For this one, we're in the modern day and it's a Supernatural AU. Peggy is the hunter and Steve is the Man of Letters. (For those unfamiliar with Supernatural, fear not! This has very little to do with the show, and very much to do with Steve and Peggy. You don't need to know anything about the show except that hunters take out monsters and ghosts and things that the general public are unaware of, and the Men of Letters operate out of secret underground bunkers to tell them where to go.) Steve uses a lot of aliases in this one as part of his job—if you can place them all, you win a cookie!

Slight content warning for the level of violence and monster guts one would expect from an average SPN episode.


The little bell over the door chimed to indicate that someone had just opened the main door with an approved key, and a minute later Steve heard boots on the stairs. He swiveled his chair around to see who it was and found himself face to face with a dirt-encrusted, blood-spattered, very irritated woman.

"Who the hell are you?" she snapped.

"Steve Rogers," he said, standing up from his chair. He straightened his glasses, trying to see the face under all the dirt. "It's Peggy Carter, right?"

The disapproving glare she'd been giving him morphed into one of hard suspicion, and the way her hand moved to rest on the knife on her belt told him the only thing keeping that knife from being pressed against his throat was the fact that they were in a secure Men of Letters bunker so he probably belonged here. "How do you know who I am?" she demanded.

Steve sighed, refraining from rolling his eyes. Hunters were always so paranoid. "Because it's my job to keep track of all the hunters running cases out of here. There are only two hunters in the area I haven't met yet, so unless you're Oscar Velasquez, Peggy Carter seemed like the safer bet."

"So you work here?"

Steve did roll his eyes this time. "No, I work at Wal-Mart, and I'm hanging out in the super-secret bunker on my coffee break," he sighed. "Obviously, I work here."

She arched an unimpressed eyebrow. "Where's Jackson?"

"Recalled to the California base." She still looked skeptical, and Steve sighed. "Like three months ago. The last seven times you've texted in looking for a new case, that was me."

"Mm." She looked him up and down, and Steve drew himself up to his full five-foot-four. "Fine," she sighed. She hitched up the strap of the bag on her shoulder and moved for the hallway. "I assume you haven't renovated in your three months?"

"Showers are right where they were last time," he said. "And if you're bunking in, stay out of Room Eleven—last guy who stayed in there had a faulty curse box, and the purification spells are still cleaning the place out. Fourteen has a new mattress, though."

She made a grunting noise that Steve decided to take as a 'thank you' and disappeared. He dropped back down into his chair with a sigh. Was it in the handbook or something that hunters were supposed to be rude?

A little while later, he pulled his glasses down and rubbed at his eyes. He'd been staring at the laptop too long, and he was getting hungry. He was nearly done making dinner when he heard feet in the library. Peggy was back, in a pair of leggings, an over-sized t-shirt, and wet hair, suggesting she wasn't heading out for a motel. "You want dinner?" Steve asked.

She turned around from the shelf of books she'd been looking at, a book in her hand. "What?"

"I made dinner," he said. "Would you like some?" She did that unimpressed eyebrow thing again, and Steve rolled his eyes. "No, I'm not…" He sighed again. "I'm not trying to make a move or anything. I'm hungry; I made myself dinner; it seemed polite to offer you some. Go out and get a burger for all I care and I'll just eat the rest tomorrow."

"Oh," she said. "No, actually, dinner sounds nice. I was just surprised by the offer—Jackson usually ordered take-away."

Steve snorted. Jackson hadn't been a hunter, but he'd certainly eaten like one. The only food that had been in the entire bunker when Steve had arrived had been a potato in the fridge that was starting to grow new potatoes. "Yeah, well, Jackson was, like, two plates of ribs away from a coronary."

Peggy smiled at that, and Steve smiled back.

"You allergic to mushrooms?" he asked.

"No."

"Good." He nodded at the table. "Have a seat if you want. It's almost done." He went back into the kitchen and finished up, then brought everything out to the table in the library.

"Wow," Peggy said. "You made a salad?" Steve drew in a breath, ready to defend his culinary choices once again from a hunter complaining about 'rabbit food', but she continued. "Do you know how hard it is to find a decent salad on the road?"

Steve smiled. "Judging by the way most hunters act like I'm serving them a bowl of revenant guts when I put it on the table, I'm guessing very. There was a guy in here a couple weeks back who I don't think had ever seen a carrot in his life."

Peggy laughed at that. "Speaking of revenant guts," she said, faint color rising in her cheeks. "I feel I should probably apologize. When I came in, I was covered in, well, not revenant guts, but various pieces of ghoul and the accompanying internal fluids, and after a hot, very smelly car ride, that put me in a very bad mood. I was rather rude to you, and I'm sorry."

Steve blinked, surprised. Hunters were usually rude, but this might be the first time one apologized for it. "Oh. Um, well, thanks," he said, not really sure what else to say. "No harm done," he added, feeling the need to say something else.

"So, how did you come to join the Men of Letters, then?" Peggy asked after several quiet minutes of chicken, rice and salad passed.

Steve shrugged. "Same way most people do—family business."

"You're a legacy, then?"

"Eighth generation," Steve replied. "Didn't really have many other career options."

"Did you want to do something else?" Peggy asked around a mouthful of lettuce.

Steve considered. No one had ever really asked him that. "I don't think so," he said at last. "I've always loved reading and research and stuff, and there's certainly enough of that around to keep a guy interested." He looked across the table at her curiously. "What brought you to America? I've met a few British hunters before, but they're usually just out on a quick tracking trip. I've seen your name around here for a while."

A phone rang as she was starting to answer, and Steve winced apologetically. "Sorry. I know it's usually bad manners to answer the phone during dinner, but…"

"Given the nature of your job, I can forgive the lapse in etiquette," she said with a small smile.

