Chapter Nineteen
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After their first date, Steve took his girl dancing every Friday night. There were the occasional Avengers-related interruptions, but if they were in town, they never missed a date.
During the week, Peggy was busy managing relations between SHIELD and the Avengers, but somehow there were always plenty of things she needed to ask Steve about, and as the team leader, he worked closely with her on a daily basis. Tony took special pleasure in randomly sticking his head in on their meetings. Steve suspected he was trying to catch them in some compromising situation, but the captain and the agent were both very, very good at keeping their relationship professional. They'd had years of practice; the army wasn't lenient when it came to fraternization. Besides, they were still circling each other at arm's length, figuring out their relationship.
They had spent two years apart, after all.
Friday night dances weren't the only times when they both let their shields down for a few hours. They took turns stealing each other away to explore the city, or to go out for lunch. Those were the times when they could really talk, feeling each other out, recognizing the changes that their time apart had created, rediscovering the thrill that came with shared laughter over old jokes long forgotten by everybody else.
Steve hadn't realized just how much he'd missed someone from his own era to talk to; someone who operated off the same social cues and shared the same life experience. He found himself waking up every morning with a smile, eager to see her, already planning ways he could spend time with her. For her part, Peggy enjoyed being with someone who treated her like an equal, who would actually listen to what she had to say and take it seriously. Steve had always been good at that, always made her feel like she genuinely mattered. It was something she'd missed more than she could say.
Her first meeting with SHIELD had gone well. Steve went with her to headquarters and showed her around, but Peggy sweetly declined his offer to accompany her into the meeting room. When she had met with Fury for the first time, she'd had the entire team backing her. This time, she needed to stand on her own feet and meet him on his own ground.
When she walked into his office, Fury was busy over something on a screen. He saw her and rose, stepping around his desk to face her. For a moment they surveyed each other - she with her brisk, confident glance, he with his level, one eyed stare.
Then Fury held out a hand. "Agent Carter," he said.
"Director Fury," she replied, and met him halfway in a firm handshake. Neither one smiled, but it was a start.
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"I'm assuming you're the girl Cap won't shut up about."
Surprised, Peggy looked up from the tablet in her lap to see a young man leaning through the door, white teeth flashing in a smile. She recognized him from Steve's sketches, but this was her first time seeing him around the tower. Steve had spoken very highly of this man, and she rose, reaching out her hand.
"You must be Samuel Wilson. I'm Peggy Carter."
He stepped forward easily, shaking her hand briefly. "Yeah, I kind of figured that out. Googled you. Cap shown you Google yet? How about YouTube?"
She knew about Google by now, but YouTube was new, so Sam sat beside her, pointing out where she needed to tap. "Type in what you want to know, up it comes. You can find music, cooking tutorials, cat videos - all kinds of junk."
Peggy raised her eyebrows. "Cat videos?"
"Aw man, somebody's been neglecting your education. Here, let me."
Two minutes later, he was chuckling over some inane video that seemed to be composed mainly of cats falling off of things. Quickly losing interest in the film, Peggy leaned back and watched Sam instead. So this was the man who was aiding in the search for Barnes. It was easy to see why Steve had turned to him when he needed help. Good humor seemed to hover around him, but he had a resourceful air. Suddenly Peggy wished very badly that she could introduce him to the Howling Commandos. Sam would have fit in very well.
"I suspect you didn't come here just to show me cat videos," she casually said when the short film was over. Sam laughed shortly as he handed the tablet back. He didn't seem offended that the video hadn't captured her attention.
"No," he admitted. "Don't get me wrong - I'm glad to meet the girl he's all gooey-eyed over, but I actually came to see Cap. He around? I got some news for him."
Peggy didn't have a chance to answer before the man in question came through the door. His eyes flickered to her as they always did when they were in a room together, and then his face lit up as he saw his good friend. "Sam! I take it you've met Peggy already."
Sam grabbed Steve's offered hand and pulled himself to his feet. "Sure thing, Cap. She's been awake this long, and you haven't introduced us - I'm hurt, man! Had to take matters into my own hands."
They grinned at one another, and Peggy saw something familiar in Sam's eyes. She had seen it in the eyes of every single Commando, in Bucky's eyes, and in her own each time she looked in the mirror. It wasn't hero-worship, although that was what detractors of Captain America used to call it. It was faith, pure and simple - a willingness to follow him - and seeing it in Sam's face made Peggy's heart warm.
