Chapter 12
Long ago, at a ramshackle army camp somewhere in the middle of nowhere in New Jersey, Steve had fallen in love. He hadn’t known it then, not by a long shot, but as he stood up high on a ridge watching the lovely young woman with dark hair and eyes run through her paces, he’d thought of how she’d stood up to a jerk earlier in the day, how she had fooled the idiot into a false sense of security and superiority, and then clocked him right in the nose. It was the sort of maneuver he knew all too well himself, and seeing in her a kindred spirit, he had been smitten. He didn’t know anything about her then, not that she was a spy, or how she had struggled with finding a place in this world when they all tried to tell her who and what she could be. All he knew was that for the first time in his life, he had found a woman who knocked him off his feet, and more than anything he would love to be worthy of her.
“You should get cleaned up,” she gently ordered as he took off his shield, frowning at the rent in his uniform once more. “And afterward, let me see what damage was actually done out there.”
Steve only just managed not to roll his eyes. “I’m fine!”
He wished he hadn’t winced after saying that.
Peggy’s eyes narrowed at him. “I’m sure you are, but I want to check anyway. At least let me satisfy my worry if nothing else.”
It was her last statement that had him nodding in acquiescence, as Peggy always knew how to skillfully lead him wherever she wanted. Exhausted, he dragged himself into the guest room, closing the door and swiftly shedding off the layers of his uniform as best as he could given the bruise on his side and tender scratch on his shoulder. Every muscle ached as he shucked off his armor and shimmied out of the ruins of his gray undershirt, tossing them to the floor in an unceremonious heap. Another time he’d have been more neat about it, as evidenced by the rest of the guest room, which was so tidy one could be forgiven in believing that no one had slept in there over the past six weeks. Now, he was just tired, and longing to be free of his soldier’s garb, to sluice off the remains of the horrors of the day, to wash himself clean of it.
The instincts of a childhood of deprivation and poverty, not to mention years in the army, usually told him to make all showers quick, but he ignored those habits and luxuriated in the abundant hot water, ignoring the stinging of scraped and scratched skin as he stood under the steaming spray. He swallowed the visions that rose to the fore, the fuzzy memories of battle and the things he’d fought off, the stuff that would fuel his nightmares for weeks in the future, if not months. As if he didn’t already have enough in his brain, now the eerie screams and horrific visages of the Chitauri logged there, right along with Johann Schmidt’s distorted, red face and Bucky’s horrified wail as he fell. Steve would be lucky if he ever slept again.
A long time later he finally crawled out of the spray, the mirror in the bathroom fogged, hiding his reflection as he slipped into comfortable and soft sleeping pants and a t-shirt that he eased over his bruised and sore side. If he could get away with it, he’d have simply crawled into bed right then, fallen into the marshmallow-like mattress and buried himself under the cloud of a comforter, and gone right to sleep, Peggy and her worry be damned, but he knew she’d simply march in any way and force the issue. Best to get it over with, assuage her worries, and save an argument later on.
Peggy’s bedroom was mere steps from the one he’d claimed, but it might as well have been on another continent before now. He’d never dared to enter into it, mostly out of a sense of respecting her boundaries and privacy, though he couldn’t deny that there was a healthy dose of old-fashioned manners about it. He’d been taught to never enter a lady’s room without her permission, so it felt strange opening the door into this space and slipping inside. He wasn’t sure what he had expected in the space, perhaps more of the same things he found through the rest of the house - modern furnishings, cold and impersonal, broken here and there with the detritus of Peggy’s life in the future. This perhaps was why he was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t. It was a large space, bigger than the guest room he inhabited, itself already huge in his opinion. It felt cool and relaxing in light blues and soothing greens. While it was far from cluttered, it wasn’t spartan either. Peggy’s nomadic lifestyle over the years had only left her with a few items she cherished, but there were pieces of her strange and fascinating life found all over. On the chest of drawers was an antique-looking jewel box, hastily left there, with a pearl necklace and a silver wristwatch spilling out of it. In a small frame beside it was a picture of Peggy, Howard Stark, and Abraham Erskine standing together at Camp Lehigh. Just inside the open closet, he could see her modern, tidy suits hanging in neat lines next to the red dress she wore so long ago, and a red Stetson hat that sat on top of a box, as if set there and forgotten about. On one side of her bed was a nightstand with a small stack of books, tasseled bookmarks sticking out of at least three of them, while on the other was…
Steve stilled, staring at the photograph on the other nightstand. It sat in a simple frame, nothing elaborate, but it stood in a place of honor, the first thing one would see when one woke in the morning, the last one would see when one slept at night. In it was the echo of the man he used to be. He didn’t remember when that photo was taken, likely he hadn’t been paying attention, considering he was probably in the middle of trying not to puke up his guts after having been run through all of the paces in the sticky late spring air. God, he’d been so small and skinny, though he could hardly tell by the framing of the photo. A good, stiff wind would have blown him over back in those days, and yet there he had been, fighting through the heat, the asthma squeezing his lungs, and the fatigue leaving him boneless, all for a shot at proving he was worthy. God, that all felt so very long ago! And yet, he felt like it was just yesterday. Had he ever really left behind that little guy from Brooklyn, with a tin can shield and enough heart to stand up to bullies three times his size?
