InsaneJournal

Who: Peggy Carter & Steve Rogers
What: A reunion?
When: A little while after this
Rating/Warnings: Green

Whilst she had been standing quite patiently listening to Doctor Stephen Strange as he told her about timelines and being in the future, Peggy had at points been quite distracted as she saw a passerby with a newspaper in his hand and a photo on it of someone that had looked a lot like Steve. She had dragged her attention back to the man - who called himself a master of the Mystic Arts - and had great doubts about what he was telling her. She was in the future? 2018? The timeline was broken and so she was in some kind of alternative reality?

It all sounded like bollocks, if you asked her. Quite honestly, she thought the man had lost his mind but the more logical part of her felt that he was quite sound: the vehicles, clothing, even the buildings were nothing like the New York that she knew. It was busier than she ever would have considered possible, technology was everywhere - videos on the side of buildings and buses. Overhead, she saw planes flying whilst street vendors accepted cashless payments for goods with the tap of a card. Technology that Howard Stark would have loved, she thought a little wistfully, although if Strange was to be believed, he may be here as well. She looked forward to hearing what he had to say about it all if she had to stay.

She'd had no desire to remain here and was going to ask Strange to send her home - if that was possible - until he mentioned to her that Steve was here. She had managed to get Steve’s address out of the doctor and when he handed her an envelope that contained a personal computer and small phone (neither of which she had any idea of how to use), a network code, a hotel room key - which was not a key but a small rectangular piece of plastic - and some money, she thanked him and went on her way, hailing a cab and giving the address of the hotel that Steve was in.

“Darlin’,” the driver drawled, looking at her in the rear-view mirror, “you goin’ to some kind of renaissance fair or d’you just love that retro look?”

Peggy met his eyes in the mirror and just arched an eyebrow. “Do you ask all of your passengers such personal questions?” she asked, tone short and cutting.

The driver whistled and muttered “Touchy,” under his breath, falling silent until they reached the building.

After paying the extortionate cost for the fare, she walked into the hotel with the envelope tucked under her arm. She wasted no time in heading straight for the elevator, amazed at how quick it was to lift her seventeen floors, leaving her feeling a little dizzy at how quickly it had moved. It dinged cheerfully to tell her she had reached her destination and told her to ‘mind the doors’ as she stepped outside. There had been no music, but she supposed if the journey was less than two minutes, there was little need.

She walked to the room number that she had been told belonged to Steve Rogers with all the confidence she could muster but when it came time to actually knock she felt that falter. She stood in front of his door, envelope held against her chest with both arms and chastising herself for losing her nerve right at the last moment.

It had been a long time; what could possibly be on the other side of that door? Who could possibly be on the other side of that door? Was it her Steve, or was it another Steve? A Steve that had had a chance to age, to grow old and live the life that had been taken from him? She had no idea, and in that moment, she wasn’t entirely sure that she wanted to.

“Oh for God’s sake,” she said to herself, finally lifting her hand to knock.

Steve had spent more time out of his hotel room than he had in it as he had a lot of catching up to do not to mention rebuilding bridges which had seemingly either been burned or not been kept in a good condition and to be honest he was tired. Really tired. He was hopefully going to get a few hours of sleep, a hot shower and a change of clothes before he would be back out again.

He'd taken the elevator up and was busy rummaging his key card out for his room so it took him a minute before he realised that he was not in fact alone in that corridor. Of course realising this fact and being able to deal with said fact were two very different things entirely. He honestly had to take a second look because if his eyes weren't deceiving him then Peggy Carter was stood outside of his hotel room. Not the Peggy he remembered but the Peggy from the war, the very same one that had unloaded a pistol at him or rather the shield that Howard had made for him.

Of all the weird things this alternate reality had done this was by far the most messed up thing. It was one thing to drag living breathing people into this mess but dearly departed? That went a step too far even if he was sincerely happy for Wanda that she had Pietro back, but that was Wanda, this was... well, him and Peggy. The same Peggy that he'd found in that home and had spent countless visits covering the same ground over and over as she hadn't had the best grasp on sanity, alzheimers was cruel that way. He'd carried her coffin, attended her funeral and also buried her.

He realised he'd been standing and staring for far too long and just took a steadying breath before making the approach.

