Maxine Stacy (hisbestgirl) wrote in we_coexist, @ 2015-03-10 21:38:00 |
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Entry tags: | peggy carter, steve rogers, zz:status complete |
Save the date (Steve; log TBC in comments)
Howard had been trying to cheer her up, but she would never admit that she appreciated his concern. Peggy did not want Howard to know just how badly Steve's death was affecting her. She never had been good at expressing herself, not that the desire was there.
Had it been Steve; had Steve asked her what was wrong, showed concern, she might have cracked wide open and spilled everything out. But as it was, Steve was gone and no promise of "the best fondue in all of New York" would get her singing. The thought of going to meet Howard anywhere seemed disgusting to her.
Needing a minute, Peggy stepped out on to the sidewalk in New York. She was heading toward a location that housed a secret base of operation in a curbside meat deli. Their antique store had been infiltrated, and so they had moved to accommodate a place obvious, busy, and also secret. The discretion was the location of the place, built on an incline. It made for housing secret technology and space beneath it all the better.
Slowly she walked. Her eyes tipped to the concrete, watching her shoes, and then something changed though she had not noticed. At least not until she happened to glance back up.
The suddenly crowded street of New York had grown empty. Her eyes darted about the street, and a hand slipped into a pocket of her jacket, fingers grazing the Walther concealed in the fabric.
This couldn't be New York and it was unlike any city she had been to. She had visited many, all over the world, and this one seemed so different for reasons she couldn't understand.
But she kept to herself. She would not panic.
Her eyes fell to a small cafe across the street and after a quick glance in both directions, Peggy crossed. She stepped over the curbside, approached the door and moved in as if she had been to that place all her life. A sweep of the interior, exits and then faces, Peggy made her way to the counter.
The clerk looked up at her with a smile, though Peggy appreciated the kindness she did not return the look. Instead she offered the man a hard look, "Excuse me. What is this place?" She needed information, more than what observation alone was offering her.
--
Cafés didn't interest Steve much. He liked to brew his own coffee, preferring a strong American blend to the various types offered at most places. And on quiet nights, when loneliness closed in, he had a supply of tea that reminded him of the woman who had introduced him to the drink. Something he definitely preferred to have alone.
But the corner of his eye caught movement, a dress style that was so outdated the term 'retro' couldn't apply. Along with the smart dress suit was a measured step that made his own pace stop short.
A car honked at him. Steve scrambled to the sidewalk, staring after the woman who had just entered the café.
It couldn't be. Peggy Carter was 96 years old, bedridden, and safe at home. But his memory screamed that it was her.
Steve was across the street in seconds, bursting into the coffee shop, heart pounding. He was going to be quite embarrassed if it was just a trick. But then he caught scent of her shampoo.
"Peggy?" The name fell from his lips, desperate and homesick.
--
Peggy looked down at the strange items lining the sides of the counter around the register.
The City, the clerk had said. What sort of a name was that for any real city? It couldn't be a real place. It had to be some mind trick HYDRA was using on her. Somehow.
Her hand left her pocket, abandoning the gun in the lining in efforts to collect intel. Peggy plucked a strange thing from a slot on the counter and held it up to get a better look. A blonde girl smiled up at her from the plastic wrapped container. Who was Taylor Swift?
Flipping the device over, her eyes scanned the words on the back.
And then she was jolted out of her investigation by a voice. A familiar voice. And her name.
Her head lifted and turned, glancing over her shoulder for the source of the sound. And her fingers instantly let go of the thing she was holding. It clattered to the ground at her feet, resting at the toes of her heels instantly forgotten.
"Steve?"
--
He didn't wait a moment longer. She turned at the name, and it was her, it was Peggy Carter, and his arms were wrapping around her.
"It's me," he breathed, squeezing his eyes shut against the tears that wanted to come. The hole that had filled his chest since he'd learned how long he'd been trapped in ice suddenly ached, throbbed, felt whole. "It's really me, Peg."
Too soon, he drew back from the embrace, wanting to see her, wanting her to see him. Someone knew him. Not just him, but someone who knew skinny old Steve Rogers of Brooklyn. A connection to a distant past.
"You're really here," he said, in tones of wonder and disbelief.
--
She couldn't move. It was as if she was frozen in the spot she stood, but that was alright. He had moved for her and in an instant she found herself enveloped in those arms. Those strong arms.
She blinked. Her eyes were filling with moisture. He was alive. She had known in her heart that he had survived somehow. Somehow. But how had he ended up here? And how had she found him?