Considering the day he’d had today and what he’d faced, he guessed not.
Without conscious thought, he found himself moving to pick up the photograph from its place, staring at it through its protective glass, at the man he once was. Where had Peggy found this? And why was it here? Of all the pictures she could have found of him, why was it this one she had in this spot?
“I’m almost afraid to ask what you were likely covered in.”
So focused was he on the photograph and the mystery of it, that it took him a long moment to realize that it was Peggy speaking to him. “Yeah, no, probably better you don’t ask. I don’t want to know. I wish I didn’t know.” He shivered, ever so slightly, at the thought of it. “Am hoping I forget.”
The visions rose of the twisted, horrific visages and the viscous fluid slickening his shield, covering his hands and splattering his face. But as suddenly they disappeared, as the scent of floral-scented steam hit his nostrils, and he remembered he was at home.
“What do you have there?”
He turned to look at her finally, and any thought of the bloodbath of war slipped from his mind completely. He’d seen Peggy in all manner of ways, both on the field and off, but never, ever had he caught her this casual or this vulnerable. She had wrapped herself in a heavy, satiny dressing gown, more modern in style, but the sort he could tell was expensive even by current standards, a bit of luxury that surprised him out of the prudent, practical Peggy. In truth, it was fairly modest, patterned, creamy silk, swathed tight and cinched in a way that kept it firmly closed, yet it still clung to every one of her curves, from shoulder to floor. Christ, he might just actually die today after all!
Peggy, in her direct, matter-of-fact way, seemed not to notice how she was killing him slowly, second by second, just by standing there. Instead, she simply looked at him, expectantly, waiting for an answer to something. Right, she asked him a question!
“The photograph from your nightstand!” He turned it to her by way of explanation, ignoring the cut of nerves and embarrassment as he did. “Where did you get it?”
“It was in your SSR file. When SHIELD was created, we got all of the old Project: Rebirth files. Since I was the director, I may have purloined it for myself.”
Something was endearing about the cheeky, unapologetic grin she flashed him and the flush of pink on her scrubbed cheeks, the embarrassment of knowing she had stolen SHIELD property because of its sentimental value to herself. He couldn’t help but meet it with a crooked smile of his own. “Purloin? Is that British for ‘stolen’?”
“I think it’s just general English, darling, but if you want to call it something as base as ‘stealing’...”
“Relieved them of their property, shall we say.” He set the photograph back in its place with a small laugh, before sobering ruefully. “Funny, I sorta miss being that guy.”
“I don’t know,” she returned, quietly. “I don’t think you are as far away from him as you think you are.”
There was a world of unsaid things in that singular comment. Steve wanted to ask her, but she turned the topic, settling beside what he assumed was her medical kit, smoothing the cream-colored silk under her as she did. “Shirt up!”
It was an order, and he’d always had the axiom of “do what Peggy says,” but for half a wild moment he considered not as a wave of anxiety, embarrassment, and nerves hit him with her no-nonsense command. Seriously, it wasn’t the first time she’d seen him like this, but they weren’t in the medical ward or lab, and she wasn’t taking his vitals. They weren't in the comfortable, soft glow of her bedroom, a place he’d never ventured before and hadn’t dared to. Still, he did as she asked, rucking up his simple, cotton shirt to expose the nasty, lacerated bruising on his side. He’d studied it earlier in the shower, whatever had hit him had cut him open enough to bleed when first it had hit and had left bruising welts that he could feel deep in muscle and tissue, but it would heal easily enough with rest. Still, she stared at it for a long time, as if worried he would drop dead on the spot. He supposed, given that he’d almost died on her once, she would never quite get over the fear and horror of that. Heaven help him if it were her in that situation.
Gently, with fingers that were so feather light, she probed the bruising, purple and green along his side. Steve knew she was ensuring that it was knitting, that he didn’t have broken bones or torn muscles, but she might as well have touched him with a red-hot poker. Her ghosting fingers trailed like electricity up his skin, and he found himself sucking in a breath and holding it, desperately wondering why it was she had to lean that close to see, whispering silent prayers to every saint he could think of to frantically hold on to any bit of self-control. Peggy pulled away silently, apparently satisfied, even if Steve wasn’t. He spent several more long moments torn between wishing still for her touch and being relieved that she had finally pulled away.
“Nothing broken,” she asked, her voice as calm and distant as it had been in Camp Lehigh so long ago when she’d quizzed him on his information, writing it diligently on her clipboard.
