Work Text:
Fandom: Marvel
Prompt: “Can I hug you?”
Jack never thought he’d be grateful for paperwork.
Still, when Carter and Sousa came back from the SSR one day with boxes upon boxes of files and dropped them on the living room table, all of them were surprised when he was the first to grab a stack and sit down with a pen and paper.
In fairness to them, these were files they’d likely scoured dozens of times already. They were, after all, Jack’s crime scene. Huh. He’d always thought looking at his own crime scene would feel…different, somehow? Like he should be unable to see his own blood staining the carpet, or the fact that someone dropped his shoes in the corner of the room, or something without being violently reminded of it. But hey, maybe all that practice being a soldier and then an SSR agent gave him the distance he needed to look at it properly.
Well, no.
Jack trusts Carter. He’ll follow that woman to the ends of the earth and back with only mild complaining. He trusts Sousa. You don’t go through the stuff they’ve gone through and not come out the other side as brothers.
He doesn’t trust their house.
If whatever bastard found him in that hotel, finding him here wouldn’t be too difficult. He doesn’t go outside, not unless he starts actively crawling up the walls. And even then, it’s with his gun, looking around, grateful for the cover the trees in Sousa’s yard provide. He ducks back inside and goes to secure the perimeter as best he can. He keeps his gun with him, tucks it under his pillow. Sleeps with the door locked, a small piece of string tucked over the latch.
Sousa didn’t say a word. Not that he expects him to try and open his door in the middle of the night, at least without knocking loud enough to wake him up first. But he’s sure Sousa’s seen him.
He’d thought it would be…different, living with Sousa. Sure, he’s seen the man’s filing—it’s the most precise set of drawers he’s seen in his life—and his office, a perfect blend of sentiment and efficiency, but he’d sort of expected the man’s house to be a little laxer. In his experience, a man’s work organization, and a man’s home life are rarely the same outside of the military. Though perhaps that would explain it, how orderly Sousa keeps absolutely everything.
The strange thing is that it doesn’t bother him. Jack doesn’t exactly enjoy being reminded of his days in the military. His fingers still shake when he thinks about it too hard. But Sousa’s precision isn’t a restraint. It’s comforting. He always wakes up at the same time. The coffee pot is always rinsed and set aside after the first pot in case there isn’t time for another one and he won’t have to wash it later. The towel for drying dishes always hangs on the left handle of the oven. The chairs are always pushed in at every table. The liquor is always in the upper right-hand cabinet.
Jack knows the importance of adapting to one’s current situation. So he treats it like a mission, surveying the landscape, taking stock of everything he’s got to deal with, and drills the rules into his head. It helps. It keeps the worst of the ‘what-ifs’ out of his mind. Sure, treating his recovery at a trusted friend’s house like an undercover mission behind enemy lines probably isn’t the healthiest coping mechanism, but it’s better than drinking Sousa into debt, and this way he’s still got enough of his mind to help out as much as he can.
Jack sighs, pushing aside a file and burying his head in his hands. Across the table, Sousa glances up at him.
“Hit a snag?”
Jack scrubs this hands over his face, raking his hair back. “There really isn’t anything, is there?”
Sousa grimaces, leaning back in his chair. “That’s what Peg and I found. Bupkes.”
“So what does that tell us?”
Sousa shrugs. “Professional hit. High-profile target. Likelihood of more than just a vengeance thing. Given the file that’s been brought into play, increased probability of a conspiracy.” He frowns at Jack when his forehead thumps loudly against the table. “What?”
“No need to show off, Sousa,” Jack groans.
Sousa chuckles. Then a ball of paper hits his head. Jack snaps up, only for Sousa to break out into a proper laugh.
“You-you look like a pissed-off cat, Jack,” he manages between bouts of laughter.
Jack, meanwhile, has no brain power left to be pissed. Because the agent in front of him that just put that entire schpiel together like it was nothing is gone. In his place is a man who looks about half his age, laughing, smiling, his head thrown back like he hasn’t got a care in the world. He has crow’s feet, Jack notices giddily, and it’s wonderful. He knows the type of man women fawn over, smooth face, young smile, all that. He knows he fits some of it. But he’s always liked wrinkles, imperfections. Proof that someone has lived.
When the nights are long and he’s having trouble falling asleep, he thinks about someone to spend them with. The feeling of having his family close by. Those thoughts can stray quickly to Okinawa and so he focuses on other faces. When he allows himself to…indulge, he sees—
“Jack?”
