Archive of Our Own

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

**

Clint Barton was fond of saying that Darcy didn't walk. She bopped.

It was true. Such was Darcy Lewis's enthusiasm for life that even her walk had a bounce to it. She was blessed with the capacity to be amused or entertained by almost anything, and even something as mundane as a mail run could end up being the most fun part of her day.

"Maiiiiilllll," she sang, gliding into Agent Carter's office, having seen the door was open. Agent Carter was inside, looking polished and put-together as always in a cream-colored blouse with a little tie at the throat and a wine-colored skirt, her feet in pretty rounded-toe pumps with a floral accent. She was seated not at her desk but on it (a habit most of the agents found quite endearing) and engaged in conversation with her tall, blond and broad boyfriend--Darcy got a kick out of referring to him as such, mostly because Agent Carter hated hearing it, and Agent Carter was so fun and sarcastic when she was grumpy.

"A boyfriend carries your schoolbooks home," she would fume. "I should think we're a little more serious than that around here." Darcy wasn't sure if she meant they were serious about working for the agency, or if she and the Captain were serious about each other, but it didn't matter--everyone knew both those things were true. She figured she could get away with calling the Captain Agent Carter's "boyfriend" for only a little while longer before he got promoted to "husband". Darcy, like most of the people who worked closely with them, was very pleased with this idea, but it didn't stop her from milking the "boyfriend" thing for her own amusement.

Also, regardless of how grumpy Agent Carter got, the Captain loved the title--he would stand up a little straighter with pride that he had won the heart of his beloved Peggy, even as it made him blush till his ears turned pink, which was the absolute cutest thing Darcy had ever seen in her life, and she had seen Thor on a caffeine high.

Today, Darcy gave the Captain her usual covert (she assumed) once-over--no matter whose boyfriend he was, the man sure knew how to strain a t-shirt to perfection, and his jeans were a little pleasantly overworked today too, especially in the upper thigh. The Captain, who had a tendency to blush if he bumped into a woman in the hallway, either didn't notice this scrutiny or seemed to sense that it came from a place of innocence; he had his usual easy smile for Darcy.

"Hi, Darcy. What's new?" he said, and Agent Carter inclined her head in a friendly manner and said, "Good morning, Darcy." Teasing aside, Darcy liked Agent Carter, who knew how smart Darcy really was and never treated her like a ditz.

When it came to the carousel of less-than-conventional superior agents the support team at S.H.I.E.L.D. assisted, Agent Carter especially went out of her way to show that she respected all of the people under her command, even the ones in administrative positions. She tried very hard never to send Darcy out for lunch or dinner orders, for what seemed to be personal reasons (Darcy hadn't yet figured out why Agent Carter was so adamant against the younger agents being sent out to bring back food), and on the rare occasions she was forced to do so out of necessity, she always took extra money--from her own wallet, insisting Darcy use it and not the agency's purchasing card--and instructed Darcy to get something for herself as well. Darcy had tried once to politely decline this offer and had been surprised by Agent Carter's vehement insistence that she accept. Darcy was a big advocate of Occam's Razor--all things being equal, the simplest solution is likely the best one--and so now she cheerfully took Agent Carter's money and selected a treat for herself whenever she had to go fetch food or coffee (and it wasn't often), because it seemed so important to Agent Carter.

They had settled into a comfortable routine with it--Darcy would bring Agent Carter back her food or drink, then sit in one of the two chairs the Agent kept in her office for visitors, pulling it up to the desk. No matter how busy she was, Agent Carter would take a few minutes to relax and chat, and Darcy would let her sample whatever she had chosen for her treat, which, more often than not, led to changes in the Agent's own preferences--Agent Carter had been very pleased and surprised by gingerbread lattes and had been furious when Darcy had told her they were a seasonal item and not available in springtime.

Darcy wasn't bringing any food or coffee today, though, just the mail. She was in luck today, too, because not only was Captain Rogers in Agent Carter's office, so was Tony Stark, looking wickedly dashing as always in a collared shirt, jeans and wing-tips, his sunglasses perched on his nose despite their being indoors. Seated in the chair next to Tony's was the person Darcy considered the top of the mountain when it came to doing jobs like her own--his assistant, Pepper Potts. It was hard not to smile at Pepper, who always looked so pretty, her strawberry blonde hair pulled into a neat chignon, her suit smartly cut and makeup expertly applied.

"Awesome, I can give you all your mail at once," Darcy said happily, beginning to hand out envelopes. "One for Captain Rogers..."

"Aww, it must be his welcome letter from AARP," Tony teased, and the Captain gave him a dirty look. Pepper swatted at him, but halfheartedly; Agent Carter rolled her eyes.

"It's my library card, Stark," the Captain muttered, eyes narrowing. "I renewed it and told them to send it here."

"Ms. Potts..." Darcy handed Pepper a stack of envelopes.

Pepper sighed. "Between the mail for Stark Industries and the mail that's actual S.H.I.E.L.D. business, I may as well just build myself a house out of envelopes." This was only made worse when Darcy handed Tony his own stack of envelopes, and Tony, with a beatific smile, leaned over and placed them right on top of Pepper's stack. Pepper raised her eyes to heaven in the classic expression of praying for patience.

"Only one for you today, Agent Carter," Darcy said, handing the Agent her envelope. "It's from the Department of Motor Vehicles."

The Captain brightened. "Hey, your license came!"

Agent Carter opened the envelope dismissively. "It's nothing to throw a parade over, Steve. I'm just glad no one stumbled upon any...previous records...that might have made them ask uncomfortable questions." She dropped the envelope into her wastepaper basket and looked over the laminated card.

"Was it hard to learn to drive on our side of the road?" Tony asked cheekily.

Agent Carter glared at him. "Tony, I was driving properly before you were a gleam in your father's already way-too-bright eyes." Unfortunately, she was too distracted by her irritation to be prepared for Tony's rising from his chair and plucking the card from her hand. "Oi! Give that back!" she blurted, but Tony was grinning.

"Come on, Aunt Peggy, let's see how goofy your picture looks. Everyone takes a goofy picture at the DMV. You should see Rogers'." Then, with a smile of delight, Tony pushed his sunglasses up on his head, as if to better see something that had interested him more than the photo on the card. "Hey, it's almost your birthday!"

Agent Carter reclaimed her driver's license with a neat swipe of her manicured hand. "Give me that."

"I didn't know it was almost your birthday, Agent Carter!" Darcy chirped happily. "Did you, Captain Rogers?"

"Of course I did," the Captain said carefully. "It's just--"

"It's just that I'd rather not call attention to my birthday," Agent Carter said stiffly, tucking her license into the pocket of her wallet, which she had taken from the handbag slung over the back of her chair. "There isn't any need, especially now." She turned and noticed the concerned look on Captain Rogers' face--Darcy loved him for how protective he was of his precious Peggy, and how he immediately moved to stand against anything that upset her--and made an effort to comfort him. "At our age, who's counting anyway, right, Steve?"

It worked; the Captain gave her a small, sweet smile.

"All right. I think that'll be all about my date of birth, thank you," Agent Carter said airily. "Tony, any jokes about carbon-dating or museum exhibits must be gotten out of your system by close of business today."

Pepper smiled at that, being very used to dealing with Tony herself.

"Thank you for bringing this, Darcy," Agent Carter continued, circling her desk. "I think I'll go out and get some fresh air. Tony, don't put your feet on my desk. Would anyone like me to bring them back anything? No need, I know what you like," she said when she saw Captain Rogers about to speak. He smiled at her, and Darcy thought it was nice, how comfortable two people could be with each other.

Tony opened his mouth eagerly at the unintended double entendre Agent Carter had given him, and Pepper stalled him by shoving an elbow into his side and muttering, "Shut up, Tony." To Agent Carter she said, "I wouldn't mind a salad if you're getting actual food."

"Done," Agent Carter said amiably. "Darcy? A chocolate croissant, perhaps? I know you're busy with the mail, but I could leave it at your desk for you."

Darcy beamed, happy to be included and knowing Agent Carter would be upset if she refused. "That'd be nice, Agent Carter! Thank you."

Agent Carter nodded, then looked at Tony. "What about you, you little beast? A cheeseburger?"

"And fries, please, Aunt Peggy." Tony smiled angelically. "Or should I say, birthday girl?"

Agent Carter made a sound of irritation. "Stop calling me Aunt Peggy. And for the last time," she said as she left the office, "I do not want to discuss my birthday!"

They watched her go, and when she was out of earshot, Tony grinned at everyone still in attendance.

Pepper's looked immediately alarmed; she was all too familiar with the look of maniac glee on Tony's face.

Like a child who thought he'd just come up with the funnest idea ever, Tony clapped his hands together and rubbed them in anticipation. "I know what, we're gonna throw her a party."

Darcy grinned herself as she exited the office, on her way to find Clint Barton. It was proving to be a very interesting mail run, indeed.

**

Once Darcy was gone, Pepper and Steve immediately joined forces in trying to stop Tony's madness before it started.

"Tony, no," Steve said.

Pepper tried to be more tactful. "Tony, I don't know if that's exactly the best idea. She's been through a lot."

"Don't be such downers! You two are the worst," Tony said cheerfully, throwing his hands out in an oh-come-on gesture. "What girl doesn't love a big party?"

"My girl," Steve insisted, his blue eyes solemn. Pepper glanced at him in mild surprise--he didn't often use terms of endearment, even ones this simple, in front of them--Steve and Peggy were not at all about the public displays of affection, although Pepper had the sneaking suspicion that was more Peggy's rule than Steve's. "Tony, please. She's been kind of touchy about it. I know you don't care about upsetting me, but give her a break. Please."

Tony gave Steve a look of mock hurt. "You wound me, Spangles. I care about your feelings." Lacing his fingers underneath his chin, he leaned forward. "What's the big deal about her birthday?"

"I don't know, and I don't care," Steve said, although Pepper got the idea the latter part was a fib. "If it upsets her, I don't let it happen. The end."

Tony smirked. "You guys already had an argument about it." It wasn't a question.

Steve frowned and pointed at the door. "Out." Which was as good as admitting Tony was right.

Pepper and Tony stood, and Steve brought up the rear as they exited the office. "I mean it, Tony," Steve repeated. "And Pepper, if he does it anyway I'm holding you partially responsible."

"Oh, that is not fair," Pepper said, whirling, her bangs flicking over her forehead with the force of her movement. "Why am I always guilty by association?"

"Thou knowest a woman by the company she keeps, Pep," Tony said jovially, putting an arm around her and not even denying that he was a bad influence.

"Your company would have been run into the ground a long time ago if it wasn't for--ooooh!" Pepper shrugged off Tony's arm and stalked off, her heels clacking loudly on the tiled floor.

