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1.
After the dust of their reunion settles, Steve moves in immediately. Peggy’s place in Brooklyn isn’t far from where Steve and Bucky grew up, which is unsettling and wonderful all at once.
They have to be careful about being seen. Partly because some of his old neighbours could still recognize him, but also because the times are the times, and she’s a woman trying to make a name for herself in the men’s world of covert intelligence. Peggy’s friends have a habit of dropping in unannounced, so they’ll have to figure something out in the long term. But it’s not a problem in those first, early days, because mostly Steve just wants to rest.
He discovers that the deepest, most satisfying sleep he’s ever had in his life can be found in Peggy’s arms. She doesn’t seem too put out about it, either.
Hilariously, neither of them knows how to cook. He’d always assumed that Peggy, at least, would have a grasp of the fundamentals, but that’s not the kind of home she grew up in, and these days she’s just too busy with work.
He’s seen Sam make scrambled eggs, and it didn’t look that complicated. He surprises Peggy one Saturday morning with breakfast in bed, on a tray and everything. It looks great.
She manages two mouthfuls, chewing and swallowing gamely, before admitting, “I’m sorry, Steve, but this is just dreadful.”
He concedes defeat, and does the dishes while she gets ready to go out to eat. He’s already learned that, unlike Natasha or Wanda or Carol, Peggy requires a certain amount of lead time before leaving the house, and that it is absolutely non-negotiable.
Standing by the front door, hat in hand, he reaches for his phone twice out of habit, which is how he knows the wait is even longer than usual.
He thinks about Pepper Potts: her immaculate outfits, her glossy nails, her high heels with their red lacquered soles. Tony once talked about knocking out a whole wall of their bedroom, just so Pepper could have more room for her shoe collection.
He pictures Tony, waiting like this for Pepper—and then has to laugh at himself, because knowing Tony, he probably spent just as much time grooming. If not more.
Pepper and Peggy would have liked each other, he thinks.
He turns to see Peggy watching him from the doorway. She’s a stunner, as usual, in a flower-print dress as fresh as the first day of spring.
“You look great.” He says it every time, but it’s always true.
She smiles faintly. “You’ve seen it before.”
He shrugs.
Carefully, she says, “I know we agreed it wasn’t good for me to know too much.”
Steve braces himself. The fact of the matter is, they never agreed to that; he agreed, and she had no choice but to go along.
For someone as smart and inquisitive as Peggy, to have a traveller from the future sitting right in front of her and not be able to ask questions is tantamount to torture. She can’t help herself. The few arguments they’ve had over it already have been real corkers.
Aloud, he says only, “Uh huh.”
“But you keep doing this.” She pats her thigh, and then her hip, in a devastatingly accurate impression of him searching for a non-existent cell phone. “What are you missing?”
There are a thousand things he’s missing, most of which he knows he can never tell her. But he wants to give her something .
“We had these… devices. About the size of a deck of cards. You could use them to make a phone call, or send a wire, anywhere in the world, instantly. This one little thing in your pocket was your appointment book, your address book, your atlas, your alarm clock, your camera, and all your record albums. I’m used to having mine right here.” He pats the spot on his thigh where his jeans pocket would be.
Peggy’s eyes narrow slightly. “You’re having me on.”
“Swear I’m not. This big.” He makes a rectangle with his thumbs and forefingers. “Sometimes smaller.”
“And it’s not connected to anything?”
“Well, you have to charge the battery once in a while, but apart from that, it’s all wireless.”
He can almost see the wheels turning in her head as she ponders the possibilities of instant, worldwide, wireless electronic communication. He knows she’s thinking about all the applications it would have in her line of work; she’s not quite ready to understand it on a more intimate level than that.
He wishes he could tell her about his endless, hilarious late-night text conversations with Natasha.
About the playlist Sam had made for him while he healed and slept, and the one he’d made for Sam once he woke up.
About that first, strange video chat with Bucky, after the Wakandan doctors had figured out how to deactivate his programming.
About that last voicemail from Tony that he could never quite bring himself to erase.
But all he says is, “I keep trying to check the time.”
Peggy smiles warmly, and takes his hand in hers. “We’ll get you sorted.”
*
Never one for delayed gratification, she takes him to a department store that afternoon, and has him try on watches. It’s her treat, so he lets her choose the style: simple, classic, gold-plated with a brown leather band. She insists on getting it engraved, and makes him turn his back while she writes the inscription on a card. It’s a gesture that would have embarrassed him when he was young, but all he feels now is pure elation: his best girl is buying him a forever gift, and she wants it to be a surprise.
The store has a cafe. While they wait for Steve’s watch to be ready, they drink coffee (Peggy has given up trying to get a decent cup of tea in an American restaurant) and hold hands across the table, just like ordinary sweethearts. When the waitress refers to Steve in passing as Peggy’s ‘fella,’ her smile might be the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.
He thinks about the forever gift he wants to get her, as soon as he can afford it; two months’ salary at zero dollars a year doesn’t go very far, but he’ll work something out.
2.
The first time they have Bucky over to the new house, he and Steve park themselves at the dining room table after dinner and shoot the shit for hours. Peggy is there, occasionally taking part, but mostly she just pours drinks, laughs, and listens.
At one point, she excuses herself and goes upstairs, which is understandable: she has absolutely no interest in baseball, and she tires easily, in her delicate condition.
