Agent Carter (victoryred) wrote in the100, @ 2015-06-28 23:59:00 |
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Leaving Carol behind was difficult, but most of the important things he’d done in his life had been difficult. When he’d left, he felt more settled with her than he had when he’d first noticed Peggy’s name. His feelings hadn’t changed; what felt different was that he felt more sure that she understood where they stood now. He still felt torn in two directions, and both directions left someone he cared about hanging, but at least he knew what he wanted his life to look like after it was all over.
He’d picked the common room on level 5 for two reasons: Carol’s room was closer than Peggy’s, so he knew that he could get there first, and it was a public space. His room or hers would have offered some privacy, but there still would’ve been a risk that someone would walk in. At least this way, they could find a quiet corner to sit in and talk, and they wouldn’t be surprised by any interruptions, or be putting anyone out if they wanted the room.
There was a third reason. It gave him some time to think and figure out what he was going to say to Peggy. He’d done this before, with a Peggy Carter who was much older. For a while, she wanted to know what he’d been doing since he’d been found. Eventually, he just stopped at patiently telling her that he’d been found after all. This -- a younger Peggy who thought he was dead and hadn’t lived an entire life without him -- was something he wasn’t prepared for.
He found a couch and sat down, angling himself so he could still see the entrance. Silently, he wished Bucky could have been there to help him out, but he wasn't sure Bucky would remember enough.
Despite the distance - years, geography, it didn’t matter - Peggy Carter’s heels still clicked a smart staccato upon the hall floor. After she’d been slightly turned about not once but twice, relying on the kindness of her new neighbors to direct her, she found herself at the door to this common room Steve had suggested. Her last memories of her own world, watching his blood disappear into the blank blue encompassing the Brooklyn Bridge, had been ensconced in goodbye. She was learning to live with what she did and what she lost.
But here? With seventy years on her, a man whose claim to be Steve Rogers seemed verified by all (at least within her research on the network), brought her closely coupled calm to the test. Once she spied him in the corner through narrowed eyes, she paused. Move, feet. You’re a bloody stupid wreck. Then slowly, methodically, she made her approach.
A brief inclination of her head.
“Hello.”
Steve heard the sound of her heels long before he saw her. He held his breath the entire time, waiting for her to appear, or waiting to see who belonged to the sound of the heels if it wasn’t her.
And then there she was. Steve rose to his feet, eyes growing wide. She looked the same as she had the day he’d said goodbye to her on that airstrip, only with different clothes, slightly different hair. She hadn’t aged decades and lived an entire life in between like she had the first time he’d seen her after he woke up in a new century. This was the Peggy he’d known and loved long ago.
Finally, he exhaled. He smiled at her, nervously, like a skittish stray animal who wasn’t sure it was okay to approach the person in front of him. “Peggy. You -- it’s really you.”
That look. Steve - at 6.5 stone soaking wet - had that look before he squared his shoulders and lay back within the chamber that would turn him to Captain America. Peggy left her wondering.
“Me?” Flustered, her arms crossed and uncrossed over her chest, before she took a deep breath to reclaim her calm. You’re alive. What had transpired in his life? Whatever was unknown, unsaid … it deserved her respect. However, she could not help but impulsively fling her arms round his neck.
Almost instantly, Steve relaxed. "Yeah, you," he murmured, chuckling lightly as he eased his arms around her in return and hugged her close.
He couldn't say it'd been a long time since he'd seen her, because that wasn't precisely true. It had been a long time since he'd seen the Peggy he knew during the war, however. More and more, that felt like a different life, like he'd been a completely different person, or at least that the life belonged to someone else. He'd come a long way since he'd woken up confused and lost in a city he didn't understand.
"It's good to see you," he added instead, because at least that was true. It was good to see her. He'd missed her, more than he'd wanted to admit.
“It bloody well better be!” was softly spoken. Seventy years in the future, and perhaps Peggy simply didn’t want to know what those eyes had seen. But, focusing hard on the here and now, she pulled back enough to lay her palm gently against his cheek. Tears were for later, though they threatened to scald her cheeks, and were kept only just a bay. He had meant so much to so many.