Steve frowned at Tony. "You've officially ticked off all three people you've met with today. Congratulations."

Tony cheekily drew a check mark in the air. "Check mark for Monday!" was his answer as he sauntered off after the irate Pepper. "See you, Spangles!"

"I hate you," Steve called after him, and laughter from the bullpen signaled the presence of Clint.

**

"No," Tony said into his mobile phone one morning as he threaded his way through the bullpen. "This is a classy shindig. We're not doing cocktail wieners on toothpicks here. I said canapes. No, for a hundred. Actually, make that two hundred. And tartlets. I don't know what tartlets are, but they sound British and classy. Let's get those." He paused. "Wait. Are tartlets just canapes in British?"

"I will staple this to your head," Peggy hissed menacingly, holding up her stapler and taking the mission report off Clint's desk.

"Wait, Carter, I need that!" Clint said, grabbing for the report. "I just fixed all the typos!"

Peggy dropped the report. Clint made a dive for it and missed, and it was briefly stopped by Tony's foot before it slid underneath the desk. Clint muttered a curse.

Stapler held at the ready, Peggy snatched the mobile phone from Tony brazenly. "Whatever he is ordering, cancel it, and--damn. Damn," she said. "There's no one there. They must have hung up."

Tony grinned. "Don't worry, Aunt Peggy, I'll figure out the difference between tartlets and canapes before your birthd--hey! Watch it with that thing!"

Peggy had snapped the stapler towards Tony's nose. "Don't be such a milksop," Peggy said sweetly, reaching for the sharp-toothed staple remover on Clint's desk. "If you catch a staple to the face, I'll just use this to take it out."

"Wait! Don't bleed on my report," said Clint, crawling out from underneath the desk with the aforementioned report in hand. There was now a big footprint on it, which Clint would later be reprimanded for ("What the hell do you all do all day, Barton?" Fury was heard to bellow from his office).

**

A few afternoons later, Steve decided to surprise Peggy by bringing lunch to her office--one of her favorite sandwiches from the deli around the corner and a big sugary soda, which she never wanted to admit she enjoyed. He had just taken a seat across from her desk and was opening the Styrofoam cartons when Tony poked his head into her office.

"Aunt Peggy. I'm trying to get Robbie Williams for your party--did you know he's got two swing albums out? I figure that's right up you and Spangles' alley. How big do you want the dance floor?"

Peggy, eyes afire, seized the nearest thing--the soda Steve had brought--and hurled it at the door, over an already ducking Steve. Tony was too quick, however, and the big Styrofoam cup hit the doorframe and burst, hydranting Dr. Pepper all over the wall and floor.

Steve whirled, ready to demand an explanation for the erratic behavior, but the chastisement died on his lips at the sight of the instant regret on Peggy's face as she realized she had just sacrificed her treat--something nice Steve had tried to do for her, no less--in a moment of utterly lunatic anger.

She shook her head, stammering, "Darling, I--I'm sorry--"

While the cleaning crew mopped up the mess, Steve grabbed the sandwiches and hustled Peggy to the deli instead, replacing the soda and watching her drink it guiltily through a straw, her cheeks burning with shame. He didn't ask questions, simply closed his hand over hers on the table and squeezed.

**

"Steve."

Steve looked up and saw Pepper beckoning from one of the satellite offices that were for visiting members of SHIELD; whoever needed a space was shunted into one of them, whether Avenger or field agent.

"Steve," Pepper said again, and it was a stage whisper, almost a hiss, as though she didn't want anyone to know she were calling him.

As soon as he got within range, Pepper yanked him into the office by his sleeve and shut the door after a quick look up and down the corridor. "Did anyone see you?"

Steve was alarmed, and he spoke slowly and quietly as he joked, "Pepper...this is all so sudden."

She didn't laugh. "Were you followed?"

"No, but I am in love with Peggy, Pep, so get that look out of your eye and let go of my sleeve!" Steve chuckled nervously, utterly confused.

Pepper looked down at her hand, clawed into a death grip on the sleeve of his dress shirt, as if just realizing how hard she was clutching him. Dropping his arm, she pushed her hands through her hair and sighed. "Oh, grow up, Rogers! Peggy's the reason I called you in here."

"OK," Steve said slowly, drawing the word out. "So, why all the secrecy?"

"Because she keeps throwing things at Tony any time he says the b-word," Pepper sighed.

"Bad baby?" Steve smiled. "Blitzkrieg Button?"

"Birthday." Pepper didn't laugh. "You know how good her aim is, and she doesn't care what she grabs. The other day she hurled a paperweight at him. I'm not getting in the crosshairs."

The smile dropped off Steve's face, and he leaned against the wall. "Can't you stop Tony? It's so obvious that it upsets her. She doesn't want to celebrate. Leave it alone."

Pepper had the grace to blush. "I was sort of hoping that if we just ignored it, he'd lose interest. You know Tony. If you pull him back, he'll just demand to go forward."

"Well, for what it's worth, I agree with you," Steve said glumly, "but Peggy isn't helping. He gets a rise out of her, and she just pours gasoline on the fire when she throws a fit about it."

"Tony means well," Pepper said weakly. "He's...he's like a little kid. Anything that gets him attention is, in his mind, a good thing, and whether you believe me or not, he wants to do something for Peggy's birthday because he cares."

"He's got a really annoying way of showing he cares," Steve muttered.

Pepper gave him a wry look. "You think I don't know that? Remind me some time to tell you about my strawberry allergy. And the giant bunny."

"The what?"

"Never mind. We'll save that for a rainy day," Pepper said. "Anyway, the point is, we care. That's what I wanted to talk to you about." Pepper sighed exasperatedly through her nose. "What do you think Peggy might like for a birthday present?"

Steve blinked. "Not to have a party," he emphasized, as if the answer should have been obvious.

"Something that's within my power," Pepper shot back. "Believe me, Steve, I'm on your side, but I'm also telling you that pushing against Tony will only make it worse."

Steve fell glumly silent. "...I know."

"So help me," Pepper said, more gently. "Help me make the day a little less stressful for her. Is there anything that might make her smile in the middle of all this? Anything at all?"

Steve blanched, looking away for a moment, as if unsure he should answer the question. Finally deciding in favor of it, he said, "She told me what she wants, but she's too embarrassed to ask anyone for it."

Pepper frowned. "Is it something that would become a PR nightmare for us?"

Steve blushed, something that could never look anything but adorable. "No, no, nothing like that. It's--well..."

Pepper folded her arms. "Steve."

"Books," Steve said. "She knows she's missed a lot, and everyone's doing their best to pour the last seventy years into her head. I know how that feels."

Pepper nodded, touched by this idea, but she couldn't help posing a question. "I mean...I know Amazon has kind of ruined the print industry and all, but there are still lots of bookstores in the city. If she wanted books but was too busy to get them, all she had to do was ask me, I would have gotten them for her. I could even get her a library card. Does she know that?"

"She wants our books," Steve clarified, his expression belying how pleased he himself was at his best girl's shy request. "Like I said, she knows she's missed a lot, and one of those things was us. She wants our favorite books, so that she can catch up on literature...and catch up with us."

Pepper made sure her look was solemn, so as to assure him she had no intent of making light of the situation. "What a...smart...and sweet idea. I love it. She didn't have to worry about asking for something like that."

"Well, she...she still sometimes feels like she's...in the way," Steve defended. "She's...you know. And after all this party nonsense, any time someone brings up her birthday she just storms out. Birthdays are weird when you're an adult, even if you haven't been hurtled through time and space into the future, so I wish Tony would leave her alone, but he was right that we've argued about it already. I asked her what she wanted, and she told me I didn't have to get her anything. I fought her on it--she's my girl, I'm not going to ignore her birthday--and she blurted it out. She told me that if anyone else asked, I could tell them that's what she'd like. I don't think she thought anyone else would ask."

Pepper was in fact quite sure Peggy had thought no one else might ask. "And how wrong was she about that?"

Steve finally smiled. "Dead wrong. You're the fourth person I've told this week. I think she'll be pleasantly surprised."

Pepper smiled back. "Let's try for that."

**

The next week, Tony brought a cake sampler to Peggy's office, asking which she liked best, the carrot, the New York cheesecake, the Oreo cheesecake, the pound cake or the Black Forest. Peggy shoved the Black Forest cake into Tony's face and used the momentum to push him into the hallway, taking the rest of the sampler into the office and slamming the door. Tony, unperturbed, licked chocolate frosting off his face and cheerfully called, "OK, not the Black Forest, then, got it," before turning on his heel and marching out of the bullpen.

Later, Peggy invited Darcy to share what she hadn't already eaten to comfort herself (the carrot, half the Oreo and half the pound, specifically, were what was left). Tony was very interested in what had gotten eaten first, and Darcy, whose loyalty and honesty were as innocent as they were at times misguided, was happy to oblige.

**

Tony knocked softly on Pepper's doorframe late one evening a few days after the cake incident. "Hi, gorgeous."

Looking up from her desk, Pepper smiled. "What have I told you?" she teased softly.

Tony pretended to pout. "Not in the office," he repeated, like a child. Straightening, he puffed out his chest and announced pompously, "Good evening, Ms. Potts. Do you have a minute to discuss some very businessy business?"

Pepper snorted. "Jerk. What can I do for you?"

Tony handed her a folded piece of paper. "Very important tasks for Peggy's birthday."

Pepper's smile disappeared abruptly. "Tony, for the last time, I'm begging you to reconsider this. Don't you--"

Tony just smiled, holding out the paper. "Read it."

Pepper sighed through her nose, snatching the slip of paper out of his hand and unfolding it. Her eyes scanned back and forth for a few moments, and then she turned to Tony with a fragile look of bewildered delight, her heart turning to butter. "Oh, Tony."

Tony had his sweetest, most honest smile on his face. "What do you think, Pep? Can you handle all that?"

She smiled and reached for him, ready to break her not-in-the-office rule. "Don't worry, Tony. I won't tell anyone you've got a heart."

"Good," he said, taking her hand and turning her in a rather elegant dance step. "I like to be full of surprises."

**

"Knock, knock," Clint said cheerfully, tapping on the doorframe to Peggy and Steve's apartment the morning of Peggy's birthday, as the former let him in with a moue of delighted surprise.

"Why, Clinton. What are you doing here?"

Clint blinked, as if the question had caught him off guard. "I actually came by to--see if you wanted a running partner," he said, the hesitation just long enough to be noteworthy. "Steve didn't want you to go by yourself and he had a meeting this morning."

Peggy appraised him for a moment with her eyes; he was indeed wearing basketball shorts and trainers under a t-shirt, so it wasn't entirely out of left field. Still, she was annoyed; she'd been looking forward to spending this morning with Steve.