Holy hell, he was falling apart, and there she was, cool as a long drink on a summer’s day.
“No, not anymore at least?” Somehow he grunted that out in a way that resembled a coherent sentence. “Maybe a fracture when I first got hit, but it healed already. Knocked the hell out of me for a moment, though, like getting my ass kicked when I was a kid.”
He’d hoped to make her smile at that, but instead, it only made her frown deepen. “That you’ve made it this far in one piece is proof that you are either the most stubborn creature known to man or there really is a divine power looking out for you. I haven’t decided yet.”
“Likely both, Thor is a god after all.”
That did earn him a snort of wry amusement for his efforts. “I could bandage it up, but considering you’re not openly bleeding and nothing is broken, I don’t know what good it will do. You’ll likely just repair it all by morning anyway.”
“So I was right in saying I was fine?” He couldn’t help the teasing note nor the childish smirk he sent her way. She only glared back at him, turning to repack her bag.
“You can put your shirt down, now,” she said, dismissively.
Oh…right! Slowly, he lowered it over the bruised and scraped skin, reminded of the intimacy of their setting. His nerves flared again, hot and embarrassed, as he studied the blanket on her bed as she bustled about, putting the kit together to return to wherever it was she stored it.
“I’m satisfied you weren’t injured more than you were letting on,” she said as she wandered to slip it into the bathroom.
He could say something witty here, or charming, anything to make him less nervous in all of this, but what he said instead was something he hadn’t expected. “Why that photograph?”
She paused at the doorway long enough to throw a mild look of confusion back at him. “Why not?”
Good question, he conceded to himself. Why not that one? Because he was no one in that photograph? Because he wasn’t Captain America, or Captain Steve Rogers, he was just a scrawny kid from Brooklyn whose heart was bigger than his brains, who didn’t know how to ever quit or shut up. Because that guy got beaten up in every ally from Rockaway to Queens, and never had a girl go out with him without having his best friend set up the date first. Because that guy had tried every recruitment station he could find in the New York metropolitan area in the hopes someone would take him, and no one did. Because that guy wasn’t good enough for anyone.
Peggy wandered back over to where he stood, staring at his past, at the guy he used to be.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, as he found himself opening one small, vulnerable part of his soul up to her. “I just…you know, of all the photographs of me out there, that’s the one you kept?”
He held his breath, expecting her to tell him he was an idiot, or to laugh at him outright. Instead, she simply smiled, as if it all made sense if he only thought about it. “It’s because it’s a photograph of the real you, not Captain America, or Captain Steve Rogers, or the ‘Star-Spangled Man with a Plan.’ It’s just the young man I met at Camp Lehigh so long ago, the one who challenged me because I didn’t believe he could do it.”
She moved to stand before him, studying the photograph with fondness. “If I am honest with myself, I loved you even back then, when you were that ‘skinny kid’ as you say, continuously trailing behind everyone else in basic, but fighting twice as hard as they were just to have a chance. I loved all the parts of you, really; Captain America, the shield, the fact that you were foolish enough to walk into danger, single-handed, just to save your best friend and all the men captured there with him. I loved you even as you flew that plane into the ice, knowing I may never get to see you ever again.”
Those were the words they had never spoken, really, never truly admitted out loud between them. Of course, logically, he knew, how could he not? She came through time and left everything behind looking for him, but to hear it said out loud made something within his aching, battered, broken heart burst, soothing parts of himself he didn’t know needed to hear her say it.
“Peggy,” he croaked as if he had been shot rather than told that the love of his life loved him in return.
She ignored him, however, focused as she was on getting out her words, on all the things she had longed to tell him over the long years of waiting for him. “That’s the thing, All those things, the fact that you are a stubborn, brave man, a good man, despite everything you have been through in life. How could I not love someone like that? And I know you think I just pulled you out of the ice to fight, and I’m sorry for that. It wasn’t about that. I mean, perhaps in part it was, but that is because the world needed you, needed someone like you. But I needed you, too! The minute Scott Lang stumbled into my life and told me you were alive, all I wanted was to find you again, because as much as I was ready to move on and to live in a world without you in it, what I wanted more than anything else was a lifetime just lived with you.”
Her dark, lambent eyes turned up to him, finally, wide and soft, open in a way Peggy so rarely ever allowed herself to be. “I know we kept telling ourselves that we would wait till after the war, after the fighting, we could figure it all out then. But the truth is, neither of us are people who can just stand idly by when we see something wrong happening. I think today is proof of that. There is always going to be something going on, some fight in the world we will want to throw ourselves into, and frankly, I’d rather be fighting those battles at your side than waiting forever for you to come home from them.”
