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The War ends in New York for Peggy. It’s mid-September 1945, Japan surrendered two weeks ago and she’s spent them trying to start an international organization that might be in any way equipped to deal with threats like Schmidt.
She had thought once the fighting was over, there’d be happiness and all that stuff. Instead it’s after midnight, she’s leaving her tiny office, knowing she’ll return before six in the morning, and all she feels is tired.
Except.
There’s a shadow by the door.
“Peggy,” someone whispers. The voice is familiar, seared into her heart, the last time she heard it was over a telephone line that went dead.
Steve is there, strange and beautiful. And suddenly, in that second, Peggy finds peace.
He doesn’t tell her how he made it. She asks, once and the look in his eyes scares her. Not because he looks angry, but because he looks so tired.
“Does it matter?”
She shakes her head. That’s how that goes between them. He never explicitly tells her not to ask, but he always looks like he might fall apart at the question.
Right afterwards, he asks her not to tell anyone else that he’s back.
She wants to protest, tell him America needs Captain America, tell him-
He turns on the television without looking at her and they’re talking about the bomb.
So she keeps it a secret. It’s easier than she would have thought. It’s more natural than she would have thought. In fact, if she’s honest, sometimes she’s not sure if he really came back at all or if she’s just stuck living with a ghost.
(No matter how hard she tries, she can’t decide if it’s worse than the alternative.)
Because the truth is, they’re happy. Happy in a quiet way, yes, except for the nights when either of them wakes up crying. At first she tried holding him. Telling him the war was over. But he only looked at her with broken eyes.
But they cook together and they dance together and they kiss.
(Sometimes when they kiss he looks at her like she’s someone different. Like he doesn’t believe it’s her.)
“Are you angry about it?” She asks him once. He’s reading another newspaper article about Hiroshima. Maybe that’s what stands between them. The bomb.
Something in her wants to explain it to him, how many more people would have died if they hadn’t, how much longer the war would have dragged on.
She’s heard the stories of course, of people turning to dust in an instant. Little children who left nothing but a shadow on a wall.
“No,” he responds. “I guess it had to happen.”
And he reads on.
He’s not Steve, she thinks. The realization sends cold shivers down her spine and yet it feels strangely unsurprising. If she’s honest, she’s known it for a while.
Whoever he is, that broken man, however much he might look like Steve, smile like Steve even in precious moments, it’s not him. It’s not the man who went into the water a few weeks ago.
They lie in bed that evening, he’s warm and soft and familiar (she’s not sure if it’s worse than the alternative) and he looks into her eyes and she knows that he knows.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers and whoever he is, she believes him. He presses his lips to her forehead, “Peggy, I’m so incredibly sorry, I love you, I do.”
She makes the decision almost without noticing it, just a smile, taking his hand. “I’m glad you’re alive,” she says and it’s the truth, even though she’s not sure who he is.
And he laughs with a voice that sounds a million years old, “I’m glad you’re alive, too.”
Sometimes when he’s in the kitchen trying to cook, an activity they’re both awful at, he’s humming songs she’s never heard before.
(She could ask him, that’s the thing. Agent Carter would ask. Hell, maybe he wants her to, she’s sure the songs are a key to whatever is wrong.
But then she silently stands in the doorway, looking at him, and knows if she asks their entire life will collapse like a sandcastle.)
When she tells him the food is delicious, even though she's not completely on board with the whole aspic jelly food trend, he lights up. She flicks it experimentally with her fork. "Look at how it wiggles."
And don’t they deserve to be happy? That’s what she can’t stop thinking. They’ve given so much already. They drive out into the countryside on a Saturday and have a picknick, the spot is close to Camp Lehigh, she drove by it last week when she visited the base and saw the beautiful trees, with their yellow-red leaves.
“Remember when it all started?” She asks, maybe today is the last warm day of the year. Erskine, the Vita-Ray, it was only a few years ago, but to her it feels like lifetimes.
It is the kind of things you say on what might be an anniversary date, but part of her hopes he says no, I don’t remember, I wasn’t there you know, I just look like the guy who was.
Instead his eyes go soft and he smiles. “You were simultaneously the most beautiful and terrifying person I had ever seen. If anyone had told me we’d go out one day my heart would have collapsed for good.”
“We really didn’t know then,” she wonders. It’s dangerous territory, but she loves him and this, whatever it is, is hurting him. “The things that would happen.”
When he pulls her close to bury his face in her hair, she’s certain it’s only to hide his tears.