"For someone who claims he knows how capable I am, Steve sends quite a few people to babysit me." Peggy pressed her lips together and bent to lace her own running shoe. She pretended to be insulted until they got down to the street, but she actually enjoyed having Clint as a running partner when she was able, because as opposed to his usual habits, he was not chatty while he ran and kept a steady pace. Peggy chalked this up to his hearing problem, but never mentioned it, which Clint seemed to appreciate. Their usual route was Shore Road; they were almost back to the apartment when Clint decided to break the routine and strike up a conversation.

"By the way, happy birthday."

Peggy rolled her eyes. "Ugh. Who told you it was my birthday?"

"Tony," Clint answered.

Peggy growled. "I am going to kill him. I told him..." She shook her head.

"What's wrong? How come you don't like your birthday?"

Peggy increased her pace. "Clinton, if you have enough breath to ask silly questions, we are not working hard enough."

Clint laughed aloud. "I mean it! How come?"

"I just don't, all right?" Peggy said in exasperation. "Are you all ten years old? Will you all make such a big deal out of everyone's birthdays, or will it just be mine?"

"Careful," Clint joked. "Tony might ask you to jump out of Rogers' cake this summer. Unless he's saving that for when the man turns the big one-zero-zero."

"He suggests that, this year or any year, and Pepper will never find his remains," Peggy declared, putting on a burst of speed.

Clint had to stop then, bracing his hands on his knees and laughing too hard to continue a steady gait. Peggy waited, arms folded, tapping her foot impatiently, till he looked up with a smile.

"So you don't want anything for your birthday?"

Peggy allowed herself to smile back. "Clint, I have a good home, the love of my life, and a running partner I can easily outdistance. I have everything I want."

"That's it," Clint laughed, straightening back up. "Last one back to your apartment buys deli sandwiches for lunch."

"Get our your wallet, Barton," Peggy said, already halfway down the block.

**

Bucky pulled his hood a little further over his head and went through the revolving door. He still wasn't too crazy about being out where there were a lot of people, and it was an unseasonably chilly morning. He was OK with that; hooded sweatshirts and thermals made hiding his arm a cinch, and he liked the smell of cold clean air.

He liked the smell of books, too, old or new. It reminded him of libraries, and of Steve's room growing up; warm, safe places of knowledge and learning where he was with someone who believed he could be good and smart if he wanted to be. He remembered crawling under blankets during crisp autumn days with a flashlight while Steve read aloud stories of action and adventure. He realized he was smiling as he got to the escalator; the furtive, nervous tension had eased from his face.

He let the escalator carry him up to the second floor, which contained the brightly lit children's section. He walked past rotating racks of stories about big red dogs, mystery solving teenagers, grade school sorceresses and something called a Paw Patrol before seeing something he liked on a shelf towards the back.

On his way to the register, he found his steps slowing, slowing, stopping as he looked at what he held in his hands. Without conscious thought, he sank languidly down to sit on the floor next to one of the big shelves of stuffed animals. He'd discovered early in his explorations of 2017 New York that lots of people sat on the floor and read in bookstores, just like they were the libraries he remembered. And he liked the plush toys; their button eyes were friendly, and it almost felt like having company.

As he flipped through the pages of the book he had selected, there was movement over his shoulder. Slowly, a puppet of a grumpy-looking cat rose behind him. It looked left, then right, as if to make sure no one was watching, then leaned over him to see the pages, its mouth opening and shutting as someone spoke for it.

"Whatcha reading?"

"Book," Bucky said calmly, turning a page as if it were normal to be talking to a puppet.

The puppet grasped his hood in its mouth and pulled it down. "What book?"

"War and Peace," Bucky fibbed glibly. "You know, it's not nice to sneak up on people. Especially easily startled assholes who could flip you over their shoulders if you scare them."

The grumpy cat puppet opened its jaws wide and bit him on the arm. "You're no fun." Natasha crawled around the display of toys, the cat puppet still on her hand. "Why are we here? What have you got there?"

Bucky tucked the book under his arm quickly and snatched the puppet, holding it up next to Natasha's face. "Twins. Can't tell you apart."

"Screw you." But Natasha was smirking.

"Is that an invitation?"

"Depends. Do you have any booze at your apartment?"

"And if I don't?"

"Then I'll settle for you." She stood and extended a hand to him. "Come on, let's get out of here."

He took her hand, but only until he got to his feet. "Let me just pay for this."

"What is it?" Natasha asked, craning her neck to see, but he kept it out of her sight.

"It's kind of personal, Tash. You'll see."

She shrugged. "OK. How about you check out and I go down the block and get us some booze, in case you don't actually have any? I'll still settle for you, but some red wine might be nice on a day like this."

Bucky snorted. "Deal."

**

That afternoon, Peggy opened the door to the apartment she shared with Steve and was unhappy to see it was dark. One final, crushing disappointment to make the week complete.

It was dark and cold in there. Steve ran hot, and so he didn't notice as much when the temperature dropped, meaning there were quite a few nights in which she stole the covers from him (along with a pair of his thick woolen socks from his bureau), grumbling to herself as she curled up against his warmth, listening to him snore lightly, oblivious to her discomfort. He was pretty good about pushing the heat up if he beat her home, but that had apparently not been the case today.

No jingling of ID tags greeted her, either. So Darcy was likely out walking Brooklyn. Peggy hoped that Darcy had put the little sweater she had knitted for Brooklyn on the dog; it was a bit chilly outside. Peggy had firsthand knowledge of this; she had had to walk two miles home in the unseasonably cold wind, in heels, after a subway fire rendered the train inoperable. She had attempted briefly to catch a bus, but three had gone by full, and by then she was so annoyed she hadn't the patience to flag down a taxi and had stomped home in a fit.

And that had been the end of the day. The copy machine had been on the blink, and none of the older agents spending the day in the bullpen had deemed it vital to learn how to repair it, so Peggy had found herself poking around inside the ornery Lanier in a hideous parody of the '40s, when everyone had relegated her to the role of dumb secretary, smearing ink on her second-best blouse and burning her fingers on the rollers.

When she had finally repaired the bloody thing and waited for the men to finish making their copies before starting hers, Darcy had come with what should have been a comforting treat, but the overeager assistant had not so much dropped as batted her coffee across the room, scalding and drenching Peggy and adding additional stains to her already ink-smudged blouse.

Worst of all, Tony had ignored every attempt she had made to stall his plans to throw her some ridiculous birthday celebration, and the more she dug her heels in, the more he persisted, which only served to remind her of the reason she didn't want a party to begin with.

Now she turned on the light and sat at the kitchen table, attempting to rub the life into her cold hands but giving in to an urge to bury her face in them instead, feeling the chill of them against her flushed, warming cheek.

A jingle of keys--or ID tags--and a happy bark alerted her to the presence of someone at the door. It swung open as she looked at it, admitting not Darcy but Steve, his cheeks rosy with cold, a bouquet of flowers cradled in one sleeve of his leather jacket. Brooklyn danced at his feet, leaping in excitement because after the walk came supper, and treats, and the promise of a pleasant evening sitting on his master's feet and chewing busily on one of his rawhide bones.

Steve laughed, and Peggy felt something that had been packed tight in her heart uncurl and ease at the sound; she loved it so.

"Come on," Steve encouraged, showing the squat little puppy a little milk bone he'd taken out of his pocket. "Show me how high you can get! Come on, buddy, jump for your old man. What do you say?"

The dog leaped higher on his stumpy legs, and Peggy was convinced he'd turn a backflip for Steve if he could; she was unsure if any living creature on the planet loved Steve more than Brooklyn did, save herself. Steve cheerfully awarded the pup the milk bone and smiled as Brooklyn crunched busily on it before noticing her.

"Hey, Brooklyn!" Steve said, his grin like sunshine as he pointed towards Peggy. "Look who's home! Why don't you go say happy birthday to her? Go hug your mom. Let's show her the flowers we got her for her birthday!"

The puppy obediently ran to her, tags jingling in a frenzy as he attempted to climb into her lap. Peggy ordinarily might have stopped him, but the outfit was a lost cause today anyway; it would need dry cleaning. She watched amusedly as Brooklyn attempted to scale her skirt, his short legs having no hope of reaching, before picking him up to have a lap full of warm, happy puppy. She rubbed Brooklyn's little paws, ruffled his disproportionately large ears, and gave him a little kiss atop his head before resting her cheek against the soft fur. "Hello, Brooklyn darling," she murmured. "Did Daddy take you to the park this evening?"

The puppy yipped what could easily have been an affirmative, and Steve chuckled, hanging up the dog's leash along with his jacket and turning to her with a smile--which dropped from his face as soon as he saw the exhaustion on hers.

"Peggy," he said tenderly, placing the flowers on the occasional table and stepping briskly over to where she sat with the dog in her arms. "Oh, Peggy. What's wrong?"

"Nothing, darling. I'm fine." Peggy tried to brazen it out, rising from her chair holding the puppy. Brooklyn responded by wiggling ecstatically in her arms with the force of his excitement at all the unexpected cuddling. "All right now, you," Peggy admonished him gently. "Settle down. A kiss for Daddy and then it's off to your pillow for a while." She held the pup up so he could lick Steve's face, and then placed him on the floor, pointing towards the corner of the living room in which his bed was installed. "Go on now. No more being underfoot for a little while."

She did not say this angrily or sternly, simply firmly, and Steve smiled at the air of command that had snapped all of Camp Lehigh to attention. Brooklyn readily scrambled for his bed, claws clicking on the wood floor until he reached the living room rug. Curling up on the pillow, he made a sound like a small whiny motor as he gnawed one of his toy bones.

Steve leaned over to kiss her cheek. "He behaves so much better for you."

"That is because you are a pushover, darling," Peggy said evenly, sliding her arms around him. "Hmmm. I'm glad you're home."

"I wanted to spend some time with Brooklyn before we went out." He kissed the top of her head. "Did you just get in? Do you want to shower first? What are you wearing?"

Peggy pulled back in his arms, her expression shocked and cold. "Wearing where?" At the sight of his bashful shrug, she felt her face flood with angry color. "Steve. No. I am not going anywhere tonight."

Steve's face fell. "Aw, Peg..."

"No," she said firmly, pulling out of his embrace entirely. "Steven Grant Rogers, you know how I feel about this."

"But I don't know why," Steve burst out. "Peggy, I hate to see you so upset. I don't know how to help. Tony--you know Tony, he's just being a pain because it gets a rise out of you. Maybe the reason he's not taking you seriously is because no one has any idea why you're so dead set against celebrating your birthday."

"Oh, now you want to celebrate my birthday," Peggy blurted out. "Now you want to come to my party, do you?"

Steve blinked. "...what?"

"Am I supposed to jump up and down and clap my hands?" she stormed. "Captain America wants to come to my birthday party. Ooh, I must tell all the other girls, they will die of envy, won't they?"