But she had been glad to call him comrade. A step back - a fully-realized step - to the chair which awaited. She lit upon its edge and folded her hands carefully in her lap. Her mother’s voice - composure, the key to civility - was crisp in her mind.
There was so much to say. Pleasantries, then? “You look well.”
Although he wanted to keep ahold of her hand, fearing none of it was real or that it might get ripped from him all over again, Steve let her back away and sit down without protest. He’d never been good at standing up to her, or insisting on something that he wasn’t sure she was comfortable with. He deferred to her and looked to her for guidance; that hadn’t changed, despite all of the years between them.
He took his seat again as well, and tilted his head, looking at her with a bemused expression. “That’s all you have to say? I look well?” he asked, teasing her gently. “I’d suggest thanking Dr. Erskine for that, but he’s not here.” He had so many questions for her, and he knew she must have just as many for him. Where was he even supposed to start? “How are you? Are you feeling okay? I know this whole thing… it’s kind of crazy. I didn’t know what to make of it when I got here.”
“ … well, your hair could use a good combing, but I thought perhaps the A-bomb caught them all and everyone here had dreadful bedhead.” Her mouth quirked briefly, before her gaze dropped to her hands. How was she? The internal self-checks she’d established to determine her rate of fine had been obliterated when she’d been pulled from the pod. Lacking true north, she simply didn’t know what it meant. Yet. She swallowed.
“I’d just said goodbye to you. I’d stepped off the Brooklyn Bridge and woke up here. I suppose scorched earth and a warzone is, rather, a comfort.”
“Oh.” Steve’s cheeks turned pink, and he averted his gaze as he lifted a hand to ruffle through his hair and try to smooth it down self-consciously. Although he’d started wearing his hair differently, less like he really had just woken in the 1940s and more messy, he suspected the bed-head might have been from Carol.
It was just as hard thinking about Peggy saying goodbye to him now as it had been when he’d first realized what had happened to him. She’d been left to pick up the pieces he’d left behind. Seeing the life she’d made in his absence helped, but… Steve still had a lot of regrets. He still wished their lives hadn’t turned out the way they had. “‘45?” He looked sympathetically at her. “I guess… this is familiar, in some ways. We’re used to hardship. At least we have an actual roof over our heads, and not just a tent.”
The twitch of a smile returned. “Indeed.”
Then, back to the situation at hand -- “‘47 … roundabout. I got a few good months in without the bloody rationing.” Silk was a godsend. But it looked like whatever she had here was all there was. She sat back in her chair, nails drumming against the edge. “But I recognised it was on the front I was comfortable …” She trailed off. “We had our own battles to fight on the homefront, though. And they were just beginning.”
“What’s seventy years on look like, Cap?”
1947? When she'd mentioned saying good bye to him, he'd imagined something closer to the day he'd disappeared, not years later. Steve wanted to ask what she'd been doing, what battles she'd been fighting then, what had taken her so long to say good bye, but she'd asked first.
"Well…" He heaved a sigh. "The city looks different. Too many lights, too many cars… I'm more famous than I ever was during the war. Kids dress up like me for Halloween, Peggy. There was an exhibit in D.C. about me. Let's see. Computers fit into my pocket now, I'm friends with a Norse god, and we saved the planet from an alien invasion." Looking back, it all sounded insane. "Hydra's still a problem, but we were… dealing with that, as best we could. The future's a hell of a place, Peggy. It's been… it's been hard to get used to." He smiled faintly, one corner of his mouth turning upwards. "Lonely."
“ … I …” That was a lot to process. But Peggy, whose reflexes were quick, quickly reestablished her calm. “I’m glad the world has you. Or even has you still. I’m not entirely sure of the metaphysical elements of this place. Boots on the ground is a hard enough development to process and now --” Her brow furrowed.
“I hope not terribly lonely. I hope you’ve learned how to re-ignite your life.”
It'd taken him a long time to be glad that the world still had him, but he'd finally come around. Getting wrapped up in his duty to the Avengers and his job with SHIELD had helped him get oriented again, but he hadn't felt glad to be there -- in either place. The world might have needed him, but for a while, all Steve could see was how much trouble they'd brought to the world.