"...Peggy?"

Peggy dropped everything she was holding when she heard Steve's voice coming from behind her. The sound of her name coming from his lips hit her like a hammer to the chest and she felt the air pushed out of her lungs. She turned her head slowly, eyes widening as the envelope hit the floor with a thud.

Steve was standing there in front of her, dressed in denim trousers and a jacket, his hair slightly longer than she remembered it and he looked tired and stressed. But he was alive, he was there. Doctor Strange hadn't lied.

"Steve," she breathed, taking half a step towards him before she stopped herself, aborting the move where she was reaching out for him and instead just folding her hands together. She looked heartbroken, though, a guilt wracking through her that they'd just left him where the plane had crashed. If they'd looked harder, maybe they could have found him.

She swallowed, her voice shaking like her hands. "You're- you're alive."

Oh God. For one horrifying and truly terrifying moment Steve was shot back in time to where he would spend hours in that chair talking to a completely lucid Peggy only for her to forget absolutely everything they’d talked about and him having to go back through the fact he was alive, very much alive. As bad as it had been he’d almost felt relief when she’d passed because she was no longer trapped in her mind and unable to control anything.

Breathe, Steve, breathe… He cleared his throat and plastered a smile on his face because this Peggy wasn’t the Peggy he remembered from all those painful hours.

“Yeah, I mean, I didn’t get my dance after all.”

Peggy noticed how Steve's expression faltered when she spoke to him. He always had worn his heart on his sleeve, it was one of the many things she'd liked about him. She had always known where she stood. It confused her a little but then he was smiling at her and talking about how he didn't get his dance and it was almost too much to bear.

Her chest clenched painfully, the rush of grief as she remembered being stuck on the other end of a radio, making plans they both knew would never happen. She'd gone to the dance hall anyway as agreed and stood on the edge of the dance floor, turning down every offer she received: she was waiting for someone. They'd made a date.

She let out a laugh that was somewhere between breathless and tearful though after a few seconds she just looked away and dropped to a graceful crouch on the floor to gather up the items that she had dropped, using the time to pull herself together.

"Well, it's about seventy years too late. I'm quite sure that dance hall will have been demolished."

The moment Peggy dropped to a crouch to pick up the things she’d dropped at the sight of him Steve rushed over and began to help her. “Actually it’s not,” he assured her with a smile. “I may have swung by there after I woke up, in the future that is, obviously not in the past.” And he was rambling, Steve very painfully clamped down on that as he was well aware that rambling wasn’t going to help anyone.

“I still have two left feet though,” he said with a further smile as their hands met and he cleared his throat.

“I find that hard to believe,” Peggy said softly after thanking Steve for helping her to gather her things. As she reached out to pick up her lipstick, her fingers brushed his and she froze, looking up at him for a moment and just taking him in - a face she thought she would never see again, still as sharp as ever but somehow sadder behind the eyes. She caught the tube with her fingers and pulled it to the pile she had been making of things, clearing her throat and fussing with the pile, trying to put things back into the damaged envelope and ignoring how her skin prickled with the touch, the ghost of something more, a dance partner that never was.

What a mess.

Steve mentioned waking up. He had survived the plane crash. It was knowledge that she filed away for a later date. And Strange had mentioned a Mister Stark, also that she was hardly the first time-displaced individual so her assumption that phrased her next sentence seemed sound.

“I met a Doctor who told me that Howard had arranged for all of these accommodations?” she asked, trying to piece herself back together, not looking at Steve again for a moment lest he see the guilt written across her face. “He must be quite a ripe old age. I’m disappointed to see there’s no flying cars yet. The future is somewhat less impressive than I had thought it would be.”

Her eyes flicked back to Steve; she wanted to tell him she was sorry but she couldn’t find the words.

Steve’s fingers curled back in towards his palms, skin still tingling from where her fingers had made contact with his. Then she mentioned Howard and Steve’s expression was for a moment completely open and totally unguarded because he realised in that moment that Peggy didn’t know. He cleared his throat and took a breath. “Howard’s dead, Peggy. The Stark that Strange is referring to is his son, Tony Stark. He’s every bit Howard’s son.”

Now that Peggy had gathered all her things Steve rose back up from the crouch and gestured.

“Would you like a drink?”