"You got any news?" asked Steve, and Sam nodded. Peggy caught the careful glance he threw at her, and had to approve even though it stung. He wouldn't blurt out sensitive information in front of people he didn't actually know.
Steve immediately claimed the seat next to her on the couch, knee not quite touching hers. "Peggy knew Bucky too," he told Sam casually as his friend comfortably slumped into another chair. "Anything you come up with, you can say in front of her. She's got a right to know."
Without another thought, Sam leaned forward and began his story. It wasn't much - in fact, it was pitifully small, but it had potential. Some specialized parts had been stolen from a computer shop. Nobody had seen the thief, but Sam suspected Bucky might have been the culprit.
"Whoever did it was good," he finished up. "Real good. No trace, nothing. But the parts had been special-ordered by a SHIELD tech who we think was Hydra."
"We think?" Peggy cut in, and Sam bowed his head a little.
"She was killed in the Triskelion when the helicarrier hit it," he explained, and Peggy nodded, filing the words away to look up more fully later. She was familiar with the basics of the battle, but Steve hadn't liked to talk about it, and she had chosen not to press him.
Steve was thinking. She could almost see the wheels turning in his head before he looked up. "If he's stealing specialized components, he could be trying to do a self-repair job, or maybe make something else. Do we know if it matched anything in his arm?"
Sam popped to his feet. "Exactly the reason I'm here," he explained as he offered Steve a hand up. "You happen to be living in a building with copies of all SHIELD's dumped files before they got pulled off the internet. I'm hoping there's blueprints or something."
"The lab just upstairs has the best screens," Steve agreed, and turned to her, eyes warm and bright. "You coming, Peggy?"
Peggy shook her head up at him, her tablet heavy in her lap. She had been in the middle of something when Sam came, and she needed to finish it. "I'll be along."
After the men had left, she turned back to her tablet. Using it was easy - the whole thing was set up fairly intuitively - but the real marvel was in how it worked. The thing was complex beyond anything she had ever imagined, and part of her desperately wanted to show it to Howard. The thought hurt. He had been dead for years, and yet she could still hear his voice as if it was only yesterday.
Tony had showed her how to access his stash of leaked SHIELD files, and today she had finally gathered up her courage in both hands and run a search for her former co-workers. Jack Thompson had gone out in a blaze of glory, killed in a shoot-out in 1959. Already fatally wounded, he had managed to save the lives of three civilians and another agent by setting his back to the wall and covering their escape through a storm of gunfire. It was a death she knew he would have approved of.
Daniel Sousa had worked for a few more years in the field before he had been in an accident, breaking his one good leg. After that he had been relegated to desk work, eventually becoming director of his section and retiring in 1982. Four years later he died of pneumonia, leaving a wife, two stepchildren, and nine beloved grandchildren.
Howard's file was the hardest one to read somehow; perhaps because she had known him the longest. The brilliant, quirky young inventor had become the head of Stark Industries, a weapons company. He had married later in life, and had one child: Anthony Stark. Some years later, Howard and his wife had been caught in a devastating car accident, killing them both instantly. Recently discovered records confirmed that Hydra had engineered the "accident," although details were still unclear.
There was something awful about reading the lives and deaths of friends who, from her perspective, she had seen only days before. Edwin Jarvis, Peggy typed, and her finger hovered over the little blue "Go" button for a moment.
Should she?
She couldn't.
Taking a shaking breath, Peggy canceled the search. Then she tipped back her head and pressed cool fingertips against her throbbing temples until the threatening tears receded. She could not bear to read about the death of one more friend. Not today anyway.
Perhaps it was time for a different project. Maybe that new website Sam had showed her would have actual information on it somewhere - something other than cats.
Triskelion helicarrier, she typed instead, and hit the search button.
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Steve was in the middle of a sentence when he stopped short. For a moment it looked as if he was listening intently to something outside Sam's range of hearing, and then he blanched, the blood draining from his face. Sam tilted his head. "Hey, man, you okay?"
"I…" Steve didn't finish his sentence. Instead, he bolted for the stairs as if the house was on fire.
"Cap!" Sam hurried after him, banging his shin painfully on a low lab stool. "What's up?"
One floor below, Steve slammed through the stairway door and drew up short. Peggy was still on the couch, her back to him. She didn't turn.
"You're - my - mission!"