For Steve Rogers, the shortest distance between two points was a straight line, and in his opinion, honesty and simplicity were always best. So he asked her point-blank:

"Why are you yelling at me?"

She blinked in mild surprise, as if she herself had not realized that that was exactly what she was doing.

"I'm the only one on your side about this birthday thing, you know," Steve added. "Everyone's asking me what's gotten into you, and I keep telling them to leave you be, and you're acting like it's all my fault they're bothering you or something. That's not fair. You know I'm on your side. You know that."

Peggy seemed to wilt a little, the fire of her anger cooling as the bellows that had fanned it accordioned back down inside her.

"Peggy," Steve said gently. "Talk to me. What's wrong?"

"My birthday in 1946," Peggy blurted out. "Howard threw me a surprise party. I hate surprise parties. I hate surprises."

"We've had a lot of unpleasant ones," Steve agreed with a small laugh. Peggy almost smiled, but the expression didn't last long.

"I didn't get what I wanted for my birthday in 1946," she said flatly. "I was upset."

Steve fought a smile.

"Go ahead, laugh. I know it sounds ridiculous. I wanted only one thing, and I didn't get it, and I knew I wouldn't, because it was impossible, so I didn't want to have a birthday."

"Peggy, I won't laugh, but..."

Steve's stomach fluttered a little as if he were in a rapidly dropping elevator, as the idea of just what impossible thing Peggy Carter might have wanted for her birthday in 1946 became clear to him.

"Peggy," he whispered, realization making him regret being cross with her for even a moment. "Oh, Peggy--"

"I thought about it a lot," she said, face glowing with a blush at the admission of feeling. "I would walk into the club and there you'd be, and you would ask me to dance and say 'Happy birthday, Peggy'." Her eyes were wet with tears. "I knew it was impossible and I knew it was silly but I wanted..." She shook her head as though she were disgusted with herself for being so emotional. "I didn't tell anyone, of course. It was my dream, just for me." She swiped angrily at her eyes.

He reached for her and she shoved at his hands, batted his offered embrace away. "Don't." She backed away from him, shaking her head. Steve pressed his lips together and dropped his hands, hurt that she wouldn't let him hold her--oh, he wanted so badly to hold her--but gave her the space she seemed to need.

"Howard had said we would just go to dinner, but when we got there I saw he'd rented out the entire room. And they were all at the table he was leading me to--Mr. Jarvis and his lovely wife and my friend Angie and Daniel and..." She ground at her eyes with her fists. "You weren't there."

More than ever, his arms ached for her, but he did not move.

"The band started to play, and Howard turned to me and held out his hand and said, 'Happy birthday, Peggy," and I just..."

She took a shuddery breath. "I didn't want to dance. I didn't want to dance with someone else..." She blushed, blinking big wet eyes at him, as though she were embarrassed to admit how much she had missed him. "I just...I lost my temper. I...I shouted at Howard in front of all of them, told him I had said over and over again I hadn't wanted anything like this--because it ruined everything, before there was a real party then I could still dream, but once it was real then it would be like admitting you would never be there--and I stormed out. I couldn't tell him why I was upset--he had tried so hard, so hard--but I...I didn't want to admit it wouldn't come true, that what I..." She trailed off, and Steve watched her try to collect herself.

"I was mad clean through, and I went home...I took a bath, and I went to bed. I have no idea if they continued the party without me or not, and I was so angry that I didn't care. That was the last birthday I spent with them. And I shall never see any of them again, never." She shook her head, fighting the tears. "I don't want any more birthdays."

"Oh, Peggy," Steve said softly, taking her in his arms at last. "Come here."

This time she didn't fight him. He held her while she berated herself, a few angry tears sneaking out of her eyes and slipping past her nose to dot his shirt. "I behaved like a child throwing a tantrum," she lamented. "A spoilt brat. My heart was broken, and I took it out on them. And that was the last memory they had of me on my birthday, being disagreeable and unappreciative of them." She hid her face in the crook of Steve's neck. "You just never know. You never know when the last time will be that you share a meal with a friend, or walk with someone, or kiss them, or tell them what they mean to you." She shuddered, clearly remembering the kiss they had both thought for so long had been their last. "You never know. And I...I don't want any more birthdays." She shook her head and buried her face in his shoulder.

"I'm sorry I missed your birthday, Peg," he whispered, rocking her. "I'm here now. I'm here." Peggy didn't say anything, but he felt her squeeze him, her arms around him just a little tighter.

A tiny, tickly growl rumbled through the room and Brooklyn galloped to them, rearing on his hind paws and trying to get Peggy to pick him up, one little hindleg scraping against her skirt as he tried to climb her again.

"I know," Steve murmured to the dog. "You don't like it when Mumma cries. I don't, either. Let me help." Picking up the pup, Steve deposited him back into Peggy's arms, where Brooklyn went to work licking Mumma's tears away. "Atta boy."

Peggy laughed softly, sadly, turning her cheek to Brooklyn.

Whimsically, Steve took Brooklyn's paws in his big hands and guided him through a little dance, the pup panting happily as Steve spoke lines for him in a playfully gruff voice.

"Surrender, Mumma. Am pupper," he said, pawing at Peggy with Brooklyn's little front feet.

Peggy tried not to smile, but it was too much. "Are pupper?" she asked.

"Am friend," Steve gruffed for Brooklyn. "Hug me. Give kisses."

Peggy moved closer to Steve so he could put his arms around both her and the puppy she held. She laughed. "Silly boys."

"Will you do something for me?" Steve asked after cuddling his family for a moment.

"Darling, anything," Peggy said.

"Let me take you out?" he cajoled gently. "Let me fuss over you, if you won't let them? Let me make that night up to you?"

"Oh, Steve, I don't know..."

"Please," Steve pushed softly. "Let's go out. You and me. I'll be there, the whole time. We can go to dinner someplace quiet. And if you decide you want to leave, we can leave. But Peggy...please..."

She looked at him, her eyes bright with tears.

"I'm so glad you're here with me. That we're together. We should celebrate that." He pressed his forehead against hers. "I love you. I'll never make you do something you don't want to do, but I want you to have better memories of this day. Let's go make some."

She didn't have the heart to say no to that eager, earnest face. "Oh...oh, all right, if it makes you happy," she sighed, and hated how her heart throbbed with affection when his expression brightened.

"Thank you, Peggy. I promise we'll have fun." He kissed her, soft and sweet. "You can have anything you want."

"I want to stay home," Peggy said stoutly, but stroked his cheek, shifting Brooklyn's weight to one arm. "But I want you to be happy, as well. So we will go out--just for a little while."

"You got it." He pressed his lips to hers, a quick smooch, and took the puppy from her. "Look, there's no need to rush. Why don't you go have a nice hot bath, and try to relax. I'll bring you in a glass of whiskey, and you can use those little things Pepper gave you. The little baseball things with the glitter."

"You could join me," she purred, stroking a fingertip down his chest. "In the bath."

"I'm spangly enough." He chuckled, tipping her chin up for another kiss. "That's very tempting, Peggy, but I really want to take you out tonight. Indulge me. Please."

Peggy sighed through her nose. "I love you, you stubborn thing. Very well."

Steve smiled. "Now, go indulge yourself. Captain's orders."

**

"What is it?" Natasha asked softly, circling his nipple lazily with a finger as they lay in bed.

It was late afternoon, and Bucky hadn't planned to make love to her today, but there was something in the air when they were together--a scent, an electricity. More often than not he found himself falling into bed with her with no clear memory of how they'd gotten there. Since lapses in memory had never before been a thing he'd associated with anything pleasant, he was content to lay with her and enjoy the jumble of remembered sensation he was left with afterwards--the scent of her hair, the taste of her mouth, the grip of her body.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

Natasha pressed an open-mouthed kiss to his bare shoulder. "You've got something on your mind."

"Always," he murmured.

She threw a leg over his hips, straddling him almost lazily, and he felt a ghost of his old smirk, from that hazy Before, tugging at his lips in appreciation of her stamina. "Do I take your mind off it, or do you want to work it through?"

Bucky sighed, reaching carefully up with both hands (he was always careful whenever he brought his left hand into play, even now) to stroke down her bare shoulders. "Stark's throwing a party for Carter."

When his hands settled on her hips, she rolled them languidly, and he growled in soft appreciation. "I know. Peggy's furious," she laughed. "Every time she complains, Tony adds another bell or whistle. If she complains one more time, he's going to have to move it to Madison Square--ahhmm," she sighed as Bucky slid his right hand back up to her breast, thumb stroking the sensitive skin beneath it.

"Do you like that?" Bucky asked softly; he still wasn't entirely convinced their odd physical relationship was reality, and he sought frequent reassurance that his touch, used so long to injure and to kill, brought her pleasure.

"Don't change the subject," she said with a silky smile, reaching for his other hand.

He tensed as she took it. "Natasha--"

"Shhh," she said, placing his left hand on her breast, hissing softly at the chill of the metal.

"Are you taking my mind off it, or helping me work through it?" he muttered.

"Why does there have to be a difference?" she asked, guiding his hand down her belly.

"Be careful, for fuck's sake," he said tersely, although he didn't fight her, watching her touch herself with his hand.

"Barnes. If I cared about that, I wouldn't have kissed you after beating the shit out of you that first time," she chuckled, then sighed as she encouraged him with gentle pressure to crook his fingers.

"That is not how I remember it," he said, trying to relax as she manipulated his hand in the ways he was quickly learning most pleased her.

"Revise history all you want, Winter Soldier," Natasha said. Her calling him by the title had been an argument at first, until he had realized she was trying, in her own way, to take the sting out of it--not for herself, but for him. "But I won that fight."

Jackknifing up abruptly, he circled his right arm around her, pulling her close against him. "What I meant was that I'm the one who kissed you," he growled, and punctuated this declaration by doing so again, fiercely. She gripped his hand, clamping it between her legs as his tongue forced her lips to open.

"Do you want to be my date for the party?" she asked breathlessly, undulating her hips.

He blinked, never able to get used to the contrast of her, the imbalance he always felt when he was with her and yet could never bring himself to mind. "Awww, that's the sweetest thing anyone's ever asked me while she's got the fingers of my goddamned metal hand between her legs. Maybe next you'll give me your class ring."

"Smartass." She smiled, pointing out without words that she was ignoring his attempt to emphasize the things he thought made him broken. Her guiding hand on his never stopped its movement. "Tony won't throw you out if you come as my date. Trust me. Peggy and Steve won't let him."

"Tony invited me," he said. "That's what's on my mind. I don't know what his angle is."

Her eyebrows raised, her hand finally pausing on his, as if the news surprised her as well. "You going to come?"