Steve got up and picked up the FBI phone. "Agent Evans," he answered. "Yes. Yes, that's right," he told the sheriff on the other end. "It really is federal jurisdiction on this one, Sheriff; he's wanted in seventeen states." He listened a moment longer. "Your cooperation with my team is very much appreciated, of course, and it will be duly noted in the report, I assure you." That seemed to do the trick, and he was able to return to dinner.

"To answer your question," Peggy said when he sat back down. "Let's just say I was looking to get away from micromanaging. The British Men of Letters don't give their hunters the freedom you get over here. I was only allowed to take the cases they gave me, nothing more, nothing less, and on their timetable, not mine."

"Wow," Steve said. "That kind of sucks." He considered. "Seems like a lot of extra work for them too. I wouldn't want to do that."

"Well, the men I knew seemed to enjoy the power it gave them," she said. "They also really enjoyed dangling the more exciting cases over my head."

"What do you mean?" The phone rang again. "Sorry." He went back to the desk and picked up the CDC phone. "Director Thrombey," he answered. "No, no, no," he said as the harried doctor one of the hunters was working with launched into a panicked description of what was happening to one of her patients. "Absolute quarantine. I don't care what it looks like it's doing—no one touches it and no one goes in there until our agents handle it." He sighed as she continued to panic. "Well, then, lock him up in a room separate from the first one and quarantine him too. And stop sending people in to test it." He waited until she agreed before hanging up.

"If you're a doctor, you should know what the word 'quarantine' means," he grumbled. "It does not mean sending someone in there to poke the thing with a needle."

Peggy chuckled.

"Sorry," he said, sitting back down. "You were saying about exciting cases?"

"Oh, that. Well," she said, pushing a stray carrot around her plate. "I tended to get stuck with a lot of cases dealing with faeries, or water horses, or general hauntings. Very run of the mill, very…safe—as far as hunting goes, anyway. When I asked for more, I was told I should be a bit more…friendly with the boys divvying out the cases. If you catch my meaning."

"If I…" Steve repeated, trying to figure out what she meant, but caught on as she arched a significant eyebrow. "Oh! Ew," he grimaced. "Yeah, okay, I…I'd move continents for that."

He felt kind of silly for stumbling over the last half of the sentence, but something in the way she smiled back at him made him think that had been the right answer.

The phone rang again, and he closed his eyes and shook his head. "It never rings this much when I'm here by myself." He stuffed his last bite of chicken into his mouth and returned to the desk. "Officer Adler," he said. "No," he sighed. "Tommy, this is the County Police Department phone. I put my number as the very first one in your speed dial! You had to scroll past, like, eighteen other numbers to get to this one. Okay, okay, forget it. What's wrong?" Steve sighed as Tommy listed all the problems with his case. "Well, you're going to have to dry it off now. You set it on fire, then douse it in holy water. It's basic science, Tommy, if you get it wet first, it won't ignite."

He heard Peggy chuckle at the table behind him.

He walked Tommy through the rest of the steps to kill the monster of the week—honestly how that man was still alive was anyone's guess—and when he was finally done, Peggy was gone from the table. She seemed to have cleared the table before she left, which was thoughtful of her, so Steve headed into the kitchen to wash the dishes. Peggy was already doing it.

"Oh! Um, hey, you don't have to do that," Steve said.

"I don't mind," Peggy said, placing the last dish in the drying rack. "You did cook, so it seemed fair." She turned around and smiled. "It was delicious, by the way. Thank you."

"Oh, um, thanks," he replied. "I mean, it was just chicken and mushrooms," he protested. "It wasn't much."

"It's been ages since I've had a proper home-cooked meal, and it was wonderful," she insisted. "Now, I suspect the answer's no, seeing as I'm on this side of the pond, but have you got tea and a kettle?"

"There's an electric kettle by the toaster," he said. "Tea's above the microwave."

"That will work." Peggy set water to boiling, then opened the cabinet above the microwave. "Well, this is a surprise!" she said happily, looking at his selection of tea. "I would never have put you down as a tea drinker."

"I like the way it tastes," he said. "And coffee gives me supraventricular tachycardia, so…"

"Well, that sounds dreadful and best avoided," she said. "I think I'll go with blackberry; would you like some too?"

"Sounds great."

Once the tea was made, they returned to the library—Peggy had routed out an entire nest of ghouls, but their behavior had been atypical, so she thought it should be noted down somewhere. She recounted the story for Steve and he took notes for the database, then they spent a little while reading up on probable causes for the change in behavior. The phone rang three more times while they were working, and Superintendent Storm, Father Shea, and Doctor Gant were all able to give appropriate reassurances to the curious research assistant, the suspicious Mother Superior, and the overwhelmed nurse, respectively.

"Is it really just you answering phones in here all day?" Peggy wondered.

"Well, like I said, they don't ring near this much when I don't have company," Steve said. "Most of the time I'm looking up new cases for people, working on the database, or doing research."

"Do you ever want to be out in the field hunting?" she wondered.

He considered. "I've thought about it," he said. "Grandad would be rolling in his grave if he could hear me say that, by the way."

"Was he of the opinion that the Men of Letters were the superior scholars, and the hunters were the mindless brutes who did the dirty work?" she asked.

Steve huffed a laugh. "You met him, huh?"

"Met plenty like him," she said, taking a final sip of her tea and standing up and stretching. "But I think if you're interested, you should give it a go." She yawned. "Speaking of going, I think I shall go to bed," she said. She smiled. "Good night, Steve."

"Good night, Peggy."

She was gone by the time Steve got up in the morning, but she left a note on the library table thanking him for his hospitality and praising his choice of replacement mattress in Room Fourteen. Steve smiled a little wistfully—it had been nice having someone around to talk to, particularly someone who did not look down on him as some kind of glorified errand boy, or laugh at his interest in seeing what it was like in the field. Still, such was the life. He might hear from her a few more times, but the transient nature of hunters was such that she'd probably drift over into someone else's area eventually. But then, with that transient nature, maybe one day she'd drift back. He kept the note.

