"It's different," Steve protested, even though he wasn't sure how to put it into words. "It's... look, I'm not about to tell you that you have to sit this out and watch from the sidelines. I respect you too much for that, and I know you know your own mind, and - and you're right, I couldn't do this without you."
Because Stark was right enough in that respect. There was no chance that Steve would get away with making contact with any of the people on Scott's list, not without raising some serious red flags. He wasn't sure if Peggy would be able to get away with it either, but she was a hell of a lot likelier to manage it than Steve was.
"But there's a difference," Steve said roughly, worn thin by the very idea of it, "between you helping me out as a fellow revolutionary, and you helping me out as my - as someone special to me." He took a breath, remembered the harshness of Natasha's words, how that had shaken him so badly, had cut him right to the core. And then he made the decision to do the exact same thing to Peggy.
"It's the difference between a bullet to the head, a quick clean death, and them torturing you in every way they know how and throwing it up on some screen for me to watch," Steve said, quick and quiet, forcing the words out despite his clenched jaw. It felt like tempting to fate to even say that out loud, but if Peggy was going to commit to this, commit to him, he needed to know she had her eyes wide open.