April 30, 2012

"It's happening in just a few days," Mike told Peggy.

She blinked a few times, casting her mind back, trying to remember what her son was talking about. They were in the Mirror Dimension right now, she knew that. She could tell by the echos that chased after Mike's words. They were in Steve's apartment in Manhattan, and Steve himself - the younger one - was sitting at his kitchen table with his head resting on one arm, wholly unaware of their presence.

After a long uncomfortable pause, Peggy was finally forced to admit defeat.

"What's happening in a few days?" she asked, trying to suppress her embarrassment and not entirely succeeding.

Mike's expression was patient. "Loki. He'll arrive at the Joint Dark Energy Mission facility. Take Clint Barton captive. Steal the Tesseract. Fury's going to ask Dad to help S.H.I.E.L.D. get it back."

"Oh, yes," Peggy said quickly, remembering. "He'll meet Natasha Romanoff and Bruce Banner on the helicarrier. And Tony Stark in Germany."

"Right. Big day for him. So we're gonna do what we can to get him stabilized. He needs to be in fighting shape. He kinda doesn't look so good right now."

Peggy looked over at Steve. Mike was right; it wasn't like him to just sit there doing nothing at all. Her eyes roamed across his kitchen. It wasn't a disaster - in fact it was neater than one might expect from a bachelor's apartment - but she knew him well enough to know that something was certainly wrong. Steve's mother, a nurse, had raised him to be very clean in the hopes of preventing the many illnesses he had been susceptible to during his childhood, and those habits had lasted throughout their long marriage. Yet now there were dirty dishes in the sink, and his jacket had slipped off the back of his kitchen chair and fallen onto the crumb-littered floor within his easy reach, but he was making no move to pick it up.

This had all the looks of one of his numb phases of PTSD, which tended to follow the periodic outbursts of anger that drove him to the gym down the street to take out his frustrations on a punching bag or five.

"What happened to him?" Peggy asked.

Mike took his time answering. "He knows he needs to get back into the world, Mom. Saul said he tried going to a nightclub last night. Apparently it didn't go so well. The woman he met... well, she wasn't much like you. He got upset, and... things spiraled down."

Peggy didn't know what to say to that. Instinctively her stomach tightened at the thought of Steve wanting to dance with anyone but her. But he couldn't be blamed for trying. He was lonely here, and he had no reason to believe he could ever have a life with her now. Of course she had nothing to worry about. He was destined to come home to her one day, and nothing could change that. But in the meantime...

The wait was going to be hard on him.

Steve shifted his legs under the table and turned his head to the side, keeping his forehead resting on one forearm but his unseeing eyes gazing sideways at the furniture in his silent apartment. Peggy felt her heart throb painfully in her chest, looking at him.

She took a slow step toward him. He was thinking about her right now. She could tell because he had his old compass cradled in one hand, resting on his knee underneath the kitchen table. He wasn't looking at her photo at the moment, but he hardly needed to. There was a softness in his expression that he had always reserved for her and her alone. He must be remembering something from their time together. Their first meeting at Camp Lehigh? No, that particular memory wouldn't have failed to make him smile, no matter how miserable he was. From day one he had always shown a not-so-secret delight in her refusal to take any disrespect from the soldiers who answered to her.

Perhaps he was thinking of the day she had held him back after his troop's first target practice to give him some tips: the first time they'd ever spoken face to face with no one else in earshot. He'd given her his full attention as she'd shared some advice on sharpshooting, his face sober and eyes locked on hers the whole time, and oh, how good it had felt to be taken seriously by a soldier for a change, to be shown the same respect the men instinctively gave to Colonel Phillips and the other officers! Without even thinking about it, she'd lowered her guard. Here was a man who didn't need to learn that particular lesson from her right cross. Here was a man who simply trusted in her expertise and greater experience. Here was a man whose ego didn't get in the way.

And when she'd put her hand over his to help him adjust his grip on the pistol, she'd been surprised by her own reaction to the fleeting touch: a vague sense of embarrassment, as if she'd done something in public she shouldn't have, although she'd taught any number of men how to shoot and had never felt that way before. After all, on the very day she was hired by the SSR, she'd made a hard and fast rule not to even flirt, much less start a relationship, with anyone at work. It was difficult enough to earn respect from her superiors as it was, and being seen as a silly girl just looking to dangle on the arm of a strapping man in uniform certainly wouldn't have helped her cause.

