Peggy in the Hospital
Steve watched her pace for a good long while, stuck between concern and amusement. Concern because he hated to see her so worked up, amusement because every time she passed the phone (he stopped counting after reaching triple digits), she’d glare as if intimidation would make it ring sooner. When he started to go cross-eyed from tracking her progress, something he hadn’t thought physically possible after the serum, he finally made a move to stop her showdown with the phone. “Ang, come here.”
“Why?” she asked, without breaking stride.
“Because I’m asking you to. Please,” he added, trying for what Peggy referred to as his wounded puppy look. With a huff, Angie crossed to stand in front of the couch where he sat, but refused to join him. Taking what he could get, Steve encircled her waist, pulling her gently into the space between his knees. “I know you did great. They’re going to call.”
“Then why haven’t they?”
“They’re still too blown away by how great you were, don’t have words for it.”
Angie cracked a smile. “For someone who couldn’t speak two words to the girls a few years ago, you sure turned into a smooth talker.”
“Finally found the only girls worth talking to. Come here,” he repeated, settling her in his lap and rubbing circles on the small of her back. “Relax,” he murmured, dropping a kiss in her curls.
“I can’t. This show—”
“You’ll get it. You’ve got it. Just have to wait it out a little longer.”
Sighing, Angie laced her fingers around Steve’s neck, slumping into his shoulder. “You don’t know that. Especially with Peg gone. She’s always here when I get callbacks. She’s my good luck charm.”
“Oh? And what does that make me?”
Angie shrugged, eyes glinting. “Well, you’re not bad luck. Not exactly…”
Adjusting his hold, Steve leaned close to feather kisses along her throat, throwing in the occasional nip. Her shudders made him smile.
“Watch it, Soldier. I ain’t getting called back for my big break with a bigger hickey on my neck.”
“Of course not. But you admit that you’re getting the big break.”
“Don’t play tricky with me,” Angie said, fingers roaming in his hair, tilting her neck to give him better access. “Peg’s much better at that than you.”
“She’s better at everything than me. Too bad you’re stuck with the second stringer until she gets back.”
“Yeah. Woe is me.”
He hit a special place that always made her giggle, was doing a pretty good job of taking her mind off work when the phone rang. Her head snapped up, and she might’ve broken his nose if not for the enhanced reflexes. She was out of his lap in a blink, but didn’t move further. “You okay?”
“Yeah. No. Don’t want them thinking I’ve been waiting by the phone all day, they’ll think I’m desperate.”
Steve knew enough not to say that that was exactly what she’d been doing. “You want me to get it?”
“No! If someone else answers, they’ll think I don’t care about the job.”
“Angie,” he said, catching her hand and bringing it to his lips, “they’re lucky to have you. You’re amazing, and they damn well better know it. Now go get your big break.”
Another reluctant smile broke through the suppressed panic on Angie’s face. “Were you this good at pep talks back in the Army?”
“Nah, that was Peggy’s department. The guys would believe anything she said.”
“It’s that accent. No one’s immune.”
Nodding, Steve watched her cross to the phone on the end table. One of these days he’d convince her that those pep talks weren’t just words. Well, he and Peggy. That accent did make things considerably easier.
He watched her speak into the receiver, all excitement and nerves. He frowned when she did, worried and baffled that another producer could’ve missed what was so obvious, failed to recognize Angie’s talent. The worry turned to dread when Angie’s expression became something he’d never seen before, all color draining from her face.
“Steve…”
It was Angie, but it wasn’t. That voice just didn’t belong to his Angie. Shooting off the couch, he placed a steadying hand on her back as she gripped the table with her free hand. Her knees were shaking.
He had an idea what this was before he heard the person on the other end. He’d never in his life wanted so desperately to be wrong.
***
Steve hadn’t planned on returning to DC any time soon, not if he could help it. Captain America shouldn’t be so reluctant to visit the nation’s capital, but Steve Rogers was. He’d spent too much time there after his long sleep, being questioned, being honored, medals and parades thrown left and right just because he’d done what any guy would do, then woke up after. Washington held, not bad memories exactly, not good ones either.
Now he’d forever know it as the place where his first love was nearly assassinated.
Daniel Sousa was outside Peggy’s hospital room, along with two other guards. He looked tired, sick even, leaning more heavily than usual on his crutch. He straightened when he saw them coming. “Steve, Angie. I’m so—”
“Save it, Daniel. Tell us.”
Angie never called Sousa by his given name, not if she cared enough to help it. She called him Dan, Danny, Danny Boy, all of which he hated. She hadn’t argued when Peggy brought him with her to SHIELD, nor had she forgotten his willingness to think the worst of her, however briefly. “What happened, Daniel?” Steve asked, working to soften his voice.
To his credit, Daniel merely glanced at Angie once, skipping the bit about classified information.
It was just a meeting. A bureaucratic hassle, reporting to government higher-ups on how the whole protecting the world affair was going. An annoyance, but nothing more.
It should’ve been, anyway.
Daniel wasn’t there, he’d attacked when she was alone. Witnesses hadn't seen much, just the silhouette of a man fleeing. One of them said something about a metal arm. Steve looked at Angie when that was revealed, but she didn’t react, just stared Daniel down until he kept talking. The assassin had landed on SHIELD’s radar a few times already.