Jack blinks. Sousa’s staring at him, tone still light, brow slightly furrowed. Jack swallows, forces a smile onto his face.
“Sorry,” he says quickly, “spaced out.”
“Maybe we should call it a night then,” Sousa says, pushing himself back from the table and grabbing his crutch. “You hungry?”
“I could eat.”
“Great.”
Jack watches Sousa turn the corner when he frowns.
How long has Sousa had his leg off?
He figured out pretty quickly that it doesn’t bother him, not that he especially thought it would. That had been a strange encounter in the middle of the night. Jack woke up from a fitful daze with a persistent scratch in his throat and he ventured to the kitchen for a glass of water. Sousa was there, leaning against the counter, his pajama pants tied over the stump. He gave Jack a look that dared him to say anything. Jack didn’t. After that, Sousa started going around without his leg on more often, and most times Jack didn’t even notice, had to do more than a few double-takes. He did figure out that most of the precision had to do with the fact that Sousa couldn’t move as well as most people so having everything right where it was supposed to be helped. Now, noticing when Sousa had his leg off was less a reminder of how Sousa was, but more an indication of how much Jack was letting slip by him.
And here’s the crux of the fucking problem.
Sousa’s adorable.
It was hard enough having to work in the same goddamn office but now? Jack was prepared for the way Sousa makes faces at his work like he’s in front of some alien trying to explain how all the muscles in a human face work. He was prepared for the way Sousa sticks the tip of his tongue out when he’s thinking really hard. He was prepared for the way Sousa leans back all cocky in his chair when he’s right about something or he’s found a new lead. He was prepared for the office shenanigans of having a ball of paper thrown at his head.
He wasn’t prepared to see Daniel out of the standard work attire of suited-and-booted, in a sleep shirt that hung off his broad shoulders. He wasn’t prepared to have Daniel sit next to him with a newspaper and start going over the ridiculousness of the headlines and how stupid Hollywood-speak is. He wasn’t prepared to see Daniel all fuzzy from sleep, his hair all ruffled, drowsy smile, and clumsy pats on the arm. He wasn’t prepared for Daniel to sit next to him on the couch and tell him he loved a man that died next to him at Bastogne.
He wasn’t prepared to start thinking of Sousa as Daniel.
Darling Daniel, isn’t that right, Jackie-Boy?
“You piss the hell off,” Jack growls.
Daniel pokes his head around the corner. “Well, if you don’t want spaghetti, all you had to do was say so.”
Shit. “Not you,” Jack says offhandedly, “got a paper cut. I’ll be right back.”
He misses the way Daniel frowns after him, concerned.
“Daniel Sousa,” Peggy scolds, smacking his shoulder with the file in her hand, “we promised we’d wait!”
“I know, Peggy, I know,” Daniel mutters sheepishly, glancing at the blinds to make sure no one’s noticed yet. “But you weren’t there, you—“
“No, I wasn’t, which means you should have waited! We both said it wouldn’t do any good to rush into this, we haven’t the faintest idea what we’re doing, and the last thing we want is for Jack to—“
“You should’ve seen his face, Peggy,” Daniel bursts out, his voice cracking.
Peggy stops, file still aloft, looking at his face. He slumps back against the desk and buries his face in his hands.
“Oh, Daniel,” comes Peggy’s soft voice, a tinge of amusement keeping it from being entirely sad, “why don’t you tell me what happened?”
“I was going to,” Daniel mutters, “but then you hit me with a file.”
“Oh, please.”
“It hurt, Peggy.”
“What, your dignity?”
Daniel snorts, pushing himself properly up onto the desk. He glances around. At Peggy, at the paperwork, at the darkening sky outside. The corner of his mouth quirks up.
“All we’re missing is a drink and this is basically New York all over again, huh?”
Peggy nods, coming to stand next to him. She reaches out slowly, placing a hand on his shoulder. Her touch is cool through his suit jacket. Daniel takes a deep breath.
“We…after you left, I…shit, I promised him I wasn’t gonna tell you.”
“Daniel.”
“Alright, we had another drink, okay?”
Peggy sighs, her shoulders slumping in relief. “Bloody hell, don’t scare me like that. I don’t care, I’m not your bloody mother.”
“I know, I know, it’s just—you know, alcohol and painkillers and all that don’t mix and—“
“I’m hardly going to begrudge you one drink, plus, I know Jack Thompson.”
“Yeah, he’s…Jack Thompson.”
Peggy nods sharply. “So…?”
Daniel sighs. “He said he wanted to thank us both. While you were still there.”