The next couple of weeks passed by as usual, fielding phone calls, looking for suspicious patterns in the papers, and doing research. Erikson and Collins passed through, and they were much messier house guests than Peggy had been. Freaking burger wrappers everywhere.

A few days later, the little bell over his desk chimed, and a, "Hello?" echoed down the stairs.

"Peggy?" Steve said, standing up and smiling in surprise. "You're back."

"I am," she replied. "In need of your shower once again," she added.

Steve had stopped several feet away from her. "Yeah, I can tell," he said. "Smells like Kitsune."

"Cheeky," she replied, brushing past him. "Though I am impressed by your sense of smell," she added.

Steve had actually been planning on going out and picking up Chinese food for dinner since he didn't have a lot of groceries around, but remembering how much Peggy had enjoyed having a homecooked meal, he dug through the kitchen and came up with enough for meatloaf and mashed potatoes.

Peggy had not appeared by the time everything was in the oven, and so, after hesitating and second-guessing himself a lot, Steve ventured down the hallway. The bathroom was free, and the door to her room was open, and he stood there confused for a minute before deciding to check the infirmary. It was mostly closed, but he could hear someone moving around inside. Had she gotten hurt on her last case?

"Peggy?" he asked, pushing the door open tentatively. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she said hastily, turning away from the door.

"Oh, gosh, I'm sorry!" he exclaimed, backing out quickly at the realization that she wasn't wearing a shirt. His brain blanked for a long moment, then finally processed what he had seen—namely, the red gashes running across her back. "Um, do you…Do you need help?"

"I've got it, thanks," she replied, followed by the sound of something falling to the floor and a mumbled curse.

"I, I didn't see a lot," he said. "But those looked like they needed stitches. Are you sure you don't need help?"

Silence for a moment. "I might need a bit," she admitted. There was a shuffling sound, then, "I'm decent; you can come in."

She was sitting on the exam table with her back to the door, holding her shirt up against her chest. Now that he was close enough to get a good look, he could see there were three gashes, running across the back of her left shoulder. There were bandages fixed to the lower ends of each one. "I couldn't reach the tops of them properly," she said. "I'm sure they'll heal up on their own in time, but I'd rather not bleed on everything until they do."

"They don't look too bad," Steve said. "The top one is going to need stitches, though."

"Do you know how to do that?" she asked a little uncertainly.

Steve smiled reassuringly. "Part of my job. We should probably clean these out with holy water first, though."

"I did that already," she said. "Burned like hell. Did you not hear me yell in the shower?"

"No," he admitted. "That's good that it burned, though. Means it got the poison out. I'm gonna wash it out one more time anyway, just to make sure. Let me just get some stuff."

He collected the tools and medicines he would need, then sterilized his hands. "Local anesthetic okay?" he asked.

"Yes, please," she said. He filled a syringe and injected it into her shoulder. "I've got to remember to get more of that," she mused. "My personal first aid kit is running frightfully low."

"You can stock up here, if you want," Steve offered, threading the suturing needle while he waited for the painkiller to kick in. "It's a lot easier for Doctor Gant to restock his supplies than I imagine it would be for whatever your current alias is."

Peggy chuckled. "Yes, I suppose it would be. Thank you."

He cleaned out the wounds again, and they hissed just a little as it cleared the last of the poison out, then he started stitching the big one up, making sure to focus on his work and not on the sudden awareness that he'd never been this close to her before. "Do you want a cool scar, or should I try to avoid one?" he asked. He knew some hunters wore their scars like badges of honor.

"I've got enough scars as it is," she said. "Though I doubt it can be avoided completely."

"I'll do my best," he said, focusing on making his stitches as tiny as possible. "How'd it happen?"

Peggy told him her latest battle story while he worked. It turned out there had been three Kitsune, not just one, and Steve was impressed that the cuts on her shoulder were the only injuries she'd walked away with. The lower two gashes were shallower and only needed to be bandaged over once he was done with the first one. He offered her some pain pills, which he was a little surprised she accepted—most hunters didn't. Probably part of the whole 'tough guy' routine.

"Thank you, Steve," she said, carefully sliding back into her shirt while he washed his hands at the sink in the corner.

"You're welcome," he said. "Sorry you got hurt."

"Oh, it happens," she said, waving his concern away. "Would it be too much of an imposition if I asked to stay on for a few days until it heals a bit? I'm not quite in fighting form, though I can find a motel if more than one night is overstaying my welcome."

"What? Oh, no, it's fine!" he assured her. "Stay as long as you need."

"You don't mind?" she pressed. "It is your home, after all."

"Please stay," he said.

She smiled warmly. "Thank you."

He smiled back. "You want dinner?"

Her smile widened. "I thought I smelled something delicious over the tang of antiseptic."

They went back to the library for dinner, and the phones only interrupted them twice this time—Colonel Levinson had to field a call from a suspicious Army Captain, and Agent Jensen answered the CIA phone to assure a big-city cop that his team was on the level.

"You know, you have an awful lot of aliases," Peggy pointed out. "Get IDs printed up for them and you could be a proper hunter."

Steve chuckled. "I think all my alter-egos are a little too high-level for field work. CDC Directors don't spend much time outside of Atlanta."

"Fair point," she replied, going for more potatoes. "Well, we'll get you some proper low-level grunts if you decide to give it a go."

They finished dinner and cleaned up, and since there wasn't anything case-related to work on, Peggy made tea again and they moved to the far end of the library to watch TV. There was a Doctor Who marathon going on the BBC, which Steve was interested in but hadn't intended to press, but Peggy pounced on it eagerly. It was running the fourth series more or less in order, and she hadn't caught all of that one. They spent the evening enjoying the adventures in time and space and arguing good-naturedly over who the best Doctors and companions were.

