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It took some time for Peggy to fight her way past SSR agents, reporters, and handcuffed gangsters outside the abandoned warehouse to find Jack. She finally located him sitting on the curb with his head in his hands.
"Jack," she said, half-laughing in relief. She'd last seen him laid out with a wrench to the side of the head. She hadn't been able to stop to do more than find a pulse and get a vague mumble after vigorously shaking him. There had been a great many men with guns to worry about at the time.
"Peggy," Jack said. He jerked his head up, swayed, and caught himself with a hand slapped down to the pavement beside him.
She was going to ask how he was, but that was fairly obvious, from the blood matting his blond hair to the fact that he was still trying to stand up, and having a time of it.
"Sit down, Jack," she said, alarmed.
"I'm fine, Peggy," Jack said, and lurched to his feet as if to prove it. Then he turned chalk white and tilted to the side.
Peggy lunged to prop him up. "Yes, I can see that."
"Just give me a minute," Jack muttered, knotting a hand in her sleeve. He wasn't quite leaning on her, but it was somewhere in the neighborhood of it. At least his general instability made it relatively easy to steer him in the direction of an SSR car.
"Hospital, I presume?" she asked. It wasn't really a question.
"I don't think that's necessary," Jack said, visibly struggling to focus.
"Right," she murmured, and pushed him into the backseat.
*
At the hospital, Jack was surprisingly docile. At least part of it, from the look of him, was that he was distracted by a desperate struggle not to be ill.
Peggy left him in the capable and no-nonsense hands of a nurse, and went to find a pay phone to call Daniel at the SSR office.
"First of all, I'm calling from the hospital—don't panic—"
"I'm not panicking," Daniel said. She heard paper rustling in the background. "I already know where you are. Roth told me someone brained Jack with a pipe wrench." Audible concern slipped into his voice, a soft, worried note that would never have been there a year ago. "How is he?"
"He'll be all right, I think," Peggy said. Saying it aloud made it real; she felt her knees weaken a little, and looking down at herself, realized for the first time that her sensible suitdress was caked with mud. No wonder people kept giving her odd looks.
"Good," Daniel said. "He doesn't have the brain cells to lose. He's already been beaned once, back when we were after Fennhoff. This probably knocked out what was left of 'em."
"I'll be sure and mention that you said that."
Daniel laughed a little. "Seriously, though, are they letting him out tonight? Because God knows someone needs to drive him home so he doesn't drive himself into a tree."
"I took him to the hospital," Peggy said. "I'll just bring him back to Howard's with me if they don't need to keep him overnight."
"And you're fine, then," Daniel said.
Ah, there was the ... not panic exactly, but worry, right on cue. She smiled to herself. "A bit muddy, that's all."
"I've seen your reports, Peggy. I figure that you're a bit muddy the way the Roxxon building is a little bit damaged."
"Do you need anything from me? I don't want to leave you to the paperwork all alone—"
"Peggy. Go home. Sleep. Wash off the mud. I'll come by in the morning."
There was a pause, a strangely comfortable silence, just the two of them appreciating each other's company on the other end of the line. Then Daniel said, "Tell Jack I send condolences to his remaining brain cells, the few that he has."
"I'll pass it along," she said, and there was a whole conversation that seemed to pass between them in that moment, of shared worry and reassurance.
*
She found Jack looking pale and miserable, lying down with an arm over his face. Peggy turned down the lamp, and Jack cracked his eyes open, peering at her from under his arm.
"You look like a hobo, Marge," he croaked hoarsely.
"Thank you, Jack. You're an impeccable example of fine tailoring and grooming yourself."
There was a bandage taped above his eye, and the side of his face had been cleaned up a bit, but his hair was still caked with blood. She hadn't noticed until seeing him in clearer light that his jacket was also splattered with his blood. Shivering a little, she pulled a chair over to the side of the bed.
Jack grimaced and threw his arm over his eyes again. "I hate hospitals," he muttered.
"You seem to be feeling a little better," Peggy said. He was more coherent, anyway. Less dazed than he had been in the car. "Daniel sends condolences for your missing brain cells, by the way."
She didn't like hospitals much herself. It was a sharp shock from the past: the smell of antiseptic, the white walls. It put her too much in mind of the back-to-back vigils, first Ana and then Jack. And before that, of course: the war.
"Tell Sousa he can keep his opinions on my brain cells to himself," Jack said without removing his arm.
"I'm going to clean up in the ladies," Peggy said.
She scrubbed her face and dress with a dampened towel, and inspected the result in the mirror. She looked pale herself, washed out under the bright overhead lights. She ran a wet hand across her hair and tried to smooth it down, putting herself back together, as if she could wipe away the mental image of Jack lying on the warehouse's concrete floor with a pool of blood under his head just as easily.
