Three's Not a Crowd

Peggy was used to coming home under the weight of bone-deep exhaustion. Perk of the job and all that. Usually the sounds of her loves, her daughter, they helped, warmed her in a way not even the best cup of tea ever could. Usually.

She’d barely been home in two weeks. Barely seen Lizzie at all, though she swore the sixteen-month-old grew bigger every time she did catch a glimpse. Howard assured her this wasn’t true, offered to prove as much. Peggy declined.

Steve offered too, to help with things at SHIELD. Sweet and appreciated, but hardly useful. The issues keeping her from bed and family were delicate, political. They required negotiation, diplomacy, compromise. And for all his gifts from God or science, Steve was not skilled at compromise, giving ground. Their working relationship functioned best when he remained well enough in the dark about some of the decisions Peggy made, simply trusting her to make the right ones.

A proper mission would’ve been nice, honestly. If she were away blowing things up, she wouldn’t be so painfully close to everything she was missing. Following the voices, the sound of laughter, Peggy found Steve and Angie on the floor in one of Howard’s several living rooms, playing with Lizzie.

Not for the first time, she toyed with the idea of a smaller, more manageable home. The place was a maze when Lizzie chose to treat it that way, and a smaller home might make her feel closer to her family. Assuming she ever got to spend enough time there for it to matter,

Steve and Angie greeted her with no lack of enthusiasm, which didn’t help as much as it should’ve. She’d missed the entire run of Angie’s last production. That Angie had only a handful of lines and claimed to hate the script hardly mattered. Still, she was home now and there was no use moping.

“Someone’s up late,” she said, kneeling to watch Lizzie fiddle with some blocks. Lizzie hadn’t looked up when she entered.

“Someone gave someone too much sugar.”

Angie gave Steve a look and he had the grace to look sheepish, but draped an arm over her shoulders as they sat with backs against the couch. Angie then launched into an involved story that featured chocolate, several baths, and a drain in one of the upstairs powder rooms that was now broken. It sounded rather horrific. Peggy wished she’d been there.

Lizzie played on, laughing as she took a block in one hand, pulled on Steve’s pant leg with the other/ Peggy thought she would’ve paid more attention had a new piece of furniture been delivered.

Steve sat forward, turning Lizzie in her direction. “Hey baby, look who’s here. Say hi to Mummy.”

Peggy smiled, held out her arms. “Hello my darling.”

Lizzie eyed her father, glanced back at her toy, then grinned at Peggy. “Mahget!”

Peggy felt the muscles in her face going stiff. Steve and Angie glanced at each other.

“Sweetheart, that’s Mummy,” Steve said. “You know who Mummy is.”

Lizzie giggled, smacking her free hand against her block. “Mahget! MahgetMahgetMahgetMahgetMahgetMahget!”

Angie sighed, turning apologetic eyes on Peggy. “Howard’s been trying to teach her your first name. It bugs you and she can’t get hit for saying it so…”

“I see.” Peggy hoped her voice wasn’t as tight as she thought it was. “Splendid that his teaching efforts have paid off so well.” How was it that they were both meant to be running an international intelligence agency, but Howard had the time she didn’t to spend with her daughter?

“Mahget!”

Steve winced. “When Howard has a kid, you can get him back for this.”

“Are you honestly suggesting that Howard will ever intentionally father a child?” The idea was ludicrous and horrifying, and the other two must’ve agreed because they both went quiet. Lizzie did not.

“Mahget!”

This repetition came with the added bonus of Lizzie throwing one of her blocks at Peggy’s head.

“Lizzie!” Angie said, as sharply as she ever said anything to the baby. “That’s not nice. We don’t throw things.”

Steve muttered something semi-audible that might’ve been “your fault,” then twitched under the heat of Angie’s glare. “How is it my fault? You’re the one who told Moneybags to stop over, and he’s the one who gives her a damn cookie every time she says the damn name.”

“So you admit I’m not the one who gave her too much sugar.”

Angie continued to glare.

“It was you who showed her the footage,” Steve mumbled, broad shoulders slumping.

“What footage would that be?” Peggy asked.

Angie released something between a sigh and a huff. “TV was playing something about your war days. She saw Dad’s face on the screen and flipped out over him being in two places at once. Then they showed him hurling the shield around so now…” Angie shrugged helplessly. “She’s very into throwing things.”

