talked for hours about everything under the sun.

Partway through the second week, Peggy fixed him with a serious eye.

"Are you sure about me?" she'd asked.

His heart had flipped in his chest, and for a moment he couldn't find his voice. "I'm sure."

The warmth in her eyes was breathtaking. Her voice was low. "As am I." She folded something soft into his hands then, her cheeks flushing. Then turning, she ran lightly up the steps to her apartment.

He knew what he would find before he opened his hand. It was a small chamois bag—and inside it was the little gold ring, his mother's ring, the ring he'd had in his things when he'd gone into the ice.

Steve closed his hand around it again and caught his breath against the rush of stunned euphoria. He didn't realize he had happy tears on his cheeks until he got back to his tiny flophouse and caught the curious looks aimed his way.

He asked her to marry him the next day, kneeling on the grass at Central Park amid the remnants of the picnic lunch he'd been too nervous to eat.

And Peggy, arms outstretched, said yes.

The clouds overhead burst into a downpour as the two of them caught each other close, soaking them as they spun in dizzy circles, locked in each other's arms. Peggy laughed a little wetly, her eyes swimming, cheeks flushed. "You always were so dramatic."

"I didn't order the rain," he protested giddily, and then kissed her again and again as the rain swept over them both.

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They ran into trouble deciding who to invite to the tiny wedding. Peggy only had two or three friends—the Howling Commandos were too far away and neither of them wanted to wait the time it would take for an invitation to reach them—but when Peggy suggested inviting the Barnes family, Steve steadfastly refused.

"I can't face them," he admitted miserably to Peggy. They were at her apartment, hunched over her kitchen table, working on the list. "Not while knowing that he's being…" His voice cracked and broke; he looked away.

Peggy folded her hand over his white-knuckled fist for a moment. She examined his face—the lines that those unshared years had engraved around his eyes and lips, the weary furrows in his forehead. She knew the Barnes family considered him a second son, and still remembered how he'd treasured the letters he received from them during the war.

"But you're going after him," she said calmly, "aren't you?"

It wasn't really a question. She had known he would go after his friend since the moment he'd seen Rebecca Barnes in the street during their visit to Brooklyn. His expression then had been the same as he'd worn right before charging off to find his friend after Azzano.

Steve glanced at her apprehensively, clearly expecting her to be angry that he hadn't brought this up earlier. "I am," he admitted, no room for argument in his voice. He had a promise to keep.

Peggy swept his hair back and leaned in to press a kiss to his forehead. "Then invite the Barnes family," she encouraged him. "And face them knowing full well that you and I will find their boy and bring him home as soon as the wedding is over."

"I can't ask you…" he began, but she cut him off with a finger laid across his lips.

"Just to be entirely clear, I categorically refuse to let you go gallivanting off into enemy territory alone again," she told him sternly. "And besides, he's my friend too. We do this together, my darling."

"Together," Steve agreed—and very slowly wrote the Barnes family on the list.

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It took several days for the necessary documentation to be put into place. Thousands of people by the last name of Rogers lived in New York alone; they simply swapped his first and middle names and went with Grant S. Rogers. That change, along with his civvies, the added decade, and the hat and sunglasses he habitually adopted, was enough to keep him from being recognized.

Besides, nobody expected to see a dead war hero on the streets of New York.

"It's nice that everybody wears hats now," Steve confessed. He'd spent part of his first paycheck on a broad-brimmed fedora, and found it fit much better than the baseball caps he'd worn in the future. "Makes it easier to blend in."

Peggy had laughed at that, and then adjusted her own sunglasses more firmly on her nose. She didn't tell him that his straight posture and broad shoulders still turned feminine heads on their walks. Hat or no hat, he was still a fine figure of a man with an air of quiet command that he wore like a second skin.

It was a good thing, she decided, that most of the people of New York ran around with their eyes on the ground anyway.