Peggy’s eyebrows shoot to her hairline. “Thank us?”
“I know, right? He’s not really a…words kinda guy.”
“No, he isn’t. What on earth prompted that?”
“I don’t know, Peg, but he…he didn’t look right while he was saying it.”
“What do you mean, not right? Does he need to go—“
“Not like he was about to keel over, no. And he wasn’t exactly gritting his teeth about it. No, he looked…he looked scared, Peg.”
Peggy’s breath catches in her throat. Jack Thompson? Scared? The two things don’t necessarily line up, and especially not in that context.
“What was he so afraid of?”
Daniel shrugs. “I don’t know. Something’s hurt him, Peg, something bad.”
“We’re all damaged,” Peggy murmurs, glancing toward the rest of the office, “some it’s easier to see than others.”
She looks back. “Is that why you told him?”
Daniel shakes his head. “I’m getting there. So he apologized and I told him he didn’t need to—“
“Of course he doesn’t.”
“—right, and he just—he said ‘would it kill you to say ‘you’re welcome?’ So I did, but he—it didn’t help.”
Peggy watches Daniel’s brow furrow in frustration. She squeezes his shoulder.
“Then he, uh, said this wasn’t exactly what he had in mind when I asked him for a drink.”
“Well no, I imagine he expected it to be a much more celebratory affair.”
“That’s the other thing,” Daniel says with an urgency that startles her, “I told him he didn’t need to apologize for all the mess with Isodyne and the Arena Club and he just said I could pick what he should apologize for.”
Peggy frowns. “What?”
“Right?” Daniel reaches up to run a hand through his hair. “He brought up my engagement, you, and—“
Peggy swallows the rising anger in her throat. Under any other circumstances, she’d be miffed. Bringing up that type of thing was a low blow, even for Jack. But she hasn’t forgotten that this is apparently things he tried to apologize for.
“—Peggy, he didn’t even know the bar he asked me out to was a queer bar.”
Peggy freezes. Daniel’s staring at her with a mixture of anguish and desperation and it hurts. “…so…is he…?”
“He was so scared, Peg,” Daniel whispers, still staring at her, “when I told him. He…he looked like I was about to shoot him or something.”
“So you told him,” Peggy murmurs, resting her hands on both Daniel’s shoulders, “because otherwise, he would’ve closed himself off and never let anyone in again.”
Daniel nods miserably, his head almost brushing the collar of Peggy’s dress. She glances at the blinds, still mostly closed, and swoops closer, giving Daniel something firm to lean against.
Oh, Jack…
“Well, you’ll be pleased to know I am no longer upset with you,” she murmurs, carding her fingers through the hair at the nape of Daniel’s neck.
“That’s a relief.”
“I am, however, determined to have this conversation now.”
Daniel nods, straightening up and holding Peggy’s hands around his neck. “I know it’s been busy. It’s already been a week.”
Peggy nods. “But we’re hurting him, aren’t we?”
“I think we’re letting whatever demons are in his head hurt him.”
Peggy frowns. “You’ve noticed that he can’t say Vernon Master’s name, right?”
Daniel nods, mouth tight. “Peggy, I…he…”
Peggy nods when Daniel can’t get the words out. He nods back. They’re going to have to talk about that too. One step at a time.
“I’m coming over tonight,” she announces with an air of finality, “and we will talk.”
“You know, no matter what happens,” Daniel says quietly, “you’ll always have me, right?”
Peggy smiles. “And you will have me. But let’s try, right?”
“Let’s try.”
They do, but not necessarily in the order they planned on.
For starters, they don’t actually get to leave the office until much later than they’d planned, some call with this-and-that war department person kept them. Daniel calls Jack as soon as they’re finished, promising they’re on the way home, they’re planning to pick up some of the sandwiches, has he eaten already?
“I don’t need you to mother me, Sousa,” Jack’s voice rings, “I’m fine. Just get your asses back here, yeah?”
“We will,” Daniel smiles, “we’re coming.”
Peggy loops her arm through his as they walk up the driveway, taking comfort in the steadiness of their steps. They open the door and both call out, wary that Jack might still be on edge about people coming and going.
“In here,” comes the reply from the living room. Daniel glances at her before getting the sandwiches set up for them to eat. Peggy drifts to the living room, rounding the corner to see Jack on the couch, glass in hand. He glances up at her and shrugs. “Heya, Marge.”
“How many have you had?” Peggy keeps her voice light as she sits next to him, glancing around for the bottle.