When she came back, the nurse had returned, bearing a sheet of rather alarming symptoms to be on the lookout for, and discharge paperwork that Jack signed one-handed with his eyes still closed, scraping an incomprehensible scrawl somewhere in the general vicinity of the indicated part of the form.
"I have a suggestion," Peggy said, steering him toward the exit. Jack was a little more steady on his feet than he had been earlier, but he was squinting and visibly in pain.
"Carter, if it's about the case, I don't care."
"No, I was going to suggest that you spend the night at Howard's, so that I can make sure that you don't—" She checked the discharge paper. "... have a vomiting fit, a seizure, or lapse into a coma."
"I'm guaranteed to do all of those things if you give me that bedroom with the picture of Stark on the wall."
"That doesn't narrow it down, Jack," Peggy said, leaning hastily around him to open the door before he ran into it. There was a cool bite to the night breeze, making her damp skirt cling to her legs. She could not wait to get properly cleaned up.
"The one with the ... face," Jack said. "Oh, never mind. I'll just turn it against the wall like the last time."
*
It was a quiet drive. Weariness was beginning to overtake Peggy, the night's activity and worry fading away to leave her tired and shaky. She was becoming aware of the strained muscle in her shoulder (should probably have mentioned it to the nurse; oh well, too late), the itchiness of the mud on her legs, the scratchy feeling under her eyelids. By the time they pulled into Howard's drive, all she really wanted was a bath and sleep.
"Yep," Jack said, when she navigated him into the guest bedroom he had used before, after the shooting. "That portrait."
Ah, she thought, that portrait. Yes, that one was quite ... something. She deposited Jack on the bed and went to turn it against the wall.
"Thanks, Peggy," Jack said. He was leaning heavily on one arm on the bed, looking gray. She knew he wasn't thanking her for the portrait, not entirely, but it was a reasonable cover.
"I'll go find you some of Howard's spare pajamas."
"Oh God."
"Not the silk ones. I'm sure he must have a pair of flannel around somewhere."
"I don't want to know where Howard's pajamas have been!" Jack called after her.
Neither did Peggy, nor dig through Howard's wardrobes, which tended to come with unpleasant surprises. Fortunately, now that she had a moment to think, there was a simpler solution. She tapped lightly on the door of the Jarvises' suite, found them awake and quietly reading together, and was soon supplied with a spare pair of Mr. Jarvis's pajamas, and also some shaving tackle, soap, and a towel.
"Please tell Chief Thompson that I do not need the pajamas back," Jarvis said with dignity.
"I assumed not, but I will pass it along."
The lights were off in Jack's bedroom, but he had left the door open, and Peggy found from a quick peek inside that he was stretched out on the bed, still fully clothed.
"Pajamas and toiletries," she said, setting them on the dresser. "Mr. Jarvis says that you may consider them a gift."
"Urgh," Jack said.
Peggy sat beside him on the edge of the bed. It was strange to her, still, how the time after his shooting had loosened some of the barriers of propriety between them, in the same way that the comradeship of war sometimes did.
"There was a bottle of pain pills from the nurse, I believe," she said. "It's on the dresser."
"They gave me some in the hospital," Jack said. He sounded very tired, and slurred with sleep or ... she didn't want to contemplate the alternative.
"Can you rest, then, do you think?"
"No seizures or vomiting fits yet," Jack said.
"I hope I would have noticed."
"If I have one, I'll let you know."
"I appreciate that."
There was a silence, the feeling between them quiet and easy. It would have shocked her, once, to know that she could be this relaxed with Jack. But right now she just wanted to breathe in and out for a little while, and let the calm in the room erase the memory of the blood under his head and the utter limpness when she had first tried to rouse him, the way he had rolled bonelessly under her hand.
"I'm sorry," Jack said quietly.
It took her a moment to redirect her thoughts and realize what he'd said. "What in blazes are you sorry for?"
"I wasn't a hell of a lot of help tonight."
"Jack, you were hit in the head with a bloody wrench. You are not expected to be the hero riding to the rescue of the damsel at all times, you know."
"Thought that was in the job description."
He laughed a little, quietly, in the near-dark. And so did she. Reaching around on the bed, she found his forearm and closed her hand over it, giving it a tight squeeze. Jack brought up a hand and laid it over hers.
Peggy got up. Her hand slipped down to grip his, then let go.
"If I find in the morning that you've slept in your clothes, I shall be cross and tell the nurse."
"That's a hell of a threat coming from a woman covered in mud."
"I am about to clean up," Peggy said loftily, and left.
But she was back later, bathed and feeling more relaxed after a glass of Howard's good brandy, bundled in one of Ana's robes with her hair pinned up to dry in curls overnight. She just took a quick walk by Jack's room, and a quick peek through the half-open door.
He had changed into the pajamas, and was stretched out with the blanket thrown loosely over him, his breathing slow and even. Well enough, for now.
Peggy slipped off. Jarvis could bring them pastries in the morning, and Daniel would stop by. She was looking forward to it.