“I see,” Peggy said for the second time, then thought a moment. “Was I in the footage?” If she couldn’t be with Lizzie properly, she could at least keep the girl from forgetting who she was.

Steve and Angie glanced at each other again. “I think you were split up with Dugan and Gabe when that happened,” Steve said finally. “I only got a quick look at where they were shooting.”

“I see.” Peggy pulled on a smile that was harder to carry than the pounds of gear she used to haul up the Russian mountains. “I’m knackered, I think I’ll turn in for the night.”

“Peggy-”

She cut off his protests, Angie’s too. Said goodnight to Lizzie, who called her Mahget again and pouted in disappointment when no one produced a cookie for her efforts.

Upstairs she shed her work clothes with none of the usual relief. Lizzie wasn’t her child, not biologically. That never seemed relevant before, but things were changing. Lizzie was growing and changing and Peggy was missing it. When would she stop being Mum, truly become Margaret? When would she become Lizzie’s stepmother or worse, some woman with a funny voice who occasionally slept here? She was missing everything, couldn’t even take part in Steve and Angie’s bickering over who had mucked up the child worse that day. She was missing it all, and how long before Lizzie did see her face on a screen somewhere and think she was viewing a stranger?

***

A week more of this had her weary and ragged. If Lizzie noticed her absence, Peggy saw no evidence of it on her short stays at home. She thought Steve and Angie might’ve tried talking to her about it a few times, but she simply couldn’t bear to hear them out. If she talked about it, lingered on it, she might cry.

Which, unfortunately, was just what was happening when she got home that night. Lots and lots of crying.

Peggy’s first thought upon entering their home was that someone was murdering Lizzie. The screams threatened to burst her eardrums as surely as the fear, cold and sharp and familiar, threatened to stop her heart. Rushing through the entryway and following the wails, Peggy had her gun drawn by the time she reached the sitting room.

There was no intruder harming her child. There was Lizzie sitting on the floor, one hand pulling at her ear, the other balled into a fist and swatting away the toy Steve held out for her. From the pile surrounding them, this had gone on quite some time. Lizzie’s face was a mess of snot and tears, as red as the stripes on her father’s costume.

Also, her father was crying. Steve was crying.

Peggy barely had time to process all this before Angie came in from the next room. She didn’t seem to realize Peggy was there, which put her in the same boat as Steve and Lizzie. Also, she was crying.

“Ma says it’s all normal. Does it look normal to you? It wasn’t like this last time or I would’ve made Howard invent something to stop it. Oh baby, I know it hurts, I know. I’m sorry, baby.”

Lizzie picked up one of the toys surrounding her. A Betty Carver doll, made by Howard as a birthday present for Lizzie and a way to torment Peggy. Lizzie grabbed it and proceeded to bite down on Betty’s head, which did nothing to muffle the cries.

“Oh darling.”

Three sets of wet blue eyes found hers, but Peggy was only focused on one of them.

“Mummyyyy!”

The word was an endless, agonized wail. Peggy dropped her gun back into her bag, dropped her bag to the floor and crossed it, scooping Lizzie into her arms. Lizzie threw the doll aside and Betty landed with a thump on the hardwood, her head popping loose. Later, she’d think to taunt Howard over the shoddy craftsmanship.

“Shhh, shhh, Mummy’s here darling, Mummy’s here.” Lizzie’s tiny hands balled into the material of Peggy’s favorite suit. Peggy adjusted so Lizzie’s ear was pressed to her heart.

“Peggy….”

Steve was looking at her rather dully, as if he couldn’t trust his vision. He’d worn a similar expression the first time she saved his arse in a firefight.

“English.”

It was more a breath than a word, Peggy was surprised to hear it over Lizzie sobbing against her. Angie stepped forward as if to hug her and then stopped. Peggy got the distinct impression she was afraid of making things worse. “What on Earth is going on?”

There were broken half sentences about trying everything, exhausted, rambling explanations that didn’t match the simplicity of the issue. Lizzie was only teething. Only being a relative term, she was clearly having an awful time of it, but teething was much better than properly sick.

