Chapter 4
The words had tumbled out almost before they could stop themselves. Abashed and uncertain, Steve had asked Peggy to go out to dance with him. Even more wildly, she had said yes. There was just one problem...
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to do this, JARVIS,” Steve muttered, watching the less than helpful instructional video the AI had so thoughtfully provided. He could fling a vibranium shield into a crowd of enemies and take them out in one go, all while defending himself from whatever threat that came at him with the speed and strength that Erskine’s serum now gave him, and yet attempting a single one of the dance moves on display, narrated by a cheerful dance instructor who looked as if she were born yesterday, seemed somehow an impossible, insurmountable feet.
“Not having a body, let alone feet, sir, I’m afraid I can’t be of much help.” JARVIS sounded truly grieved by this fact.
Steve sighed, slumping into the soft, marshmallow like pillows of Peggy’s couch, fingers digging into the corners of his eyes. There were many things that Erskine’s serum had granted him as he was discovering; a frankly terrifying healing factor, the strength and physical stamina he never had before, a sharpened mental acuity and memory, and perhaps an even more entrenched tendency towards digging his heels in on issues he felt a righteous sense of justice about. What the serum had not helped him figure out, however, was how to engage without awkwardness towards members of the opposite sex he found attractive. Namely, how did he engage with Peggy who he was fairly certain he was head-over-heels for, but he could never just romance her? How did he even start to convince her of his intentions when he couldn’t figure out how to put his best foot forward, literally or figuratively? God, he missed Bucky. He’d have an answer for this, or at the very least he’d laugh at Steve’s ineptness, take pity on him, and give him some sort of direction. Bucky had always been good at that, the older brother who pushed him out there on the floor and cheered him on - though not without a good laugh at his expense. Now Steve was flying blind. The last time he flew anything, he crashed it and sent himself into a decades long coma.
“A message from Miss Carter, sir.” JARVIS broke into his self-loathing with calm equanimity. “She says she will be at Agent Kam’s house preparing for the evening, and she will meet you at the venue. Do you need directions on how to get there?”
“I think I can manage,” he replied with a heavy sigh. Against all odds, Peggy’s second-in-command, Cassandra, had found a dance hall in Queens that still played the type of music from he and Peggy’s young adult life, complete with dancing. She had said something about it being nostalgic and niche, the romance of the war years for the great-grandkids of the Greatest Generation. Steve hadn’t followed much of that sentence, but understood that his youth was now something of a fad for certain corners of modern society, and he didn’t complain. All he had wanted was a place to go dancing with Peggy, to fulfill that promise he made to her so long ago when he thought he would never see her again.
I’ll need a raincheck on that dance…
He could manage this! If he survived sleeping in the ice for nearly seven decades, he could treat Peggy to a night with just the two of them, finally having that long promise date. It was Peggy, after all, she’d seen him at his worst, at his weakest, and she never laughed at him. She wouldn’t do so now. What in the world did he have to be afraid of? After all, she had been the one to kiss him first. Why was he worked up about this?
A pesky voice in the back of his head reminded him of every girl Bucky had thrown at him over the years, and every disgusted and dismissive look they had thrown his way. Peggy was not any of those girls, she was better than those girls, and yet…
“You know, she’s crazy for you, right?” Bucky’s smirk was half affectionate, half teasing, and all insufferably knowing. “Seriously, between you and Carter it's a wonder you two haven’t set HQ on fire in the middle of a planning meeting, the way you make gooey eyes at each other. It’s disgusting.”
If only he could have half the confidence Bucky had.
So it was that Steve found himself in the mostly familiar environs of a New York City transit station, waiting for a subway train to take him to Queens, pressed and dressed in his old uniform, the same olive drab one he’d only ever worn in HQ when they were back in London. It had survived the war tucked neatly in his footlocker, which had been kept among the other flotsam and jetsam of his life, preserved by first the SSR, then SHIELD. Despite the years it still fit like a glove, and even with minor necessary repairs had held up well. Even his officer's bars, two tiny ones, had weathered the years mostly untarnished. It felt strange, slipping into that uniform, into his past, all the while he was conversing with an invisible artificial intelligence who provided him a wealth of information at his simple request.
Steve certainly drew attention, dressed as he was, on public transit. Much as it had been in his day, New York was still a vibrant place, with all sorts of people in it, perhaps even more so now. Most adults saw him, cocked a curious glance up across his patchwork of medal ribbons and rank pins, shrugged, and move on their way, returning to the glowing face of the strange devices that passed for telephones now at days, absorbed in their own private world. Only the young people stared, but few were bold enough to question it…well, save one.