It was a rule that hadn't been hard to follow. Until Steve came along.

"Mom?" Mike said.

Peggy sucked in a deep breath, shaking off the memory, and was confused to discover that she wasn't home, but standing in someone else's kitchen. Where was she? She looked over and saw that Steve was sitting at the table with his head resting on his forearm. He didn't look well. Was he sick?

"Steve? What's wrong?" she asked in concern, going over to put her hand on his shoulder. But he didn't move or look at her. She shook his shoulder a little. "Steve?"

"Mom." Mike quickly followed her and put an arm around her shoulders. "We're in the Mirror Dimension. He can't hear you."

"Oh. Yes." She was embarrassed. How could she have forgotten? She cleared her throat hastily. "How can we help him?"

"He had a bad episode last night, but we need to get him ready to fight," Mike said. "Loki's coming soon to steal the Tesseract, and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s going to call Dad up to handle it. Now, we know Dad can't hear us from in here. But do you remember what Sarah said Clint found out about the Mirror Dimension?"

Peggy was relieved when the answer came to mind fairly quickly. "He may be able to sense our presence."

Mike nodded. "Right. So we should talk to him. Try to... project some hope. Some confidence. He doesn't know if he'll be able to perform once he's back on duty. We do know that. Maybe we can help him know it, too."

"Yes." Peggy put her hand on Steve's slumped shoulder again. How strange it was to feel the warmth of his skin through his shirt but get no response from him. But she straightened her aching back as well as she could and pressed her lips together with determination. Despite the limitations, she would do what she could for him.

As always.

"Steve?" she said softly. "Listen to me. You've never backed down from a fight in your life." She drew in a slow breath. "Bucky once told me his earliest memory of you. You came to school a whole month after the term started and the teacher told the class you'd been ill. And then after school he saw two boys pushing you around. He didn't think it was a fair fight, so he went over to knock their heads together. And he couldn't believe it, but before he even got there, you started swinging back at them. He said you looked so frail that a breeze might knock you over... you must have known you'd only get hurt... but you fought back anyway. Bucky said he'd never seen anything like it."

Was it her imagination, or had his shoulder straightened ever so slightly beneath her palm?

"You're about to be put back into the fight," she went on. "You've known that day would come sooner or later. I know you're worried about it. You've never had this sort of trouble before. I know it's shaken you." She had to fight back the tears that pricked at her eyes. "I know, darling. Believe me, I know."

He sighed deeply, his shoulder rising up and down underneath her wrinkled hand, his head still resting on one arm.

"I need you to know it will be the same as before," Peggy told him. "You'll be fighting back against someone stronger than you. But when the time comes, that won't matter. You'll have people to protect. You won't have time to be afraid. You won't have time to think about yourself at all. And believe it or not..."

She thought of Steve facing Loki in Stuttgart, of Natasha Romanoff hovering over him protectively in her Quinjet as Tony Stark rocketed into the plaza to back him up, and she emphasized the next words as strongly as she could with a voice now weakened by age: "You won't be alone."

Steve stirred and then abruptly sat up straight. Peggy's hand slipped off his shoulder and, deprived of her support, she felt herself listing to the right, a sharp pain shooting through her bad hip. Instantly Mike was at her side, steadying her with his strong hands. He started to guide her toward the other chair by the kitchen table, but she shook her head and stayed rooted in place, gritting her teeth through the pain and waiting to see Steve's reaction. Had Clint been right? Could he really be reached this way?

Steve took his clenched fist off his knee and put it up on the table, uncurling his fingers to reveal the compass inside. He opened the lid carefully and looked inside. His eyes were bleak. So young. So young. She could hardly believe how young he was.

"I don't know if I can do this without you," he whispered to Peggy's picture, his voice so soft he could barely be heard. The admission seemed to bring him physical pain, even here as he sat alone in his apartment, with no one to see it.