Dead in her heels when she entered the house, Peggy was wide awake now. She shifted Lizzie again, hiking the baby up against her shoulder to take some of the pressure off Lizzie’s head. She still pulled at her ear, but it was a start. Peggy barely noticed the mess Lizzie left in the ends of her own hair, the tears and mucous.

“She hates me,” Steve declared.

Angie’s smack to his arm was uncharacteristically weak. “Shut up. I can’t fix it either. She hates the both of us.”

“She does not hate you,” Peggy said. “She’s hurting and frustrated, she knows you are too, and she’s feeding off that.”

Steve wiped his face and told her they hadn’t gotten Lizzie to eat in awhile.

Lizzie’s hands in her jacket were fists now, pounding out her discomfort. Continuing her litany of soft nonsense sounds, Peggy let Lizzie scream and flail against her, making a path to her office. Steve and Angie trailed behind her like lost, defeated puppies.

“Haven’t you worked enough?”

The defeat had turned to anger, at least in Angie’s case. The bitterness in her tone was unmistakable and Peggy bore it without comment. Then she found the whiskey stashed in a bottom drawer of her desk and set about applying it to Lizzie’s gums.

Angie’s whole demeanor changed, deflated. She stuttered out something Peggy thought was an apology, and Peggy stopped her, told her it was okay. She also endured several biting attempts from Lizzie as she worked on numbing the area, only then noticing the marks on Steve’s hand as he placed it on Angie’s shoulder.

“Were you letting that happen?” she asked, nodding toward his hand.

Steve lifted it and shrugged. “Seemed to make her feel better. A little. For a little while.”

Finishing with the bottle, Peggy handed it to Angie. “Have a rest, both of you. Have a spot of tea, or something stronger. I’ve got her.”

“Peggy—”

“You’re off duty, Rogers,” she said, with just a hint of her work voice. “I’ve got her.”

Peggy was methodical about the rest, not the easiest thing to do with her child sobbing in pain. Cleaning up the mess on Lizzie’s face, Peggy found the extra heat she expected when feeling her forehead. “Shhh, darling, shhh, it’s alright, love,” she murmured. “Let’s get you cooled off while Mama and Daddy get themselves sorted. You’ll feel better soon, love.”

Peggy ran a bath, took at least one smack to the jaw and came into contact with most of the lukewarm water before Lizzie realized the tub wasn’t a fresh form of torture, that it didn’t add to her misery.

“There now,” Peggy murmured, hands gentle as she bathed the child. “That’s better, isn’t it?”

Lizzie continued to fuss, but the water helped. Peggy’s main concern was keeping the fever down. “I’m sorry, darling, I know it hurts. Let’s make it a little better, hmm? Mama and Daddy are scared, they need you to feel a little better.”

Lizzie whimpered at that, beat a frustrated hand against the water.

“I know,” Peggy said again, splashing small amounts of water on Lizzie’s shoulders to help cool her down. “I know love, I’m sorry.”

It was slow, achingly gradual, but Lizzie did calm down. Clearly not in the brightest of moods, she’d at least stopped screaming, unclenched her fists. So Peggy didn’t know exactly why she apologized again, not now when things seemed to be improving. She apologized even as she managed to pull a few giggles from the baby, apologized as Lizzie caught one of her fingers in the tub and squeezed. Still, she heard Angie’s footsteps, uncharacteristically heavy with exhaustion, heard Angie coming over her own voice, over Lizzie’s whines.

“Something swell to come home to after a hard day of saving the world, huh?” Angie said, sitting down on the toilet lid.

Peggy sighed. She’d lost her jacket at some point, rolled up the sleeves of her shirt. Her hair was being awful and she swept an annoyed hand over some curls that obstructed her vision. “Don’t ask questions you’d rather not have answered.”

There was a pause and Peggy felt it, the moment Angie’s attention sharpened. “Say again?”

Peggy deliberately focused on wetting Lizzie’s shoulders again. “How much would you hate me if I said I was a little grateful for it?”

Peggy couldn’t be sure with Lizzie’s sporadic babbling, but she thought Angie’s breath might’ve hitched. Her lips quirked in a barely-there smile. She could count on the hand she was running through Lizzie’s hair the number of times she’d rendered Angie speechless.

“It’s,” Peggy said on a weary breath because she’d already said too much and there was no getting out of it now. “Do you think of it at all, why two parents is meant to be the ideal number?”

“Not really. Guess you do.”