That was a question he had no trouble answering, and all the old confidence surged through him as he rolled them in the sheets like a shark, taking his left arm neatly out of the way so she wouldn't have to lay atop it when he got her beneath him. "Not till I'm inside you," he said with a smoldering look that melted into a biting kiss, and then there was no more talking for a few moments, save for Natasha purring his name and a curse he muttered unexpectedly when the urgency of his own release caught him by surprise.

"You never answered my question," she said afterward, her arm draped possessively over him as he lay with his right arm around her and the left one above his own head.

He sighed through his nose. "I don't know if I should go."

Natasha nuzzled his neck. "Tony wouldn't have invited you just to start trouble."

"Want to bet?"

"He wouldn't," Natasha insisted. "If you don't believe he wouldn't do it to you, believe he wouldn't do it to Peggy."

Bucky looked away.

Sensing the true source of his discomfort, Natasha added softly, "And he wouldn't have invited you if he didn't think Peggy would want you there."

Bucky shrugged, a little unnerved by how well she could read him. "I still...I still feel bad that..."

"I know." Natasha kissed his shoulder. "Peggy knows, too."

"Steve--"

"It's not about Steve," Natasha warned. "You've got to stop hiding behind Steve. And you've got to let go of the idea that we all just tolerate you for Steve's sake. Peggy especially."

Bucky snorted. "She's not going to make Steve choose."

"Maybe. She knows you'll always have a place in Steve's heart," Natasha allowed. "Did you ever think that maybe you earned a place in hers?" She rested her cheek against his shoulder. "In more hearts than just hers?"

Bucky was silent.

"You don't think you earned it," Natasha concluded. "You don't think it's even possible for you to earn it, do you?"

"Stop," he said quietly.

"You shot me once," Natasha pointed out.

Just like that, Bucky's temper hit flashpoint. "Damn it, I hate it when you bring that up," he snarled, jerking out of her arms and swinging his legs over the side of the bed to turn his back on her. "Is it just to piss me off, or are you honestly that much of an asshole?"

Natasha, nonplussed, got to her knees behind him, rubbing a gentle hand up and down his back. He tried to shrug her off, but she persisted, and he gave in rather quickly to the soothing touch.

"It's not to piss you off," she said, deliberately.

He waited, refusing to turn.

"Doesn't matter what you say, Barnes," she continued. "I kissed you first."

He turned his head the slightest bit to look at her.

"You shot me, and I just fucked you," she said, and he winced at the coarse language, surprising himself. "I'm here in your bed. A lot of people might say that was crazy. A lot more crazy than someone putting himself in a situation that makes him uncomfortable, because he cares about his friend."

He was stunned as always by her ability to see right through him; sometimes he thought the head shrinkers the brass at S.H.I.E.L.D. forced him to talk to could probably learn a thing or two from her.

"Natasha..." He shook his head.

She slipped her arms around him from behind, hooking her chin over his shoulder, and he lost himself in the sensations again, the feel and the scent of her.

"It's OK." It was almost a whisper. "It's OK to have friends. Peggy's not going anywhere because you took a few swings at her with your metal arm." She kissed his shoulder. "I'm not going anywhere because you scuttled my mission a few years ago." She smiled against his skin. "You missed, anyway. You're a lousy shot."

Bucky, who had been an expert marksman in the war, and whose specialty as the Winter Soldier had been sniping, knew this gentle jab was for his benefit. "Tasha..."

Another kiss, this time his neck; she sounded very pleased with herself. "Shut up, or I'll fuck you again."

"I'm pretty sure I'm the one who fucked you," he teased back, and Natasha bit his shoulder sharply in censure. It didn't really hurt; he growled more out of surprise than pain, pulling her into his lap. She went willingly, straddling him and squeezing with her thighs. She snapped her teeth playfully and he answered with a snarl, the sound rumbling through his chest and throat. Their noses brushed, and then she was cradling his face in her hands and kissing him, her passion strong and sweet rather than predatory. For a moment he just closed his eyes, his forehead resting against hers.

"You never answered my question," she repeated.

He blinked, confused for a moment, and then looked at her, searching her face for the judgment, for the trick. Only patience was there, and below it, something he didn't let himself try to name because he was afraid to want it.

"Yeah," he said softly after a moment. "Yeah, I'll go with you to the party. I'd like that."

She did not kiss his mouth, but his forehead, rather softly, like a blessing. "It's a date, soldier."

**

What Steve had referred to as "little baseball things" were actually something Pepper had told her was called a "bath bomb". The name had tickled Peggy, but not nearly as much as the effect the items had when submerged in water--they fizzed delightfully like an analgesic, turning the water twinkly as they infused it with the scents of vanilla and bergamot, just like Peggy's lipstick and perfume.

Steve didn't quite understand how these things worked--had she used them all they would have flooded the apartment with fragrant bubbles--but one was quite enough. she relaxed in the oversized tub, enjoying the hot water and the sweet perfume, sighing.

Her eyes were closed when she heard the soft rap at the door. "Hmmm?" She murmured. Steve peeked almost bashfully around the doorframe. "How does that feel?" He asked.

"Intensely relaxing," Peggy purred. "You ought to try it." Raising an eyebrow pointedly, she added, "Room for two."

Her bashful boy's face tinted with a blush, and Peggy knew from delicious experience that if he took off the t-shirt he was wearing, that flush would have crept all the way down his chest to his navel. But his eyes gave away his real feelings on her teasing--they darkened so with pure desire.

"I'd rather let you get me dirty first, then we can clean up," Steve deflected flirtatiously. "But dinner first. Here's your whiskey." He placed the glass on the side of the bathtub. "Do you know what you want to wear? I'll lay it out for you."

Peggy sighed, mildly disappointed at being denied. "You choose, darling. This is your night."

"It's yours," Steve insisted. "We're going to make it yours again. Tonight."

The sound of their voices in a room without him had gotten Brooklyn away from his rawhide; a happy canter down the hall to see "Mumma" in the tub made the pup eager to join. Had it not been for Steve's quick reflexes and his snatching up a squirming, wriggling puppy from the tile floor they would have found themselves with a dog that even Steve would call "Spangles" by the amount of shimmer in the fragranced water.

"Hey! This is for her, not you." The pup protested with a whimper, but Steve kept him put. "Come on, buddy. Let's go pick out a pretty dress for Mumma."

**

Other than checking in, the real reason Steve had come into the bathroom was to deliver Peggy's soft satin robe and one of her best slips. He had, however, forgotten her slippers, and while she wasn't angry about it she didn't want the chill of the walk home to catch back up to her. Heading into the bedroom to fetch them, she noticed another subtle, sweet message from him on the bed, which was made with its usual military neatness. The boy was Army born and bred, she thought appreciatively, taking in the sharp corners and creases of the bedclothes, but her attention was soon diverted to her plush Captain America, the one she cuddled with at night when Steve was away. The toy was propped against the pillows on her side of the bed, his little shield Velcroed to his arm, a single poppy across his lap, the petals bright red against the blue of his plush uniform.

"Darling," she murmured lovingly, picking up the poppy and brushing her lips against the petals before returning it to the toy's arms, fetching her soft slippers from beneath the bed.

She saw that Steve had arranged the flowers he had brought her in a vase on her nightstand. Smiling at them--poppies and white hollyhocks and delphinium, the colors not lost on her--she read the card propped against the base of the vase. Happy birthday to the best thing that's ever happened to me. I love you, Peggy. Steve. As she bent to scent the blossoms, the scrabble of claws on wood flooring announced itself again. Brooklyn twined happily in and out between her slippered feet, panting in hopes Mumma would pick him up again. Peggy obliged, a fleeting thought of dog hair on her clean robe, there and gone in an instant--he wasn't going to be a baby forever, and corgi mix or not (she wondered how she and Barnes had ever thought he could be anything else, the characteristics becoming more apparent every day), he was going to get more difficult to hold in her arms before they knew it.

"I believe we spoil you," she told the puppy solemnly, lifting him up to look him in the eye, one hand supporting his small rump and the other supporting his tiny chest, which was expanding and contracting like a bellows in his excitement at having his "parents" all to himself for the evening. His response was to crane his little neck and lick her nose.

Peggy wrinkled that appendage, unable to help smiling at their "baby". "Steve?" she called towards the walk-in closet which housed both their wardrobes--Steve's on one side, hers on the other.

"In here," Steve said, peeking out of the closet, the ends of his tie in his hands.

Steven Grant Rogers, ever the gentleman that he wanted so badly to be for a woman like Margaret had actually dressed for dinner. His grey slacks were pressed to within an inch of their life, the creases razor sharp, and a light blue button down dress shirt brought out the color of his eyes. She laughed softly when she saw his tie--the most garish, awful tie in creation, patterned with stars and stripes. A young fan had sent it to him, and that was the only reason he kept it because if she spotted it in his drawer she’d usually get a laugh out of it.

He smiled lovingly at her, taking in her more relaxed stance, seeing the warmth bring color to her cheek. “Have I told you lately that you’re beautiful even when you aren’t armed?”

"Cheeky. Want some help?" she asked, putting Brooklyn down and reaching for him.

He lifted his chin, smiling as she expertly knotted his tie. "You're the best."

"You're rather dressed up," she murmured. "Not that I am complaining. You look very handsome."

"I want to look good for my best girl." Tie knotted, he brought her close for a kiss. "Feel a little better?"

"I'd feel better if we were staying home and making love," she declared, "but the bath was very nice, thank you."

"You said you'd try tonight. For me. Please? Pick anywhere you want. Someplace that makes you happy." Steve gave her that pleading look again, and once more Peggy relented.

"All right. The Irish pub that you first took me to in the fall. It's warm there, I like the menu, and anywhere you've taken me on a date makes me happy, darling. How is that?"

Steve grinned. "Perfect. We'll go there."

"Good. Did you decide what dress I should wear?"

Placated, Steve brightened. "I like them all, I couldn't pick, but Brooklyn likes the blue one with the black trim and the sweetheart neckline. I didn't argue with him. You look so beautiful in blue."

Brooklyn gave a short bark, as if agreeing with Steve.

"See?" Steve gave her a soothing kiss. "The blue one, Peg. Please?"

She smiled, sitting at her vanity to begin her makeup. "The blue one it is, darling. Go put Brooklyn on his pillow so he'll settle down. Make sure has food and water, and leave out a few of his toys, or he'll overturn the wastebin again out of spite."

Steve laughed. "He knows better after you put him in time-out for that last time." But he left the room.

