June, 1950
In which Peggy has had a long day.
Peggy kicked off her shoes with a blissful sigh and dropped down onto the sofa.
"Long day at work?" Steve asked, sticking his head around the kitchen door.
"Like you wouldn't believe," Peggy agreed. "The S.S.R. is officially closing down, and I spent two hours in a meeting this afternoon with people arguing about what the new division should be called. Two hours," she repeated.
She heard Steve chuckle. "S.H.I.E.L.D. is kind of a tough sell, huh?"
"It is rather a cumbersome name," Peggy agreed.
"Still," Steve said, appearing in the door holding a teacup. Oh, bless the man. "That's good, though, right? That you were in the meeting? After all that pushback you've been getting from higher up..." Though Steve had told her she would be one of the key founders of the new version of the S.S.R., and it was something she had been deeply invested in for some time now, you wouldn't know it based on the way her colleagues acted. There had been some not-so-subtle uncertainty as to whether she, as a woman, was cut out for something so important.
"There's that at least," she agreed, stretching up to kiss him before gratefully accepting the cup of tea. He sat down on the other end of the sofa, lifting up her feet and resting them in his lap. "I just wish…" She sighed. "I've been the director of the New York branch of the S.S.R. for almost two years now. I do good work—better work than a lot of people in this division, and yet the only reason the senator is letting me come along to S.H.I.E.L.D. is as a favor to Colonel Phillips. If I didn't have him and Howard backing me, I…" She sighed irritably. "I know that I am good enough for this, I just…" She sighed. "Some days, I just get so tired of this fight."
Steve smiled at her sadly. "I'm sorry," he said. She was lying down, so he was too far away to lean in and kiss her, but he started rubbing his hand gently up and down her leg. "You are good enough," he said emphatically. "More than enough, and you always have been. I'm so sorry you have to keep fighting, but one day, those guys will see it. You're going to blow them out of the water."
Peggy smiled. "Is that you speaking from your knowledge of the future?"
"That is me speaking from my knowledge of Peggy Carter," he said. She smiled wider and he smiled back. "Is there anything I can do to help?" he asked, picking up one of her feet and starting to rub it.
That was one of the brilliant things about Steve, that he never offered tired platitudes, or just waited until she was finished talking so he could roll in and fix everything. The fact that he truly listened and understood helped a great deal, and, if she asked for it, he usually had very good advice. She wasn't sure if there was anything he could do in this particular instance, but it was hard to focus her mind on that right now, because what he was doing felt amazing.
"Oh," she breathed happily, stretching out her toes as his fingers worked their way across her aching feet. "You can keep doing that."
He huffed a soft laugh and smiled, and she took a long sip of her tea and lay her head back contentedly. "You know," she said after a minute. "I think we should just do this all the time—doesn't matter if I'm pregnant or not."
Steve chuckled, kneading his fingers against the arch of her foot. "I'll make a note of that. Though it might help if you wore flat shoes more often. Not that the heels don't make your legs look fantastic, but they're bad for your back." He smiled and squeezed her ankle, then returned to his massaging. "That is me speaking from my knowledge of the future."
Peggy laughed. "I imagine with the baby coming, it will only get worse." The idea of wearing more comfortable shoes—pregnant or not—was certainly inviting, though the baby gave her a good excuse.
"I can take you shoe shopping after dinner if you like," he offered.
"Not tonight, I'm too tired," she protested. "At the weekend?"
"Deal."
"You know, I have to say," Peggy said after a few minutes. She and Steve had only known she was pregnant for about three weeks now—she hadn't started to show, and they'd not told anyone yet. "You're handling this whole thing much better than I thought you would."
"What do you mean?" Steve asked.
"Oh, no, you've been wonderful," she said. Every room in the house had a dish of the ginger candy that helped her nausea within easy reach. He'd been supremely flexible in the kitchen based on the things she felt she could eat and keep down, and he'd even gone so far as to change their laundry soap when she complained about the way it made her pillowcase smell. There were hot cloths and ice packs and massages for her aching feet and back, and he'd been encouraging her to rest and plying her with her favorite tea. She smiled. "Really, you have. But I have to confess, I have sort of been waiting for the moment where you panic and start treating me like I'm made of glass."
Steve laughed. "Well," he said. "I'm not gonna lie to you, I have been fighting down the instinct to wrap you up in a pile of blankets, tuck you away in bed, and not let anything come near you for the next seven months."
Peggy smiled at that.
"But," he went on. "I keep reminding myself of two things. One: women have been having babies since the dawn of time, and if the human race has survived expectant mothers working on farms and living in huts and stuff, us here with twentieth century food and housing and medicine, we're probably going to be okay. And, more significantly, two: I know that if I started doing that to you, I would not live to see the birth of my own child."
Peggy laughed, and sat up enough to lean over and kiss him. "You're a clever man, Mr. Carter."
Steve grinned and slid an arm around her back, pulling her forward to sit in his lap. "I'm more than just a pretty face," he said, kissing her again.
"Aren't you just?" she agreed.
A few minutes later something beeped in the kitchen, and he pulled his lips away from hers and smiled down at her warmly. "You up for dinner tonight?"
"As much as I'd like to keep doing this, I'm starving, actually," she said.
Steve grinned, kissed the tip of her nose, and stood up, pulling her up to her feet with him. "Well, we can pick back up after we eat, then." He took her hand and led her toward the kitchen. "I wasn't sure what you wanted or felt like you could eat, so I took a shot and made pot roast. But if it's another turkey and cheese on toast kind of night, it'll keep."
Peggy's mouth started to water at the mention of pot roast. "How did you know," she asked, kissing him once more before moving to pull some plates from the cupboard. "That pot roast was exactly what I wanted? I didn't even know that until just now." Steve's pot roast was the envy of every housewife in the neighborhood.
Steve smiled smugly. "I'm very good."
"You really are," she agreed.
