She supposes she should be mad at Fury. When she first came back, he had made an effort to tell her Steve had gone missing in the search to return her, but Fury never had told her just how he went missing.
Cryogenically frozen within the Hydra Stomper, that had to have been Howard’s idea. For nearly 70 years kept alive by the cold and a diluted sample of her blood, regulating all of his needs. It’s even helped him in small ways, his heart condition fixed and body seemingly less gaunt then before. He lays unconsciously in the medbay of SHIELD, Peggy waiting not-so-patiently to see if he will wake up.
“Carter,” It’s three am on a Wednesday nearly three weeks later when she gets the call, “It’s Rogers… he’s waking up.”
Peggy immediately rises from her bed, frantically searching her closet for the clothing she had picked out for this situation.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you wear a crinoline ever since Fury and Barton first found you” Nat teases, watching Peggy pull out the clothes from her amazon box.
“I just want things to feel normal for him when he wakes up.” Peggy’s hands glide over the fabric of the dress, “not that anyone wore this much polyester back then.”
Peggy is dressed in no time, giving her the extra few minutes she’s got before her 3:30 check in to the process of doing her hair.
“He’s up, isn’t he?” Nat sticks her head in the bathroom after hearing Peggy curse at something.
“He is.” Peggy nods, twisting a section of her hair delicately around her finger before pinning it near the nape of her neck.
“Good luck, Peggy.” Nat smiles
He’s still sleeping when she gets there, and Peggy takes great delight in watching the slight movements he makes as he really starts waking up. His eyelids flutter softly before she speaks.
“Hello.”
In the darkness of the early morning, Steve squints to make out the voice coming from his bedside, “Peggy,” her name brings a smile to his lips, “Howard found you.”
Instinctively, Peggy places her hand on his own, rubbing his knuckles with her thumb, “I’m afraid it’s more complicated than that. From where I’m sitting, you are the one who needed to be found.”
She tells him the story from there. How three years ago the tesseract opened and out she came, fully under the impression that only a few minutes had passed. How she became an Avenger, making friends and saving the world from threats bigger than the Third Reich. And how she had never stopped missing him.
“Director Fury had told me you had gone missing around 1949, but after the longest evening in my life, we realized you were right under our noses.”
In turn, he tells her everything of the 4 years without her. How after the war he returned to Brooklyn and started working for the SSR. How he and Howard had worked with the SSR to form a subdivision called SHIELD in an attempt to get her out. How, when it seemed like the SSR was losing funding quickly, he made Howard freeze him so that he could be the first person to see her when or if they found her.
“I wanted to cash in that rain check for a dance as soon as possible,” he says, “and do a million other things with you.
“I had given up on that dance myself,” Peggy replies, eyes downcast as they slowly fill with tears, “but I am so glad to have you here.”
Once he’s been given a clean bill of health, or in Steve’s case healthy enough to still function, he’s released into the care of SHIELD.
“Just a temporary branch of the SSR, you said?” Peggy laughs, carrying what belongings had been stashed with him in that locked cell.
“I at least thought it was.”
For now, he’ll be staying right down the hall from her, both a little too old fashioned to move in together before they’ve even kissed yet.
“It’s a rather plain room when you first look at it,” Peggy drops his belongings on the bed, “but in time you’ll build it up to your liking. I know it took me a while to make it feel like home, but there’s no better bed I’ve slept in since before the war.” She sits down on his bed and begins to plan her next few thoughts.
Steve studies the room with an artist’s eye, “It’s going to need something other than gray on the walls, but right now being so close to you makes it home enough.”
“You know Steve,” Peggy picks at the hem of her skirt anxiously before shaking her head, “there’s a million things I wished I could have said to you before that day. And now that I’ve been given this opportunity, I feel all tongue tied.”
“Well,” Steve sits down next to her, a hand resting on her shoulder, “why don’t we start one at a time. What’s the first thing chronologically that you wanted to say?”
Her mind flashes to that night in the bar, Howard’s face pressed up against the glass,
“Barnes stole a jeep!”
Without thinking, or maybe it’s overthinking at it’s finest, she leans in with slightly puckered lips. He tastes like happiness and a bit of the apple pie they had had in the kitchen for lunch. He tastes like nearly 70 years of attraction rolled into one moment. He tastes like home.
She backs away nervously, a hand unconsciously tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, “I suppose it would have to be that.”
She watches as the tips of Steve’s ears burn red, a dumbstruck smile creeping across his face, “Good, because that’s the first thing I had wanted to ‘say’ to you too.”
This time he’s the one to kiss her, one of his hands resting lightly on her neck, “I love you, Peggy Carter. From the moment I saw you.” His words are airy and laced with tenderness.
“I love you too, Steve Rogers. And I haven’t stopped in almost 70 years.”