Sparks, Flames, Embers

Chapter 12: The Reunion

Five or ten years later…

Beep! Beep! Beep!

Peggy didn't quite wake with a start at the sound of the incessant alarm. But she certainly did when an arm reached across her to slap it silent.

A well-muscled arm. That didn't return to its former position, but instead remained lazily draped over her side and resting on her stomach, all comfortable-like in its peaceful sleepy drowsiness. As if it belonged there.

This arm was attached to a solid, warm male body. A body whose presence in her bed brought about a sense of déjà vu – the worst kind. This was no bizarre sensory memory mind-trick that one laughs off later or even nightmarish glitch in the Matrix moment. This was fucking reality.

'He should not be here. He hasn't been here in years…How the bloody Hell did he get here? How did I get here! Again!'

Before her panic could induce hangover nausea – because, oh yeah, wouldn't that make quite the lasting impression? – she tried to force herself to relax, to not wake the-man-who-should-not-be-here up, and to let the memories come. When she did disentangle herself from him, she would at least not be that drunken bimbo who couldn't remember her one-night stand. She wouldn't.

Eventually, one did come to her.

~.~

An arm, Howard's arm, draping over her shoulder…

"Mr. Jarvis, I do believe you have outdone yourself with this latest hotel," her friend praised expansively, waving about his champagne glass with his other hand to indicate their rather posh but elegant surroundings.

Edwin Jarvis had done an excellent job. The furniture and décor were at a glance top-notch in quality to say the least, and simple and elegant, warm and inviting, to wax poetic at the most. The concierges to the wait staff to the janitorial staff to the security guards, all were professional and competent, just like their boss. And the food was exceptional – who knew that stuffed mushrooms could be mouthwatering?

"Why, thank y– " Jarvis started to reply, but he was cut off by Howard.

"And to think that the Alumni planning committee was going to choose the Marvel-Disney resort over you? They thought an untried establishment was too much of a risk. Bah!" Howard raised his glass in toast, declaring, "Here's to showing those imbeciles what a damn fucking marvelous job you have done hosting their reunion!"

Peggy, Jarvis, and Maria – Howard's executive assistant, top researcher, and first ever steady girlfriend – all raised their glasses, somewhat amusedly at Howard's exuberance.

While Howard was busy swallowing, Jarvis interjected, "Again, thank you, Mr. Stark, for your faith in me and Mrs. Jarvis, and for the start-up capital that made all this possible."

"'Twas no act of faith on my part - at least on Ana's part. I have tasted the products of her culinary skill, but you on the other hand? Managing a luxury hotel? All those employees and whiny, needy guests?" Howard smirked slyly at their friend, while somehow neatly dodging both her elbow jabs and Maria's disapproving looks.

Jarvis, however, only sniffed, and archly replied, "I managed you all those years, didn't I?"

~.~

And then there was Rose nudging her shoulder…

"Who are you searching this crowd for? Because if it is who I think you are, you can relax. He's here, but he does not have a date."

Peggy quit her scan of the other tables' occupants and looked to her former resident advisor who had plopped down in the chair next to her. The woman was as robust and as cheery as ever, and just as undaunted by Peggy's scathing scowls, as she merrily popped a chocolate-covered strawberry into her mouth.

"Bully for him," Peggy dryly remarked, before explaining, "If you must know, I was looking for far more infamous alumni."

"What? Dottie? You expect her to be crazy enough to crash a class reunion filled with multiple law enforcement alumni while she is on the lam?" Rose scoffed in disbelief.

It was Dorothy Underwood, the girl who liked to steal her clothes, even when they weren't roommates anymore, so of course she did. This was also the woman who was such a teacher's pet for Dr. Fenhoff that she helped him do his crazy brainwashing experiments on freshmen – experiments that led to Yauch committing suicide. Peggy also thought she helped him lure Dooley into a trap, when the man began to investigate his colleague's connections to the suicide, but Fenhoff had never confirmed this, according to the interrogation transcripts that she had managed to get her hands on.

