Re: Log, Marvel: Peggy C & Steve R
War was strange. Horrible, yes, and strange. Birth and death brought close, and while it was ugly, there could be some beauty there too. Friendships forged in fire, under barrage and staccato gunfire, trees bursting all around with shells falling like leaves—and like memories that echoed long after war's end, those friendships, those connections, lingered, unlike any others made in peace. Steve had been told he was made for war, not peace, and though he disagreed, and though he wished, with the entirety of his person, that war didn't happen, he didn't regret the people he'd met. And that included Peggy. Hell, that starred Peggy.—They hadn't known each other with the thoroughness of peacetime courtship. There were details missing. But, the deeper things were all there. He didn't know her favorite color (red, likely), but he knew she'd jump on a grenade to save lives. He knew she was brave, loyal, intelligent, wore perfume he really liked, smiled beautifully, was supportive, strong, didn't take shit from anyone (least of all him), and many other things he admired. Years of war strung between them like a cat's cradle in blood thread, years together on the road, fighting side-by-side, and perhaps Steve didn't know the details, but he knew what he felt for Peggy Carter and it was an expansive, warm feeling that spread out from the gut, tinging cheeks pink and he remembered the way she looked at him when he brought Bucky and the others back, when he hadn't pinged her for a ride, and he knew she felt it too.
It was only now that they really got to... get into it, so to speak. Dinner, dances, the things neither of them excelled at, but both wanted with each other, and to Steve's mind, it was that desire that mattered.—And the way those red lips curled with warmth when she looked at him. That was important too. An image that rode in his mind after she beamed, and they blundered against each other, with her trying to come through the door and him hurrying backward.
"Thank you," he mumbled in response to her compliment, and he was glad he only had to face the stairs then. They didn't mind him turning red, and he could compose himself before they sat down to dinner.
Inside his apartment, he smiled, and gave a nervous laugh when she teased him about being a chef. He took the cake easily, small in his hand, and he placed it inside the icebox, amid far too many fresh vegetables (but a city boy who'd been long at war luxuriated in vegetables in a way others, maybe, did not).
"I don't know about a chef, but, ah... I tried, and here in America, we say that means something." He smiled, and it was a simple, happy thing, even if it did come with rosy cheeks and eyes that dropped hastily to the table. Steve noticed Peggy's curiosity, however, and he nodded a little. "You can look around while I make you a plate. There's only a bedroom, really. Nothing too interesting." And, of course, entirely earnestly: "Thank you for the cake. I don't think I've ever had birthday cake."
He meant to behave himself, but he looked up once from the pork and potatoes, and Steve made a sort of noise in his throat, before he remembered no one was watching them—that they could do as they pleased here. He stepped around that table, and looking long at Peggy to make certain it was alright with her, he slipped his hands to her waist, Billie singing in the background, and he smiled down at her, an intimate thing that bordered on heat. "May I kiss you?"