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It was cold and dark and the only thing Daniel was aware of was pain and the smell of blood. So much blood, too much of it his. A voice, drifting in and out. Mike Stephens, or at least it should have been. This time, it was feminine, and suddenly Peggy’s face drifted into view.
But everything was wrong. She was bleeding, and he was bleeding, and they were both going to die in this cold, godforsaken ditch in Belgium. Daniel could feel the life draining out of him, watched the light in Peggy’s eyes dim -
He woke with a gasp, sitting bolt upright. One hand clutching the blankets where his right leg ended, the other scrabbling until it found Peggy, asleep next to him. Daniel’s breathing slowed as he watched her breathe, grounding himself in the present.
Daniel shivered, realizing that Peggy’s bedroom in Howard’s mansion had become much colder since the two of them went to bed. No wonder he’d dreamed of Bastogne. With a grimace, he accepted the fact that he wasn’t going to get any more sleep tonight and carefully maneuvered out of bed so not to wake Peggy.
He pulled a thick sweater out of the closet (he’d come to keeping clothes at Howard’s ever since the kiss and Jack’s shooting a month ago, when he’d started staying over more and more frequently) and grabbed his regular crutch and its match, too tired and too shaken to bother with his leg for now.
He eased his way out the door, watching Peggy carefully for any signs of wakefulness, but she slept on, curled under the blankets with a sleepy smile on her face. At least one of them was having good dreams, Daniel thought ruefully.
He crutched into the kitchen, intent on getting himself a cup of coffee, and flipped on the light. It was after 3 AM, and he assumed everyone was asleep, so he nearly yelped when there was a groan from the couch in the adjoining living room.
He whirled around, one hand scrabbling for the weapon he’d left on his bedside table (stupid, he knew better than that), only to relax when he saw Jack curled up in the corner of the couch. Daniel took a deep breath to calm his racing heart.
“Jack, for heaven’s sakes, what are you doing?!”
The man in question was, like Daniel, wearing a thick sweater, and was also sitting under two of Ana’s knitted blankets. Predictably, there was a bottle of whiskey on the table and a glass in Jack’s hand. His hair was tousled, and he was took up a surprisingly small amount of the couch, curled up as he was. He looked surprisingly young and vulnerable like that, an image so incongruous with the polished Jack Thompson Daniel usually saw that he practically did a double take.
Of course, it wasn’t the first time Daniel had seen Jack dressed like this - he’d been staying at Stark’s mansion since he was discharged from the hospital, and Daniel and Peggy had both kept guard while Jack was in the hospital for those first two weeks. But there was something about the way Jack was tonight that made him seem especially unguarded; maybe the way Jack’s hand holding the glass trembled, or his wide-eyed stare.
But of course he didn’t stay that way for long, the typical facade sliding into place as he shot back “I could ask you the same question, Danny-boy. It is the middle of the night, after all.”
Daniel was suddenly and horribly aware of his own situation; standing there in the kitchen without his leg on, pajama pants loosely pinned up and hanging. It was a little late to do anything about that, though, so he simply shrugged and turned back around to the coffee machine.
“Nightmares. Can I assume that’s what’s got you awake at this time of night, too?” Daniel asked, glancing over his shoulder as he reached for a mug. Jack shrugged.
“Yeah, so what? Not like that’s anything new.” Daniel hummed in agreement. The coffee finished, and he grabbed his mug and made his way over to the couch with Jack, letting one crutch dangle from his forearm while he carried the mug.
He sat down on the other side of the couch. He wasn’t quite sure why he’d chosen that seat over one of the chairs, but it seemed like the right decision.
“You know whiskey and pain meds don’t mix,” Daniel noted with a pointed stare at Jack, though he noted that the glass was still fairly full, as though Jack had taken a sip and decided that drinking maybe wasn’t the best plan.
Jack glared. “Yeah, well, pretty hard to get my brain to shut up otherwise” he growled, anger directed at himself this time. Well, self-hatred wasn’t exactly something new with Jack, either. He’d been too frustrated to see it before, but Jack’s attitude in the hospital had sent all kinds of alarm bells clanging in Daniel’s mind. Things had seemingly gotten better since he’d been discharged, but Daniel was starting to have doubts about that now, too.