Steve realized he couldn’t adore this woman more than he did at this moment, standing in her room, as she held her whole heart out to him and asked him to take it. Christ, he’d put her through hell getting here, and she had defied every odd, even time itself, to be able to stand there and offer him this gift. He’d spent these weeks caught up in his head, mourning the loss of Bucky and everyone he’d ever known, convinced this glorious woman was too good, too modern, too…something for the likes of a broken soldier from an ancient war. But she had been there the whole time, and he’d not needed to do a damn other thing to prove himself worthy of her. If Bucky had been there, he’d have kicked his ass and then laughed at him for good measure, and Steve would have deserved it.
“Anyway,” she breathed, smoothing the front of her dressing gown down with trembling hands. “It’s been a long day, for you especially, and I suppose…”
She began to turn away from him, then, with that perfectly cultivated English politeness of hers, the sort of thing she fell back on when she wished to save face. Before she could even pivot, he shot out a hand to grab her arm, long fingers wrapping loosely around her wrist, turning her back towards him before she could retreat once again into her carefully constructed armor.
“Peggy,” he groaned, half desperate, half pleading, so tired of circling the truth. “How long are the two of us going to dance around this?”
She met his gaze with quiet defiance and a challenging tilt of her chin. “That’s up to you. You’re the one who wanted to figure this all out.”
He mentally swore at his stupidity. “I’m also the idiot who flew a plane into a glacier.”
“True, but…”
Before she could argue further, he jerked her towards him, capturing her soft mouth with his, pressing her hard against him despite the contusion on his side, as he poured everything he was feeling at that moment into this kiss. He’d wanted this for years, loved her for years, and it all flooded through him as he molded her silk-wrapped form against his, ignoring the raw twinge of lacerated skin and ache of bruised muscle as he did so. Past the first moments of surprise, Peggy soon responded in kind, threading her fingers into his hair, holding on for dear life, as if afraid she’d fall into the abyss and never come out. Silly girl, as if he’d ever let her go now.
Steve broke the kiss, finally, gasping softly as he pressed his forehead down towards hers, grounding himself in just her presence as all the horror and fear of the day receded into a singular point where she stood. He remembered only too late that she had stitches there, as she winced, ever so slightly, but didn’t pull away. Guilt sobered him, reminding him that she too was injured, and unlike him, Peggy wasn’t a super soldier who’d sleep it off and be good as new tomorrow.
Chastened, he sighed. “Maybe we should…”
Indignation flared from Peggy, as she wrapped her hands around his neck, holding him tighter. “I swear to God, Steven Rogers, you started this!”
That was his girl! All hellfire and brimstone, refusing to back down in a fight. He chuckled with the sheer joy of it. “You know, I still don’t know how to dance.”
She laughed, a small snort of joy, relief, and love as she turned her face up to his. “I’ll show you how.”
It was much later as they curled in the safety of her bed, spent, exhausted, and replete, that he finally admitted his truth to her. Her head lay on his chest, her dark hair spilling across it as he ran his fingers through the soft mass of it. “You know when I fell in love with you?”
She hummed, softly, by way of response, already sleepy and boneless on top of him.
“I’d like to say it was the moment you laid out Hodge on the ground in one hit, but I think it was later. When I told you that I might just surprise all of you and prove you wrong, you didn’t laugh at me. You simply corrected my form at the punching bag and left me to it.”
“Hmmm?” She tilted her head up to look at him, bright-eyed for how sleepy she seemed to be. “As I recall, you seemed to take the idea that you couldn’t be a serious candidate as a personal affront.”
“I did,” he chuckled around a yawn. “But you didn’t laugh.”
“I didn’t,” she admitted, softly. “It took a bit longer for me, I think. I fell for you the moment you threw yourself on that ridiculous dummy grenade.”
Philips’ stupid test! That had changed everything! “How was I supposed to know it wasn’t real?”
“That’s the point, darling, you didn’t.” Peggy leaned up to look him fully in the eye, love and admiration shining in the low light. “You threw yourself on there believing it was real, knowing you’d get killed if it was. The likes of Hodges ran for the hills, but you jumped on it to save all of them, ungrateful for it as they were. How could I not fall in love with that?”
“You know, most dames would prefer their fella not throw himself into harm's way.”
“Oh, shut up,” she laughed, collapsing beside him with a giggle.
“I don’t know what that says about you, falling for a guy foolish enough to fall on bombs and fly into glaciers”
“I think it says I have a singular taste in character,” she returned, haughtily.
“Or that you’re a bit crazy.” He wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her closer.
“You love me, what does that say about you?”
“I agreed to be a science experiment, I am absolutely crazy,” he sighed, brushing her hair with a brief kiss. “But I love you with everything in me, Peggy. No matter what time I’m in, that will always be true.”
“Yeah?” Her voice was a whisper, her eyes shining like stars. “Same, Captain Rogers, forever and ever.”
He drifted off, his best girl in his arms, falling into the best sleep he’d had in decades.