The next few days were…really nice. Steve was usually content to do his work and his research alone, but Peggy was good company. She was funny and smart, and she had great stories to tell, both about her hunting adventures and her life back in England. She had a good eye for patterns, and she helped him with a series of events he'd been tracking in Michigan, finding the last piece that pointed to a Basilisk hatching in time to get some hunters on top of it before it became a problem.

There was one day where she'd been working on some exercises for her shoulder, and Steve was down in the shooting range, practicing like he sometimes did. He couldn't hear a thing with his ear protection on, and just about jumped out of his skin when a hand landed on his shoulder.

"Peggy," he said, after he felt like he could breathe again.

"Sorry, that was my fault," she said, eyeing the new hole he'd just shot in the floor. "I shouldn't have startled you."

"Maybe just flick the lights next time or something."

"Sorry," she said again, smiling apologetically. She nodded out at the target on the wall. "You're quite a good shot."

"You sound surprised," Steve said.

She blushed a little. "I wouldn't've expected it," she admitted "It's the glasses."

Steve chuckled. "They're there to help me see better, you know. Now, my aim without the glasses…"

"Fair point." She nodded at the assorted weapons on the table behind him. "Having trouble with the rifle?" she asked.

"How long were you watching me?" he wondered. He was having trouble with the rifle. Always had.

"Enough to see that you've got very good aim with everything but the rifle. You keep pulling off to the right, and I don't think you're bracing yourself properly. Do you mind if I show you?"

"Uh, sure."

After a couple of minutes, she was able to figure out that he was involuntarily anticipating the kickback, and jerking back just a little before it actually happened to keep it from hurting his shoulder, which was pulling the shot off center. The new bracing position she showed him helped, but even though he could see what he was doing wrong now, it was still tricky trying to make himself stop doing it.

"You just need practice," she said, clapping his shoulder encouragingly. "Now that you know what to look for, it shouldn't take too long to sort it."

"Thanks," he said, appreciating the help. He didn't really foresee himself in a situation where he was actually going to need the rifle, but he liked to be prepared.

He headed off to the grocery store not too long after to pick up some fresh produce for a salad for dinner, and when he came back, he discovered they had more company. "There's two other hunters that just arrived," Peggy said, looking up over the back of the chair she was draped across in the library. "Said they were called Martinez and Hodge."

"Oh, okay. Guess I'll make more for dinner, then," he said.

"You want help?" she offered.

"Nah, I'm alright," he said. "Go ahead and finish your book."

He got to work on cooking pork chops, and decided to go ask Peggy if she'd prefer rice or potatoes as a side, but stopped outside the door to the library at the sound of the conversation coming from inside.

"Yeah, Kitsune poison can be a real kicker," Martinez was saying. "I'm a little surprised you've got that much range of motion back so fast."

"Yes, well, Steve did a very thorough job of fixing it up," Peggy replied.

Hodge snorted. "Good to know the little dweeb is good for something," he said. "Surprised the sight of blood didn't make him faint."

Martinez chuckled, but there was something very icy in Peggy's tone when she replied. "Excuse me?"

Steve could practically hear Hodge rolling his eyes. "Oh, you know what I mean."

"I don't, really," Peggy replied.

"He's just saying," Martinez explained. "It's the Men of Letters type, you know? Bunch of pencil pushers sitting in their nice, safe bunkers up to their noses in old books."

"Exactly," Hodge agreed. "Not that it's not nice having a place to crash from time to time, but these soft little guys wishing they had what it takes to actually be a hunter can get on your nerves sometimes, acting like they know it all and not wanting to get their hands dirty." He sniffed. "I'm just sayin', it's nice to know the little guy has some actual skills."

Steve sighed. It's not like he didn't know there were hunters that felt that way (and he'd never liked Hodge much anyway), but it was awfully disheartening to hear it out loud.

"I think," Peggy began, not quite loud enough to cover a pained-sounding grunt from Hodge. "You will find Steve is more than capable. Those old books he's up to his nose in have saved many a hunter's skin on a panicked phone call in the middle of the night. And who do you think puts together weather patterns to mark demon appearances, or follows murder trails to tell you which way a shifter is travelling, or notices environmental signs that put people on the case to stop an Elemental swarm before anyone gets hurt? You think these cases just magically fall into your lap? Without Steve and the other Men of Letters, you would be drifting around the country in that pathetic excuse for a truck you parked outside just hoping to stumble into a case before too many people got hurt with no resources, no backup, and no direction." There was another uncomfortable noise from Hodge that sounded suspiciously close to a squeak.

"Hunters like you two are a dime a dozen, and the skills he uses to keep you in business are invaluable and far more difficult to replace than yours are. You would do well to remember that," Peggy said in a voice that would have made Steve fear for his life if he'd been on the receiving end of it.

"Now," she continued in an overly-friendly tone that was even scarier than the one she'd just been using. "I think you two would be much happier with a cheap motel and some fast food tonight, don't you?" A pause. "I thought so. Be careful not to let the door smack you in the head on the way out."

There was the sound of moving feet, and Steve realized his heart was pounding like he'd just run a marathon and he was grinning like an idiot. He'd gotten used to defending himself when he needed to and letting snide little sideways comments roll off without too much damage, but…No one had ever stood up for him like that before. He had someone in his corner—and not just anybody, a hunter like Peggy Carter!—and that was a good feeling.

He heard Peggy start walking away from the front door, and he hurried back into the kitchen, busying himself at the stove and acting like he wasn't trying to process what he probably wasn't supposed to have heard.

"Steve?" she said, poking her head into the kitchen.

"Yeah?" he responded, turning his head enough to acknowledge her but not quite enough to meet her eye.