Peggy stayed crouched for a moment longer, trying to process that Howard, too, was gone. So who had it been that Strange had been referring to that was time-displaced? She pressed her lips together and just drew in a slow, slightly trembling breath before she straightened up. “Well, I suppose that makes sense. He would have to be pushing a hundred and people just don’t live that long.” She swallowed and didn’t ask what had happened to her.

Some things were best left unknown. One didn’t need to be aware of one’s ultimate fate, after all.

“Do you have something stronger than water?” she asked, clutching the folder against her chest again and stoically ignoring the fact that she knew her eyes were shining a little. “Because if so, one drink won’t kill me.”

Steve felt something in his chest go when he saw Peggy trying to process the fact Howard was gone and he knew a little something about how that felt. He’d felt the exact same way when he’d woken up and found that everybody he ever cared about was long gone. Everyone save Peggy, but Peggy hadn’t been the same. It was difficult to come to terms with and even harder to cope with for a long time.

“How does whiskey sound?” He asked with a small boyish smile as he pressed his keycard to the lock and the light turned from red to green.

Once inside he shrugged off his jacket and went over to the small bar, turning over two glasses and pouring both himself and Peggy a drink.

Peggy watched Steve slide the key into the holder on the door and heard it click, wondering if that was what her card would do when she got to the hotel that she was to be staying in. She followed him in and put the folder down on the table, ignoring how Doctor Strange had made an assumption regarding where she would be staying; he had thought she would be staying here, with Steve. And maybe once upon a time he might have done.

After the war she had been stuck in a queer position; mourning as a widow without having ever been married. Desperately mourning the loss of a loved one that neither she nor Howard had ever really wanted to give up looking for. But they had only been able to search for so long and then resources were tight and-

She shrugged out of her own jacket, revealing the white blouse she had on underneath and toed off her heeled shoes. Thankfully, she had seen many women in flat shoes. The future, she supposed, at least had removed the need for these beastly things. Her hand curled around the back of the nearby chair as Steve poured them both a drink and Peggy took the moment, now they were in private, to just breathe and sort through things. She was doing an admirable job of not letting her emotions show on her face - stiff upper lip and whatnot - but it was clear she was struggling.

Steve frowned as he could see quite clearly on Peggy’s face that she was struggling and that honestly made his heart hurt. Ah, hell. Steve placed aside his drink and pulled Peggy into his arms, right into a full blown Steve Rogers hug.

Tight, unforgiving, and solid as hell.

When Steve’s arms came around her, Peggy honest to goodness froze. Steve had always been demonstrative, but it was a pat on the shoulder, an awkward side-hug or calling her ‘Pegs’ rather than ‘Peggy’. In all the years they had known each other they had never once hugged like this. Even the kiss - still fresh in her memory two years later - had been a spur-of-the-moment thing because he was flying off to possible death. But dash it all if she wasn’t about to take advantage of the moment because she had thought she would never get to do it again.

Her arms moved around Steve’s waist and her fingers twisted in the fabric of his shirt as she just let herself be held. It was okay, she told herself; he couldn’t see her face therefore her indomitable calm illusion was unaffected.

“I never thought I’d see you again,” she told him after a moment, proud that her voice only cracked a little bit. “Howard and I- we looked- we looked for months.”

Steve swallowed hard as he heard the break in Peggy’s voice and just cast his eyes to the ceiling as he steeled himself through his own emotions because now wasn’t the time for him to let them get the better of him. He instead lifted a hand and curled it around the back of her head and just held on as if his life depended on it.

“I know,” he assured her softly. “I know, Pegs.”

Peggy just stood there for a few long moments, eyes closed as she clung to Steve in a manner she would quite vehemently deny if she were asked about it later. Eventually, though, she knew she had to just pull herself together and she drew back, her hand resting on Steve’s chest as her other one reached up to cup his cheek, affectionate - if not sad - smile on her face.

“Let’s have that drink. I feel like there’s quite a bit I’ve missed out on.” Her voice, to her credit, was almost completely steady, even if that smile faltered when she turned to go and get their drinks. “We have some catching up to do.”

Steve returned her smile with one almost identical one on Peggy’s face before he gave a nod of his head and pulled away, picking up his glass and offering hers to her.

“Yeah, we really do.”