"You're never without me," Peggy said fiercely. "Never, never."

Steve's eyes flicked over to the phone in the corner.

"Call me," Peggy said intently, and suddenly there wasn't a doubt in her mind that that was exactly what he was thinking, too. "Steve, call me. We can talk. I can talk you through this." She clasped her hands together painfully tight. "I know it's been a very long time since we spoke. I know I'm not... as you remember me, but you can ask me. You can ask me for help."

Even as she said it, she feared it wasn't true. Asking for help was not a thing that Steve had done during their war days. In strategy sessions he would simply announce his intention to do whatever the conditions on the battlefield required him to do, and it was only the eagerness of the Howling Commandos to volunteer to back him up that ensured that he did not charge into the fray on his own. Even on that terrible day they had lost Bucky, Steve had retreated to a bombed-out bar to drink alone despite no shortage of people who stood ready to offer him comfort, not least of all Peggy herself. His fierce independence had not permitted him to admit even to his friends that there were some things that simply shouldn't be borne alone.

No, she could still remember very clearly the first time Steve had ever come right out and asked her for help. One night, not long after he had returned home to her and their long-delayed courtship had begun at last, Peggy had been awakened in the small hours of the morning by the ring of her telephone. It had been Steve, calling from the apartment in Brooklyn where he had briefly lived before their wedding. He'd had a bad dream, and he'd wanted to tell her about it. And so he had told her... slowly but not reluctantly, his voice thick with pain and yet strangely matter-of-fact about that pain. He'd dreamed of Natasha Romanoff, of the terrible moment only a few weeks ago for him when he had found her body lying crumpled and bleeding on the altar of Vormir. To Peggy's great surprise, he had poured his grief out to her over that telephone line without even needing to be coaxed.

It wasn't until then that Peggy had begun to comprehend just how much Steve had been changed by his years away. He wasn't the same Steve Rogers who had gone down into the ice. He was older. Wiser. Less afraid to admit vulnerability. She hadn't thought she could love him any more than she already did, but that night the knowledge that he trusted her enough to show her that side of him - to let her help in whatever small way she could - had been a revelation.

"Call me, Steve," she whispered again. Mike stood behind her, his strong hands keeping her securely upright, and she could tell he was holding his breath, waiting for his father's answer. "Please. Let me help you."

Steve kept his eyes on the phone, an agony of indecision on his face. Peggy clung to hope, and finally, after a long pause, his eyebrows drew together, and he got that look Peggy had seen on his face a hundred times. The one that said: I have no idea how I'm gonna do this, but I'm not gonna let that stop me from trying.

He stood up, strode over to the phone, picked it up and began to dial. Peggy reached for her phone, anticipating its ring, only to discover that she didn't have it on her. Alarmed, she whirled to face Mike, but he had already opened his mouth to reassure her.

"Your phone doesn't work here in the Mirror Dimension, Mom," he reminded her softly. "You left it with Sarah. If he calls, she can open a portal right away to come and get you."

"Suppose she misses it?" Peggy said anxiously.

Mike was calm. "She knows to watch. She won't miss it."

"Agent Hill?" Steve said into his phone, and instantly Peggy felt a rush of disappointment wash over her. He was this miserable, and his first instinct was to call one of his superiors? Someone he barely even knew at this point?

"It's Steve Rogers," he continued. "Are you busy?"

There was a short pause as he listened to Hill's response, and then he continued: "I was wondering if I could get copies of some S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel files." Another pause. "The files... the files for my guys. The Howling Commandos. And some of the people from the SSR. Colonel Phillips and Howard Stark and... the ones who founded S.H.I.E.L.D. All of those."

Peggy squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. He couldn't even bear to say her name out loud, not even when he had called Maria Hill expressly to get a copy of her personnel file.

And then hope resurged, and Peggy felt her heart beating more rapidly. He was asking for her file. He was looking for her contact information. He really was going to call her! At last.

"Thank you," Steve said, and hung up the phone. He didn't go back over to sit at the table, but opted instead to pace back and forth across the kitchen, turning his compass over and over again in his hand. Peggy looked over at Mike and saw that he looked deeply worried.