Peggy didn't say all of this of course, only giving a non-committal shrug. She didn't need to hear again how paranoid she was of that dastardly woman.

"Well, just so you know, I checked, and Frost is still locked up in her looney-bin, so you don't need to worry about her tonight at least."

Peggy arched an eyebrow and wryly pointed out, "It's really more you than me that needs to be worried about that, isn't it?"

Whitney Frost was another one of their infamous classmates. In fact when the scandal broke out that she had hooked up with a local mafia boss while in pursuit of a scientific breakthrough, a fanatical pursuit that eventually led to her killing her husband and frying her own brain, their class of mostly criminal justice majors had been dubbed the "cops and robbers" class of Lehigh University.

And who uncovered this all and broke the scandal? That's right - investigative journalist Rose Roberts did.

At her question, Rose involuntarily shivered and then mumbled something about dancing and saying hello to Aloysius.

~.~

And then enter stage right…

"Two shots of whiskey. Make mine a double." At her pointed look, Jack amended his order to the bartender, "No, make hers a double too."

Peggy decided to be gracious and not object to his commandeering the barstool next to her. The whiskey bottle he had pointed to was – to use an old school term – Aces.

After he settled himself on the stool next to her, he shot her a sardonic grin, asking wryly, "So how many times have you been told that I don't have a date? Because I think, at least 3 people have blatantly told me that you don't and a half-dozen others have hinted at it. You know – nudge, nudge, wink, wink, and the like."

Peggy shrugged, and then answered his unspoken question – why she didn't have a date.

"My excuse is that I am unofficially working security for Howard and Angie."

It was more or less the truth. With Howard still being his notorious self, despite the fact that he seemed to be settling down with Maria, he needed careful looking after, especially with all the crazies in the world these days. And Angie was now a Broadway star and attracting paparazzi of her own.

Jack hadn't lost any of his perceptiveness, and with his own casual shrug, he generously answered her unspoken question. "There's no girl serious enough that I want to meet my old chums, and if I brought anyone less than serious, they would be jealous of the amount of time I was spending with said chums."

"Fair point," she conceded.

She wanted to ask if that is what he considered them now – 'old chums', but it would take more than a double-shot of fine whiskey to loosen up her tongue that much.

She was still curious though.

Their break up hadn't been explosive, like everyone had predicted. In fact, it had been completely anti-climactic in its civility.

"This isn't working."

"Nope."

"We should probably end this."

"Yeah, Marge. We probably should."

"Okay… I'll see you maybe sometime when I am State-side next?"

"…Maybe."

She wondered if he resented that very civility like she had. She wondered if it had hurt him like it had hurt her that they had drifted so far apart that there were no embers or sparks enough between them to make that volatile finale happen.

She didn't ask though. She was too afraid to open up old wounds, so she went for small talk instead.

"So you still with ATF like Ramirez?"

Jack had gotten into the U.S. Marshalls internship the summer after their junior year, but afterwards, he had decided that if he made a career out of it he would quickly get tired of babysitting criminals who 'sell out bigger fish for a get-out-of-jail-free card'. He had also admitted to her that ATF was 'a small enough pond that it will be easier to get on the fast-track to the top'.

"Nah, after turning over evidence on my boss and partner for being in the pocket of some local arms-dealers, I had to jump ship," he admitted nonchalantly.

As casual and indifferent as he tried to seem to be, he didn't quite meet her eyes and his shoulders betrayed him with their stiffness, as if he was bracing himself for her criticism.

She didn't. All she did was prompt him with a curious, "And which agency-ship was that?"

He snorted slightly as he admitted, "NCIS."

She chuckled, "Ship. Navy. An apropos metaphor. Why them?"

"They offered me the job," he said dismissively, and then in that quiet soft way of his, that let her know when he was sharing a truth about himself that he rarely did with anyone else, he added, "and I get to see the world and honor my grandfather all at the same time."

