InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Use the Force!"

s (atrophy) wrote in rooms,
@ 2015-02-20 05:08:00

Entry tags:

!marvel comics, *log, peggy carter, steve rogers

Log, Paley Park: Peggy C & Steve R
Who: Peggy Carter & Steve Rogers
What: a wish come true
Where: Marvel; Paley Park, NYC
When: the 14th
Warnings/Rating: probably toothachey sweetness

Please dress nicely, the card had said. So he had. Distracted as anything, he didn't notice he'd missed a button or two on his (very) white button-down. After all, he'd just gotten off the phone with Peggy(!), but before he could meet her, he'd been tasked with helping with... well, whatever this was going to be. Maybe he would have bowed out—politely, of course—but as the clock approached eight, he felt like maybe he should just go—he felt it like it was germinated from his own gut, like he wanted it, instead of some strange compulsion. It would be an hour or so, and then it would be over, and he could wait at Stark Tower for Peggy.—Of course, his attendance didn't ensure that anything other a physical presence, because, even as he walked through the buffeting of February in New York, wind slicing through his heavy leather coat, through woolen mittens, through the inband of his newly-purchased, old-timey hat—even then, his mind was... not exactly elsewhere, but more elsewhen.

The cold climbed clammy, but Steve ignored it. He couldn't help but remember the last time he and Peggy had spoken, the upward rush of the arctic waters, a grave he dug for himself, as her voice made promises softly from the speakers. It made his heart feel like someone was wringing it between two ham-sized fists, pummeling it, bullying it, as he walked, chin down, through the wash of Manhattan crowds. And if the wind froze some small pearl of tears to thick, blond lashes, he pretended not to notice.

Nothing drew his gaze, not until he got to the place—and he realized where he was. It was some pocket of green(ish, given the snow), grown on the foundation of the Stork Club, and rather suddenly, Steve felt like maybe he wasn't walking into what he imagined he might be walking into. There was an array of heaters, no orange-curling coils, but too ...modern for that. There were lights on strings. A sweep of bricks, winding without yellow back to a band and the frozen strands of a waterfall.—He couldn't help it. Stomach twisting like a sheet in the wind and his throat closed tight, one of those fists having moved on from his heart and its useless chambers, cinched there—and he stared.

Ella Fitzgerald, remade into modernity like the heaters, crooned by a woman over the blues-soft notes of her ensemble, and his mouth was open, quite literally. Confusion grew, and after a minute, Steve pulled his hat from his head in a rather youthful display of nervous politeness, and approached the wish-made dais. He looked around, gray fabric mashed between his hands.

He tugged back his sleeve to look at his watch. 8:01, and his breathing slowed. It couldn't be Peggy. She wouldn't be late.

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ex_determine89
2015-02-23 04:51 am UTC (link)

Peggy was expecting surprises. What other circumstances could there be to surprise her? Flying pigs? Flying saucers? (According to HerPad, though, there were quite a lot of those, and now they were parked in New Mexico. Fascinating. Strangely unnecessary, but fascinating.) Armed with her purse, newly open mind, and also simply armed, Peggy clicked quickly down the frosty street in a borrowed red overcoat and a new dress. It was modern, but its pattern and line suited her, and Peg was hardly a stranger to clothes that fit her. Really well.

She was in a hurry to walk into this potential trap, though. The sooner she walked into it, sprung it, dealt with it, and walked out again, the sooner she could meet Steve at the Tower. She was fairly sure it was going to be something innocent, perhaps to do with the silly wishes and the silly hotel. If it wasn’t, she’d just shoot it. She had things to get on with.

Peggy rounded the corner and stopped. She saw the lights first, and then heard the band. The music was familiar to her, but she hadn’t been in this world long enough that her familiar struck her as un-familiar. Not at first, certainly. She just blinked at the unexpected treat, and then smiled, charmed, her hands relaxing a little on her purse.

Then she saw Steve. At first, she didn’t recognize the big man with the hat in his hand, as he was turned ever so slightly into profile. In her mind, Steve Rogers was a smaller man; it wasn’t that she diminished him. Quite the contrary, in fact. This man was very tall, and his big winter coat hid much of his figure. He twisted his hat in his hands then, and turned slightly more, and she saw him. Really saw him.

“Steve!” It was something of a squeak, a little bit of a squeal and a lot of joy. Peggy was running before she noticed she was doing it, and dropped her purse so she could fling her arms around his neck at full speed.