"What is it?" she asked him.

Mike licked his lips. "He's never looked at your file before, Mom," he said quietly. "He doesn't know you're married."

Peggy felt her heart sink. That simple fact should have been a comfort to Steve, if only he could have known the circumstances behind it. Instead, all he would see was that Peggy had moved on without him. She knew how she would feel if she stood in his place, and it wasn't pleasant to contemplate.

"Why didn't we alter my file beforehand?" she whispered in dismay.

"Mom, we talked about this," Mike said gently. "You decided it would upset him more, in the long run, to think that you had lived an empty life without him. Remember?"

She didn't, but she took Mike's word for it that she had. That did seem right. If Steve himself couldn't have a happy postwar homecoming, at least he'd be able to comfort himself that Peggy had.

Even if it was a cold comfort.

Mike helped her down into a chair to wait. Fortunately Steve's apartment wasn't far from Manhattan Headquarters, and it wasn't long before a man in a S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform came to his door with a stack of files in hand. He left quickly and then Steve stood there holding the files, hesitating for a long moment before finally sitting down at the table to leaf through them.

Peggy stood up to stand beside him, and automatically Mike came to slip an arm around her waist to provide support. Together, they watched him look at the files for his Howling Commandos one by one. He flinched visibly each time his eye fell on the word "Deceased" stamped in bright red ink under their photographs, but he kept going through them with a grim determination. He saw Colonel Phillips' file, and then Howard Stark's. Both marked "deceased." Now there was only one left. Steve deliberately looked away from it for a long, agonized moment.

Then he set his jaw, and looked at Peggy's file.

Peggy didn't bother looking at it herself; instead, she watched Steve's face as he scanned it.

He frowned faintly, and then abruptly he looked relieved, his tense shoulders slumping as he took a deep breath and let it out shakily. That would be him confirming that her file bore no "deceased" stamp. And then...

Then he looked at the section that showed her current address and personal information.

Her husband's name was redacted, of course. Not even Steve's pseudonym had ever been put down in ink in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s records, not with Hydra on the prowl. No mention of their children, either. Just the bare fact that she was married. That was all.

Steve stared at that section for a long, long time. Peggy held her breath, waiting for him to get jarred out of his numb phase, for the panic to wash over him, or maybe one of those overwhelming surges of anger he was sometimes unable to control. But his face stayed blank for the longest time.

Finally, his eyes flicked back over to the phone. Peggy felt her hope tentatively rise once more.

"You have my number now," she whispered to him. "Call me. You won't regret it, I promise. I won't say anything that could hurt you. And you can't say anything that could hurt me. It'll be like it was before. You and I, friends again. I know it isn't what you wanted, but it's better than nothing, isn't it?"

His eyes moistened, and he blinked rapidly, shaking loose a tear that slid down his cheek silently. Then with a sharp gasp of air, he slapped her file closed and pushed it away from him so vehemently that it slid across the table and fell off, scattering papers across the kitchen floor.

"No... no... please," Peggy whispered, her voice growing thick as her own eyes filled with tears. That look of utter hopelessness on his face... she'd never seen him so bleak, not in all their years of marriage. "Steve, I'm still here. Please don't try to do this alone."

His face crumpled, and he put his hand up to his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut, not even trying to hold back the sobs that wracked his strong shoulders. Peggy locked eyes with Mike, and saw that he looked as surprised as she did. Every time Sharon called to give them a report on her charge, she had always insisted that Steve never shed a tear, no matter how miserable he got. Angry, yes. Distressed, often. Never tearful.

But now Steve put his head back down on his arms, and simply let go of his control.

It was good for him to let his grief out, Peggy knew, as hard as it was for her to watch. So she did what she could to comfort him. They both did. Tried putting gentle hands on his shoulders, tried telling him over and over again that everything would be all right, even cried with him.

It was hard to tell if they were reaching him. Long minutes ticked by, but his grief didn't seem to be abating, and finally Peggy couldn't bear it any longer and turned toward Mike to ask pleadingly: "Can't Sharon do something?"

Mike glanced over at the wall where they knew a micro-cam had been installed, transmitting to the apartment below Steve's where Sharon and her team of agents were set up to keep an eye on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s newly revived asset.