**

"The blue dress" didn't exactly narrow down Peggy's wardrobe--she liked blue, and knew Steve liked her in it as well, so she had quite a few blue dresses, but she knew which one he was referring to. It had a soft, full skirt and a sweetheart neckline between its cap sleeves, and Peggy smiled at it on its hanger; she didn't mind giving Steve a peek at her cleavage if that pleased him. Plus, she liked how the dress fit her and it was among her more comfortable ones. After settling her garters and zipping herself into the dress, she began to brush and pin her hair, curling the ends around her fingers, pinning the sides and sweeping the front fringe over one eye before pinning it by her ear. She felt guilty for snapping at him, and decided that looking pretty for him and sitting through a dinner was a small price to pay for the loyal, steadfast love that she still couldn't quite believe was for her.

Meanwhile, soon as Steve was sure Peggy was preoccupied with her hair and makeup, he took out his mobile phone and sent a text message.

Tir na Nog. We should be there by 7. I don't like tricking her, so don't make me regret this.

As soon as he'd pressed SEND, he heard the click of Peggy's heels on the floor and shoved the phone in his pocket, kneeling to pet Brooklyn.

"Okay, buddy, be good. Mumma and Daddy will be home later, all right? Be a good boy and play with your toys till bedtime. Don't break anything." The puppy was panting eagerly, pawing at Steve's sleeve, then abruptly stopped and ran to frolic around Peggy's feet when he saw her come out of the bedroom.

"Ready," she sighed, putting on a smile for him in preparation to soldier through this dinner.

"Wow," Steve said, settling back on his heels.

"Silly," Peggy admonished gently, "you asked for this dress."

"That's my favorite way you style your hair," he told her.

"You've told me as much," she said, smiling.

"Do you know why?" he asked, standing. When she shook her head, he gave her the final piece of that confession, a look of tender affection on his face and a blush tinting his cheek. "Because it's the way you were wearing it the first time I ever saw you. The most beautiful girl in the world."

Peggy's heart felt traitorously fluttery in her chest. "Oh, Steve."

"You're the prettiest thing, sweetheart. Happy birthday." He drew her to him for a kiss, but she held a hand up.

"You'll get lipstick all over your face, Captain."

Steve smirked and leaned in anyway. "Worth it."

**

Peggy first realized something was amiss when Steve, who could not possibly have had time to make a reservation without having known where she wanted to go, told the maitre'd that he already had a table in the back room and was answered with a "Yes, very good, sir. Your party is back there already."

Steve made a slashing motion across his throat at the p-word, but strode confidently towards the pub's back room, with a concerned Peggy in tow, to reveal the answer to the question already forming on her lips.

Seated around a large table, with two empty seats at the center, were Tony, Pepper, Natasha, Bucky, Clint, and Darcy, who eagerly chirped "Hi, Agent Carter!" and bounced in her chair.

"Surprise," Steve said bashfully.

Peggy blinked at the guests seated around the table. "Why, what's this?"

"It's your party, Aunt Peggy," Tony said cheekily, getting up from his chair to greet her. "And don't worry, it's just us. Gotcha. Happy hundred and seventh birthday or whatever it is."

"Anthony Stark, you are a beast. And stop calling me Aunt Peggy," Peggy said, but accepted his loud smacking kiss on her cheek. "How dare you disregard what I said about not celebrating my birthday."

"Well, how I dare was actually pretty simple," Tony said. "I knew if I pretended I was throwing some giant shindig you would hate the idea and refuse to come. And I knew Spangles would try to protect you from my shenanigans by taking you somewhere nice and quiet for dinner instead. Not his fault we all happened to be here too, right?" Pepper had to smile at this; Clint didn't even bother to hide a grin.

Peggy frowned at Steve, but her eyes were warm. "Is he telling the truth? Did you know about this? Did you tell them we were coming here?"

"Yes." Steve blushed and put a hand behind his head, rubbing the back of his neck. "I told you, I'm glad you're here to have a birthday, Pegs, and I'm glad I'm here to celebrate it with you. Everyone who's here is."

For once, Tony spoke plainly, his face serious. "Don't be angry at him. I pushed him into this. It was all my idea, from beginning to end, so if you're angry at anyone it should be me. You don't have to stay if you don't want to, but I wish you would. We all do."

"Peggy," Steve said gently, "you told me you regretted not spending your birthday with your friends in 1946. So spend it with your family now." His ears were pink as he added, "We love you."

"He's right," Tony said. "About all of it. We should celebrate."

Peggy looked affectionately at Steve, then swept a sweetly bewildered gaze over the table. Only smiles were reflected back at her.

"You all had better have brought cake," she said airily, by way of acceptance, and Tony eagerly pulled out the two empty chairs that had been left for her and for Steve.

"It's the New York cheesecake!" Darcy exulted, betraying her role in the plan. "You liked that one the best, right?"

**

After the first round of drinks was ordered, Steve reached across the table to take Peggy's hands. "Please forgive me for lying to you."

Peggy's eyes softened, pleased with the apology, even though she had moved from anger to feeling rather flattered that her little "family" hadn't been willing to let her scare them away from her on this night. "I forgive you, darling. I hope you won't make a habit of it."

"Make a habit of having lots more birthdays with me, and you've got a deal," Steve said, bringing her hands to his lips. Peggy smiled.

"Time for your first present," Pepper said. "You should have this, because speaking of telling the truth, you should know it."

"I've got presents," Peggy said in mild surprise as she noticed the stack on the chair next to Darcy. She glanced again at Steve, who smiled and held his hands up in surrender and said "You said I could."

"Tony is a jerk," Pepper declared.

"If that's the present, I'd return it," Clint quipped. "We all knew that already."

Tony flipped Clint off with a smirk, but Pepper handed Peggy a folded sheet of paper.

"He's been teasing you for weeks about a stupid giant party, and he never meant any of it. Half the time he was only pretending to talk to vendors on his phone. This was the task list he gave me for your 'big, blowout birthday party'."

Taking the paper, Peggy unfolded it and read:

- be ready to book quick dinner reservation day of. Location TBD, wait for call from Steve. Bump someone if they're overbooked, but only if you have to. Drop my name. Ask for quiet table near the back, or private room if you can, depending on restaurant. Privacy and quiet very important.
- order cake from bakery day of (New York cheesecake, not Italian). No singing, though, under penalty of death.
- guest list: birthday girl, you, me, Spangles, Nat, Hunger Games, Cheeseball, that jerk with the metal arm.

" 'Cheeseball'?" Peggy read.

"That's me!" Darcy announced importantly, completely immune to Tony's sarcasm. When everyone groaned, she waved them off saying, "Look, it's not easy being cheesy."

More groans, except for Clint, who got Darcy in a headlock and gave her a noogie, which made her giggle.

Tony was smiling at Peggy. "I may be an asshole, but I'm not that much of an asshole, Aunt Peggy. There was never a big party, just your boyfriend and your friends wanting to take you out to dinner."

Peggy frowned, but the look was playful. "You're a better liar than Steve, Tony. You had me going."

"Well, Clint almost blew it," Natasha accused, pointing at Clint from her chair next to Bucky.

"I didn'tknow she was going to be home that day!" Clint shot back. "Steve was supposed to answer the door! I panicked! It's Tony's fault! He should have stalled Fury for calling that meeting. Just for that, I'm ordering a lobster."

"Order whatever you want," Tony said grandly. "It's Aunt Peggy's birthday, and I'm buying."

"Tony, if you would bloody stop calling me Aunt Peggy, that would be a wonderful birthday gift," Peggy said with an eyeroll.

"Nope, sorry, that's not what's in the box," Tony said cheekily. "But let's find out what is! Pep?"

Pepper had been relieved to see that everyone in attendance had come with a wrapped gift, and although Steve had sworn up and down that he had only made suggestions to those who had asked outright, every single present was a book. Although, Pepper noted with pleasure, she was not the only one who had included a small something extra to make Peggy feel a little more at home and a little less of the obligation she was incorrectly assuming she were.

Her own gifts to Peggy were a copy of Brave New World and an array of cosmetics from a company whose major selling point was that its products were emulating the vintage makeup products of prior decades. She had gotten Peggy anything they had that was based on the 1940s. "Cream mascara!" Peggy laughed. "You are such a delight. Where on earth did you find such a thing?"

"I hope the perfume isn't from the 1940s, or we'll have to call HAZMAT," Tony said, and everyone laughed. Pepper swatted at him, and he smirked with his usual response: "Oh, you love it."

Pepper pretended to pout, because unfortunately she did love it--or at least, she loved him, for better or worse.

Peggy sprayed a bit of the perfume on her wrist and held it up almost coquettishly to Steve, and he went as far as to brush his lips affectionately across her skin. "Lovely," he murmured, almost low enough to be only for her ears, and his cheek was pink with pleasure; his love for her was plain in every move he made and every word he spoke to her.

Tony had given Peggy a first-edition copy of Confederacy of Dunces, an admittedly stunning leather jacket, which Pepper knew from having ordered it made that it closely resembled one Peggy had once owned (and the delight was clear on Peggy's face), and a note promising he would behave himself for exactly one week. Peggy dipped her fingers into her water glass and flicked the droplets at Tony, who squinted, flinched and almost knocked Pepper out of her chair, his arm still around her shoulders. But Pepper could tell he was pleased with his gifts, and more than that, pleased that "Aunt Peggy" was pleased. Tony had grown up with stories of Agent Carter, and Pepper was well aware that he was very fond of her, both for who she was and for the new connection it gave him with the memory of his father.

Clint, with his usual inability to take anything seriously, had given Peggy a vast array of comic books, promising to assist her with untangling the convoluted storylines--"Although we've got a lot of experience with time travel, it shouldn't be too hard." Natasha had rolled her eyes and shoved him; Peggy had seemed rather intrigued. Pepper could understand; when one had been through all they had been through, both together and on their own, one tended to forget there was still fun to be had, and she was glad that they all had Clint as a reminder. But his other present was quite serious indeed--a custom-fit shoulder holster, which he pointed out Steve had helped him with. Peggy remarked quite favorably on this gift, claiming her current rig bit into her shoulders too tightly. Thankfully, Tony refrained from making a joke--perhaps he had already started behaving for the one week he had jokingly promised.

Darcy had given Peggy a copy of Outlander. "It's basically historical porn," she said warmly. "There's war and sex and guys in kilts. And everyone's outfits are amazing. It's most sincerely awesome." Peggy laughed and thanked her; even Steve chuckled. Darcy's other present was a gift card to Seamless. "Now you can order so much food," she said, as if the concept of her present blew her own mind. "And you don't even have to put on shoes!" Peggy smiled at Darcy with the fondness one would have for a favorite niece, and got up to give her a hug, which Pepper thought was sweet.

Natasha's present was a book called Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. "I'll apologize in advance for getting you started on this," she said stoutly as Clint laughed in delight at her choice, like a happy child. "It looks like a children's book, but it isn't, I assure you. There are seven books, and they get longer and more complicated with every volume, but you'll like them, I promise. One of the heroines reminds me of you, actually."