He still saw that, now, after Ultron. But he also felt steady and sure of his place again. There were always going to be people like Strucker or Loki. There had to be someone left to stand up to them.
"Yeah." His smile brightened a little and he nodded. "Yeah, I have. They're not you or the Commandos, but… I have a team at home. The Avengers. Friends. They've helped make sure I didn't get too lost in a world I didn't feel like I belonged to anymore. And here, too. I've been here two months, and I still don't understand how any of this is possible, but we're trying to make the best of it, do what we can to help out, make lives for ourselves. I'm actually running for the council, believe it or not."
The Avengers. She wondered, after Tony’s description of what he did, if he and Steve knew each other. Certainly, with seventy years gone, they knew the connections and the fibrous tissue that linked all Starks to all Carters, to the SSR, to … whatever she had coming up with the rest of the time allotted to her life. But when he talked about this council, she piqued.
“What’s that?”
If he had to guess, he would have assumed she was asking about the Avengers. But... this was a world she didn't know well, and Steve didn't want to get caught assuming he knew what was going on behind those dark eyes. "The council? Or the Avengers?"
It was strange, in retrospect, how comfortable he'd gotten. He didn't have much of a choice - or rather, he didn't like the other option. He'd always tried to adjust to the world he was in and what it asked of him. He was getting better at it, slowly.
"The council's the local government. Chancellor Abby Griffin and a handful of other people, they're officially in charge. They offered us two spots, since it doesn't seem like we're going away any time soon." Steve was curious about what she'd say about him and politics. "So I'm running, since my whole... saving the world from people trying to destroy it gig isn't as needed here. Yet, anyway."
“It’s just a new landscape for battle, this council,” she said after a moment. While she was certain that Steve’s success as Captain America - and an Avenger, good Lord - could be recreated here, as a politician, she offered him a lopsided smile.
“I’ve seen you land words just as hard as your fists.”
That was a good way of putting it, Steve thought with a brighter smile. He had his missions, and there were things he could throw his back into around Mount Weather, but the real fight might end up being a less violent one than he was used to. It might be where he could do the most good for the most people, which was the entire reason he went all in with Erskine's program. Fighting in the war, being an Avenger, working for SHIELD, those were all things that Steve did for the greater good.
And when those things weren't part of the greater good anymore, he found a way to do what was right.
"Well, I haven't won yet. So we'll see. But I think Adaar and I have a good shot here."
Easing one ankle behind the other, Peggy narrowed her eyes. Steve’s countenance and good humour spoke of being comfortable with his place in this world. He was in the process of making a name for himself -- and with or without the serum, she trusted that he would never be ordinary.
“Well, you’ve got my vote. If I get one.”
"I was counting on yours, so I'm glad to hear that. You'll get one. We all do. There's an actual demon running, so… it's going to be interesting."
Talking about the campaign was small talk, though, and a way for Steve to avoid some of the more difficult things they had to face. He knew what he needed to tell her, but he didn't know how. There were so many years between them, and so much had happened. His old life - the one he thought they could share - seemed to removed from the one he led now, like it belonged to another person.
His forehead creased in a worried frown. "It's been a few years since… since they found me too. So much has happened, Peggy, I -- I don't know where to start telling you about it.” It wasn’t just about what had happened, though. “About who I am now.”
The word ‘demon’ caused a blink. But it was a fact to be filed for later deconstruction. She felt as though Steve’s which followed were a preparation for something he wasn’t looking forward to say. Or, perhaps, she was only imagining the beat of her heart in a crescendo against her ribcage.
Then they’d both had to live with the lack of one another. And Peggy, who’d only just learned the forward march, had thought she knew the beat of this particular step. She cleared her throat.
“Well, Steve. Are you going to tell it to me or the marines?”