"She must be watching, but what can she do?" he asked softly. "She isn't authorized to make contact with him. Not yet." His shoulders went up and down in a heavy sigh. "Like us."

Just then, Steve stirred and then heavily got to his feet. Not with brisk energetic purpose, nor with the smooth grace that had come so naturally to him ever since Erskine's experiment. Instead, his movements were strangely jerky. Almost mechanical. His face, that only moments ago had been twisted in grief, had abruptly gone slack. He hadn't bothered to wipe the tears from his cheeks, but no more were flowing. His lips curved slightly downward and his eyes stared into the middle distance, looking at nothing in particular.

He just stood there by the kitchen table, his hands hanging loosely down by his sides. Still as a statue. Not making a sound. His breathing barely perceptible. Eyes blank and staring.

"What is he doing?" Peggy asked faintly, eyes locked on him. Mike didn't answer.

Steve took a step, and then another. Slowly but without pause, he walked down the hallway and into his bedroom. Together, Mike and Peggy followed him. Everything inside was neat as a pin. Steve lowered himself slowly down to sit on the bed, facing the window. But it didn't take long for Peggy to realize he wasn't really gazing out at the Manhattan skyline; his blue eyes were unfocused and unmoving. An unpleasant jolt moved through Peggy's body, and she pressed one thin hand against her chest, trying to slow the sudden galloping of her heart. This wasn't just grief. Grief was expected, grief was normal, grief was good for him, but this...

Her mind flicked back to their war days, to the soldiers she had sometimes seen fall prey to shell-shock after a particularly brutal skirmish, the way they had stared into the middle distance, sickened and silent, unresponsive to any attempt to talk them through it, to get them to sleep it off, to help them in any way. As if they were there in body only and not in soul at all.

Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

Peggy sat down beside Steve and put one hand gently on top of his. His hand was closed in a loose fist by his thigh, but almost as if in response to her touch, he slowly uncurled his fingers. For one breathless moment, she thought he was going to turn his palm upward as if to clasp hands with her, even though she knew he couldn't possibly know she was there.

Instead, he let his hand hang limply off the edge of the bed.

The compass tumbled out of his palm, hit the carpet and bounced under the bed, out of sight.

He didn't react to the sound or the motion. Didn't seem to even notice what had happened. Just sat there, eyes blank, breath shallow and silent.

"Dad," Mike murmured softly, coming to sit by his other side and putting one arm around him. "Come on. Snap out of it." She could tell by the dread in her son's eyes that he had seen this before, too, no doubt during his service in Vietnam. "You need to call someone. If you can't call Mom, that's fine, we get it, but you've got to call someone at S.H.I.E.L.D. Maria Hill's told you a hundred times you can call for anything you need. She meant every word. You really need to do it, okay? No more sitting in this apartment alone. It's not good for you."

No reaction.

Peggy's unease grew. Someone in this state couldn't always respond to physical stimuli, and they couldn't even offer that to Steve. What if the normal flow of his chi was so constricted that even the presence of those who knew him and loved him best could not reach him through the veil that hung between their dimensions?

She and Mike did their best anyway. They spent what felt like an eternity talking to him, holding him, opening their raw hearts to him, hoping against all hope.

But he never once reacted to them.

At last Peggy drew back, eyes filling with hot tears.

"Steve, why?" she whispered to him with fists clenched, distress bordering on anger. "Why won't you ask for help?"

She turned toward Mike. "Where is Sharon?" she demanded fiercely. "She knows this isn't normal. Why isn't she taking care of this?"

"Sharon can't see this, Mom," Mike reminded her grimly. "S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't put cameras in this room. Only a mic. She probably thinks he's asleep."

"But she knows he never sleeps in the daytime," Peggy pressed.

Mike took in a sudden, sharp breath. "Sharon!" he said, his eyes widening. "Mom, maybe we can try her! Dad's not hearing us, not in this state, but maybe she can. She and I know each other well enough that maybe I could reach her through the barrier and... influence her to do something. Something to shake him out of this."