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Log, Paley Park: Peggy C & Steve R

atrophy
2015-02-23 09:20 am UTC (link)

The night was a moment glinting in a time-trap, teardrop of amber, the setting a blurry slip of an era long gone recreated with present-day details, and it was beautiful. Steve was spellbound by it, completely drawn into the music and the soft yellow of fairylights. He fit right in even, a blend of time periods that had never stood next to one another: '40s hair, blond carefully brushed to the side, longer than men wore it today, the leather jacket cut new, his mittens and the gray wool hat relics. All bound together by the general timelessness of his simple suit, as black and white as the pictures he remembered. He was struck, even as his stomach did gymnastics, by the romance inherent here, in this replacement and repaved lot of the Stork Club. Everyone knew Steve Rogers was a sap, heart worn on paper cuffs in a red Americans liked to think was theirs alone, some symbol, like the rest of humanity didn't share it with them. And it was his sappiness he blamed as he stood there, hat in his hands, confused, and swaying slightly with the familiar music with some brim of tears brightening blue.

It took a moment for the sharp click of heels to reach him, cutting through the slow caress of The Nearness of You, the way static used to break apart on the radio—and it took a moment for the realization that those heels had come to a stop nearby, to join it. But when it turned like a key in a lock in the man's mind, he hurriedly blinked away the wetness, though it was useless. His nose was red and telegraphed to anyone near enough what had just been happening along the mustered line of long, blond lashes.—Not that he even had time to think about that, because it was Peggy.

He couldn't believe it. Peggy was here. 8:02 now and he opened his mouth, speechless.

Red coat, red lips, and she was coming at him full-tilt. Steve came forward to meet her, his hat joining her purse on the eclipsed bricks underfoot, so he could in turn embrace the woman as her arms circled his neck. His happiness came in the unstoppable bubble of a laugh and he lifted her and those heels from the ground, the display open, more so than it ever could have been before. It had been 70 years—70 years!—and not for the first time, it felt like it.

But here they were, her heart close to his as he held her, both of them displaced and come back together like a split seam. Steve pressed his cold nose to her throat, and only once that overwhelming tide of joy receded some, did he finally pull back enough to smile, so stupid and happy, at Peggy. He didn't bother hiding his tears now, the nostalgia from before blown into absolute giddiness—a barren tree having grown nothing less than a golden apple. Peggy was as beautiful as always, beautiful, intelligence behind her dark eyes, and warmth, so much warmth.

His smile became an unreserved grin.

"You're late."

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Re: Log, Paley Park: Peggy C & Steve R

ex_determine89
2015-02-24 04:36 am UTC (link)

"Steve! You're alright. You're alright." Peggy was unabashedly in tears already, practically strangling Steve with a hug scented in sandalwood, roses and gunpowder. She was entirely off her feet due to his height, and her heels were coming loose off the edges of her seams. When she finally peeled back enough to look at him, her dark eyes were a little smudged with soggy makeup, but her red smile was flawless as she beamed. Too overjoyed that he had come back from his early grave, she pressed a damp cheek once more to his before slowly releasing her grip and settling down again on the flat of her heels. She had to wiggle a bit to get into them properly.

"Go on with you." She squeezed his woolen sleeve. "If I'm late, it's your fault." She self-consciously brushed her palms all the way down the front of her dress, straightening the print that was already asymmetrical to begin with. "I didn't have a spare set of things in the future." She stepped backward and trod on his hat. Flustered, she looked down. "Oh! I'm sorry." Bending, she plucked it up from under her heel, and retrieved her bag at the same time, obviously trying to put herself back together after the effusive display.

Tucking her purse under her elbow, where she would no doubt drop it again, she pressed his hat into his hands and then made a pretense of adjusting his tie while she blinked her eyes back into focus. "Look at you, very smart." It was odd seeing him in monochrome, no green or blue. "Did you get an invitation too?"