“She hurt him bad,” Daniel said. “Even after the…”
First shot. Steve filled that in in his mind, without wanting to.
“Good,” Angie said. “You guys better hurt him worse.”
“Already on it.”
Angie didn’t spare an extra word for him, went straight to Peggy as soon as she had what she needed. Steve gave him a few seconds, to admit that they didn’t actually have any leads on this man’s whereabouts. “Find some,” Steve ordered, not as brusque as Angie, but close. He’d need something to go on. After Peggy woke up.
The hospital room was more spacious than most because of Peggy’s status, and because of Howard. Steve still fought claustrophobia every time he looked at Peggy, unconscious and hooked up to machines. The doctors didn’t know what would happen. Howard berated them, called in what he said were better ones, then swore when he got the same answer.
“She’s going to be fine,” Steve said, over and over.
“I know that,” Angie replied, over and over.
None of the staff tried to enforce visiting hours. Steve was glad for that at least. He pitied anyone stupid enough to try. Angie sat in a chair on one side of the bed, he took the other. He held Peggy’s hand, rubbed it with his own, but it was always frighteningly cold. She was cold, no matter how many touches or blankets he tried to warm her with.
Angie was too still. She blinked and she breathed, sometimes she fussed with Peggy’s pillows, but she never left the room, rarely left the chair. For hours she sat frozen, Peggy’s cool hand in hers, eyes locked on their shared soulmate. Steve was reminded of her glaring at the phone, willing it to do what she wanted.
Somehow they found out that Angie got the callback, the one she couldn’t possibly care any less about. They agreed not to tell Peggy this when she woke up. She’d be ridiculous about it, feel guilty. Like Steve did. He hated himself for not being there, but said nothing to Angie. This wasn’t about him, and if he tried to change that, Peggy would shoot at him again. When she woke up.
He was terribly restless. He clenched the armrests too hard, occasionally stood up to stare out the window, hoping irrationally that the bastard who did this might look up at him from the crowd below. He was doing that when Angie spoke to him, still not moving from Peggy’s side.
“Don’t you do it. Don’t you leave. Go play soldier after she’s back, but don’t you go chasing…”
There was a crack in her voice, an impressively small one. Steve crossed the room with long strides, dropping to his knees in front of her and pulling her close. “Hey, hey, hey. Not going anywhere, okay? Nobody is.”
She trembled in his arms, breathed shakily, but didn’t cry. Just nodded and held him back.
Jarvis showed up fairly early on, Steve wasn’t truly keeping track of the time. He brought food and clothes. Angie accepted one without comment, but Steve had to work for a concession on the other.
“You need to eat.”
“You’re not.”
“I can get away with it longer.” Still, he forced down a bite of sandwich, then another. “You’re going to get sick. And I’m going to get a lot worse than that if Peggy sees that I let you.”
Angie split the sandwich with him. Reluctantly. It was late by then. Someone brought in a sort of cot for them to sleep in. Angie wouldn’t do it unless Steve pushed the makeshift bed right next to Peggy’s, which he had no objection to. She also refused to lie down if Peggy wasn’t directly within her vision. Steve spooned her from behind so they were both facing Peggy, could reach out to her. Angie held Peggy’s hand while Steve rubbed careful circles over her stomach. The stress and the food weren’t mixing well. Steve’s insides were in knots too, serum or no.
He didn’t sleep. The brief periods of rest he could coax out of Angie were fitful at best. Mostly, she stayed in that damn chair. Her lack of movement disturbed him almost as much as Peggy’s. Angie and stillness, those things didn’t go together. Peggy told him once that she’d seen Angie like this before, one single time. When the plane was found and they learned he was alive. When she thought Peggy would leave her.
Knowing he’d done that to Angie, intentionally or not, it wasn’t a good feeling. He was starting to forget what good feelings were, with both his loves frozen and unresponsive in this damn hospital room.
Angie’s shoulders and upper back were a wreck. He massaged them regularly, cringing at the too-hot skin covering knotted muscles. She winced every time she turned her head a certain way, but wouldn’t leave the chair.
Soothing her aches wasn’t enough. His hands were twitchy, in need of something to hit. The staff were very accommodating and they didn’t ask questions, but he doubted they’d set up a punching bag in here, even for Captain America. The irony wasn’t lost on him, Angie holding so terribly still while he fought not to jump out of his skin.
Jarvis kept showing up, bringing the necessities with him. He didn’t ask questions when Steve requested paper and pencils. They weren’t Steve’s usual supplies, the ones he was most comfortable with, but he wasn’t comfortable with anything at the moment, so it hardly mattered.
He felt dirty, almost voyeuristic sketching Angie like this. Angie barely seemed aware of his actions. He’d tried drawing her dozens of times, but never got more than a half-finished outline. She just moved too much. Even when she tried posing for him, she’d inevitably start chuckling at what she called his “artsy face.” It would then become her personal mission to break his concentration by any means possible, which usually led to scattered clothes, crumpled paper, and ink spilled all over the nearest surface. He’d tried catching her during sleep, but she always woke before he finished, which typically led to more of the same.