Opening her mouth to say something, anything, Peggy emitted a soft noise. And her arms lifted and curled around his neck. Her face was buried in his skin for the briefest moment before he was pulling away. Too soon.
Her chin lifted and her eyes found his. Searched his face. "You're alive," she finally managed. One of her arms unwound from around his neck and her palm found his chest, resting over his heart. "I knew it. I knew you were alive."
Peggy smiled. She was relieved that he had made it. Now she could take him back with her and show everyone that he lived.
"How did you end up here? Did you swim?" That was the confusing part and the rational part of her mind needed to know. Needed to ask.
--
A sad smile flickered across his lips. "That's a story," he said. Not one he was looking forward to telling, but one she needed to hear.
Holding her hand, Steve looked at the girl behind the counter, ordered two large Earl Gray teas, and escorted Peggy to a table to wait for the drinks.
"A lot happened after the crash," he began. "But not for me. I... I was trapped. Went down in the Arctic. Started taking on water, and it was freezing as soon as it hit the air. I... I didn't make it out, Peg."
His voice might have tightened a bit, as well as the hand still wrapped around hers. "When I woke up, they told me seventy years had passed. It was 2014. The serum kept me in statis, but the world went on without me."
--
Her eyes flickered across his face as he stepped back, but her hand felt right in his own so she left it there. The other palm moved to rest at her side. There was a brief glance offered to the girl at the counter, a nod in appreciation and then her attention was all for the tall blonde soldier.
Peggy settled into the hard chair, a leg crossed over the other as she sat. Her back was straight, always, but her shoulders slumped some to spite her posture.
What he was telling her was crazy. It had to be. That would make Steve around ninety five years old, and he looked as though he hadn't aged a day since she last saw him. His clothes were certainly different, a strange sort of style, but that could be addressed later.
"Two thousand fourteen? Quite the leap from nineteen forty five. But why here?"
The age didn't matter. The time didn't matter. He was alive, and both of them were here. Wherever here was. They had another chance to make it, that flicker of hope she had held on to was becoming a flame.
All of the information he was giving her she knew to be true. He wouldn't lie to her, not for any reason. He knew better.
"How long has it been since you came here?" Why didn't he try to contact her? So many questions flooded through her at the same time.
--
She believed him. That in itself was a relief. She hasn't shown the slightest doubt, despite how crazy he knew the story sounded. It was like coming home. Steve couldn't help smiling at her.
God, he'd missed her. Seventy years, dreaming of a date, only to learn it had passed him by. Now, they had another chance.
"I've been here a couple of weeks. It's... strange. This place, this City. It takes people in, from all different worlds and times." He took some time explaining what he had learned of how the city worked, though most of it still didn't make sense to him.
"Howard's son is here," he added. "Tony. He's... Well, he's even more of an arrogant ass than Howard ever was, but he's a good man. I've worked with him a bit."
Then emotion faded completely from his expression, and he added, in a voice just as void, "Bucky is here, too."
--
"Howard's son? Is here?" Peggy's mind wandered to the weapons inventor, the billionaire egoist that was the patriot saint of the weapons department. Also the one that continued to take her out for the best fondue in the entirety of New York.
Why Tony would be here didn't seem to shock her. It would be good to have an ally if the younger Stark was as formidable as the elder.
And then the real shock came. Bucky? As in Sergeant Barnes? Steve's best friend.
Peggy blinked and almost didn't realize there was a cup next to her elbow. Usually she would have seen the girl approach and retreat, but she had been so caught up in what Steve was saying to her that she had forgotten all of her training.
Then Peggy shook her head at Steve, minding the steaming cup at her elbow. "They don't matter to me. You are the most important."
This place seemed equivalent to her of a ghost town, dredging up people from all walks of life. But none of them mattered as much to her as this one. This ghost.
--
His hand squeezed hers for a moment, appreciating the comment. "I still owe you that dance," he said, looking up at her. His blue eyes were a whirl of emotion; relief and love at the foremost. He could set the rest aside for now. The difficulty that was James Buchanan Barnes could be shared, with her. At last, there was someone who would understand how the changes in Bucky were affecting him.
But right now, it was all about Peggy. He'd been impressed by her from the first moment he'd seen her. A beautiful woman, who could easily have gotten by on her looks alone, fighting for a place in the Army, alongside some of the toughest men the world had to offer. And she fit, boy did she fit. She was tougher, smarter, stronger than most of the men Steve had trained with.