They haven’t told any of their friends, because it’s still too early to get excited, which hasn’t stopped either of them from doing just that.
“No, I’m telling you,” Steve insists, “the Giants did it before the Yankees. Like five years before.” Natasha and Sam had surprised Steve with a trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame for his birthday once, and every panel is still etched into his serum-enhanced memory.
“So how do we settle this?”
Instinctively, Steve grabs at his pocket—but of course, Wikipedia is a long way down the line. “You’ll just have to take my word for it.”
“You’re so full of shit your eyes are brown,” says Bucky, with several beers’ worth of unearned confidence.
“Hey, I’ve seen the future and guess what, pal? You’re still an asshole. Peg!” he calls.
She appears at the top of the stairs in her housecoat, her hair rumpled, and he realizes she must have been taking a nap.
Steve lowers his voice. “Sorry, sweetheart. Do we have an encyclopedia?”
“No.” Her voice is husky with sleep. “What for?”
“I just bet Bucky five bucks that he’s wrong about the World Series.”
“Jesus Christ, Steve, it’s half past one.”
He looks at his watch indignantly, his mouth already open to dispute the point.
She is absolutely correct.
“And I’m not giving Bucky five dollars.” She turns to head back to the bedroom.
“I don’t need you to give Bucky five dollars because I’m right! ”
A carpet slipper hits him in the eye.
Bucky crows with laughter. “Didn’t see that one coming, did ya, future boy?”
3.
“Were you very lonely, before?” she asks, softly.
It’s nearly dawn. Outside, the rain is pattering against the window. Steve has had one of those nights; they don’t happen as often as they used to, which Peggy takes as a good sign. She’s tried to help him through it with some very enjoyable distractions and now, his body curled around hers, his head pillowed on her breast, she can feel him finally start to wind down.
“I had a few friends,” he replies.
That isn’t what she’s thinking of, of course. They’ve never talked about it, but it was obvious the first time they fell into bed together: Steve has gained some experience in the time they’ve been apart.
She’s insanely curious, but at the same time, she isn’t sure how she’d feel, knowing the details. She opts instead for a more general line of inquiry.
“How do people fall in love in the future?” Teasingly, she adds, “Is there an app?”
“Actually, yeah. There are a few.”
“Oh,” says Peggy, disconcerted.
“There are apps single people can use to find other single people. You see someone’s picture and a bit of information about them, and then you—well, you either say yes or no. If you both said yes to each other, the app tells you that you have a match. And then you can decide if you want to meet up and go on a date.”
The way he describes it makes it clear that he’s speaking from experience. She almost doesn’t ask, but then she does. “Did you meet anyone?”
The corners of his mouth tighten, the way they do when she’s embarrassed him. It happens less often than it used to, but the new lines on his face make it more evident.
“You don’t have to tell me everything. But I’d like to know that you had… that you weren’t alone.”
“Some people use dating apps to… find someone just for a night.”
“Did you?”
He nods.
Peggy is too surprised to speak. It isn’t that she disapproves of casual sex—quite the contrary—but she’d never gotten the impression that it was Steve’s way of doing things.
She slides her fingers through his hair, scratching his scalp lightly. “It still sounds a bit lonely to me,” she muses.
“Yeah.”
He reaches across her to the nightstand for his watch. Instead of checking the time, however, he just holds it, brushing his thumb over the inscription on the back.
She’d wanted to give him a gift, of course, but it wasn’t only that. She’d been half-afraid that something would happen: that he’d be pulled away, or realize that he needed to go back. If that happened, she wanted him to have something more of her than a stern, unsmiling portrait, hastily tucked into a waterlogged compass.
She’d considered and discarded at least a dozen more conventional ideas, before settling on the words that were in her heart: I love you, my darling, time and again.
He sets the watch back down, and settles against her again. She runs her hands over his back; she doesn’t think she’ll ever tire of the feeling of his bare skin on hers.
“I do have one question.”
“Of course you do,” he murmurs, smiling.
“What sort of information would one give to these dating apps?”
“Well… for example, my profile might say, Steve, age thirty-something. Likes baseball, jogging in the park, musicals on film, science fiction novels, and Saturday afternoons at the Met. Dislikes…” he frowns.
“Doing the washing up,” supplies Peggy promptly.
He ignores the implied barb. “Sure, let’s go with that. Dislikes washing dishes, and people who take up extra seats on the subway. So? What do you think? Yes or no?”
“Well, I’d like to see my other options first. What if Cary Grant is available?”
He swats her backside lightly.
“What do you think my profile would say?”
“Yours would say… Peggy. Age: classified.”
She laughs.
“Dislikes sexist behaviour, and people who cut her off in traffic. Likes murder mysteries, rainy mornings, Victoria sponge cake, and a cup of tea in bed, if you know how to make it right. And especially likes it when you kiss this spot just behind her ear.” He lifts up on one elbow to demonstrate, nuzzling her neck.
“I do like that,” she agrees, a bit breathlessly. “Would you say yes, or no?”
“I think I’d take one look at your profile and think, that girl is out of my league. There’s no way in a million years.” He drops kisses on the points of her collarbone, the hollow of her throat. “But then I’d swipe right anyhow.”
“Meaning, yes?” She curls her leg around his hip, nudging him closer to where she suddenly, desperately needs him to be.
His smile is still, always, the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. “Meaning yes.”