Peggy learned a lot during the war. The thing she learns in peace is: You can love things without knowing them.
But also, life goes on.
And that’s another thing about him. Nobody came back from war the same way they went in. Hell, she didn’t either. But he seems stuck somewhere, and it’s not the beautiful pre-war nostalgia that plagues so many and it’s not the materialistic “cover-up-the-way-you-saw-the-world-burn-with-a-white-picket-fence” fever that has befallen the rest.
The only thing she can compare it to is Oscar Wilde’s Canterville ghost, like the things that are holding him back are on some other plane of existence. She really hopes this won’t make her Mrs. Otis, but sometimes an upbeat American going against the Supernatural with Pinkerton’s Stain Remover feels exactly like what she is.
“We should tell Howard,” she tries. It’s November. Grief can’t go on forever, she’s learned, even though it does. She doesn’t know what he does all day while she’s at SHIELD, and maybe having friends, having something to do would be helpful. “He’s looking for you in the arctic.”
For a moment he’s silent. “He won’t find me there.”
She had thought about that briefly, after Howard had told her about his mission, to which she reacted with badly feigned surprise. What would she do if they found him there, frozen?
But there’s a finality in his voice that makes her believe him.
“Then we can spare him the trouble.”
Steve looks at her for a very long time. He’s sitting in the living room but there’s something off about his posture. He looks so old again. “No,” he says finally. “There’s something else there I need him to find.”
Of course she knows immediately what he’s talking about, that wretched blue cube, and she wants to shake him, wants to ask him what happened, what did it do to you?
But she doesn’t. “Just tell him you’re alive,” she tries instead. “He’d be overjoyed. Losing you both was hard for him and I know you still miss Bucky-”
“Don’t mention Bucky,” he snaps, genuinely snaps and then he’s out of the room.
She remembers him sitting in that bombed out bar, years ago, and drinking.
She doesn’t tell Howard.
Steve proposes at Christmas 1949.
It comes out of the blue for her except that it doesn’t. “I love you, Peggy,” he whispers, the ring he got her is beautiful and so is the look in his eyes. “I know things aren’t how we thought they’d be, when we imagined it during the war. But they’re good. And they can be better. I want the entire future with you.”
Either she marries a ghost or a madman. But she marries him.
A dumb small part of her hopes that maybe, it might even get him out of the ice.
The ceremony is secret, of course, because he still doesn’t want her to tell anyone, so it’s a Vegas wedding, but it’s happy. It’s early spring and the flowers are blooming. They’re walking down the street, husband and wife, holding hands. His smile is so bright and real it lights up the world.
She can’t stop kissing him that night. He kisses back, eagerly, and they both marvel together at the fact they’re alive.
Three weeks later, she finds him sobbing on the back porch, so hard that his entire body is shaking with grief. He’s clutching the newspaper to his chest and something tells her not to approach him. Maybe he just needs to cry about whatever this is for a while. Maybe then he’ll start healing.
He has horrible nightmares that night.
So even though it’s normally his job, she slips out of bed in the morning, walks over to the fire place to light it. Yesterday’s newspaper has been crumpled up and slipped in there, as usual, but it’s not burnt yet.
Curiosity takes over, because she wants to know what article it was that made him so sad yesterday. On the front page, a tiny segment has been cut out.
“Hey, let me do that,” his voice says behind her and she flinches. She hadn’t heard him get up. Quickly she puts the paper back. In his face is no sign whether he noticed. He lights the fire and the newspaper quickly goes up in flames.
Peggy Rogers, who she is only in secret, doesn’t want to know. She knows there are things she can’t protect him from, whatever they are, so she wants to focus on the things she can.
But she’s Agent Carter as she drives to work that morning and so she stops at a gas station halfway to Camp Lehigh.
“I need yesterday’s New York Times,” she says. The man behind the counter stares.
“We threw them out in the morning.” He tells her, as if she’s mad. “You can get the new one if you want-”
“I’ll give you ten dollars,” a significant amount of money, especially for a purchase he would probably not have to mention to his boss, “just get me the damn newspaper.”
The combination of her tone and the money must do it, because he scuttles into the back returns a few minutes later, holding a slightly crumpled pack of paper in his hand. “It’s fresh out of the trash,” he warns her, but she doesn’t care, just puts a bill on the counter and leaves.
As soon as she’s in the car, she reads the notice that was cut out of the paper at home. It’s barely three lines long,
“US ATTACHÉ MURDERED IN KOREA
Wilhelm Lehman, attaché of General MacArthur in Seoul, was killed under suspicious circumstances. The situation might elevate tensions in the former US Occupational Zone.”