“Are you in costume, then?”
Steve glanced up at the voice, a teenage boy, no more than sixteen, skin a warm brown despite the dark clothing he wore. “Um, no, it’s not a costume. It’s mine.”
“Are you, like, a soldier or something?” The kid’s hair was shaved on both sides, dark stubble that framed a shocking lavender stripe, grown out long down his back, laying against the soft hood of the zippered sweatshirt he wore for a jacket.
“I was,” Steve confirmed, meeting the kid’s thoughtful gaze. “But I’m wearing this to impress a girl.”
“Really?” He nodded, grinning, eyeing him up and down with a critical eye. “Think she will like it?”
“She used to, once. Hope she does again.”
“She better, ‘cause if not, she’s an idiot!” The kid grinned, cheekily, before wandering off at the next stop, the strange board with wheels on it under his arm.
He got off in Queens, the now familiar nostalgia warring with the unfamiliar hitting him with full force as his brain yelled at him that he should remember this place, even as decades of change slid itself over his memories. New scents, different sounds, a myriad of strange languages, different from the ones he heard growing up, assaulted his senses, but he knew where he was at. This had been a dance hall even back when he had been young. Bucky had liked taking dates here from time-to-time, usually dragging Steve along to be the plus one for whoever Bucky’s girl wanted to bring with her. The number of times he’d been here! He could remember the rough feeling of the walls as he stood, back passed against it, nursing a drink, ignored by his date who often pouted till some other guy would come along and sweep her off. Meanwhile, Bucky danced and laughed, stopping only to occasionally check on Steve and chide him for not getting out there and living his life. Well, now he was, he supposed. Now was the chance Steve never got back to be the one in the center of the floor, a gorgeous girl in his arms, one who made him want to do all the things Bucky always yelled at him to do.
“Don’t screw this up, Rogers,” he muttered to himself, stepping inside.
Upstairs he could hear the blare of live music, the familiar sounds of brass and drums, a woman’s voice carrying over it all, throaty and jazzy. He paid the entrance fee, a sum that would have shocked him in 1942. Still, he passed a $20 over to a smiling attendant dressed as if she had raided her grandmother’s closet rather than lived and breathed in the clothes herself.
“Nice uniform,” she admired, eyeing the dark wool of his jacket. “Where did you get it?”
“Had it lying around,” Steve shrugged with a crooked grin.
“Looks good,” she admired, waving him upstairs. Steve followed the jazzy wail of brass up creaking steps that brought with them the bone deep anxiety of being left alone with another nameless pretty girl and the vague resignation of a lonely night spent watching her dance with someone else. His clenched and unclenched sweaty palms as he topped the stairs and wandered to the dance floor, searching the crowds of spinning bodies, looking for the one girl who mattered.
It didn’t take long to find her.
Peggy stood with her back to him, her modern phone in hand, and it was only when her friend, Cassandra, caught her attention that she turned, unerringly to him. The crowd shifted, the light changed, and for a timeless moment he was back in that pub in London, just after their return from Italy, sharing a drink with Bucky. In she walked, bringing an entire pub of rowdy, drunken soldiers to silence, all with a bright red dress in a murky, war torn city. For a bunch who hadn’t seen a beautiful dame in months, if not years, her appearance was magical; a long, cool drink to the thirsty in the desert. But she had ignored all of them that night, even Bucky, who for as long as Steve could remember had always been able to charm the pants of a nun. She had only had eyes for Steve, and he had drowned in hers, lost in those dark pools, filled with promise and knowing challenge, almost daring him to do something about whatever it was simmering between them. He hadn’t, but he longed to as he watched her walk away in that red dress, the promise of a dance between them in some nameless future lingering like a kiss.
As if his body were on auto-pilot, he remembered how to walk, maybe even breathe, as he moved through the wandering dancers to where she stood, knowing that she clearly remembered that moment as well. He stopped, inches away, that familiar energy crackling between them, all of his anxieties and worries melting away like so many ghosts in the morning sun. “Hi!’
“Hello,” she breathed, staring at him as if she half expected he wouldn’t show up.
He glanced at his watch, surprised to see he was early for a change. “I believe I got here before the time the lady requested. You did tell me don’t be late.”