For him, Peggy had been precious, something to come back to. It was no mistake that her picture had been in his compass. She was his North, his touchstone to the world. Before he'd gotten into the Army, all he had wanted was to go, to fight, to give his life for the safety and protection of his fellow soldiers, for his country. But after meeting Peggy, after falling for her, he'd wanted more - he'd wanted to survive, to win the war, to accomplish his mission and then come back. Since his morals wouldn't allow him to do any less for his brothers-at-arms than he would for himself, it had become his goal to save as many as he could, give them the same chance. He would win the war, save lives, and make certain that everyone who wanted to go home could go home - because Peggy Carter would be waiting for him.
And here she was. Still dazzling, still strength and fire and passion. Deliberately, Steve lifted his free hand and pinched his arm, hard. When the scene didn't fade, his smile grew.
--
Her eyes lit up at the mention of the dance he had promised her. Before his plane went down into the ocean, before her hope had plummeted into the dark waters, Peggy had set a date and a time. Now he really could take her up on the offer to teach him. And she found she wanted that badly, maybe worse than he did.
When Steve pinched his own arm, Peggy laughed softly, "I think you read my mind there." It had felt like a dream, especially at first when he called her name and she turned to see him there. But this wasn't a dream. It was Heaven.
"Would you give me the tour?" Gathering intel on this City seemed appropriate, and she was not going to waste any more time sitting in this cafe when she and Steve had been given a second chance at being together.
Turning, Peggy picked up the styrofoam cup, lifted the lid off and looked down into it. The steam from the brew met her warmly and she sighed with relief. Some things hadn't changed, at least. That was a start.
Replacing the lid, Peggy lifted her eyes and was up out of her seat determined to see everything. And then to figure out what they would do next.
--
"Of course," he said, getting to his feet automatically as she did. He fixed the lid on his own styrofoam cup and then offered her his arm. "Anywhere and everywhere."
Then a thought occurred to him. "You might want to check your pockets. I had my own apartment here when I woke up. Keys and everything. Part of the power of this place is that it sort of gives you what you need." He would, of course, invite her to stay in his guest room if she did't have a place to stay, but that was bordering on inappropriate, and he didn't want to overstep his bounds. They were in the early stages of courtship, after all. In the 1940s it would have been outright scandalous for a woman to stay in the same place as a man she wasn't married to. Since he was still adjusting to them himself, Steve didn't think Peggy would be prepared for how some of the social rules had changed.
Then again, maybe she would. She always had been a forward-thinker. In either case, it was her choice to make, not his.
--
Checking her pockets? This sure was a strange place, giving a person a place to live without them even knowing this world existed outside of their own. Holding her cup in one hand, the fingers of her other hand slipped into the pocket of her jacket opposite the one with the Walther.
The jingle was what she heard first, and then she produced from the flap a key with a fob attached.
On one side of the fob was a number and her name, nineteen with Carter written above it. And on the other side it said Agreeable Apartments.
How did it know her name already? She hadn't given it to anyone.
Her eyes flicked up at Steve and she held the fob and key up. "Is this what you meant?"
--
In answer, Steve took his own keys from his pocket, tilting them to show her the fob with his own name, and the number fourteen. "That's the one. Neighbor." His keys also held the ignition key for his motorcycle, a duplicate of the one he'd had in Washington DC in 2014. "I'm just down the hall from you. We can stop by there first, if you like, so you can see what it looks like. My place was already furnished, had my uniform, plenty of clothes, and was stocked with food. It was... a little intimidating, to be honest. Takes some getting used to, but I've heard from enough sources that the City is actually alive, and it likes to provide for the people that live here."
It was something else he wasn't entirely comfortable with, but since the City seemed mostly benevolent, he was willing to see how it went. It was a fairly neutral entity, for having people like Ariel as well as people like Edward Nashton among it's citizenry.
--
Peggy looked at Steve's fob, nodded once and placed her own keys back into the pocket from where they had come. Her arm encircled his, and she lifted her cup up and toward the door, "Then let's get to it, shall we?"
She was glad to be here with him, as strange as this world was.
People were going to need to be seen during her time here - she would seek out Stark, specifically, and then Sergeant Barnes for an update. She was curious as to what projects, if any, the young Stark was currently working at. Was there even a need for weapons here?
Was there a military? A need for spies or anything of that nature? She had been so involved in military affairs so being in a place without...well it seemed both peaceful and a bit off-putting. Not that she wanted to fight, she did like quiet now and then.
It was more of being useful. Being able to help an extend her skills where they were needed. She would just have to rely on Steve more than she would like to until she gathered her bearings.