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The day after the paperwork was completed and Grant S. Rogers made his debut upon the world of legal existence, Steve and Peggy took a train out to Brooklyn.

Peggy left Steve on the stairs and climbed the last stretch alone, knocking on the door of the apartment. She smiled politely at the woman who opened the door. "Mrs. Barnes, I assume?"

Mrs. Barnes wiped her hands on her apron, clearly somewhat flustered at being caught like this by unexpected company. She was a tall woman, nearly Bucky's height, and had her son's eyes and mouth.

"Yes," she said. "Won't you come in?"

Peggy stepped inside, casting a glance around as she did so. The apartment was tidy. Clearly the Barnes family was not poorly off. A small upright piano stood in the drawing room, and she could see a kitchen beyond. A portrait on a nearby table caught her eye, and she paused, looking at it. Mrs Barnes followed the direction of her unexpected guest's eye, and smiled sadly.

"That's my boy, James," she said, and Peggy could hear the softness of old suffering in the mother's voice. "We lost him in the war. The girl with him is my youngest, Becky. She's still with us—the others are married."

Peggy nodded, absorbing the information. Then she looked the other woman squarely in the face.

"Mrs Barnes—could we sit? There's something we need to talk about."

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Steve sat outside on the front steps of the apartment building, waiting for Peggy to call him in. After some discussion, they had decided that it would be better for everybody if Steve didn't turn up at the front door out of the blue.

"You could give the woman a heart attack," Peggy had argued, and remembering her own reaction when he'd turned up at her door unannounced, Steve felt she had a point.

The only trouble with that plan was that it left him with nothing to do but stew with worry. Peggy had insisted they would be happy to have him back, but what if she was wrong? What if the Barnes family didn't want to see him? What if they blamed him, as he blamed himself, for not catching their son and brother?

What if his return only brought pain?

"Steve?"

Steve sat up straight. Peggy leaned out of the Barnes' front door, beckoning. "Come in, please."

He sucked in a lungful of air and followed.

Mrs. Barnes stared up at him with shock and awe when he came in. Though she'd written both him and Bucky weekly throughout their service, she had only briefly seen Steve in person after the serum had been administered.

"Steve," she quavered, and stood from the battered front couch Steve remembered so well. Bucky's eyes were wide in her angular face. "Is it really you?"

Steve swallowed around a lump in his throat. The house seemed so much smaller than he'd remembered, but it still smelled the same—cloves and cinnamon and coffee—bringing memories back in a heady rush. He could barely breathe.

"It's me," he confessed. "Mrs. Barnes, I'm so sorr—"

A sudden rush cut him off before he could finish, and for the first time in more years than he cared to remember, Steve Rogers found himself on the receiving end of a mother's hug.

"Oh my boy," Mrs. Barnes was crying into his ear. "Welcome home, Steve. Welcome home."

Bewildered, shocked at her welcome, at her easy acceptance of him, Steve raised wondering eyes over her shoulder to see Peggy smile, dabbing at her eyes.

She had been right, after all.

Mrs. Barnes didn't hate him.

With a shuddering exhale, Steve bowed his head over the woman's shoulder and wrapped his arms around her in return. Her wordless forgiveness eased a pain in his heart that he'd thought he would carry to his grave. And in the face of this wonder, he could do nothing but hold his surrogate mother a little more tightly and marvel dizzily over the restoration of yet one more thing he'd thought irretrievably lost forever.

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After the visit to the Barnes house, Steve and Peggy swung by Howard's place without preamble and asked him to witness at their small wedding, to be held the following afternoon.

Howard, upon realizing who had just appeared at his front door, dropped an entire case of something flammable, so the entire reunion was complicated by his man Jarvis running around, putting out the resulting vivid green flames.

They judiciously told Howard a story of half-truths mingled with outright lies: Steve had been found in the ice by a Russian oil team, which had thawed him out but then chosen to keep him and run some tests instead of returning him to his home country. Steve had managed to escape, only just getting back. To prevent the United States running the same tests on him, he explained to Howard that he'd prefer to start a new life.