It had been one of the last things she had admonished him with before he hit the ice, as a matter-of-fact. Rather than put a damper on whatever was simmering beneath the surface, in simply seemed to make Peggy laugh. “For once, Rogers, you’re right on time.”
The smirk on her red painted lips left his strong, healthy heart pounding in his chest, blood roaring in his ears as if he had a fever. One crook of her finger and he would…
“Ehem!”
The tension snapped as Cassandra, eyed them as if she were prepared to douse them both. Blood rushed up Steve’s neck as Peggy demurred, flashing an apologetic smile towards her friend. “I should introduce you! This is Steve!” Her hands fluttered towards him, as if he weren’t obviously standing there. “You’ve met Cassandra, of course.”
He had met her, his first day awake, as a matter of fact. Agent Cassandra Kam had come to collect him for Dr. Ross, but he had already heard a number of anecdotes from Peggy about her. It hadn’t taken much for Steve to realize she was one of Peggy’s few good friends in this future world. He nodded politely to her as she grinned. “Cassie when you know me better! This is David, my permanent roommate.”
The taller man standing next to her looked scandalized at her turn of phrase. “The boyfriend, David Rosenbaum. It’s an honor to meet you, Captain Rogers.”
Only a few weeks removed from the war he served in and already his title felt foreign to him. “Thanks, nice meeting you as well.” Good manners and his old USO tour days had him automatically reaching out to offer his hand to shake. “It’s…nice to meet Peggy’s friends.”
“Wait till I tell my grandmother I met you,” David gushed, pumping Steve’s hand as he reached for the ubiquitous devices everyone carried with them. “Do you think I could get a picture, just to prove to her that I did?”
“Sure, I suppose,” Steve offered, despite Peggy’s muttered misgivings. After all, he was hardly the first person who had asked. That felt more normal to him than the rest of his life did at the moment. Up went his phone device, which Steve guessed was also a camera. It was startling to see himself on the tiny screen, a moving reflection of the dancing around them, captured in the moment on his device as casually as one would sign their name.
“Honey,” Cassandra chastised, perhaps picking up on Peggy’s unease. “You know, he just got here, and it's a date, not a photo op.”
The other man flushed, glancing back to Cassandra much as the school children who used to beg him for autographs once did. “Oh...I’m sorry, she’s right, I just...sort of freaked out a bit, I guess. I mean, I knew about you of course, Cassie’s told me about them waking you up, just...I suppose seeing you...the uniform...got a bit carried away.”
“That’s all right, hon,” Cassandra teased, quickly seizing the situation. “Maybe we can get him a drink. Captain Rogers, what will you have?”
“Steve,” he corrected her, feeling somehow being “Captain Rogers” to someone this close to Peggy was strange. “Uh…whatever Peggy’s having.”
“Scotch,” Peggy yelped, as if trying to remember what she even had. He wasn’t surprised, it was one of her favorites, and he nodded, shrugging.
“That,” he smiled, desperately trying to loosen up. “That works!”
“We’ll be right back!” With that, Cassandra wrapped an arm around her boyfriends, dragging him off, the pair giddily beginning to whisper. For all that David was still awestruck and Cassandra was clearly curious and amused, they made themselves scarce quickly, leaving Steve and Peggy to themselves. Obviously, Cassandra masterminded that bit of strategy.
“She seems nice,” Steve mused, watching them disappear into the crowd. “They both do.”
“She is,” Peggy echoed, turning to him, faint worry creasing her brow. “You got here all right?”
“Wasn’t that hard. The subways have surprisingly changed little since my day. The uniform may be a bit much though. Some kid with purple hair asked me if I was going to a costume party.”
“I’m surprised you wore it!” She didn’t look sorry he did, though, judging by the way her gaze flickered over him. That was a hopeful sign.
He shrugged, smiling lazily. “I figured I had it. Seemed a shame to let it sit in mothballs.”
“I don’t mind.” She reached up to adjust one of the pins on his lapel. Steve held his breath, the heat of her hand burning him through the layers of wool and cotton as it rested, briefly, against his chest. His mouth went bone dry as she smiled, coyly. “It reminds me of London.”
I might even, when this is all over, go dancing…
“So do you,” he blurted, the smokey images of her standing in a beam of light in that dim pub, her red dress burning like a flame. “I mean, I remember you wearing this…or something like this. Is it the same dress?”
Smooth, Rogers!