Before they broke up, she would have reached out and squeezed his hand. If they hadn't broken up, she would have known what his Gam-Gam thought of his new career path. She would have known where he had globe-trotted to, what cases had led him there, what life had been like for him as an Agent-afloat, if he had been an Agent-afloat. She would have known so many things…

Swallowing past the lump of regrets that were threatening to choke her, she asked slowly, "You wouldn't happen to be at the D.C. office branch would you?"

"Yes…" Jack answered hesitantly, picking up on the smirk that was twitching at the corners of her mouth.

That smirk was full-blown when she teased triumphantly, "So you're the latest Navy-cop thorn in my boss's hide!"

"Must not make that big of an impression if he can't include my name in his bitching," Jack mock-grumbled.

"Must not," she shrugged dismissively, before adding with a smug grin, "He just calls you 'pretty boy'."

And, oh bloody hell, did he blush pretty.

She eyed him up and down, remembering how he turned such a rosy shade of scrumptious pink … all over.

She downed her double-shot to cool herself down and ordered another.

~.~

An exchange of bastard-boss horror stories followed and then…

"So, Marge, are you going to Daniel and Violet's wedding?"

"Yes."

She wouldn't miss it for the world. Daniel had struggled to find a woman who could look past his deformity and who could deal with the secretiveness that came with him being a N.S.A. analyst. Violet could. She also called him out on his bullshit tendency to compare women to Peggy like she was some gold standard. If anyone was a gold standard (Peggy didn't think she should be any kind of standard), she would nominate Ana Jarvis, Maria, and then Violet in that order.

"I don't know about you, but me? I am not bringing a date," Jack informed her, seemingly out of the blue.

Knowing that he was fishing to find out if she would be going solo there like she had been here, she deflected by asking, "And what convoluted reasoning do you have for going stag there too?"

"Not convoluted. Simple. Two simple reasons to be precise," he rambled expansively. Jack, when he was a happy tipsy, got broader in his gestures and more verbose in his explanations and story-telling.

"One, the one you might expect – bring a girl to a wedding and she's hearing her own personal wedding bells, but the other is – not so I can get with the bridesmaids, mind you – half of them are Violet's sisters and the other half are Danny's. The female half of the Sousa tribe are a force to be reckoned with and Violet scares the shit out of me."

Peggy laughed. Partly because it was true, and partly because Jack had stage-whispered this so loudly that the happy couple quit staring adoringly into each other's eyes out on the dance floor and began to look around for whoever was talking about them.

She waved them off, even as Jack nonchalantly asked her if she will be bringing a date.

With equal nonchalance, she answered, "No" and declined to give a reason.

"Good," Jack declared with a decisive nod. "That way I don't have to worry about getting a black eye from a jealous bloke when I ask you to dance."

"Who says I would say yes?" she challenged with an amused huff of laughter.

"Wouldn't you, Marge? My dancing skills have improved. I wouldn't step on any of your toes," he wheedled, batting his blue eyes all seductive-like.

No doubt due to the effects of the alcohol, she leaned over and challenged huskily, "Prove it."

~.~

Jack swings her out onto the dance floor…

And from there Peggy is inundated with memories of getting caught up in the music and the moment and the feel of him. His hands at her lower back for the slow dances. His oh-so solid chest beneath her hands, and then later, for the sultrier ones, his arms encircling her middle, pulling her back against that same oh-so solid chest ... And his hands – oh god his hands! – roaming and caressing her...

And then eventually there was the kissing, and then their snogging, and then them spinning off into the darkness…

It got really fuzzy from there but there were a lot of fleeting flashes of them stumbling up some random stairwell, fumbling at her hotel suite door, of frantic stripping of clothes, the death of yet another lamp, and hot hot sweaty sex.

But strangely no words. There were lots of panting gasps, moans and groans, and even a throaty growl or two, but no words.

As soon as that vivid, if disjointed and wordless replay ceased rolling, she couldn't help but think to herself: 'Oh yes Jack, you definitely improved in your dancing skills'.

"Why, thank you, darlin'."

Well, there were words now. Way to go, Peggy.