Steve woke up and looked over to where Peggy should have been. It had been a week since she went public and even longer since she started ignoring Steve's questions about her past. He was a patient man, but if they wanted to have a chance at this, they needed to be honest and she was avoiding the truth with work. Give her time. Steve said to himself as he got out of bed. When he woke up it would have been hard for him to talk about his past, but Peggy seemed fine talking about most things, as long as it wasn't personal.
Steve was always a morning person so he was used to an empty facility. Everyone else was still asleep except for a few more agents. He stopped to grab breakfast for himself and Peggy and went to where he knew she was, punching away, trying to beat her records from yesterday. "Good morning." Steve walked in.
Peggy turned her head, "Is it morning?" She glanced at the clock, "I couldn't sleep."
"I figured." He set the breakfast down at a small table. Peggy walked over unwrapping her hands and getting water, "Break any bags yet?"
"Just one." Peggy sat down, "I don't punch quite as hard as you do."
"I'm sure you could, if you wanted to." Steve bit into a piece of toast.
Peggy nodded focusing on her plate, "I'll punch hard when I need to. How's the hunt for Bucky?"
He shrugged, "I think we're getting close. There have been some sightings that Natasha is looking into. He's not with Hydra so that's good."
The two ate insilence, which was becoming more common the longer Peggy withheld information. Steve didn't mean to, but when every question about who Peggy was was answered with a plea to change the subject, it becomes hard. He loved her and he would wait for her to open up, if she ever did. "Alright- I'll let you be now." He brushed the crumbs off his hand.
"Why do you say that like you think you're bothering me?" Peggy asked before he could leave.
Steve sighed, "Because I feel like I am." he scratched the back of his neck, "You're very solitary, every time I do something like this I'm afraid that.."
"What are you trying to say Steve?"
"I don't know you Peggy." He said softly, "I love you, but I wish I knew you."
"Don't be so dramatic, you know me." Peggy felt like she was being cornered, "We spent years together in the war."
"I'm talking about after the war Peggy. The six years you lived between me and dying or even you before the war. Your family? You and Howard." he tried to be subtle
She scoffed, "I knew that is what this is about." Peggy stood up from the table.
Steve followed her, "Peggy that's not what I meant." She stuffed her things into her gym bag, "Where are you going?"
"Back to SHIELD there are some things I have to take care of- far away from your jealous stink." She grabbed the bag and went to the door.
"How do you expect me to feel? If the situation was flipped what would you expect from me?"
Peggy rolled her eyes, "I'm sure you'd handle it perfectly Steve. Now I'm leaving. Have fun giving orders Captain, I will not be following them.
Getting back to work seemed to help for a while. A bit of it was like the old days, attempting to track down Hydra bases and repressing the memory of Steve down. Part of her knew it was unfair to keep things from him, but sharing her feelings was never her strong suit. She could see Coulson walking past her office through the glass, stopping in the door frame. "Is there a reason why you're not answering Steve's calls?"
"How do you know about that?" She looked up from a map of potential Hydra bases.
"Because he's calling me now… you should settle it before you put too much work on your table."
Peggy sighed throwing a tabloid newspaper in the trash, "I guess today's tabloid is wrong."
Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter elope in Vegas
"Why are you reading that stuff?" Coulson pointed to the trash can.
"I find it humerous. In a toxic vile way. Here," She handed a file of papers over, "I've isolated strategic variations on each of the possible bases. Entrance and exit strategies for various teams of agents." Peggy stood up to show a bulletin board with string linking pictures on a world map.
Coulson walked to look at the board, "How cute, the whole paper and string thing in action."
"Don't let Daisy see." Peggy sighed, "I've done the research for Ward's history of tactics and I believe his base is here." She pointed to a stretch of the amazon rain forest. "There's digital copies for the whole thing. I just think better this way."
"You really do your research." Coulson would have looked impressed if it was possible for him to underestimate Peggy, "Now do yourself a favor and call Steve."
She didn't call Steve until 3 days later. Peggy started with the voice mail.
"Peggy I'm sorry. Please come back so we can talk about it… or not talk about it. I don't know… I'm sorry."
"I guess you're still on the plane… just call me okay?"
"Okay it's been 2 days, are you still mad? I guess you are. I'm going to start calling Coulson to get you to call me."
The last message was yesterday
"Fine I get it. You're really mad.. but… we found Bucky. We're heading out to North Germany tomorrow. We don't know why he's there but it's him. He's been retracing his steps. It would be great if you could come with us… nobody knows Europe like the 107th… If you don't want to and you're still mad that's fine. We can handle it, I just want you there."
"North Germany." she looked over at the map of Hydra bases. There was a suspicious lack of Hydra activity where Steve said they were going. "North Germany"
Peggy sprinted down the hall straight to Coulson's office where some others were examining a map of the recent Inhuman breakouts, "Steve and the rest of the Avengers are being lead into a trap."
"What?" the room answered in almost unison.
"They are going to obtain Bucky - the winter soldier- after following the leads; North Germany. But there's a lack of activity in that area, which is ridiculous how I haven't seen it. Every foundation of Hydra is terribly sentimental yet there's no sign of them in Germany."
"They're luring in the Avengers then?" Daisy pulled up a map of what Peggy had been working on.
Peggy eyed the map and continued, "Well, there's still a chance Bucky will be there I suppose."
Bobbi looked up their flight log, "They're almost landed. We can call them and tell them to stand down."
"I'll call." Peggy dialed as quickly as she could manage.
"May get a team together to go after them incase we have to." Coulson started throwing orders.
Peggy held the phone to her ear, God damnit answer Steve.
"Hello?" Steve answered. She could hear the background noise of the plane's engine, "Not the greatest time Peggy."
"Please tell me you're not on the ground."
"About to land. What's wrong?"
"It's a trap. I'm damn well certain Hydra is waiting for you wherever you expect to find Bucky."
"I can't take that risk Peggy. Bucky could be there. It's taken us months to find him-" The was the
"Steve please don't do this, we have time-" The words were like a broken record, but this time she was not going to lose Steve. Before he could say something else there was a loud noise like something shooting at Steve's plane before the line went dead. "God Damnit!" She looked at the office, "How long until we can be there?"
Bobbi looked at the map, "4 hours..."
"Make it 3 we're shipping out in 20 minutes.." Peggy turned to prepare herself to leave, the rest of the team followed.
.