“Still my first,” Jack says, swirling the amber liquid in the bottom of the glass. “Learned it isn’t helping as much as it used to.”
“Well, maybe that’s a good thing.” Peggy smiles slightly when it gets her a quick huff. Then she looks at Jack’s face. “Isn’t it?”
“The alternatives are worse,” Jack says, still swirling the drink around in the glass.
Peggy hears Daniel still bustling about in the kitchen and worries. Is this what happened that night? Did Jack look like this, did he force a smile and try and say he’s alright?
“Alternatives for what, Jack?”
Jack flaps his free hand. “You know. Numbing the pain or whatever.”
“We’ve got painkillers,” Peggy tries, hoping it’ll lighten the mood enough to make this easier on all three of them. No such luck.
“Ain’t that kinda pain, Marge,” Jack says. Then he shakes himself. “Well, I’m not gonna ruin the evening. I heard something about sandwiches?”
“Jack,” Peggy says, laying a hand over his to keep him in place when he tries to stand, “don’t do that.”
“Do what, Marge?”
“Hide.” At his confused look, she continues. “You don’t have to put up all your walls. You can talk, Jack.”
The corner of his mouth jerks up. “Yeah, ‘cause that’s worked out so well for me in the past, hasn’t it?”
Peggy reels back, only for Jack to curse and set his glass down, raising his hands in surrender. “Shit, sorry, I didn’t mean that, I just—goddamnit.”
She pauses, watching Jack bite his tongue and bury his face in his hands, pressing his fingers hard to his forehead. He hunches over on himself, curling away from her. She looks up to see Daniel hovering at the door, staring at the two of them. She shrugs helplessly. Daniel nods, coming over and crouching down in front of Jack, leaning his crutch up against the couch.
“I heard some of what happened,” he says quietly, his eyes fixed on Jack, “you wanna tell me the rest?”
“The drinking wasn’t working,” Peggy says when Jack doesn’t move, “he said it was better than the alternative.”
Daniel nods, still focused on Jack. As Peggy watches, he reaches forward and steadies himself against the base of the couch, leaning so his face is close to Jack’s hands.
“Jack,” he calls quietly, “Jack, what are you trying to numb?”
“How long you got?” comes the dry reply, still muffled by the hands.
“All night,” Daniel reassures, glancing at Peggy. She nods. They’re not going anywhere.
Jack finally moves his hands, looking at Daniel with such an intensity that for a moment, Peggy feels as if she’s intruding. Then Jack sits back and sighs.
“He won’t stop talking,” he murmurs and Peggy fights a flinch. Even on the plane, she’s never heard Jack sound this broken before. “He…he just keeps talking. And the booze doesn’t help,” he mutters disdainfully, waving a hand at the glass still on the table, “just makes him louder.”
“Who,” Peggy asks quietly, even though she’s pretty sure she knows the answer, “who won’t stop, Jack?”
Jack shakes his head, lips pressed tightly together. Peggy opens her mouth to press when Daniel gives her a look.
“What’s he saying, Jack?” Daniel smiles reassuringly when Jack’s gaze flicks to him.
“Ain’t that uncomfortable?” Jack asks weakly, gesturing to Daniel still on the floor. Daniel glances around for the footstool and drags it closer, perching on the end of it.
“Please don’t avoid the question,” he repeats softly.
“Remind me why the hell we didn’t have you two do all the interrogations?”
“Jack…”
“How the hell did I get here,” Jack bursts out, startling both of them. He clenches his fists angrily until Peggy’s sure his trousers are about to tear. “I’m here about to pour my goddamn heart out to you two like some crying kid, what the hell happened to me?”
“You got shot,” Peggy says quietly, reaching for his hand, “and your system is still recovering. You are in an uncertain environment where many things have just come crashing down around you, including some forces that have been putting pressure on you for a long time.”
She takes a risk and squeezes his hand tightly. “And you are with people who care about you, whom you can trust.”
“It’s okay, Jack,” Daniel says, reaching for his other hand, “I promise.”
Jack looks down at their hands and huffs. “Is this gonna be a thing? Us holding hands?”
“If you like.”
The way his gaze turns the slightest bit hopeful when he looks at Peggy is enough to make the ache in her chest ease the tiniest bit. Jack swallows.
“It’s Vernon,” he whispers, looking down at his lap and curling in on himself again. “He won’t stop.”