"Yes," Peggy said eagerly. "Yes. Run downstairs and try, darling. I'll stay here."

Mike left the room with a swift stride. He was gone for a long time. Peggy waited as patiently as she could, sitting by Steve's side, until finally he came back into the room.

"Any change?" he asked her quietly, and she shook her head.

"Did you find Sharon?" she asked in return.

Mike hesitated for a beat. "Sharon wasn't down there," he said. "Not anyone from her team, either." Peggy frowned, but before she could ask, Mike explained: "It was Natasha Romanoff on duty."

"Romanoff?" Peggy repeated in surprise. "But she doesn't know Steve from Adam. Not yet."

"I know. I thought she'd be in Russia by now. Dad told me she was busting some arms dealer there when Loki showed up and she got redirected to recruit Dr. Banner. I guess Dad never knew she got this close to him before everything hit the fan."

Peggy thought rapidly. "Well, did you try to reach her? Tell her to come check on him?"

"Well..." In response to her glance, he continued: "Look, Mom, if it was Sharon or Hawkeye, someone I already know well..." He sighed. "We haven't really fully figured out how and why it's even possible for us to influence people from the other side of the Mirror. Sarah thinks it has something to do with familiarity with someone's chi. A spiritual connection that transcends dimensions. But I've never even met Romanoff."

"Well, you have to at least try-"

Mike's tone was patient. "I did try. I talked to her, I explained everything, I encouraged her to bend the no-contact rule and at least do a knock and run. Even a loud sound might jolt him out of this." He gestured toward his father helplessly. "But-"

Peggy's heart fell. "She wouldn't come."

"She wasn't insensible to the situation," Mike said. "When I went in, her eyes were red. She saw him fall apart, she must have empathized with him. I'm pretty sure she knows what it's like to feel that you're utterly alone in the world." His voice was grim. "But she's never watched him before. She doesn't know his habits like Sharon does. She probably thinks he's the kind to sleep it off."

A fizzling sound intruded into their conversation, and a golden portal opened to reveal Sarah standing there.

Her eyes went straight to Captain Rogers. She didn't say anything, but her face said it all. After a long pause, she straightened her shoulders with an effort, turned toward Peggy, and said, "Dad wants to talk to you."

"I can't leave," Peggy objected, gesturing toward Captain Rogers, but Sarah was already shaking her head. "Dad has to talk to you," she said again, firmly. "And I don't want him coming here. I don't know if anything would happen if he got too close to himself in this state, but I don't think this is a good time to find out."

"I'll stay," Mike reassured her, and Peggy relented and let Sarah help her to her feet and guide her through the portal back into their cottage. Steve was waiting for her in the front room.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Peggy immediately demanded of him, fighting back her emotions and not entirely succeeding.

Steve's face was sober. "I did," he said simply.

Taken aback, it took Peggy a moment to sort through the shame of forgetting such a thing, and the pain of knowing that Steve still remembered this horrible day even after so many years. She had been half-hoping that by the time he came back to himself, his mind might have buried the pain deep enough to forget it ever happened.

She took several steadying breaths before trusting herself to speak again. "How long is this going to go on?" she asked.

"Hours," Steve said matter-of-factly. "It was dark outside by the time I came to."

Her breath quickened. "There must be something we can do." Her mind raced with possibilities. "Didn't you feel anything from us? A presence, a feeling, a voice, a- a- light? Anything?"

Steve pressed his lips together, obviously reluctant to answer. "No," he said at last. "I thought I was completely alone."

Her eyes overflowed as her hope ebbed away like the tide. "There must be something else we can try," she whispered.

"Sweetheart," Steve said gently, coming over to stroke her arms. "Answer me this. When is the coldest part of the night?"

She swallowed back the lump in her throat. "Just before the sun rises."

"Right. Just before the sun rises. I know you don't want to hear this - I wouldn't have wanted to hear it either - but I needed this breakdown, Peggy. I needed it."

"No, no-"

"Pain's a teacher. You have to know what was in my mind back in those days. I thought I was strong, I thought I was independent, I thought I could manage everything on my own. Do you know what I really was?" He paused. "Proud."

Peggy sighed deeply. "I always loved your independence."