“It is!” She looked delighted he remembered, as if a fella could forget something like that. “I brought it with me. I kept it. I don’t know, it was sentimental, I suppose. The only dress I had for years that wasn’t drab olive or tan.”
“I always liked it,” he blurted, feeling the tips of his ears burning. “I mean, red suits you. I mean, not that other colors don’t, but it’s a nice color on you. It…brings out your eyes! That is, I like blue and green too…”
Christ, he sounded like an idiot! When had he been reduced to stuttering and stumbling like an idiot, unable to string two words in a coherent sentence together? The minute she had turned around in that damned dress, of course, but honestly! Some hero he made, completely undone by the sight of Peggy Carter, standing there, her red lips curved up in a fond and bemused smile, taking pity on his ineptitude as she held out a hand to him.
“I do believe the band is playing our tune, Captain Rogers, and the war is long over. You owe me a dance, soldier.”
All he could do was stare down at the pale hand she offered him, with its glittering, red lacquer nails shining in the dim light, and slip his own hand into hers. He followed her, dumbstruck, onto the parquet floor. It was only as they neared the center that he finally gained some of his wits and gently tugged her in a small arc towards him, shifting her hand in his as he slipped another onto the curve of her waist.
“I have this much down,” he teased, swaying to the rhythm of the live band at the far end of the floor, the singer crooning something longing and somewhat bittersweet. “I’m afraid JARIS wasn’t much help.”
“I think you are doing just fine,” she murmured, glancing down to their feet with a hint of cheek. “You haven’t stepped on my toes once.”
“Give it time." Daringly he shifted his hand at her waist around to the small of her back, pulling her closer. It was a move Bucky did a lot, and a gamble, but she didn’t complain as she shifted with him, thrillingly laying her head against his chest in a move that sent his heartbeat racing. Save for when she had kissed him in Schmidt’s racing car, and when she had thrown herself at him after he woke up in the SHIELD offices, she had never really been this close to him before. Now she was there in his arms, all softness and sweetness, her silken dark hair against his cheek. His brain was filled with her scent, the shampoo she used and her perfume, floral but spicey, feminine, but not heady or flowery. That coupled with her soft warmth pressed against him, and he could happily live like this forever, wrapped up in everything that was Peggy Carter.
It was a lovely, bewitching spell, and there he was, breaking it wide open, like a dope. “What are you thinking?”
He could have kicked himself for that, no less for it intruding into a wonderful moment as for the answer Peggy gave him, full of her sheer, impish humor. “I am thinking that when I ever find Scott Lang again, I should kiss him.”
He snorted into her soft mass of her hair, rolling his eyes, hopelessly endeared by her sense of humor. “Just what a fella wants to hear when he’s dancing with the girl of his dreams.” God, he was crazy for this woman!
“Well, you asked.” She turned to grin up at him, amused and unrepentant. “And I didn’t realize I was that.”
His heart skipped an uncomfortable beat. “Was what?”
“The girl of your dreams.” For once he saw something he rarely saw on Peggy’s face…uncertainty. She really didn’t know how he felt for her? That shocked Steve, if nothing else because he was about as subtle as a bull in a china shop. He had never had the easy grace around girls that Bucky had, nor the charisma and charm that Stark always seemed to exude. He’d just been the guy who women looked down on, sometimes to the point of rudeness. None of them had ever looked at him as Peggy did now, like he hung the moon and stars. How could she not realize he was crazy about her, too?
“Honestly, Peggy, you lay one on me like you did before I jumped on Schmidt’s plane, did you think I didn’t spend some of the last 70 years dreaming of you?”
He had dreamed of her, he knew that, even if it were in vague flashes. He dreamed of her stubbornness, her determination, her smile, her eyes, the way she would look at him, sometimes in a way that turned his insides into liquid…that kiss had sustained him even when he wasn’t even his own self.
“I didn’t want you flying into the unknown without something to remember me by.”
He laughed outright at that, turning them gently in a small circle in time to the music. “You aren’t precisely a woman who is easy to forget, Peggy. I don’t care if it was 70 or 700, I would have still woken up thinking of you, dreaming of a moment like this.”
Steve wasn’t so sure he wasn’t dreaming. Perhaps he was still stuck in that iceberg, trapped in a hell of cold and darkness, his unconscious mind conjuring up a dream that would melt away the minute he woke up. Perhaps this was all just a figment of his injured brain, or the last conscious moments before he slipped into nothingness. If it was, it was worth it, to be standing here, whenever this was, holding this woman in his arms, her lambent gaze turned on him, filled with quiet hope and gentle promises, as time stood still around him, and all the yearning and longing of a hundred moments like this between them rising within him.