Although the tension was still in the air around them, Steve chuckled. She deserved to hear about their lives from the people she cared about, not from strangers. "You asked for it," he said, trying to keep his tone light-hearted. Then he took a deep breath. "Bucky's here. He -- he didn't die. I'll let him tell you his story if he wants to, but…" Steve's smile was weak, but the emotion in his eyes was hard to miss. "We've had a rough road lately. We can tell you about it sometime, when he's ready." He didn't know if that answer would be good enough for her, but Steve knew she'd understand one day. He wasn't going to take Bucky's privacy or his choice away from him, no matter how much he wanted Peggy to understand what had happened to him. The most important thing was Bucky's autonomy.
"And I'm seeing someone."
It'd taken him years. He'd put off all of Natasha's attempts to set him up, using every excuse he could think of. He hadn't been ready, but the more he felt part of the world, the more he craved that companionship. He'd always love Peggy, and he'd always miss her. That hadn't changed. Seeing the way her life had unfolded before her without him helped him move forward too. She'd never wanted to hold him back. "Her name's Carol. I think… there are other big things, about the life you led, the legacy you created," he'd been so proud, and it showed on his face, "and what Hydra did to destroy all of that. About Howard, all our friends. But I think those two are the most… immediate things you should know about. Everything else is about home, and since we're not there… we can take our time getting through all of that."
And now, she supposed, Steve held all the cards. If, indeed, they were even playing with a full deck. Barnes was alive, he’d found himself a girl and … knew everything about her. His eyes shown with the pride of understanding what she’d spent her life’s work doing, only to have HYDRA ultimately undermine. It was just this side of overwhelming.
“I suppose it all has something to do with young Agent Simmons learning about me in SHIELD Academy. While I certainly can’t imagine to understand the breadth of what you’re suggesting, Steve, I suppose I shall have to simply learn it all in good time.” Uncoupling her ankles, she at last found her feet and afforded him a weary smile.
“ … you seem happy, Steve. I’m quite glad.” A pause. “And tired.”
Jemma Simmons wouldn't be where she was without the influence of Peggy Carter. None of them would be, as far as Steve was concerned. If it hadn't been for Peggy and Howard, where would they have been years later? Peggy had no idea how lasting of an impact she would have over the years. Steve had always known that she would accomplish great things; he'd just imagined being by her side through it all.
Peggy was just as intuitive now as she always had been, and that brightened Steve's smile. He was happy. Happier than he'd been since waking up in the SHIELD facility in New York. Happier than he thought he'd ever be. "Happy and tired. That's right. I don't feel as worn down as I did before I got here, but I'd been in the hospital not long before that, thanks to Hydra. But we can get into that later, if you want. Or whenever. We have plenty of time. And I'd like to introduce you around, once you get settled." Nervous, he let himself talk on and on, filling the space with something. "Sorry, I… I've never really known what to say around you. I think I got ahead of myself."
“Let’s …” Oh God, she could have gone on for hours. And there wouldn’t have been any need to stop, if it wasn’t for the odd jangling in her nerves. She needed a bourbon, she needed to hit something. She needed, above anything, a good sleep.
“Don’t be sorry, Steve. I don’t quite know what to say either. You’ve caught me up quite a lot but I think we shall find the page soon enough.”
Steve exhaled and his shoulders slumped a little. He was trying to be relaxed -- he was trying to relax -- but he couldn't shake feeling like he was doing this all wrong, or like he was going to hurt her. Even though he knew Peggy was more than capable of handling whatever he threw her way, he didn't want to make the situation harder for her than it already was. Maybe he should have…
No, she would have wanted him to be honest, he reminded himself. No matter how overwhelming or difficult it was, Peggy had always wanted the truth. She wouldn't have appreciated him deciding how much she could handle for her.
"We'll figure the rest out," he assured her. "We always have. Honestly, right now, I think I'm just… it's just really good to see you."
“I haven’t any doubts.” For Peggy knew that Steve, trusting to the strength of her own mind and back, wouldn’t hold back from her -- be it the truth or a good hard wallop. But his latter comment gave her the leave to smile, to let her shoulders round a bit.
“And you, Steve. It’s equally as pleasing knowing it isn’t the only time.” Unless this place were to wink out of existence. Then, perhaps, there would be something wholly different for all of them to come to grips with. But this world gave her back her comrade-in-arms.
And she would delight herself in that.
“Until then.”