"It would seem our guests decided they preferred a rest stop with a bit more action, so they went back to town," she said. "Hopefully you've not made too much food."

"Oh, okay," he replied. "No, it'll keep."

"That's good," she said, then returned to the library.

Steve was surprised he'd managed to get all six of those words out over the knot in his throat and the smile that wouldn't drop from his lips. Wow.

Peggy's shoulder was better in the next couple of days, so she packed up again and got back on the road. The bunker felt a little more lonely with her gone, but Steve was hopeful this time that she'd be back. And she was, three weeks later. He came back from the grocery store to find her digging through the kitchen cabinets for a snack. Every couple of weeks, she would make her way back, and while she claimed it was for the food and the bed, she also mentioned that the civilized company was nice, and Steve thought that maybe she enjoyed their visits as much as he did.

She started calling from the road, too. Usually it was for help with a case or chasing down a lead, but she would stay on the line and chat a little after Steve got her the answer she was looking for. After she called him a little frantically in the middle of the night one time needing to know how to defeat some sort of djinn/wraith hybrid that she'd misidentified as just a wraith going in, she started calling him after cases too to let him know she'd made it out alright. He stitched up any more wounds she came back with, and she brought him books on lore and new photographs for his database. After teasing him that his kitchen produced delicious food, but lacked a homey quality, she started bringing him fridge magnets, the gaudiest, most touristy ones she could find, and it turned into a game where she would try to get each new one somewhere on the fridge and get back on the road before he noticed it. Steve made sure he always had blackberry tea and ingredients for salad, and he made shortbread for her once after a wistful comment she made about her grandmother's. The way she smiled at him for that made his stomach turn a couple of flips.

"You still fancy getting out in the field some day?" she asked one evening over ice cream.

Steve sighed. He kept thinking about it, but never doing it. "Some day, I guess."

She grinned and stood up, walking over to his desk and perching on the edge, swinging her feet back and forth. "So, find something local, then," she said, nodding at his laptop. "We'll go out tomorrow and hunt a ghost or something."

Steve felt his mouth dropping open. "Really?"

"Why not?"

"You would take me on a case with you?"

"Yeah. You can shoot, and you certainly know your lore. It'll be fun."

Which is how the next afternoon found Steve Rogers, Man of Letters and eighth generation legacy, crawling through a sewer on a hunt for a shapeshifter that was gearing up for a murder spree, still not entirely sure how he'd let Peggy talk him in to this.

Seeing as he was in a sewer and all, he'd passed several disgusting things that he didn't really want to look at, but something in the way this particular puddle of slime caught the light gave him pause. "Ugh, that is so gross," he muttered to himself, catching sight of an ear floating in the gooey mess, then pulled out his phone to text Peggy and let her know the shifter had shed its skin. Who knew what it looked like now?

He kept following the trail of disgustingness, beginning to wonder what would happen if he ran into the thing before the tunnel Peggy was in converged with his. Sure, he was loaded up on silver weaponry, and he knew what he was supposed to do to take it down, but it was all just theory. He'd never done it before. And what if it had shifted into some giant six-and-a-half-foot tall guy? Could he even reach its heart to stab it?

Fortunately, Peggy appeared in the next intersection, and he let out a sigh of relief. "Well, we're definitely on the right track," he said, pointing to the thinning trail of goo on the floor. "Have you seen any more signs of it?"

"No," she said. "Let's keep looking this way."

"What happened to your jacket?" he asked as he followed her. She'd been wearing a green jacket when they came in.

She gave an embarrassed chuckle. "Slipped and landed in something too disgusting to mention. I left it back there," she said, nodding to the tunnel.

"Oh." That was a little weird—he knew she liked that jacket, but then, he supposed it did depend on what she'd fallen in. But hadn't she…He was second-guessing himself now, because she had been in a jacket, but hadn't the tank top under it been blue? Maybe not. Maybe it was just the light. She stepped into a better-lit patch as they passed under a grate, and Steve swallowed down a lump in his throat and forced himself not to stop short in surprise and let her know something was wrong, because no matter what color her shirt was supposed to be, it was a tank top, and he could see her shoulder blade, and there should have been a thin scar from a kitsune running across it. Crap.

"Hey, um," he said, stopping and making a show of digging through his pockets to buy himself some time. "Sorry, I can't find my…" He kept digging, checking on the position of his holster. "Too much stuff in here," he huffed. "Will you hold this for a second?"

He held out a handful of miscellaneous junk, and Definitely-Not-Peggy hissed in furious pain as the silver coin hidden under the other stuff touched her palm. "Little baby hunter's smarter than he looks," she chuckled, silver flashing across her eyes.

The gun was sticking in the holster, but he slid his knife free of the sheath and held it up in front of him. Just in time too, because she jumped him and they went rolling across the floor. He heard her skin sizzle as he got in several good slashes with his knife, but she managed to block every attempt he made at her heart. She threw some pretty good punches too, reinforcing what he had previously just known in theory, that shifters really were stronger than normal people.

"Ah!" he cried out, batting her raking fingernails away from his face but leaving his arm open to an attack from her teeth, which sank deep down into the flesh of his shoulder. Then all the air was being crushed out of his lungs as more weight landed on top of them before suddenly disappearing, taking the shifter with it.

"Steve, are you alright?" a voice called that sounded like Peggy, and it probably really was this time, since he didn't think the shifter knew his name. It was hard to tell for sure, though, because his glasses had come off somewhere in all the rolling around, and all he could see were two vaguely human-shaped things exchanging blows, but one of them was wearing green, so that was probably the real Peggy.

"I'm good!" he replied. He had no idea where his glasses were, but the ferocity of the punches being exchanged and the hissing of silver slashing at shifter skin told him things were getting pretty intense in the blurry fight over there. He yanked his gun out of his holster, took aim at the blur not wearing green and stared at it for what felt like several long seconds to make sure he had it right, then fired.