The story was close enough to the truth, and fit with the current political climate. Howard didn't think twice about it—he was too busy hugging Steve, and then Peggy, and then Jarvis, and then Steve again, all while trying to pretend he wasn't crying.

Howard cried again at the wedding the next day. It was a small wedding—only Howard, Mr. and Mrs. Barnes with their daughter Rebecca, the Jarvises, and two of Peggy's girl friends named Rose and Angie. Mrs. Barnes mopped at her eyes, and Angie sniffled with frank enjoyment. Peggy herself was radiant with joy, glad tears sparkling in her eyes through the whole ceremony. She wore white and carried a little bouquet, and Steve never once took his gaze off his bride's face, his throat so thick with emotion that he had to clear his throat before solemnly swearing, "I do."

"You may kiss the bride," the officiant said at last. And to his dying day, Howard would swear that he never saw more happiness in one room than the moment when Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter became man and wife.

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They had a little supper after the wedding at Howard's place. Mrs. Barnes had offered, but Jarvis would have had his heart broken if they'd turned down his cooking. Besides, there were too many neighbors in the Brooklyn neighborhood who might ask questions about the festivities later.

The supper was a small one, and later Steve didn't remember much of it—only the feel of Peggy's hand in his, the laughter and chatter that surrounded them, and the way his blood pounded in his ears every time he realized that this was actually real—that it was actually happening—that Peggy Carter was truly his wedded wife after all this time.

Jarvis took the greatest pleasure in serving the guests. Howard tried to kiss the bride, got socked on the chin in response, and then rather surprisingly devoted himself to Mrs. Barnes until she flushed with laughter.

"I knew your son," Steve heard him saying to Mr. Barnes from across the room. "Good kid. Smart guy. We were all sorry to hear of his loss."

It seemed an age before they could get away. Peggy slipped off with Mrs. Jarvis and Angie to get into her going-away dress, and Steve hovered in the foyer with the suitcases, his ears burning, only half hearing Howard's ribald jokes. The inventor had gifted them a week at the Ritz hotel as a wedding gift, and evidently had a number of suggestions about how the newly-wedded couple should employ their time.

His apparent familiarity with the honeymoon suite was really rather alarming, Steve thought absently.

Finally Peggy was back, sniping back good naturedly at Howard, and Steve was shaking Mr. Barnes' hand goodbye while Mrs. Barnes and Rebecca Barnes hugged him, and Mr. Jarvis was tucking one last delicious-smelling parcel under the strap of Peggy's suitcase.

Then somehow they were at the car, and the taxi driver shut their suitcases in the trunk while Steve handed Peggy in and climbed in after her. Hands fluttered a last farewell, Peggy blew a kiss to Rose—or Angie—or Mrs. Jarvis, Steve wasn't sure. The driver pulled away from the curb…

And they were off.

It felt different, and all at once very right, to be alone with her now. Somehow, driving away like this, just the two of them together, Steve felt more married now than he had back in the church. There had been friends and family at the church, loud laughter and jokes and conversation.

But now they were alone, and for the first time in their relationship there was no immediate prospect of parting. This was their new life—together.

The thought left his heart pounding wildly.

"Are you looking for something?" Peggy demanded, looking at him with an adorably quizzical expression on her face. Steve realized he was groping mindlessly for his seatbelt, and sheepishly lowered his hand.

Right. Not been invented yet.

"I'm thinking how I won't have to say goodbye to you tonight," he said instead.

Peggy dimpled and suddenly Steve realized that since there were no seatbelts, there was nothing stopping him from sliding across the seat to be closer to her. Suiting the action to the thought, he put an arm around her and felt her relax into his side, her hand resting lightly on his knee.