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Re: Log, Paley Park: Peggy C & Steve R

atrophy
2015-02-26 10:37 am UTC (link)

He was alright. He was better than alright. The pummeling his heart took before, the bruises it sustained, were gone, and the thing felt liable to burst out of his broad chest with sheer happiness as Peggy settled back into her heels, her tears damp on his cheek and his on hers. He looked down at her as he had so many times before, fondness bone-deep and affection warm and true blue admiration.—He knew a little of what had transpired after his icy interment. He knew about the post-war troubles at the SSR, about Howard being a fugitive, about Peggy and Howard starting up S.H.I.E.L.D. and on, but it was all history book knowledge, rather than firsthand, and he could never know how she felt during those days—the very ones she'd been plucked from. But the rawness, the gutting wound of loss, that he did understand firsthand, for he'd felt it too, upon waking in that time-frozen room, details skewed sideways and the Dodgers playing the Phillies, an inside-the-park grand slam in 1941 happening all over again. He'd felt it as he ran down the street, agents on his heels, his heart in his throat, when he realized he'd missed his date.

8 o'clock. Only 67 years late.

He'd read Peggy's files, and he'd almost visited her before he found himself again moved through time, to 2015. But, ...he'd never dreamed of anything like this.—Some retained memory, underexposed, told him he had, in fact, dreamed of it. He remembered the way you remember feelings, as tracery over skin, finding her inside Stark Tower, kissing her. It was nothing like his usual perfect recall, but it didn't matter.—She was here now, whatever happened before, and Steve was still smiling his dopey smile when she smoothed out her dress—a very fitted thing, he noted; modern—and when she stepped back, onto his hat.

"I didn't mean to keep you," he teased, more than a little charmed by her fluster. Her fingers found his tie after she handed him the gray wool cap, and Steve lifted his chin to help. He blushed at her compliment, at her touch, and he nodded, not quite as good as she was at putting himself back together. He didn't mean to be as open as he was at admiring her ...dress. He didn't leer, but he looked and he smiled. "You look smarter."

He took a deep breath. His nerves shouldered hard through his giddiness and he twisted the hat in his hands again. He nodded toward the band with some bashfulness, though he kept his eyes on hers.

"Should we ask them to play something slow?"

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Re: Log, Paley Park: Peggy C & Steve R

ex_determine89
2015-03-01 06:07 am UTC (link)

Reluctantly, Peggy released Steve's tie and the pretext of straightening it. She stepped back, but not really all that far, because to be near him again was a miracle she wasn't going to give up so easily. Peggy pressed the sides of her palms to her cheeks to dry them, a reflex movement meant to keep her powder in place, and she was moderately successful. A deep sniff and she had some of her composure back, and she gave him a glowing smile full of wordless well-being. His compliments didn't exactly fluster her, but she did blush in a way that was all tip of her head and curving lips. "Out of uniform, most of us do." More glowing smiles for his compliment, though. He could keep doing that, really. Somehow Steve made her feel more like a woman than ten wolf-whistles or twenty red hats.

"Oh!" She glanced sideways at the band, expecting every face to be staring at them as if they were quite the center of the world. They weren't, of course, but remembering they were in public made her want to pat her hair. She had no idea why, and resisted. The moment she connected his newest question with their last conversation was visible on her face. Much of the joy leaked from her eyes as she remembered that day.

A concentrated effort pushed that memory back. "Yes, we should. As long as I'm not expected to listen to them." A little half-laugh as she touched his fingers where they were torturing the poor hat. "My head is all a whirl, still."

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Re: Log, Paley Park: Peggy C & Steve R

atrophy
2015-03-04 11:11 am UTC (link)

"You're beautiful, Peggy," he told her earnestly. She stepped back, pressing palms to her cheeks, and smiled. Steve smiled back, a blink of long, long eyelashes together, and happiness that welled up in his chest, setting his heart afloat like a balloon. It left him a little breathless—something he had experienced too much of since the serum, and he looked at her warmly, like he couldn't take his eyes off of her, before her gaze moved to the band with surprise, and he remembered too that they were neither alone nor the center of the world.

He was embarrassed, bashful, when she brushed his fingers as he wrung his cap. It was all overwhelming—the band, the patio, Peggy being back, her red-framed smile—but it was exactly what he wanted. It was the best kind of joy. It and latent heat simmered in Steve's stomach and he cleared his throat.

"We can sit first, if you want," he offered politely. He left off with the hat, and, still somewhat shy, he took her fingers in his and squeezed. He realized he wanted to kiss her. Steve was terrible at hiding much of anything, and that desire was plain on his all-American features, there under strung-up lights. He drew in close to the woman, a satellite to its planet, and his eyes fell to her lips. His breath snagged. And he dipped, letting his hands slide around her waist, to press palms against her back, and—he kissed her. There. On the spot he was meant to meet her at all those years ago, a few minutes past the hour.