“Is this about the shooting?” Daniel asked. He knew how near-death experiences could lead to all sorts of nightmares, as evidenced by tonight. Jack shook his head, though. “War, then.” Daniel made an educated guess, and Jack, if possible, seemed to shrink even further into the couch with a soft nod.
Daniel sighed, but said nothing. They sat there in companionable silence for a while, Daniel drinking his coffee and Jack staring off into space. Then Jack burst out “What do you want me to say?! War was shitty, Sousa, and don’t we all know it. God knows it was worse for you than for me, and yet I’m the one who can’t sleep because of what I did.”
Daniel, slightly surprised at the outburst, gave Jack a questioning look, encouraging him to continue. He did. “And I can’t even tell you about it, because then you’d hate me, and then you’d leave, just like everyone else.” His voice cracked slightly at the end, and his hand was shaking so hard the whiskey threatened to spill. Daniel set his own mug down on the coffee table and then reached out to take the glass, gently prying Jack’s fingers away from it and moving it to safety.
Daniel didn’t move his hand from Jack’s, instead gently squeezing Jack’s fingers in a show of support. “Jack. We all did things we regret. War made us into people we shouldn’t have had to be. What makes you think I would hate you for it?”
Jack took a shuddering breath and brought his other hand up to cover his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. Daniel waited for a minute, and then continued. “You don’t have to tell me, but I think you would feel better if you did. A secret shared is a burden halved, and all that, right?”
Jack brought his hand down, and Daniel was a little surprised to see tears brimming in his eyes. Jack made eye contact, then quickly looked down into his lap, pulling his hand away from Daniel’s to fidget awkwardly.
“It’s that stupid medal. Everybody thinks I’m some great big hero, and all I did was murder innocent soldiers.” He looked up at Daniel, then. “They were coming to surrender. The Japanese soldiers who came into my camp at Okinawa. I panicked, buried the white flag. And somehow I’m this hero, the winner of the goddamned Navy Cross, when the real heroes are the people like you.”
Daniel stared at Jack, then, feeling his whole view shift, something about Jack clicking into place like the missing piece of a puzzle. Suddenly, his behavior made sense: his reluctance to actually show anyone the medal, much as he bragged when anyone asked, how he never mentioned the Navy Cross unless someone else brought it up, and his relentless self-deprication.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t mad, of course. Jack had gloated, lorded it over his and the other office boys’ heads for months at the New York office. But it didn’t sting as much as it would have even a few weeks ago. And as he met Jack’s eyes, he could see the fear there.
“Peggy knows, doesn’t she.” Jack nodded, eyes towards his lap again, trying to curl in on himself. “That mission to Russia, you two came back different. She didn’t leave. What makes you think I will?”
Jack’s head snapped up, and Daniel watched the tears well up again. Jack was clearly exhausted and emotional; Daniel himself was feeling drained and tired enough to go back to bed, despite the nightmares and the coffee. He reached out and put a hand on each of Jack’s shoulders. “You’re stuck with us for a while yet. Now, the two of us better get some sleep or Peggy will be furious in the morning.”
Jack let out a watery chuckle at that, and let Daniel pull him up off the couch. He was a little unsteady; pain, exhaustion, and the little bit of whiskey (being shot had drastically decreased his ability to hold his liquor, irritatingly) making him sway on his feet. Daniel tugged one of Jack’s arms around his shoulders, and the two of them awkwardly made their way down the hall to Jack’s room, careful of Daniel’s crutches and the random statues Howard had up and down the hallway.
“Will this man every stop making replicas of himself?!” Daniel asked incredulously, and Jack laughed again. Once they made it to his room, Jack slowly eased himself into bed, careful of his shoulder. As Daniel was leaving, he heard a quiet “Thank you” from under the covers, and he turned and shot Jack a warm smile.
Things weren’t perfect, but Daniel was starting to think that they could be.