So, he’d never gotten a decent sketch of her, not for lack of trying.
Now he drew whenever he didn’t have something better to do with his hands. He drew more of Angie during those endless hours than he had in the last year. He worked carefully to replicate her expression hard as it was to view. Angie Martinelli wasn’t meant to look so somber. It wasn’t all bad though. Beneath the sadness was a stubborn determination Steve always knew existed, but had never seen so clearly. He did his best to capture it, show what he saw. That she would stand guard over Peggy until the next millennium if she had to, without batting an eye.
She was in so much pain, and it killed him, but she still looked beautiful.
He was trying to catch the detail in her eyes, feeling like a complete masochist when she stood up, not going far. She didn’t comment as he put his supplies aside, just settled into his lap, tucking her head under his chin. Steve rubbed at tense muscles again, kissing her hair. “You want to lie down?”
She shook her head against his neck.
Steve sighed. “You can rest, Ang.”
“Peggy.”
He shut his eyes tight, fought to keep his throat from closing up. His worst asthma attack had nothing on this. “I’ll look after her. You know that.”
Angie shook her head again. Steve didn’t argue, just held her and eased the pain he could get to. Eventually, she grew heavier in his arms, her breathing steadying. He thought about carrying her to the cot, but rejected the idea. The blanket of sleep she was under was so thin he worried that the slightest move would jolt her awake. She deserved to be away from this nightmare for as long as she could.
Not very long as it turned out, at least it felt that way to him. She was groggy when she woke up, blinking several times and rubbing absently at his shirt. “Hi,” she murmured.
“Hi,” he repeated, cracking the tiniest smile before pecking her lips. They were dry. When had he last insisted she eat and drink?
She smiled blurrily at him a few more seconds before truly seeing their surroundings. Then the rubbing became clutching as she grabbed at the shirt fabric, curling up tighter in an attempt to make herself small. “Oh God.”
He didn’t say anything, just stole away the few tears that escaped as Angie remembered where they were.
“So this is what Peg felt like all those times.”
“Hmm?”
“She used to dream that you were alive, before. Then she’d wake up and you were still gone, and I knew it gutted her, but I didn’t know. Not ‘til now.”
Again Steve said nothing, not just because Angie seemed to speak more to herself than him. He couldn’t talk past the lump in his throat.
***
He made a mess of things. A bigger mess. He’d draw, stain his fingers with ink, then transfer that ink to Peggy’s wrist or Angie’s sweater. He apologized, but just as Angie hardly seemed to notice his artistic pursuits, she never seemed to know, or perhaps care, what he was sorry for.
It was dark, probably late. Angie was dozing in the cot, after much persuasion. Steve sat in the chair, art forgotten for the moment, cradling Peggy’s wrist in his hands. He’d have to wipe away the ink again, but didn’t care yet. He counted the beats of Peggy’s pulse. They were too slow. If they stopped, so would the beating of his heart. Angie’s too, probably, though he firmly believed that both his loves were stronger than him.
“Don’t do this,” he whispered. “Please. I know I was way too late, and I probably deserve a good scare, but you’ve made your point. I can’t….I just got you back. I just got you back. Please.”
Steve half-expected Peggy to open her eyes then, mutter something about how Angie was an actress, but he had no excuse to be this dramatic. She didn’t. Steve slumped in on himself, leaning so that his forehead was against the scratchy hospital sheets, near her arm. He held that position for a time, then there was a hand in his hair, moving down to squeeze his shoulder. Not Peggy’s. The angle was off, and the touch was different. Familiar, but different.
When he looked up, Angie was at his side. He wanted to apologize for waking her, ask what she’d heard. His breath hitched.
“C’mere, Soldier.”
Another bad angle. When he leaned into her, the chair’s armrest dug into his side. He barely noticed. Angie combed through his hair, rubbed his back and shoulders. She cried, and so did he. Through the tears, she sang something, something Italian he didn’t recognize. It was soft and soothing and she kept singing past the sobs.
Steve loved her voice, always had. It’d never hurt him before. It’d never sounded so perfect. The only thought he could hold on to was that Peggy should be here to hear it.
***
He was drawing again, if you could call it that. His fingers were cramping, his eyes bloodshot. His hands carried more ink than the page.
“You’d better not be using me as a subject. I must look a bloody mess.”
Steve’s head snapped up. Across from him, Angie sat forward so fast the chair might’ve been electrified.
They tried not to crowd her, but that was near impossible. They called the doctors, neither taking their eyes off Peggy. Angie insisted she’d never worried, not for a second, but a tear leaked out while she delivered the line.
“Darling…”
Peggy was looking at Angie, but Steve knew he was included. She reached up to get rid of the moisture, but Steve hadn’t cleaned up after himself recently. There was ink on her fingers, thanks to him, and it mixed with the wetness on Angie’s cheek, leaving a smear of black. Peggy frowned then chuckled, and that set Steve off. They were both laughing and crying while Angie cried and tried to understand what the hell they were on about.
There were more tears, more touching, more transferring of the mess. It took a long time for any of them to get properly cleaned up.