Sudden silence fell on the tunnel. "What was that about not being able to aim without your glasses?" Peggy asked at last.

He swung the gun back in her direction, and she smiled, stepping closer so he could actually see her face. "Good instinct, but it's really me," she said. She held up the silver knife she'd been carrying, then laid the blade flat on her arm. Nothing happened.

"Oh," he said, and suddenly his hands were shaking. "Sorry."

"No, it's alright," she replied. "Like I said, good instinct." She bent down, then straightened up with his glasses in her hand. "Here."

"Thanks," he said, sliding them back on. Peggy, the tunnel, and the dead shifter that was oozing back into a puddle of goo all came back into sharp focus. "Wow. That was…I don't think I ever…I mean…"

"That was really well done," she said, smiling proudly, and Steve would have enjoyed the way she was smiling at him more if he didn't feel like his heart was about to pound right out of his ribcage. "Are you alright?"

"I'm good," he said, nodding. "Yeah. Good. Yeah, I'm good. I really just did that. I just…" He gestured at the puddle on the floor.

"Yes, you did," she said.

"I was actually, like, a hunter."

"Yes, you were." She was smiling like she wanted to start laughing, and it was probably because he was starting to ramble, but he wasn't sure how to turn it off.

"Wow, if Grandad could see me now," he said. "If we get back to the bunker, and it's being haunted by an angry old guy in a blue bathrobe, then I'll know I really pissed him off. He's buried in Connecticut, though. If he wanted to haunt me, do you think he'd be there by the time we got back? I don't know how fast ghosts can travel. I should look that up. He was right about the working conditions, though. It's a lot less gross in the bunker."

"It is," Peggy agreed, still smiling. "Doesn't have quite the same rush, though, does it?"

"Nuh uh," he agreed. "Wow, I'm still alive."

"You are," Peggy agreed. "Since this one doesn't require a salt and burn, shall we get out of here and celebrate?"

"Yeah, okay. Although, should we…It bit me. Do we need to go to the hospital? Am I going to turn into a shifter?"

Peggy huffed an exasperated laugh. "Steve, you know more creature lore than anyone I've ever met. Are you really asking that question?"

"Well, no, I mean, I think I know what the answer is," Steve said, aware that he was speaking faster and starting to gesture more wildly with his hands. "But I've just got this rush of…I don't think I've ever felt this much adrenaline in my life, and there's maybe a little bit of panic there too, and my brain isn't going as fast as my words are coming—"

"You're not going to turn into a shifter," Peggy assured him. "That's not how they work. You're thinking of werewolves."

"Okay," he replied. That's what he had thought. "That's good."

She eyed the bite on his shoulder. "You might need a tetanus shot, though."

"Yeah, okay."

"Come on," she said, putting a hand on his uninjured shoulder and steering him toward the exit.

Steve had his breath back and his brain had slowed down by the time they got back to Peggy's car. "Have a seat," she said, directing him to the passenger seat and moving to the back to grab her first aid kit.

He sat down, feet sprawled out in front of him in the parking lot. "Hey, thanks for saving my life in there," he said, processing what had happened in the tunnels at a more reasonable speed and remembering her pulling the shifter off of him.

"You're welcome," she said as she cut his shirt collar open a bit wider so she could get at his shoulder. "Although, for your first hunt, you were holding your own remarkably well. Hold still."

Before he could say anything else, holy water was pouring over his shoulder, and the knowledge that the burning was good was lost in a sea of fire and a litany of curses.

When the world was back where he could see again, Peggy was chuckling as she jabbed the aforementioned tetanus shot into his shoulder. "Such language from a gentleman of letters," she said with a mock tsk of disapproval. "Were you cursing in Mandarin?"

"Among other things," Steve said, shifting a little as she nudged him over so she could get a better reach at his shoulder. The antiseptic she was dabbing into it now stung a hell of a lot less than the holy water had. "English can be a little limited in expressing the depths of one's feelings in that regard."

She laughed again. "Well, it won't need stitches," she told him. "Bandages should fix it up nicely, though I can't promise you won't have a scar. Your first battle wound."

"Actually, this is my first one," he said, holding up his hand and angling his fingers to show her the thin line of scar tissue running the length of his middle finger. "Searching for an Egyptian cleansing ritual in a middle of the night emergency. Papyrus scrolls will give you a hell of a paper cut."

She let out a delighted snort of laughter. "Well, that's certainly not an injury most hunters can lay claim to." She smiled warmly as she packed away the medical supplies. "You really did well tonight," she told him. "You should be proud of yourself."

"Thanks," he said, something warm expanding around his suddenly fluttering heart.

"Come on," she said, patting his knee and straightening up. "Your first proper hunt—we're going to go out and celebrate like hunters. That means a bar, a drink, and a very greasy hamburger."

Steve laughed. "Sounds good."

It was early enough in the evening that the roadhouse they stopped at wasn't too crowded yet, which was just as well—that gave them space to smell like they'd been crawling through a sewer without bothering anyone besides their poor waitress, who Steve made sure to tip well when they left. Peggy insisted on buying him a celebratory whiskey, and they laughed as they ate their burgers and fries and played a few rounds of pool.

"Alright," Peggy said as they got back into the car. "I've got to know—where did you learn how to hustle pool?"

"It's just math," Steve replied. Peggy shot him an incredulous eyebrow and he laughed. "No, one of my friends back home taught me how to play. The hustling comes from taking advantage of the fact that the little guy with glasses and the inhaler looks really out of place in places like that."

She laughed. "So, is that how you finance everything in the bunker—by pretending to be sweet and innocent and hustling pool?"

"Nah, that's just recreational," Steve replied.

"How do you finance everything in the bunker?" Peggy wondered. "It's not as though this life hands you a paycheck every two weeks."

