Steve POV
Taking a deep breath, her emotions under control, Holly looked up. "I should show you around my apartment I guess."
"A tour would be great. I see that Stark had each apartment done differently. Yours has a lot in common with Clint and Natasha's."
She grinned evilly, her eyes lighting up. And even with that mischievous look, seeing the light return to her eyes did wonders for his spirit. "Aww, did all the weapons scare you?"
"To be honest, considering I didn't know exactly the reception I would get, they did a little. I'm going to be apologizing for a while, I hope you know that."
"Figured as much." She walked around the counter and headed on a counterclockwise direction. "Tony knows I like wide open spaces and natural light, especially in terms of a fight, so my apartment is more of a loft. He brought a lot of this from my house in California. She stopped in front of a large portion of wall that was covered in framed pictures.
"Mine is similar. I like open space." He murmured, taking in the wall of memories.
Steve moved closer and saw he was looking at a near biography of Holly's life. Her father and Dum Dum in their uniforms, her mother in Native American garb. Her parents' wedding photo, a small baby boy in her father's lap. One of her father, Howard and their sons. There was a picture of her whole family, parents, Dum Dum and her brother when she was a toddler. It was strange to see Dum Dum as an old man.
There was one of her father shaking Fury's hand, perhaps when he retired as Director. Another of Stark with a huge grin, holding her as a baby. Steve theorized that this had to have been close to the time that Howard and his wife were killed. One that made him smile was that of Holly around 8 or so dressed as a Capette, albeit with her own little shield, Dum Dum proudly standing at her side, a cane another with her wearing Dum Dum's bowler, making an exaggerated serious look while her uncle laughed in the background.
Framed near these pictures was the infamous bowler itself and he didn't stop himself from putting his fingers to the glass out of respect. Dum Dum could be a pain in the ass most of the time, but he was a good man to have at your side. The man had saved him more than once, that was for sure.
He saw pictures of her taken while she was fighting, of her holding up her SHIELD identification proudly and another standing beside Coulson. He saw her with Maria Hill and Agent May, the three being rarely silly, posed as Charlie's Angels, something Steve was proud he recognized. "I like this one."
Holly grinned. "I still can't believe I got them to pose. We called ourselves Coulson's Angels. I think he has it in his wallet. He was tickled, not that he showed it."
"Stark said you had a very hard time when we all thought we lost him." Steve watched her face.
She looked down at another picture that showed a younger Coulson looking a bit more relaxed with his arm around a formally dressed Holly, around age 15. "I've known him nearly my whole life. He's family. After losing Daddy and Eddie, he stepped up in a major way. I was 19 and was a full fledged agent and legally an adult, but I'd always had them. The one constant in the hectic life of a SHIELD operative. I was lost, I still feel lost at times, without them. This was from an undercover I was doing at a high school in St. Louis. There was a father daughter dance and my dad would have stood out for his age and Eddie looked too young, so he sent in Coulson." She pointed to another picture taken while they were dancing, the normally stoic Coulson with a smile on his face as Holly was in mid twirl.
Among pictures of her father and brother were pictures of her from performances at Julliard, in various outfits, some in mid performance. He'd have to ask her if she minded if he watched some of the recorded performances Stark had mentioned while they'd been sitting by her bedside back at the SHIELD base in France. He was curious to see more of this entertainer side of her now that he'd seen her fight and teach. When did she ever get the time to learn to do all of this?
One surprised him, because it showed Holly mid-performance with 5 other women in rather risque costumes for his 1940s sensibilities and one of them he recognized. A much younger Natasha with long blonde hair. "What is this from?"
"It's from a musical called Chicago. I only played a minor character in that one and this was the big number for me. We needed someone who could speak either Polish or Russian and do ballet. So I brought in my friend Natalie." She smiled at it. "Tony didn't even realize that he'd actually seen Natasha before until last year sometime. I'll have to show it to you, no one would expect such a emotional and subdued performance from the infamous Black Widow. It was one of the more fun undercovers she got to do. It might have been the first time she used the name Natalie Rushman, I'd have to ask her."
Nodding, Steve looked at another picture, one of a slightly older Holly, looking a bit battered asleep next to an equally battered looking Natasha, her hair back to red, both still in their dirty torn costumes, on a tiny couch. Natasha was leaning against Holly who had her head on the Russian's shoulder. He pointed to it. "Who was brave enough to take this one?"
Holly laughed. "That would be Clint. This was taken in Beirut, I think. He has the original copy and he wrote on the bottom in permanent marker, My Girls. He has it framed in their apartment. Nat won't admit it, but I think she likes it."