The tablet's tinny speaker was the only sound in the room. A roar followed, and Peggy's shoulders stiffened. Steve had seen the footage too many times - he knew without seeing that the support beam had just given way, dropping him into the Hudson. The roar dissolved into a fuzzy hiss, and then the video was over.
The room was very quiet.
When Natasha had dumped SHIELD's files online, she had pulled out all the stops. Every single security camera in the Triskelion, the secret bases, and each of the helicarriers suddenly uploaded live to the internet. Within seconds, people all over the world had been able to see what was going down in Washington DC.
Some busybody had taken it upon themselves to get the footage of Cap's fight with the Winter Soldier, edit it together, and post it on social media. Tony had been trying to pull it from the internet ever since, but it had gone viral and people kept reposting it. Peggy had apparently stumbled on a copy.
It wasn't very good - the sound was nearly inaudible, and most of the cameras had been taken out in the first volley of fire. By the end, the picture was at an impossible angle, horribly pixilated, but still recording the last seconds of their fight, when Steve had thrown away his shield and faced his friend. His more controlled voice hadn't been picked up by the microphone, but Bucky's frenzied shouts came across just fine. Online chat boards had been rife with speculation for weeks, trying to guess what Captain America had said to the assassin, but so far nobody had made the connection between Bucky Barnes and the Winter Soldier.
With any luck, they never would.
"Peggy?" Steve breathed her name, and she moved her head a little, enough to let him know she knew he was there.
"Were you ever going to show it to me?" she finally asked.
He had told her about the last fight with Bucky, but had hesitated to show her the footage. "Yeah. I - it just never seemed the right time." Wanting to be completely honest, he added a little more slowly, "and I didn't want you to see him that way." He paused, but couldn't help asking. "Are you angry?"
Peggy's laugh was short and sharp, and when she finally turned to look at him over the back of the couch, his heart sank to the floor. Her lips were very red, eyes swimming with unshed tears, and her chin was set the way it had been all those years ago when she'd shot at him in a fit of pique. Anger he could handle, but Peggy's tears made some undefinable part of him ache.
"Yes, I'm angry," she told him, and her voice wasn't quite steady. "I'm angry at you for being such a self-sacrificing idiot, and I'm angry at myself for expecting anything less of you." She paused to take a deep breath, and gestured vaguely at the tablet. "I'm also angry at the monsters who did all that to him."
Steve ventured a few steps closer. "I'm sorry," he told her sincerely, though he wasn't entirely certain whether he was apologizing for being an idiot or for hurting her. Probably both.
Her eyes softened then. "Oh, Steve - to have Bucky trying to kill you… At least he was legitimately fighting."
Peggy and Thor were probably the only people who truly understood how he felt having Bucky Barnes turn on him, his brother in all but blood. Steve wasn't sure what she meant by her last sentence, but protested anyway. "It wasn't him, Peggy. They warped his mind - he couldn't help it."
Peggy shook her head, kneeling up on the couch so she could better face him. "No, that's not what I mean. You were his mission, Steve. Barnes and I only ever had one mission: to look after you. To make sure that you had food and sleep and dry socks and backup and stayed alive just one more day." For a moment her voice cracked, and she bit her lip before continuing. "You were his mission and his very best friend, and somehow he remembered that, through all their subversive twisting. He was fighting the control those men had on his mind."
Her fingers were gripping the couch cushions so tightly that he thought they might tear, and her lips and cheeks were glowing. Golly, she was beautiful. Steve thought back to the end of that awful fight; Bucky desperately roaring in his ear, trying to kill him with wide, horrified eyes.
"We're still not sure how to get through to him," he admitted. Peggy got to her feet, coming around the end of the couch until she was so close he could have reached out and touched her.
"I think you already have, Steve. Whatever you said to him was enough to at least start the process. I've seen what can be done to men's minds, and I know it can be undone."
Her eyes darted over his face. She must have seen his mingled hope and discouragement because suddenly she took the last step and closed the distance between them, the toes of their shoes mere inches apart. Steve's heart leaped at her proximity, and her eyes were intent on his.
"We will get him back, Steve," she told him firmly. "You found him once before, you can do it again."
Steve suddenly realized he was grinning. Peggy had always been able to lift him when he was low. She had fought beside him so many times, given him hope when he had none - and he owed her everything.
"As I recall," he managed, "it took both of us last time."