"Well, actually, the Men of Letters do have a bank account, and everyone who runs a bunker gets a company card," he said. "They've been gathering interest since, I don't know, Ancient Greece? So it works pretty well to keep the lights on and get food on the table, and whatever else I need."

"So you do actually get a paycheck?" Peggy inclined her head thoughtfully. "Clearly I chose the wrong branch of monster-hunting."

Steve chuckled. "I'm guessing you do the usual credit card fraud and hustling pool?"

"Pool and poker, mostly," Peggy said. "Credit card fraud always struck me as unnecessary illegal activity that drew attention when I didn't need it to, and I'm very good at poker."

"We'll have to play sometime," Steve suggested.

"I'll go easy on you," Peggy said with a smirk.

The high of a successful hunt was somewhat diminished the next day when Steve woke up feeling like he'd been hit by a truck. Everything was sore from rolling around and fighting on the floor, and he could barely move his injured shoulder.

"You seriously do this all the time?" he wondered while Peggy inspected his wound.

"You get used to it," she said absently. "I imagine this still hurts, but it's looking much better. You'll want to keep putting antibiotic ointment on it until it closes up completely, though."

His shoulder healed up pretty nicely over the coming days, though it did leave a scar of which he was pretty proud. He didn't go flashing it around, but knowing it was there reminded him that he was capable of doing the dirty parts of the job.

After that, whenever Peggy was in town, they'd find something within a day's drive of the bunker and take out a ghoul or a Chupacabra nest or a haunting. It was exciting, and it was great getting to work alongside Peggy and see her in action—she was freaking amazing. He'd stood there in awe one time as she fended off five zombies at once with a machete, feeling like he was watching Inigo Montoya dueling. Exciting as it was, going out and doing it when Peggy was around was plenty of excitement (and physical injury) for him. He was content to stay and do his normal Men of Letters thing the rest of the time, and he didn't kid himself that he could survive going out and trying it on his own.

After a few cases, Steve stopped doing the massive adrenaline dump rambling-like-an-idiot thing when they were over. He felt like he was starting to get the hang of things. Still, he wouldn't say he was falling into the trap of over-confidence—he was rarely confident outside of the library, really. No, he didn't think hubris was at fault for the fact that he was now waking up tied to a chair in a vetala den with ringing in his ears and a sore head—he was blaming that on the third vetala he could see lurking in the corner. Everyone knew vetalas hunted in pairs. He and Peggy had been ready for that. They'd had no reason to think there would be a third one.

"S'cheating," he grumbled, his voice raspy in his throat.

The vetala chuckled and flashed him a smile that showcased all of her fangs before moving to join her two companions in the better light. "Well," she said. "Since hunters killed my partner, teaming up with another pair seemed like the safer bet."

"Wasn' me," Steve slurred, still feeling kind of muzzy-headed. He didn't think they'd hit him that hard. "I didn' kill 'em." Was he trying to talk her out of enacting her revenge on him? That probably wasn't going to work. Actually, if the fuzzy brain and the pain he was starting to become aware of in his neck was any indication, they'd probably fed on him once already.

"You're still a hunter," she hissed. "Works for me."

"Ah!" he cried out as she lunged for his neck, sinking her fangs in. He was conscious long enough to have the thought that feeling the blood getting sucked out of his neck was a very weird, slightly nauseating sensation, then the poison from her fangs kicked in and he passed out again.

The next time he woke up, he was alone and it was dark. He was vaguely aware that that was bad, but it took a little while to think through the fog in his brain to figure out why. Oh, right. Vetalas. Three of them. Peggy was probably okay, since she wasn't in here, and they'd probably be taunting him about killing her or something and how alone he was if they'd done that. She would have noticed fairly quickly that he'd gone missing, so, until proved otherwise, he was going to hold out hope that she was going to come find him. There was very little he could do to get himself out of this mess on his own. Even if his muscles hadn't been numb and heavy from the poison, he was stuck pretty good to the chair, and he'd never been very good at getting out of handcuffs. Maybe Peggy could show him that next. He bet she knew how.

He sat there on his own for a little while, testing his range of motion and wondering what the vetalas were up to. Not that he wanted them in here eating him or anything, but it was like being in the room with a really big spider or something. It was just better to know where it was.

He tensed when the two he and Peggy had been hunting came back into the room. They seemed to be arguing about something in hushed tones, and it didn't take him long to figure out they were arguing about what to do with him. Evidently, Peggy was on their trail. That was good news. The bad news was, one of them thought Steve wasn't worth the hassle of carting along with them, and was arguing that they should just drain him dry instead and run.

"Look," he began as they moved toward him. "If you're worried about logistics, I'm pretty light. Easy to carry. Taking me with you won't slow you down," he pointed out. Not that he wanted to go anywhere with them, but if his choices were that or desiccation, he could play the part of a packed lunch until Peggy caught up with them.

"You are little," said the one who seemed to be on the fence about taking him or not. She looked him up and down, and Steve's heart sank at the hungry look in her eye. "Little enough there's probably only one good drink left in you anyway. May as well finish you off now."

"No, wait—" Steve started, only to be cut off by the sharp stab of fangs jabbing into both sides of his neck as they both descended on him. The one on the left gasped and jerked sharply, then fell away from him into a heap on the floor. The other one and Steve both looked up to see Peggy standing in its place, blood shining on the silver knife in her hand and fire shining in her eyes.

Peggy lunged for the second one, but it was quick and dove away, screeching in fury like a wounded animal. The creature was stronger than Peggy, but its rage at the death of its packmate was blinding it, and Peggy took advantage of its sloppiness to land several well-aimed punches before ramming the knife into its heart.

Steve's throat couldn't quite figure out the way to say how amazing that was, so, hopefully the way he was looking at Peggy as she walked back to him was saying it. Her relieved smile made him feel warm inside, though the smile changed to concern as she got closer and got a good look at his neck.