Tony snorted. "Because she's British?"

Natasha was nonplussed. "For a lot of reasons." She turned to Peggy and said, "You'll see."

Peggy smiled playfully. "Looking forward to that. Shall I open this other one?" Natasha had included, of all things, an evening gown--navy satin with a rather daring neckline. "I know you like your dresses," the Widow said almost primly, "but try something new for a change." Peggy smirked at her, but pet a hand down the elegant satin, and Steve's eyes twinkled with poorly disguised interest.

When Peggy opened Bucky's present, she fell silent, simply staring down at the box he had tucked it in. "What's this?"

Bucky's face was as red as the star on his shoulder, a rarity for him. "I couldn't even believe it was still in print," he muttered shyly. "When I saw it, I had to get it."

Peggy lifted the little book out of its box, so all in attendance could see its brightly colored cover. The Velveteen Rabbit.

Steve's eyes went wide; they were suspiciously bright as he looked over at Bucky. "I'd forgotten that!"

It seemed to bolster Bucky a little bit. "I didn't." Turning to Peggy, he explained to her, and by extension to the table, "When we were kids and Steve's ma worked late, my ma used to read it to us. Maybe he doesn't remember, but I do." He glanced up at Steve, and for a moment Pepper saw the boy he must have been--the boys they both had been.

Steve's eyes were hazy and damp, and the smile didn't quite reach his lips, but it was close. "I remember."

"So, it's, y'know, it's..." Bucky shrugged, turning back to Peggy. "It's my favorite."

Peggy reached across the table to put her hand over Bucky's. She tended to favor his left, and Pepper thought it was to prove that his arm didn't bother her. "I love it, James," she said sincerely, and returned his smile. "Thank you."

"I got you a gift certificate to some restaurant Tasha and me went to in midtown, too," Bucky added, flicking a thumb towards Steve. "They have good pasta. I know you love that Seamless thing, but take this guy out someplace nice once in a while, wouldja?"

The table responded with laughter, and the spell was safely broken. Tony hammered the final nail in with, "Where's your present, Spangles? Or are you going to let her open it at home?" He waggled his eyebrows suggestively, and Steve blushed to the tips of his ears, which was as good as admitting he had a romantic plan to take Peggy to bed later. Peggy threw a wet napkin at Tony, which hit him square in the face.

"Bullseye!" Clint yelled, howling with laughter.

The waitress arrived to take their orders at that point, and Tony arched his brows pointedly at Bucky. "Hey Barnes, I'm going up to get another round. Make that arm useful and help me carry."

Bucky blinked rapidly, and Natasha tensed, but Tony nonchalantly flicked his head to indicate the bar. "Come on, I can't carry them all by myself."

Bucky waited anxiously for the beers and Peggy's whiskey to arrive. The bottles were first, and when they came, Stark handed one to him and revealed the true reason he had requested help.

"Pretty good present, asshole," he said evenly, clinking his beer against Bucky's. "Thanks for coming."

"Thanks, you insufferable dick," Bucky replied calmly. "Thanks for inviting me."

Tony smirked and took a pull from his beer, then began dividing the bottles and tumblers between them to carry back.

**

"...and it was the biggest, stupidest looking stuffed rabbit in the entire world," Pepper finished as the entrees were cleared away. "Bigger than the Hulkbuster, even. Big. Also, raise your hand if you know I'm allergic to strawberries--put your hand down, Tony!"

"Come onnnnn, Pep!" Tony pleaded. "I tried!"

Steve was laughing hard at this story, and Peggy couldn't help smiling affectionately at her Captain, who had wanted so badly to make this night special for her. She reached for his hand, and he took hers, squeezing, his eyes bright with mirth.

"Ta da!" Darcy said as she unveiled the cake.. "New York cheesecake, with no writing on it, no candles and absolutely no singing."

Peggy chuckled. "That's perfect. Thank you all."

"You get the first piece, Agent Carter," Darcy declared, cutting it for Peggy. "And we'll all be very quiet and not sing. Who else wants cake?"

Everyone did.

**

"What, already?" Clint slurred after the cake had been demolished. "But ya just got here!"

"Clint," Natasha sighed. "It has been three hours and you have had enough."

"I haven't given Peggy my present yet," Steve said, pulling Peggy back against him as they stood and murmuring close to her ear, "and I'd like to before the clock strikes twelve and it isn't her birthday anymore."

"Thank goodness," Peggy laughed, leaning back against Steve's shoulder. She'd had a bit of whiskey and was more relaxed than she could have imagined she'd be at the end of this night. "Then I won't have to deal with this nonsense for another entire year."

"Admit it, you had fun," Tony said.

"Guilty as charged." Smiling at her friends, Peggy said, "Thank you all for my party. It was exactly what I didn't realize I wanted."

Laughter from around the table, along with Tony beginning a croon of "We loooooove youuuuuu."

Peggy made an obscene gesture, to which Steve said, "Language," in a warning but loving tone, pushing her hand down to her side.

"Doesn't count, Spangles, she never said anything," Tony laughed. "Have fun, kids. Car's waiting outside for you."

Peggy knocked a kiss against Tony's cheek. "Thank you, beastly nephew of mine."

"Happy birthday, Aunt Peggy. Now get out of here and open Spangles' present." He gave her the eyebrow waggle again and she pushed him.

Natasha followed suit after they left by standing up and pulling Bucky with her, draping his arms over her shoulders like a coat. "Let's play a party game. It's called, 'Not It', and it has to do with rolling a drunken Clint home. Bucky and I are Not It."

The rest of the table threw napkins at Natasha and groaned, while Clint protested, "Whaddarya talkin' about? I can walk jus' fine, Tasha, I'll showya! Name yer game yer name!"

Darcy, who was also half in the bag, thrust both fists into the air as a sign of victory. "Let's all do what Clint says!"

"We will not do what Clint says, Clint is drunk," Pepper protested sternly.

"I'll call him a car," Tony promised Natasha. "Everyone's getting a car home tonight."

Natasha started to protest, but Bucky interrupted, surprising everyone. "Thanks. That'd be nice. Right, Tash?"

Natasha blinked, then said, "All right, one more round, if no one's driving."

Clint drummed his hands on the table.

"Not for you!" the entire group except Tony added--he was already signaling their waitress. Oh, and Darcy, who was chanting, "Clint, Clint, Clint."

**

As soon as they were back in the apartment, Peggy shoved Steve against the closed door, choking off his exclamation of surprise by pulling at his tie.

"Peggy, what's wrong?" he asked breathlessly, then realized she was unknotting the garish tie and placing it on the occasional table.

Peggy kissed him, tasting not-unpleasantly of whiskey and sugar, working busily at his buttons. "You aren't naked, darling. That's what's wrong."

Steve laughed, accepting her kiss even as he gently pushed her questing hands away. "Don't you want to open your present first?"

"I am opening my present." Peggy opened his shirt to expose his chest, letting her hands slip down his skin to unbuckle his belt. "I want my present to help me so that I can play with him sooner."

"Peggy." He laughed again. "Indulge me for a few more minutes, please."

Peggy pouted. "Very well, but I hope you intend to indulge me directly after."

He kissed her mouth. "That's a promise. Wait here."

When he came back, he was holding what looked like a manuscript in his hands. The pages had been carefully, professionally bound.

"When I woke up, I asked to be taken to your...to where they had laid you to rest," he said softly. "They told me there was no resting place--that you had disappeared, back in the 40s. And I...I used to play this game. It was...a little silly, or so I thought at the time, but I played it anyway." He was blushing, his eyes shining with the memory. "I would pretend you were...like me. Like you were...frozen somewhere, maybe. And that I was writing you from the field. Like we were sweethearts, and waiting for each other."

"Darling," Peggy whispered, chest tight with feeling.

"And then suddenly it was true. My dream. You were here. You came back to me." He held the bound manuscript towards her. "So I...I made you a book. Of my letters."

Spellbound, Peggy took the bound book from him, opening its simple cover to read the title page. "Dear Peggy," she read, blinking suddenly tearbright eyes at him.

She had no intention of reading them all right away--it would take hours--but she couldn't resist flipping through the letters.

Dear Peggy,

The rain. The rain always makes me think of the European theatre, and the European theatre always makes me think of you. I dream of all the places you'll show me when you're home from the war...

Dear Peggy,

Fireworks at Coney Island tonight! I didn't know they did such things there. I felt like I was eight years old again. How I wish you'd been there next to me, your hand in mine, but when you come home, I'll show you. We can go on the Cyclone--I promise not to throw up this time, ha ha. I'll take you to my favorite place to get ice cream, and you can have any flavor you want, and we'll watch the fireworks from the boardwalk, you and me...

Dear Peggy,

I can't think of a single thing to write today, I just keep thinking of your face...

And the page was covered in sketches--Peggy laughing, Peggy at her makeshift desk at Lehigh, Peggy resting in the Howling Commandos' camp at the end of a long march.

Dear Peggy,

I had a milkshake today at this place that tries to be an old-timey soda fountain. It doesn't come very close to the real thing, but I like it all the same, maybe because the shake was vanilla and reminded me just a little of the taste of your lipstick...

Dear Peggy,

Merry Christmas, sweetheart. I can't wait for the day I finally get to kiss you under the mistletoe...

Dear Peggy,

Saw a young couple walking their dog in Brooklyn Bridge Park and thought, that will be us someday...

Dear Peggy,

When we're home from the war I'll take you to...

Dear Peggy,

I had the sweetest dream of you...

Dear Peggy,

I swear I smelled your perfume the other day on the street, and I looked around for you and I missed you more than I think I ever have...

She stopped at a letter about midway through the book.

Dear Peggy,

I wonder which of these letters will be my last. There is a threat coming to the city I went down in that ice all those years ago to save, and I start to wonder if it was worth leaving you that night...there isn't time for more, just know that I love you, and if this is to be the end of it all, I know that if I could bring one thing with me from this life to the next it would be your kiss.

Yours always,
Steve

The book was lowering in Peggy's nerveless hands and Steve was there to take it from her, his embrace the best present, his heart beating steadily beneath the strong chest her questing hands had bared. "Oh my darling," she whispered. "Oh my love."

His kiss was so slow, so sweet that when he drew back, Peggy kept her eyes closed to savor it. When she opened them, Steve was holding her birthday gift up between them.

She reached for it, a brass locket dangling from a thin gold chain whose ends he held in each hand. On its aged surface, a shield was carved in relief and colored with enamel--red, white and blue, so similar to the shield he'd carried so long ago, first on the USO stage, and then into the Hydra camp to rescue the men who would become his Commandos. A sweetheart locket; she'd seen many a woman wearing them during the war, but had never had one of her own--she had kept her sweetheart safely locked in her own still-beating heart, had never stopped.

"Oh, Steve," she said softly.