Moving in to kiss her felt like the most natural thing in the world in the moment, as necessary as breathing. She didn’t resist, instead learning up to meet his lips, hers so soft, like their first kiss together. Unlike then, when he’d been caught off guard in the middle of his single-minded pursuit of Schmidt, this time he allowed himself to fall into it, to sink into the moment, her mouth against his, her fingers moving from his shoulder to curl in his hair and pull him closer, as if afraid he would disappear if she didn’t. His Peggy! He wouldn’t leave her again, never ever!
Steve pulled away as that fierce thought pierced through his consciousness, dazed and breathless, half afraid of what Peggy thought of all of this. He’d never made the first move with a woman before, not once, and certainly he had never considered doing it in public, on a dance floor, in full view of everyone. But to his relief, Peggy hardly looked offended by it. If anything, she looked as floored as he felt.
“Well,” she whispered, a hint of a teasing smile pulling at her slightly smudged lips. “It took you long enough!”
Steve couldn’t help but to meet her grin with his, chuckling. “Yeah, I guess I did.”
Bucky would be proud. No longer was he the one consigned to the margins of the dance floor, watching everyone else live their life. Unfortunately, no sooner than that thought occurred to him, the music changed, something up tempo and fast, and immediately dancers were out, feet flashing in some form of the Lindy Hop…he thought he remembered that much. Staring in wide eyed panic as the crowds shifted around them, Peggy at least took pity on him. “Come on, Cassandra and David will be back with our drinks.”
He followed, sad to have lost that precious moment with Peggy in his arms. Her friends indeed waited with drinks, Cassandra eyeing Peggy with a Cheshire grin. To her credit, Peggy flushed but never lost her composure, even if she downed her Scotch as if it were water, the only outward hint of her being flustered. At least it wasn’t just him left reeling by their shared hiss, he mused, half delighted, half relieved.
“Excuse me,” a reedy voice at his elbow gave Steve pause as he turned to regard the elderly fellow waiting politely there. He wasn’t tall, barely taller than Peggy, though still taller than Steve had been before the serum. He was quite old, however, a kind, wizened face peering up at him through thick lenses, all beneath a thin shock of fluffy, white hair. Deeply lined and marked with years and age, it still struck Steve as somewhat familiar, though certainly he’d never seen this man in his life.
“I saw you across the room there and just had to come and tell you how good you look.” He lifted one gnarled, trembling hand to place on Steve’s forearm, as if checking to see if what he was seeing was real.
Still, the fellow was earnest enough, and Steve recalled many of his like on the old USO tour days, coming to meet and greet him. “Err…thank you.”
“It’s just, I see the young kids coming in here all the time, dressed up like they were at a costume party, with the second hand uniforms they get offline or something.” The old timer studied the ribbons on his chest critically. “Yours looks good, better than most!”
“Well it’s not second hand, it’s the real deal.” He hadn’t thought out precisely how to explain it all away, but it felt important to claim this as his, as improbable as it all was. This had been, till weeks ago, his life, what he had lived through and done. It felt somewhat gratifying to have someone in this time recognize it…like as not because he had lived it, too.
The older fellow nodded, scrutinizing him with squinted eyes through his thick lenses. “Not that someone your age would ever know or remember this guy, but did anyone ever tell you that you look exactly like Captain America?”
For the second time that night, time stopped for Steve. This time, however, his brain seized at his old stage name, the title he’d worn, first with chagrin, then with pride. To hear it tumble so easily off this man’s lips underscored not only how old this fellow was, but how far removed Steve was now from his old life, that person he had been till just weeks ago. No one recognized him now; not the kid on the subway or the girl at the check in. This older fellow somehow did, though of course he’d never believe that the man he was talking to was the same Steve Rogers he remembered. And frankly, perhaps he wasn’t that Steve Rogers anymore.
“Many times, in fact,” he returned, easily, leaning into the older gentleman’s assumptions.
For a long moment the gentleman studied him, shaking his head, expression reminiscent. “It’s the damnedest thing. You know, I knew Steve. Not well, mind you, but he did save my life, freed me from imprisonment near a place called Azzano. I was a punk kid, a POW, thought I was done for in that place. He got us out.”