"Bloody hell," she muttered. "Are you okay?"

"Mm," Steve said with a clumsy nod, all he could get out at the moment. There hadn't been much time for them to inject a lot of venom into his veins during that last feeding, but it had been a double dose since there were two of them. Two of them…Crap! There weren't just two of them. "Three," he mumbled, his tongue feeling thick and fuzzy in his mouth.

"What?" Peggy asked, setting down her bloody knife and getting to work on the cuffs fastening him to the chair.

No, don't put down the knife, there's three of them! That was what he tried to say, but, again, all that would come out was a slurred, "three."

"Don't worry; I'll have you free in just a minute," she assured him.

"No," he moaned. That wasn't what he'd been trying to say.

"Ssh," she soothed, looking up from her work and putting a hand briefly to his cheek. "You're going to be alright. I'll get you out of here and fixed up; I promise."

Steve really liked the way she was holding his cheek, but that really wasn't what he was trying to say and—crap, there was the third one! It was coming up in the shadows of the room, in Peggy's blind spot. Peggy couldn't see it, and Steve was stuck to the chair, and…

The cuff on his second wrist snapped open, and as Peggy leaned down to get the ones on his ankles, the vetala leaped forward. Still not entirely sure of what he was doing but propelled forward on a panicked surge of adrenaline, Steve threw himself forward, his right hand snatching up the angel blade that was strapped to Peggy's thigh and his left hand landing on her back, shoving against her and giving himself more momentum to lunge forward and slam the blade into the vetala's chest.

He hadn't quite gotten it in the heart, but the knife was stuck firm in its chest, and Peggy was turning around and flying forward even as his poison-weakened muscles gave out and he hit the floor, tumbling against the chair he'd dragged with him that was still attached to his left ankle. Peggy grabbed the hilt of the knife that was sticking out of the monster's chest and yanked hard, eliciting an ear-piercing screech as the blade sliced sideways through its chest and into its heart.

Sudden silence, aside from the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears. Then Peggy was leaning over him, her hands on the side of his face. "Steve?" she asked anxiously.

"M'okay," he rasped.

She moved to help him sit up, a worried smile on her face. "You were saying 'three' just now, weren't you?"

"Yeah."

"Sorry," she said, red rising in her cheeks. "I thought—"

"S'okay," he replied, smiling. "Worked out alright."

She huffed a laugh. "It did. Are there any more?" she asked, her eyes darting away from him to scan the room.

Steve shook his head, then winced. His neck did not approve of the motion. "No," he said.

"Good. Ready to get out of here?"

"Hell, yes."

Peggy detached him from the chair and got him outside and to her car, where she gave him a bottle of water to drink while she cleaned up his wrists where the cuffs had rubbed them raw. Once he was slightly better hydrated, she turned her attention to his neck, and everything went black for a while under the cleansing fire of holy water washing over the puncture wounds. When he woke up, he was lying across the back seat of Peggy's car. His head was in her lap, and one of her hands was brushing through his hair.

"Hey," he croaked.

Her gaze met his and she smiled. Light from somewhere was flickering and shooting sparks of amber through her hazel eyes. She had great eyes. "Hello," she said. "How do you feel?"

He considered for a moment. "Alright," he said at last. He sat up gingerly. Evidently, he'd been out a little longer than he'd thought—Peggy had had time to treat and bandage his neck, and to salt and burn the vetala bodies. The flickering light in her eyes came from the building across the parking lot that was on fire.

"Thanks for saving me," he said.

"You're welcome," she replied. Her smile softened. "And thank you for saving me."

"Oh, that was…" he started. Nothing, really. Just instinct.

"It was incredible," she said, and Steve couldn't help smiling proudly at the admiration in her eyes. "I've been on the receiving end of a vetala bite before," she went on. "I know how hard it is to move with that venom in your blood."

"Well, venom and adrenaline," he said. "That helped." She smiled. "Watching you in there, though," he continued. "That was amazing."

She smiled wider. "You're just saying that because I saved your life."

Steve chuckled, and it only hurt his throat a little bit. "No. I meant the way you fought in there, and tracking me so fast from where they took me. The saving my life part…" He shrugged one shoulder. "Maybe it's arrogant of me, but I just sort of assumed you would."

Her smile changed then into something that made it hard for Steve to breathe, but in a good way. "You trusted me that much?" she asked. "Tied to a chair and having the life drained out of you, and you just knew I was coming?"

He smiled at her warmly. "Yeah," he said.

She studied him for a long moment, then resolution settled across her eyes as she seemed to come to some sort of decision. "I was really worried about you," she said, and there was a vulnerability in her tone that Steve had never heard before. "You were right to assume I was coming, but the thought of not getting there in time…" She trailed off and shook her head. "Since getting to know you over the last year, you…you've become very important to me. I could have lost you tonight, and I never…" She shook her head again. "I'm not very good at this," she said with an embarrassed smile. "Which is probably why I've not said anything before now, but that can't go on; though I'm still not really sure of the words I want, so maybe this will do it."

Before Steve could ask what she meant, she'd taken his face in her hands and was kissing him like her life depended on it.

"Y—yeah," Steve stammered when she pulled away. "That, that'll get your point across pretty well." He was pretty sure he was smiling like an idiot. She was smiling back, but looking at him like she was waiting for a response, and he suddenly understood what she meant about having trouble finding the words you wanted. So he grinned and leaned forward and planted his lips on hers again. He kissed her as deep as his asthma would let him, and then he found the words he was looking for. "I love you, Peggy Carter," he whispered.

He felt her lips smiling against his. "Those were the words I was trying to find," she said softly. She pulled away just enough to look into his eyes. "I love you too, Steve Rogers." She kissed him gently. "Though this might be the last hunt I ever let you go on."