She throws the paper away before she reaches Camp Lehigh, not sure herself why she’s feeling paranoid. Probably Steve is just afraid of another war. It would be entirely reasonable.
It’s only intuition telling her that’s not it.
“Do you think there will be war in Korea?” She asks. Howard is there in her office and Zola, who is quiet and kind to her whenever he can. At first she had hated him, before Steve’s return, but he’s never been anything but polite and apologetic. Gives his best for the country, too, with all that entails.
From the stories she heard about Schmidt, it’s not beyond her belief that he would have controlled a man like Zola completely. Also, almost everyone else on base hates and mistrusts him still, which is why he’s usually on his own.
“If there is, we’ll win it,” Howard is laughing and his voice uncomfortably loud. She can smell the alcohol on his breath. He’s always had a soft spot for a good brandy, but now mildly intoxicated has become his status quo. He worked on the bomb, she remembers. This is America, she thinks.
She can’t blame Steve for wanting no part in this.
“I hope there isn’t,” Zola answers. He pauses. “This work we’re doing, isn’t the goal to finally end the wars for good? It’s such a horrible, horrible thing. Maybe humanity learns from its mistakes now. Wasn’t that why we built the bomb?”
I don't know why we did that, Peggy thinks, but I really wish we didn't.
Steve has cooked dinner when she comes home and he sits there alone, waiting for her. Somehow, it makes her think of Zola, who usually looks just as lonely, when he's walking around on base.
“Thank you, love,” she whispers as she presses a kiss to his cheek.
He doesn’t talk during dinner, in fact, she’s not sure if he’s completely there at all.
Her helplessness is back, suddenly, it slams into her like a tornado. This is what it felt like hearing the line go dead when he crashed into the ocean, except he’s sitting opposite of her, except it feels like he’s still in the ice.
It makes her so angry her hands almost shake.
He doesn’t notice.
“How was your day?” she asks and her voice is surprisingly steady, it’s meant to be a stab, she wants him to respond I didn’t do anything, or maybe tell her what it really was that he did.
“Fine,” he answers instead, as if she was a random acquaintance, “How was yours?”
She shrugs. “Everyone was talking about how there might be war in Korea.” Out of the corner of her eye, she tries to gauge his reaction. But he doesn’t react at all.
“I think so,” he says, and it doesn’t sound like an opinion, it sounds like a fact.
“Do you think we’ll use the bomb again?” she asks and now she feels like she’s blatantly riling him up, except he’s still calm. It’s infuriating. She’s full of bright red rage.
“No,” he says, still that almost bored voice, but she knows he too is losing his composure when he adds, “Arnim Zola is not a big fan of it, I think.”
For a second, it shocks her so much her mouth hangs open.
What? she wants to ask. How do you know about Zola, that’s a state secret? The kind of classified that I kept it even from you.
But he doesn’t look shocked, or angry, or surprised or any of those things. He just looks so old again.
They’re silent for a very long time.
When Peggy speaks again, her voice sounds rusty. “You know about him.”
She doesn’t try any explanations, how they still needed to win the war, how she would have told him, had he returned to SHIELD like she offered.
“Yes, Peggy,” he breathes out and the sound hitches in the back of his throat almost like a sigh. “I know.”
She doesn’t know how to act after that. At first, she goes for a walk, trying to clear her head. When she gets back, he’s on the couch, reading another newspaper.
Finally, she sits down beside him.
“What happened?” She asks.
He looks up. “In the news?”
Maybe he’s playing stupid or maybe he genuinely has no idea what she’s talking about. “To you.”
He folds the newspaper away, quiet and meticulous. He’s doing neither, she realizes. They’re both just protecting their sandcastle world.
“I could tell you,” Steve looks at her intently. “I want to say I can’t tell you, but I could. I don’t know what would happen, but I could.”
Peggy nods.
Waits.
He breathes in as if he’s ready to tell a very long story. Then he stops. “I capitulated,” he says in the end.
It’s an admission of failure that she didn’t expect, but then again, she can’t talk, can she? She was in the room when they made the decision to launch the bombs.
Maybe neither of them survived the war. Maybe they’re both just ghosts now.
She takes his hand and doesn’t tell him it’s okay, because it isn’t.
“I’m here, Steve,” she whispers instead, “we’re both here.”
“I know,” he answers, fingers closing around hers, pulling her towards him. And then they both collapse into tears.