The air was heavy between them. She refused to look up from their daughter. “Mr. Jarvis once said that I was trying to remove myself from the world I wished to protect. I’ve gotten better about that, I think, at least I’ve tried. But with work, sometimes it’s…”

“Sometimes it’s what?”

Peggy closed her eyes, sitting forward to kiss Lizzie’s head. “It’s easy to feel the tables have turned. That work, the world…” She hated this, how she couldn’t even speak in proper sentences about it. “I’m away quite often. Lizzie has two wonderful parents who keep her from suffering because of that. You do such a good job of carrying on without me that, that on a horrible, selfish level, tonight was nice. It’s nice to know I’m still needed somewhere other than SHIELD. That my presence isn’t…redundant.”

A response was long in coming. “Redundant,” Angie finally said. Choked, really. “English. Peggy--”

Peggy held up a hand. “Darling, it’s okay.”

“Peggy—”

“Angie,” she said, her voice an odd combination of firm and strained that she didn’t like at all. “Not now. Not yet.”

She sensed the moment Angie’s gaze stopped burning into her, found Lizzie. She knew then, or hoped fervently, that Angie understood. Understood this wasn’t a conversation they could have in the bathroom while Lizzie still hurt. Lizzie would always trump everything, including Peggy’s ridiculous sulking over the bed she’d made herself.

She couldn’t decide whether it was good or bad, Angie retreating after another protracted silence. Peggy pushed the indecision down with everything else, focused on the immediate. She got Lizzie out of the tub, dried and dressed her. She did a lot of walking and rocking, pacing the house with Lizzie against her. She got Lizzie milk. She did all this without seeing Steve or Angie, and again thought of how absurdly large their house was, how easy it was to disappear here.

There wasn’t a sign of them until Peggy was propped on the bed with Lizzie at her chest, coaxing her to sleep. She’d been humming a tuneless, broken thing, her hand tracing Lizzie’s back, feeling her breath. Then Steve and Angie were talking in hushed tones somewhere nearby. Peggy closed her eyes, listened to the indecipherable murmur of their voices, something she could only hear when her own voice broke, when there was a slight break in the nonsense humming.

When they entered, they did it silently. Both had changed and scrubbed their faces. Both stalled a moment before climbing in next to her. They treated Lizzie like a landmine or a live grenade, like the slightest thing could set her off again. They weren’t wrong. They seemed to relax when the mattress dipped and they settled without Lizzie waking up and screaming more.

Steve lay on his side next to her, head propped on an elbow. He regarded them for long moments, regarded her. Only then did he lean in close to Peggy’s ear.

“Redundant?”

It was a whisper, but he said it like a curse word. A particularly filthy one that wasn’t acceptable even when the two of them and the Commandos were at their worst, (or best) when swearing was both the most casual thing in the world and an art form.

Peggy sighed, tilted her face in his direction while closing her eyes again. If he pushed her on this she wasn’t sure how it would go, wasn’t at all sure she wouldn’t be the one screaming and crying until she couldn’t anymore.

He didn’t push her. He kissed her softly, then kissed her forehead, then whispered in her ear again. “Don’t ever say it again. Never.”

She generally either scoffed or glared when he attempted to give her orders. This time she did neither, did nothing as Angie scooted closer. Angie, for once, was less talkative than Steve. Angie put her head on Peggy’s shoulder, very gently. The gentleness of that contrasted with the pressure Angie was putting on her hip. It wasn’t painful, but it was close. It was possessive and protective and what Angie did when Peggy came home particularly battered. Physically or otherwise. The action was always the same, and so was the message. We’re going to talk about this, English

Except they never did, not right away. They slept, usually. Or, Peggy did, passing out and hoping Angie got a few winks of sleep while guarding her.

Steve’s arm came down over all of them, just heavy enough to be reassuring. Angie kept the hand in place on her hip. Peggy was never sure which of them it was for, which of them Angie was grounding with that tiny move. She didn’t ask and probably never would. She focused on Lizzie and their shared breathing and Steve and Angie and their warmth, Steve’s arm and the fervency of his earlier order, Angie’s fingers splayed over her hip, Angie’s lips pressed just barely against her neck.

Peggy focused on those things and felt herself come home, truly home, for the first time in weeks. The rest would keep until tomorrow.