Suddenly, terrifyingly, everything clicked. Steve felt his brain turn, his memories shift, as he realized why the man looked so very familiar. His name was Victor, Vic for short, born and raised a few neighborhoods away from Steve and Bucky. Sixty-six years ago he’d been a young kid, younger than Steve had been, barely out of his teens, short and skinny, though far more sturdy than Steve had once been. Still, Schmidt had worked all the captured POWs like animals, most were skin and bones, exhausted, filthy, kept in cages in cold, damp conditions, with little in the way of warmth or food. This kid had been one of the ones who had felt it the worst, gotten sick, but had tried to hide it because anyone who got sick got shipped off to Armin Zola’s lab. None of them were ever seen again. That’s what had happened to Bucky. God knows what would have happened had Steve not shown up when he did. This kid likely would have been right behind him, but for Steve’s break in and their daring escape. While Bucky had healed up from his ordeal, this kid had it rough. Steve had been shocked he made it back to Azzano and medical care. He’d never heard what happened after that.
“Bet you don’t know about the Battle of Azzano though,” Vic, now an old man, continued, patting Steve’s forearm. “Not many people do, they don’t talk about that the way they do other things in the war, but they ought to. People don’t remember things like they should.”
Steve could have laughed at that, or perhaps cried. He remembered! He remembered all of it, the whole long march from Krausberg through the Alps and forest, across the border into Italy, where the SSR waited. He remembered the grim determination they all exhibited following him, a show pony with an Army rank he had gained from a crash OCS course, meant more for optics than for true leadership. He’d never so much as commanded a troop in his life, and here he was leading hardened survivors through the cold, rough terrain of central Europe as if he knew what the hell he was doing. That’s how he had found his men, the Howling Commandos, the ones who had taken charge and helped him get everyone to safety. If it weren’t for Falsworth’s level headedness, or Gabe’s rudimentary medicine, or even Dugan’s gruff ordering pushing men along, he didn’t know how they would have all made it out.
And now, it was only he and Vic left standing there, one old, one still young, in a dance hall in Queens.
Gently, he reached over to take Vic’s crabbed fingers in his, pressing them as tightly and firmly as he dared. “I remember. I’m glad you got out, got to come home.”
“Me too!” Vic turned, nodding to a woman across the hall sitting in a wheelchair, chatting with someone else their age. “I got to come home to my Estelle! Married nearly 70 years. First thing I did when I got home, walked right up to her mother’s house and asked her to marry me. We were in front of a priest the very next week. Never regretted a day.”
Vic got to come home, to live his life, to marry the girl of his dreams. There was something…fitting in that. It settled in Steve’s chest, warming him unexpectedly, the realization that this little old man out with his wife was here now because of Steve’s impulsive decision so long ago. It awed him to realize the impact of that.
Vic turned back to him, hopeful and speculative. “Say, you wouldn’t mind coming over for a minute, chatting with my wife? She’d get a kick out of seeing you looking like him. She’s had a little crush since I told her Captain America was the guy who got me out.”
Vic’s words brought Steve back to reality with a thud, reminding him that to this world, he was dead. The young face he wore and the young body he was in did not align with what Vic knew about Steve Rogers. He couldn’t be himself. Still, the older Vic looked so hopeful. It was such a small gesture, after all, a little thing he could do for an old comrade in arms. “I…errr…sure!”
“She’ll will be floored by it!” Vic winked conspiratorially, despite his sweet smile as he patted Steve’s hand. He chuckled as he turned his slow steps back towards his beloved on the other side of the hall, and Steve watched him go, trying to reconcile him with the young man he’d once known, so sick that he’s put Morita on watch with him just to make sure that he would make it.
“Steve!” Peggy’s whisper was harsh, cutting through the music as she tugged on his arm. He turned to her, her brow knit in concern “Are you sure this is the wisest course of action?”
“It is a few minutes. I’ll say hello, make my introductions, and I’ll be back over.” After all, they didn’t know he was the real Steve Rogers. What else could he say to them without revealing the truth?
Peggy didn’t look nearly as certain. “But…”
“It will be quick,” he assured her, much as he often did during the war when he proposed something she thought risky and dangerous. “Don’t worry about me!”
Unlike then, this time he leaned in to brush a kiss against her cheek. It was all too brief, but it was a step, a small one. He was free to do that, wasn’t he? She seemed pleased, blushing prettily, despite her rolling her eyes at him.
“How can I not, Rogers?” She shooed him away as he made his way across to Vic and Estelle, and to hear about the life that they got to live.