"Yeah, well, independence is better than dependence," he said with a hint of wryness. "You know what's even better? Interdependence. But that takes humility. And boy, am I getting humbled right now."

She couldn't manage much more than a whisper. "It's a cruel way to learn it."

He nodded briefly in agreement. "But you know what's about to happen. I'm about to meet a Natasha Romanoff who hates herself for all the things she did in her past. I'm about to meet a Tony Stark who hasn't learned self-control. A Bruce Banner who's terrified of who and what he is. A Clint Barton who's bent on revenge for what Loki did to him. A Nick Fury who doesn't know how to trust anyone, not even his friends." He exhaled loudly and shook his head. "Exactly the kind of people the old Steve Rogers would have loved to offer a helping hand. And instead... I'm gonna need theirs."

Peggy nodded slowly, weariness washing over her. "You'll need them as much as they need you."

"That was already true," Steve said. "But now that this has happened... I'll actually know it."

She bowed her head for a long moment, and then finally nodded in silent acquiescence.

He took her into the bedroom and persuaded her to lie down to rest, promising quietly that he would wake her in time. And when he did a few hours later, bending over her and giving her shoulder a gentle shake, she had to admit she did feel much better. Slipping her shoes back on, Peggy took Steve's arm and he led her back to the portal where Sarah was waiting.

He stayed behind in the cottage, and in less than a minute Peggy was back by Captain Rogers' side. He was still in the exact same position as she'd left him; the only change in the room was that darkness had fallen outside the window. A steady stream of headlights lit up the Manhattan streets below, and car horns sounded faintly in the distance.

"Sharon came back to relieve Natasha Romanoff not long ago," Sarah told Peggy softly. "The moment she heard Natasha's report, she knew something was wrong with Dad. I could see it in her eyes. I didn't even have to bring Mike back to try to influence her. As soon as Natasha was gone she called-"

There was a knock at Steve's front door.

Peggy and Sarah stared at each other for a moment, and then turned to look at Steve. He hadn't budged or blinked, even though the knock had been loud. There was a short wait, and then the knock came again.

Peggy stood up and went down the hall, with Sarah right behind her. A third knock came and then, after a short pause, they heard a key being inserted in the lock and Maria Hill slipped into the room, wearing her S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform with her dark hair pulled back in a knot at the nape of her neck.

Peggy's relief was indescribable.

Hill glanced briefly around the living room, blue eyes intent, and then moved past Peggy and Sarah and went down the hall. Sharon slipped into the apartment behind her, hanging back a good distance, and stopped halfway down the hall to wait. Peggy glanced at Sharon as they slipped past her to go back into the bedroom; she was wearing an expression of deep concern. Peggy had begun to suspect some time back that Sharon's concern for Captain Rogers had grown beyond the practical matter of her assignment, and this looked to be confirmation. Peggy was glad; when the time came Sharon would be ready to give Steve her friendship freely. And he would need all the friends he could get.

"Steve?" Hill asked, standing in the doorway of his bedroom, looking at where he sat with his back to the door.

He didn't respond.

"Steve?" she said more loudly.

No response.

Hill moved into the room decisively and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Steve?" she asked.

He turned toward her in one startled motion and then blinked several times, looking confused to see Hill there. Peggy was so relieved to see him snap out of his trance that she sat abruptly on the edge of a nearby chair, nearly losing her balance, but Sarah was instantly there to steady her.

"Sorry," Hill said. "I didn't mean to startle you. You left your front door hanging open. I called out, but you didn't answer. I was afraid you'd had a break-in."

Steve didn't answer for a long moment. He should have picked up on Hill's lie — under normal circumstances he would have detected it right away, no matter how smoothly she had told it — but judging by the look in his eyes, his thoughts were moving as slow and jerky as a set of rusty gears.

"I left my door open?" he said at last, the words coming out a little mushy.

"Yeah. You okay?"

He rubbed his eyes and then kept his hand there, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I guess... I must have fallen asleep." The unease in his voice made it clear that he wasn't at all sure that was what had happened.

"Long day?" Hill asked. She still had her hand on his shoulder.