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Re: Log, Paley Park: Peggy C & Steve R

ex_determine89
2015-03-05 06:24 am UTC (link)

She was about to say something completely ridiculous about sitting, perhaps look around for a seat a hundred yards away, at the very edge of her universe, when he took her fingers. The nervous fidgeting and tentative touching stopped, to become an aggressively familiar memory made real in the form of his hand holding hers. Something wrapped around her heart and squeezed, the breath right out of her and the cords tight. She had just... just accepted that he would never be there to touch her again, and now he was, and she didn't know whether to scream or laugh or cry.

The kiss was electric. Peggy had always thought to herself, in the embarrassed flush that came in unlikely places (strategy rooms, cold camp beds, deserted mess halls, lonely rooms clothed in bad wallpaper) how completely ridiculous she was about Steve's lips. There was no way he could possibly actually be electric. Clearly it was her brain that fizzled, not him. She couldn't explain the effect, and was careful never to try, not to anyone. It was so hopelessly girlish.

It was lovely.

Peggy tilted her head up to increase the pressure. For a moment, she had a rush of panic. Their kisses were always so quick, so stolen, and she felt suddenly that someone might interrupt at any moment, there might be a siren or an ill-timed cough, even a spat of gunfire or a rush of cold mountain air. Then he put his hands around her, and that crackling feeling went straight through the new dress, and the panic went away. He wasn't in a hurry. He was here, he was real. Now it was not just a kiss, it was kissing, with the stretch and gentle scrape of soft lips, the taste of her lipstick mixing in with whatever delicious male-flavor he hid behind his teeth. Peggy felt her whole head go up in mindless happiness.

Zing!

She dropped her purse again.

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Re: Log, Paley Park: Peggy C & Steve R

atrophy
2015-03-28 04:12 am UTC (link)

It didn't feel almost 70 years late. It did. But the effect of being near Peggy's person, the crop-dust rising of every warm emotion, it spanned those decades—a timeline the both of them had missed, in a sense. For her, it had been but years; him, months. But, the gulf of time was a difficult one to trace, a puddle could have the depths of eternity splashing under your foot, if you weren't careful to hop over it, and even the greatest of oceans, salt-crested and sterile, could defy you and waste inches deep, a trifle of scum on soles of shoes, the suction of chewing gum that clung and tarred over time.—Steve had missed the woman with the force of all those years, but the kiss placed him firmly in the present. It didn't allow his mind to linger on anything that wasn't the press of her against him, the silly, very public smear of wax like waving bunting on their lips, and the way she stretched up for more leverage.

It was kissing. It was a sensation that went from head to toe, warm, the flush of blood and affection high in cut cheeks, down slope of neck. They were anchored there firmly to this new, terrifying century, but together again, and Steve let his grip tighten, he let one hand slide up the back of that dress, elbow tethered to the small of her back, with a senseless reach for pearling chestnut hair. His natural shyness was subsumed in adrenaline and the warm rush of blood in his ears. He opened his mouth on Peggy's, her pert red, him stained with her, and, maybe it didn't befit the idea of the ever-gallant Captain America, but there was a Depression-borne hungriness to it, something scrawny from the bricked streets of Brooklyn, and there was no hiding that.

He was lost in it. The kiss, the moment, her. His brain registered the fall of the purse, but he didn't stop it. The band kept playing, a song about love in dusty tenor. Of course, Steve Rogers was polite. As polite as one could be, entwined like this, in the manner of what he imagined V-E Day must have been like in the arteries of New York City, all glee, high-running emotions, and relief. He wasn't presumptuous, however. He didn't touch her in any way that was too untoward, just hips and hair and the gentle slant of her back, an earnest, careful grip of large hands..

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Re: Log, Paley Park: Peggy C & Steve R

ex_determine89
2015-03-28 10:06 pm UTC (link)

It would have been nice to say that the whirl of memories came up through the kiss in a sparkle of warmth, that there was the presence of mind to remember the first time she'd really looked at him, or the energy to forget the day she'd lost him. It would have been nice to draw up all the pretty lines that took them from back then to right now, and there were plenty of poets that had a lot to say about the way two people could touch each other.