Peggy bristles, as does Daniel, at the mention of Vernon’s name. Peggy recovers first, leaning closer and squeezing his hand. “Vernon Masters is dead, Jack, he can’t hurt you anymore.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Jack smiles cruelly at himself. “You think that isn’t the first thing I tried? You think I don’t know that hearing the voice of a dead man in my head doesn’t make me fucking crazy?”
“You’re not crazy, Jack,” Peggy says quickly, “you’re not crazy.”
“What, you hear the voices of dead people?”
“More than you’d think.”
“Hey,” Daniel calls when it looks like both of them are about to start down a bad path, “both of you. Uh uh. None of that.”
“Leave us alone, Daniel,” Jack whines, making Peggy laugh.
“Let go of my hand if you wanna be more convincing.”
Peggy watches Jack tense, staring at Daniel before tentatively squeezing his hand tighter. Clever Daniel.
“My house,” Daniel says, playfully scolding the both of them, “I have sulking rights.”
“I think Jack’s got an equal claim at this point,” Peggy says, leaning against the back of the couch. By the gleam in Daniel’s eyes, he’s caught her segue.
“Then we’re gonna have to work out some kind of schedule.” He puts his head in his free hand, tapping his chin. “Draw it up or somethin’. Two nights a week each?”
“With one night free for whoever needs it?”
“Nah. No-sulk day.”
“We’ll pin it up on the fridge and everything.”
“Wait, wait—“ they both look back at Jack who’s glancing back and forth between the two of them—“what…what?”
Daniel squeezes his hand and lets go. “I’ve had my turn,” he soothes when it looks like Jack’s about to panic, “now it’s hers. Plus, I wanna make sure those sandwiches don’t soak through the bag.”
Peggy gives Daniel a nod as he vanishes back to the kitchen. She takes the hand he let go and brings it into her lap with the other one, coaxing Jack’s gaze back to her.
“Did Daniel tell you,” she starts quietly, “that he wanted you?”
Jack’s adam’s apple bobs. “…not in as many words.”
“Did he tell you for how long?”
She has to smile at the confused look on Jack’s face.
“You’ve got to stop running from people who care about you,” she murmurs, pulling him closer, “then we can’t help you.”
“Peggy, I—Daniel, he—I don’t wanna get between the two of you—“
“And what if we want you between us?”
She waits until Jack stops trying to speak, giving up when he can’t get past just making shapes with his mouth. This stupid stupid man, so ready to throw himself in front of a firing squad. Who was it, she wonders, that made you so convinced that you’re unworthy, incapable of being loved?
She has a feeling she knows the answer and that he is currently in Jack’s head, screaming.
Well, she’s never been one to pass up an opportunity to shut Vernon Masters up.
She can see Jack still doesn’t believe her, so she squeezes his hands tight and leans forward, getting closer and closer until she’s hovering just before him. Jack stops breathing, frozen.
“May I kiss you,” she murmurs against his mouth, “please?”
If it were any less intense, she’d laugh at the way Jack’s eyes bug out of his head. As it is, she waits patiently until she sees him nod. Then she presses forward.
He tastes like New York rain.
When she pulls away, slowly, Jack’s still staring down at her, this time in awe. She quirks a brow. “Not bad, hmm?”
“I think you broke him,” comes Daniel’s amused voice from behind them. Peggy grins when Jack just blinks at her.
“Perhaps.”
“And what was all that about not rushing into anything?”
She shrugs. “Wasn’t working.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So…” Jack licks his lips nervously, glancing between the two of them. “You both…wait…Daniel?”
The way Jack sounds so scared when he says Daniel’s name makes Peggy grip his hands again. The look on his face…does he think Daniel’s going to be angry? Throw him out? She shoots a look at him over her shoulder that says ‘come fix this, please.’
Daniel just walks over and leans in slowly. “May I?”
Unlike with her, Jack rushes up to close the distance between them. Peggy giggles.
“I think that’s a ‘yes.’”
When Daniel pulls away, the sappy looks on their faces are enough to make her grin.
“How is it,” Daniel murmurs, “that you’ve been here for so long, and you still taste like New York rain?”
“Right?” Peggy shakes her head and giggles when Jack blushes. “Can I hug you both?”
The look her boys give her is priceless.
“You,” Daniel says, “you wanna hug us? You feeling alright, Peg?”
“Maybe that call you mentioned was worse than you thought,” Jack mutters, “did everything go okay?”
“Oh, shut up,” Peggy says, “the both of you.”
Daniel grins, wrapping one arm around Jack and holding the other one out. “We won’t tell.”
Peggy wraps her arms around her boys and sighs. She could get used to this.