There was no need for words. Both were a little tired out from the day, happy and content in their silence. Outside, the streetlights slipped past as they rolled through the darkening streets. Dusk had fallen while they'd been at supper.

Sitting here beside her, Steve was suddenly reminded of that first time he'd been in the back seat of a car with Agent Carter, driving on their way to the procedure that would change his life forever.

His heart had been pounding then too, though for very different reasons.

"I got beat up on that corner," he said softly, nodding toward the window as they drove through an intersection. 'Beat up' was perhaps an oversimplification—the incident had involved aliens and blue energy weapons and a charred wound in his side that had taken weeks to heal, but that was beside the point.

Peggy laughed a little at the reminder of that long-ago conversation. Tipping her head back against his shoulder, she looked up into his face. "My husband, always getting himself into scrapes."

Her husband. And she was his wife.

A deep rush of tender gratitude swept through Steve's soul at the realization. Very, very gently he brushed his thumb across her cheek, taking in every feature of her beloved face until he could have drawn her with his eyes closed.

Then, with utmost care, he kissed her. It was soft, loving, a promise for all the days and weeks and decades to come—an expression of the deepest feelings of his heart.

She was pink-cheeked and starry-eyed when he finally drew back.

"I love you," he whispered.

In answer, she drew his head back down and kissed him with all her heart until the whole world faded, and the taxi driver had to rap on the partition more than once to get their attention once they'd reached the Ritz.

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"What's that on your finger?" Thompson asked some days later. It was his first day back from his long recuperation in California, and he was pale, thin, and nearly as exasperating as ever. Carter was still carrying on as the temporary director, since they both knew he wasn't up to the work yet.

Peggy glanced up at him briefly. "My wedding ring," she responded offhandedly, going back to her work.

Heads turned throughout the office. On the other side of the room, a coffee mug crashed to the floor.

"You're…" Jack sounded like he wasn't sure he'd heard correctly, "...married? How long have you been married, Marge?"

This time she fixed him with her stare, both eyebrows arched. "I'm not entirely certain that's any of your business, Jack."

Still stunned, he fell back on what he fondly deemed a suave attitude. "Whirlwind romance, then?"

Peggy went back to perusing the paper she held. "Not at all. We've known each other for years."

Unbearably curious, Jack leaned against her desk and folded his arms. "Finally traded in the red, white and blue for a normal guy then, eh? How does he measure up to Captain America?"

Peggy's papers crackled dangerously in her hand, but a small, secret smile tugged at her lips, and a trace of pink brushed her cheeks.

"Perfectly," she responded, much to Jack's confusion—and left it at that.

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Hi, friends! Thanks for your patience—my keyboard broke, and editing on a phone takes longer than expected. I just want to thank you all for sticking around. More chapters to come!

Special thanks to DocMui, who was incredibly encouraging and patient when I couldn't outrun sleep and work long enough to post it. Thanks, friend!

By the way, I've been dabbling in a couple other fandoms lately to keep the creative wheels oiled, so if you see me post something that's not Captain America-related (Leverage, Merlin, etc,), fear not! I'm not abandoning this ship.

Oh, and I'm on Tumblr now, so that's a thing. Come say hi. :D

Guest reviews:

Olivia52: Aww, thanks so much! You're very kind.

DBZFAN45: Thank you! You guessed it—he's staying!

Sandra: Thank you! I'm glad the characterization works for you. Ooh, and it's good to know you'd be interested in potential future stories in the Sarcophagus-verse. Those stories are still on the back burner, but they'll move up at some point!

My-secret-garden: Aww, you're so kind! I'm so glad the little ordinary details work for you. Thanks so much for coming back and revisiting my old and new stories! Also, that's excellent advice about Steve's identity. I touched on it a little in this chapter, and made some tweaks based on your suggestions. Thanks again!

Em: Thank you so much! Yes, this is the Steggy reunion the way I wanted to see it, and I'm so glad you're enjoying it thus far!