Sadly, Peggy's mind was absolutely, completely, deliciously blank. All worries vanished, all higher brain functions stopped. He would do something and she would react, and she would do something and he would react, but she definitely wasn't doing any thinking about it, either before or after. She fit right inside the curve of his arm, the curves of her pressing into the lines of him, and she was getting little crackles of delight at the points of pressure against his chest and his hip and his hands at her back. She did something with her tongue that she hadn't ever done before, something to do with wanting to keep him hungry against her mouth, and if it were possible to catch fire from blushing, she would have done it--later. If pressed, she would blame the fingertips that were sliding through her scalp, because something about that just drove her wild.

Her arm around the back of his neck tightened, and she sealed herself up against the front of his coat, up on her toes and straining with neck, lips, and everything desperate that said the odds had been against this moment.

She had to break it to catch her breath, and also when she realized her left hand was more occupied with what was inside his coat lapel than clutching at it. She was pretty sure she'd said his name at least twice. Oh my God. Were the men watching? Wait... they were supposed to be dancing. This wasn't real. It was real. Could she make it more real with less clothes? Peggy!

Even more flustered than before, she tried to separate herself from his body just a little bit. Also tried to pretend not to pant. "Steve." She had no idea what was happening. Except that was a kiss. Just a kiss. Had to be an hour long, at least. Oh my God.

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Re: Log, Paley Park: Peggy C & Steve R

atrophy
2015-03-31 09:19 pm UTC (link)

There was a sharp, bottomless pang of hunger that listed in the belly of every man and woman and everyone else who came up during the Depression. It was hard-nosed need, scrubby, short nails, long soup lines, and the old, graying plaster crumbling onto your head in the morning when the middle-aged bachelor who lived upstairs started stomping around, tending to the laundry he took in, telling people his wife would do it—women were better at these things, was the idea. (He happened to do a good job and made almost a dollar a week.) When you lived formative years with nothing but gnawing hunger, that stayed with you, no matter how many years went by, no matter how much you consumed to fill it. It was need so long denied it became a part of you.

Steve felt it now, a rupture in him, deep, a low knot in his belly that had him leaning in, curling closer, practically lifting Peggy from her shoes a second time. The warmth of the earlier hug was fanned to smoky flames in the man and he blushed as much as she did, smoldering running high through him and burning against his skin where it touched her. It was good. She was good—at this. It was some spring of instinct, since it wasn't experience on his end that did much helping, and Steve moved into her touch gladly and into the sound of his name as it came from her pretty red lips.

—He didn't need breath like she did. Big lungs or something like that. So when she broke back, he blinked, a little jarred from the immediacy of the moment. Her hand was inside his coat, on his chest, and Steve's brain followed parallel to Peggy's. If only there weren't so many layers, this would be easier...

He dropped his gaze, standing stock and sturdy as the woman pulled away some, buffering the frenetic impulse that bound them together before. He smiled something bashful, and that poor cap got another work-over with hands that would much rather still be on the curve of Peggy's hips, and Steve cautiously looked up. He nervously wiped at the lipstick smeared on him, mingling with his flush, painting him all red, and he swallowed. He cleared his throat. And he offered her his hand.

The music was still playing. His eyelashes swept down long when he smiled a little giddily.

"I still owe you a dance."

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Re: Log, Paley Park: Peggy C & Steve R

ex_determine89
2015-04-01 04:05 pm UTC (link)

She caught her breath, shaking her head and smiling a little shakily. "It was like this, when everyone came home again. We couldn't get enough of being alive. I always felt a little apart, but now I know what they were feeling. Madness, it was. Ticker tape everywhere."

Peggy slid her hand in his, warm from the heat of his chest and smaller, but as tough as his own in places where the bones pressed against her skin. Oil of Olay only went so far, and Peggy had mannish hands, so she tried not to look down at them except to paint on color and pretend she didn't mind that particular failing. She squeezed his hand and laughed softly as he smeared her lipstick over the length of his face. How she loved them, but it was good not to be with the rest of the unit. They would tease him, and her, and she just wanted it to be the two of them, just as it was. Her eyes were dark and steady on his blue ones. The same eyes, he had. The serum did nothing to them, or his warm heart. How she loved him, all the way through her, and always would. "Yes, you do."

She reached up her free hand to touch his face and repair some of the damage her lipstick had made, not thinking to fix her own, which was missing some of its hard straight lines around the cupid's bow. Her hair was in some disarray and the smudge on her mouth made her look tousled. Her eyes sparkled with unconcealed mischief and plenty of things to look forward to, and she pulled him toward the stage, to catch that dance so long in coming.

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