Steve looked out the window, and seemed surprised to see it was dark. "What time is it?"

"Almost 8 o'clock, I think."

His eyes widened slightly and his breathing quickened, but he didn't say anything, and after a few moments Hill asked again: "You okay?"

Peggy fully expected him to reflexively answer that he was fine, but instead he said in a monotone: "I don't feel good."

Hill sat down next to him on the bed and with her left hand down by her side she made a subtle shooing gesture. Sharon, who had been watching silently from the hallway, turned and slipped out of the apartment, carefully pulling the door shut behind her. Without hesitation, Peggy moved over to sit down on the bed on Steve's other side. Sarah hovered protectively nearby.

"What's wrong?" Hill asked, concerned eyes fixed on Steve.

He didn't say anything for a long moment, but Peggy could practically see the panic rising in his eyes as he struggled to understand what was happening to him. Her hands twisted in her lap in frustration; Steve's distress tended to be subtle enough in terms of his body language that many people didn't even notice it; sometimes it was only his quickened breath that gave him away. If Hill wasn't perceptive enough to see it, if he downplayed what was happening and she ended up walking away reassured that he was basically fine...

Hill reached out slowly and laid her hand on top of Steve's where it rested on his leg.

Peggy had never seen Hill do anything like that before, not in all her visits to Steve, and she found herself holding her breath, praying that he wouldn't shake her hand off and reject the implicit offer to help.

He stiffened visibly, looking uncertain, and then, slowly, he turned his hand palm up and let Hill lace her fingers through his and give his hand a squeeze. Peggy felt a warm rush as she saw that Steve was suddenly holding on to Hill's hand just as tightly as she was holding his. She would have given anything, anything, to be able to touch him herself right now... but this was the next best thing. Peggy closed her eyes tightly for a moment, blessing Maria Hill and her woman's intuition. And Sharon. Without them, Steve would still be sitting in here alone.

"You must have something better to do," Steve said at last, trying to sound normal and not exactly succeeding. But he didn't pull his hand away.

"Actually, I don't," Hill said. "I'm not on call tonight." Another lie — as assistant director, Peggy had no doubt that Hill was always on call — but Steve didn't pick up on this one, either. "Which means I get to hang out with my friends as late as I want to."

Hill flashed him a smile, and if Steve couldn't tell when she was lying, he seemed able to tell when she was being sincere, and his shoulders relaxed slightly.

"So what's going on with you?" Hill asked.

"I think... I think I'm going crazy," Steve blurted out. Peggy could see what it cost him to say that. So he knew. He finally knew, and could admit, that he could not handle this alone.

"You're not going crazy, Steve," Hill said calmly. "Crazy people don't know they're crazy. That's what makes them crazy."

"I want to go back to work," he said.

"I know. You'll get there."

The next words were hard for him to get out. "Shouldn't take this long."

"Hey," Hill said quickly. "There's no rush. Whenever you're ready is fine with us."

"It's been months."

"No one's holding a stopwatch." Hill took a deep breath and seemed to come to a decision, and in a soft voice she began to tell Steve about her mother's recent death from a second battle with cancer, and how she had suffered a humiliating emotional breakdown at work not long afterward.

She recited the story in a calm, matter-of-fact way, emphasizing how normal it was for everyone to face a challenge like that at some point in their lives. Exactly the way Steve now talked about such things. The way he often coached their family members to talk about them. The way he had spoken to the veterans he used to counsel.

Peggy had never known it was a skill he had first learned from Maria Hill.

By the time they were done talking it over, Steve had visibly relaxed, and when Hill suggested ordering a pizza and watching a movie together, he didn't put up any resistance. In fact, he seemed quietly grateful he wouldn't have to be alone tonight.

He fell asleep on the couch toward the end of the movie. Hill stayed for a while afterward, as if to make sure he would stay asleep, but finally - with an air of relief about her - she slipped silently out of his apartment and went home.

And when Sarah pointed out gently that everything was under control now, that Sharon was watching over him on the cams once more and Dad was well taken care of, Peggy followed Steve's example and returned home to rest.

TO BE CONTINUED

Author's note: I'd love to know what you think! Feel free to leave a review.