"For every time I left you," he said softly. "For every time I left you wanting, and every birthday I wasn't home with you."

She took the locket from him and opened it, seeing not one but two photos already affixed inside, one on the locket's inner surface and one on the inside of the small lid. From inside the locket her darling's face looked back at her, one of her favorite photos of him post-serum, a still from one of the newsreels taken when he had been in the field. She knew what he'd been looking at on that long-ago day--the compass with her photo in it; she remembered flushing with pleasure sitting in the cinema, Phillips giving her a side-eyed look, and smiled at the memory.

But inside the locket's open lid she saw a photo she remembered so well it hurt her heart; a photo from Camp Lehigh, of the skinny recruit who had charmed her, the man who had been the Captain all along. She stared at both the pictures until they blurred with her tears.

"Oh, darling," Peggy said tenderly, stroking the edge of the locket with a fingertip. "It's perfect. It's just as I'd have had it in the war."

"I hope you don't mind I put the photos in," he said shyly, and he was blushing so hard she thought he might pass out. "I...there's a reas--"

She hushed him with a tender kiss, then smiled. "Wait here. I want to try it on."

Steve's brow furrowed in amused confusion. "Try it--?" But she was already past him into the bedroom.

"Wait right there, Steve," she called. "Don't move." It was but the work of a minute to shed the blue dress, kick off her shoes and peel herself out of her slip and lingerie--she knew Steve had a thing for her in her garters, but she had other plans for him tonight.

"What do you think, darling?" Peggy asked as she stopped in the doorway and posed almost playfully for him, naked except for the locket she had clasped around her neck, now shining at her breast. "How do I look?"

Steve's blue eyes were dark with desire; she heard him take a shaky breath and then he was across the room in two quick strides, sweeping her up into his arms. Peggy took his mouth fiercely as he carried her to bed, where she made short work of his clothes in between his hot and demanding kisses and his desperate haste to have her was matched only by hers to have him.

**

"So, for Spangles' hundredth..."

"Tony," Pepper groaned in the back of the car, putting her hands over her eyes.

He cackled. "Come on! I've already made the list! Look!"

And just as he had weeks ago, he handed Pepper a single sheet of paper.

To Do For Steve's One Hundredth Birthday:

- book flight for Spangles and Crumpets anywhere they want to go. None of us are invited. Give my description to security so that I will not be allowed to enter the aircraft under any circumstances. Hell, just keep me away from the airport.
- book really fancy hotel wherever they pick. Block my number in their room. Make sure is pet friendly so they can bring Scuttle Tush with them. Pack extra Central Park hot dogs for Prinky Nuffs as heard they are his favorite.
- proceed not to bother them for entire week, two if nothing blows up and no aliens attack.
- tell me again how awesome I am for being such a great friend and nephew.

Pepper smirked, crawling across the seat into Tony's lap. "You're a great nephew right up until the minute you call her 'Crumpets', then you'll be a dead one. And don't get me started on feeding Brooklyn hot dogs."

Tony smirked. "I have a list for that asshole with the metal arm's birthday, too."

Pepper took the second sheet of paper and read the single word on it:

"Paintball?"

Tony's smirk, while slightly squiffy, was devilish.

**

Bucky still wasn't quite used to sharing his living space with another person, but he didn't really mind. He was starting to feel comforted by the sound of Natasha's footsteps, the jingle of her key in the lock. Now she let them both in, spinning them in a graceful dance before pushing him down on the secondhand sofa Bucky had gotten from Steve and Peggy.

"You were wonderful tonight," Natasha said, and there was a quiet warmth in her words that made Bucky disproportionately happy.

"Well, it was nice of Stark to invite me," he said with a shrug. "Do you think Peggy liked her presents?"

"I know she did." She gave his right hand a squeeze. "Well done, Sergeant Barnes."

Bucky smiled. "You sounded like her a little just now."

"And you," she said pointedly, kissing his cheek, "sound very much like you lately."

He took that for the compliment it was, and didn't disagree with her; he was feeling more and more normal these days. As close to normal as he could get, he reasoned, anyway.

Natasha never fell asleep before him, and he had given up trying to outlast her; the evening had been emotionally exhausting anyway, and he didn't feel the need to prove himself by trying to watch her with burning eyes until one of them dozed off. He lay back and closed his eyes while she washed up, and then he felt her weight settle on the mattress beside him.

In the beginning it had made him wildly nervous that she waited for him to fall asleep first, as if she were waiting for him to be incapacitated, but in the long slow lessons in trust he had come to realize she was guarding him, waiting to be sure he was sleeping calmly before relaxing herself. Sometimes she would pet him. That had not gone well in the beginning at first either; one night she'd jolted him out of a doze by stroking his cheek and he'd nearly broken her wrist in alarm, but over time, with Natasha's seemingly endless patience, he had learned to like it very much.

He was on the edge of sleep, wishing dozily that she would snuggle up beside him as she tended to do when she thought he was safe in the arms of slumber, when he felt her gently move his hair off his brow, murmuring something so softly he almost didn't catch it.

"Я тебя люблю," she whispered, settling beside him, not cuddling up to him, but carefully reclining next to him, as though she wanted to be close but was hesitant to touch him.

Bucky made the decision for them both, sliding his arms around her and pulling her close, sighing through his nose as he buried his face in her hair.

"I love you, too," he murmured, and he felt her relax into his embrace, as if his declaration made it safe to feel. He tried to remember if he'd ever said it to her before, then decided it didn't matter; he'd tell her again tomorrow, and the day after, and...

**

There was no mistaking the poorly-concealed note of masculine pride in Steve's voice as he wrote the coda to their lovemaking with a slow, open-mouthed kiss that curled Peggy's toes, then murmured, "Happy birthday, sweetheart."

"Indeed," Peggy sighed, settling down in the shelter of his embrace, two spoons in a drawer, and tracing an absent pattern on the strong arm he had wrapped around her. "Glare at Tony all you like, darling, and don't get me wrong, I love the locket...but unwrapping you will always be one of my favorite things."

Steve kissed her hair. "Yeah, well, you're the only one I want to give that present to, so I hope you like it."

"It's my favorite," she repeated, tilting her head back to look up at him. "I think I'll keep it forever."

"It's yours." Steve answered this with a soft, passionate kiss. "I'm yours."

They lay contentedly for a few moments, Peggy feeling deliciously exhausted from their enthusiastic lovemaking; she was nearly asleep when he spoke again.

"Love makes you real," Steve murmured. "Love made me real."

Recognizing that introspective tone in his voice, Peggy glanced up at him. "My darling, you were always real," she soothed, stroking the arm he still had around her. "Come now, what's this."

"But I wasn't, though." He cuddled her closer, nuzzling into her hair as though he would hide. "People walked right past me. They looked right past me. Till I was...this..." He squirmed shyly against her, and she almost smiled at the realization that "this" was the body that his reflexes were finally used to but his mind might never be.

She patted his forearm. "You were always 'this'," she admonished. "You were always real; you were always you."

"Not until you saw me," Steve murmured. "I used to tell myself maybe you loved me even then...even before. I'd never have gotten the chance if you hadn't believed."

"That isn't true," Peggy argued. "Well, half of it isn't true."

Steve shifted, propping himself up on his elbow to look at her, eyes big and blue and solemn. "Half?"

"Dr. Erskine saw the you in you; Colonel Phillips saw it, despite his blustering; I saw it; but it was the doctor that gave you the chance, and he was the reason we were allowed to give it to you."

The big blue eyes were dancing, waiting for the conclusion he had realized she had come to.

"And yes, I believed," she admitted with a playful, affectionate smile. "And yes, I loved. Even then. Maybe especially then."

He bent his head for the kiss that she eagerly gave, and then he curled around her once more, his near-pathological need to be cuddled something she would never be sorry about. "I put both pictures in the locket because you saw me, even when I was small. And it made me real," he said. "You loved me and then I was real."

She clucked her tongue, lifting his hand to her lips to kiss his knuckles, but did not verbally refute this; he was convinced, and no matter what she said he would never believe he had always been the man she now held in her arms.

Instead, she slipped out of bed, picking his shirt up off the floor and shrugging into it, fastening the buttons as she walked out of the room. Steve sat up in bed with a soft questioning sound, but she ignored it for the moment, tiptoeing out to the living room, where they had left her birthday presents in a neat pile on the coffee table. Finding what she wanted, she returned to the bedroom, Brooklyn at her heels. Rather than scolding, Peggy scooped the pup up in her arm, turning him loose on the bed--"Just for tonight," she warned him somberly as he scampered over the duvet, but her eyes were dancing--then climbed in herself. Steve watched her with sleepy curiosity until she settled against the pillows and tucked his head comfortably against her breast where the locket twinkled, opening the book in her hands as he snuggled up to her, the puppy climbing into her lap as if he wanted to listen, too.

"There was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really splendid. He was fat and bunchy, as a rabbit should be; his coat was spotted brown and white, he had real thread whiskers, and his ears were lined with pink sateen. On Christmas morning, when he sat wedged in the top of the Boy's stocking, with a sprig of holly between his paws, the effect was charming. There were other things in the stocking, nuts and oranges and a toy engine, and chocolate almonds and a clockwork mouse, but the Rabbit was quite the best of all...."

Before the Skin Horse had even told his story all the way through, her Velveteen Rabbit was asleep with his ear pressed to the beat of her heart, and the puppy curled in her lap was dozing as well, his small sides expanding and contracting like a bellows. Peggy kissed Steve's brow softly, stroked the short velvety roughness of his blond hair and closed her own eyes, following her little family into a contented slumber.

**

Some hours later, across the borough, Darcy Lewis woke in stages, trying to figure out why her bedroom was all out of sorts and why her bureau wasn't against the opposite wall like it was supposed to be. As soon as she tried to move her head, a sharp tug on her hair stopped her; it was caught in something.

She rolled over, and it was a bumpy ride because of the hard muscular arm she was laying on, the hand of which was the thing that was tangled hopelessly in her hair.

Her eyes popped open wider when she saw she was face-to-face with an adorably disheveled man, his hair sticking up all over his head, muttering something in his sleep as his fingers flexed in her hair.

A jingling sound drew Darcy's attention to the open bedroom door, where a golden retriever was walking in, ready for his breakfast. He shook himself, the tags on his collar ringing to announce his presence.

Darcy turned back to the man whose bed she was in, who was also waking thanks to the noise. He opened one eye, took her in, glanced at the dog, and then turned back to her with a sheepish, sort of hopeful smile.

Darcy smiled back at Clint. "Cool," she pronounced happily, and he answered that by taking his hand out of her hair and putting his arms around her properly, pulling her close and tucking the sheets around them both for a few more minutes until Lucky lost his patience and woke them back up with a tongue-bath.

**