Steve laughed. "I guess he would be the only one that would get away with doing that."
He paused as he saw part of the wall was dedicated to Peggy. She had also taken a proud picture with Holly as a Capette, dressed in her old uniform from during the war, the only difference being her hair, a few lines and the presence of a cane. Her eyes were bright and proud though and he smiled. There was no doubt in his mind that Peggy had been an excellent psuedo mother for Holly. "I'm glad Peggy had the chance to be a mother. She loves you a great deal. I visited her, in DC and she gave me the silent treatment for a long time for leaving you while you were recovering. I'm sorry, again, by the way."
"Lucky for you she's 101, otherwise she might have decked you. But yeah, she was the best mom. It wasn't easy, I'm sure. But she and my mother were friends for a long time." She pointed to a picture of Peggy standing side by side with a beautiful ebony haired woman, ironically dressed in a black catsuit. "It was her way of honoring my mother and helping my dad. He didn't take my mother's death well, as would be expected. And I guess it was her way of dealing with the loss of her friend too."
"Her uniform looks like Natasha's."
A nod. "Actually, it is. Not the exact one, a replica, but Nat took it over at my dad's request." She turned to him to explain. "Nat was on a totally different mission when she found out through a contact that the Red Room agent who had made her life hell and had killed my mother was nearby. It was her first solo mission for SHIELD and she went off the grid for 3 days to hunt her down." She paused, looking at the wall. "Ironically, Nat is a lot like my mom and I think my dad saw that. See, my mom was working with the Aboriginal Resistance Movement when she met my father." She explained when she saw the confused look on Steve's face. "It was like the IRA for Natives. She was very proud of being Lakota and got a bit extreme about it when she was young. And by met my father I should say when he and a team of SHIELD agents broke into where they were keeping their weapon stockpile. He always joked that she had him at the first roundhouse kick to his face."
"And like Clint, your father brought her into SHIELD instead of what he was told?"
Holly grinned. "That's the thing, my dad was director at the time, this was around 1961. Peggy had just stepped down. He gave the orders and occasionally would go on missions, just like Peggy did. Dum Dum was furious at first, but my dad was always the thinker of the family. And he was right about her. Just like Clint was about Nat."
She had them move on, showing off the weapons, her music area and then bringing him over to what she called her office. It was an alcove created out of bookshelves surrounding a large desk covered in more books and papers. He moved to look at the books on the shelves, noting three had her listed as the author and stopped when he saw a book titled Captain America: Legend & History.
Curious, he picked it off the shelf, the cover being one of him taken in his old uniform with the Commandos surrounding him, including Peggy. He couldn't remember where they had posed for that. Then he saw the author, Dr Holly Dugan, PhD. He looked up to see her watching him intently. "You wrote a book about me?"
Holly POV
She nodded before speaking, feeling a slight blush to her cheeks. "I figured that thanks to Dum Dum, Peggy and the other Commandos, I was the only one who really could and do it justice. To show that you were a real man and you hadn't fought alone. That you were more than just some publicity gimmick or hero in a radio drama for kids. For a long time, there were people who thought that you had just been an actor and that your strength shown during the War Bonds Tour was just a trick." Her hands waved in a slightly nervous manner. It wasn't everyday you had to explain to someone that you wrote a book about their life. "It was partly Coulson's idea, he helped with a good amount of it."
He looked back at the book and opened it, stopping at the dedication page.
For Dad and Eddie, who honored Captain America's legacy on September 11, 2001
For Peggy, Dum Dum and the Howling Commandos, Wahoo!
For James "Bucky" Barnes who gave the last full measure for not just for his nation but for his fellow man.
For Steve Rogers who is still out there somewhere.
He looked up at her. His eyes were bright and honest. "Thank you for recognizing them and not just me."
"You can have that if you want, I'm curious as to what I got wrong. My publisher was pushing me to do another edition since you've been found." Pushing was a very light term. More like harassing but well intentioned. Mostly. It probably would have been worse if her publisher didn't know Holly's past given that he'd been an analyst for SHIELD before retiring.
"Do you want to do one?"
His curiosity surprised her, but then again, he probably didn't truly realize the way the media had all but taken over the world since his time. She knew that he understood the internet and such, but the scale of it was probably still a bit baffling. "I don't know. Maybe. After we find Bucky, then I can include him."
His eyes softened. "We?"
"How many times do I have to tell you, Cap? Commandos are family." She paused and smirked. "Plus he could tell me some really embarrassing stories to include."