"Then we'll do it together, but we will find your friend." For another second she held his eyes, and then her gaze turned stern as she took a double fistful of his shirt, shaking him a little, regardless of how much bigger he was. "Don't think I'm not still cross at you though, Steve Rogers. If you ever get on a doomed aircraft again, I swear I will shoot you myself."
"I'll bear that in mind," Steve promised, and for a heady moment he thought he was going to kiss her. She was stunning - alluring eyes still wet, red lips pursed in a determined line. They were standing so near each other, and the dawning awareness on her face made his heart thump raggedly against his ribs. He would only have to stoop a little, lean in - he was almost sure she wouldn't shoot him for it...
Peggy's eyes flickered sideways, and then she let go of his shirt suddenly, stepping backward as someone cleared their throat. Sam had his arms crossed, leaning against the doorframe and watching with interest. When he saw they had remembered his existence, he swung away from the wall with a grin.
"That was some pep talk. Don't suppose you got a twin sister or something?"
Steve caught his breath, dragged his mind back to earth again. "Tough luck," he told his friend, and Peggy couldn't help but smile as she took the arm he held out to her. Yes, he might be a self-sacrificing idiot, but he wouldn't be the man she loved if he were any other way.
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"She did what?" Clint choked on his drink, and Thor pounded him helpfully on the back, making him cough harder. It had been a long day, and Tony had spontaneously decided to throw a pizza party after training. Now the Avengers were winding down, enjoying one another's company.
Natasha shrugged leisurely. "I blame the illegal '40's street fighting moves. I've never run into them before - Steve's too much of a gentleman to fight dirty."
"Says the queen of dirty fighting," Tony sniggered into his pizza, and snatched his hand off the table a split second before Natasha's knife buried itself in the wood. "Hey, watch it! No need to go hacking up my good furniture because you lost a fight. Sheesh, touchy."
She flashed him a dangerous smile and the billionaire waggled his eyebrows, not really upset. They both knew he didn't care about the table, and if she had really been trying to hurt him, he never would have been able to move away fast enough.
Peggy slid into her seat and helped herself to some salad. "Believe me, I doubt I'll ever beat her again. She'll be ready for me next time." Despite her words, there was a gleam in her eye that spoke of how much she had enjoyed herself. It had taken a while, but she was finally recovered enough to train with the others.
Steve passed Peggy the milk and watched as she laughed with the others. She had done a good job acclimatizing to this world. True, there were nights when he found her pacing the halls, and days when something would trigger a distant look in her eyes, but on the whole, it was easier for her than it had been for him. Having instant friends, a familiar face, and work to do had all helped.
He had asked her once how she was adjusting so well. She had rolled her glass between her palms for a few minutes before answering. Finally she had drawn a deep breath and met his eyes. "Everything changed after the war," she told him quietly. "Everything everybody had worked and prayed and fought and died for was over, and we looked around and tried to remember what life was like before it all." She had shrugged a little sadly, trying gamely to smile. "There wasn't much left of mine."
Now, as he watched her bandying teasing insults with Natasha over the table, Steve realized that, like himself, she was finally beginning to get comfortable here. Neither of them would ever get completely used to it, but they were both coping.
Clint, still coughing, left the room to recover in peace, and after a few minutes, Steve followed. He found the archer leaning up against the bathroom counter, trying to breathe in a steady pattern.
"You okay?" he asked, and Clint huffed a laugh that turned into another cough.
"You try inhaling half your drink and then getting your lungs knocked out by a Norse legend, see how you like it" he rasped, and cleared his throat explosively. "Ugh."
Seeing that Clint was well on his way to recovery, Steve decided it was a good opportunity to ask a question that had been weighing on his mind for a while now. "Say, Clint?"
Clint sucked in a relatively steady breath, turning his attention to the captain. "Yeah?"
"How much do you know about Ferris wheels?"
The former circus performer grinned. "What do you want to know?"
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Okay, first may I say, I had this chapter planned before the Captain America: Civil War trailer came out. Just saying. Also, no they will not find Bucky Barnes in this story. This story is set not long before Age of Ultron.
Oh, and please don't get after me for having Peggy beat Natasha in a sparring match. I know they both have very different fighting styles, and the outcome could easily go either way, but I personally think that Peggy could beat Natasha under the right conditions, especially if the Black Widow wasn't expecting it.
Thanks for all the lovely reviews - they make my day! Any thoughts?
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the storyline.