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Peggy doesn't like it dark and quiet.
When you can so clearly hear the thoughts filling your head.
She really wants someone around at such moments. Even just to be silent, listening to the radio together (she reminds herself that now it's a player) or watching a movie, cuddling up to each other.
And then lie down, curled up in a warm and safe embrace, and not be afraid of the darkness of the room.
Peggy has been struggling with nightmares since the day she woke up half a century later at the Avengers base. Lonely, scared of Steve's feelings and frozen inside. She thinks about how her life would have turned out if Michael hadn't died, if she hadn't risked herself, if she hadn't gone to the HYDRA base then.
She wakes up in a cold sweat and with a sore head. She takes hundreds of different types of sleeping pills, getting used to the new medicine over and over again.
She leaves the room barely alive and takes up any work to distract herself.
When Stark gives her a Romanoff partner, she mumbles in agreement, hides her gaze, burying herself in papers, and tries not to break down because of another surge of Rogers' emotions (she is honestly on the verge of killing her ex-lover).
It doesn't work.
She still gets angry, screams and bites her lip, holding back tears.
Because at some point she got tired of being strong. Tired of helping and making decisions. Tired of not sleeping and tired of reminding myself that nothing can be changed.
Natasha, surprisingly, understands her and each time silently escorts Steve out. She doesn't talk delicately, but simply, and Peggy manages to swallow a lump in her throat.
Peggy sleeps especially restlessly that night. Tossing, screaming and calling, eventually falling out of bed.
When a spy appears next to her from the darkness of the room, she only shudders in surprise, not remembering that, by the way, she locked her bedroom door with all the locks.
"Hush, honey, hush. I've got you."
And she cries, burying her face in the curve of her neck and feeling soft hot hands under her T-shirt on her back, making circles on her wet skin.
Natasha turns out to be warm and understanding, dragging her onto the bed without further ado and hugging her so tightly and tenderly that Peggy falls asleep almost instantly, not dreaming until the morning.
She feels her lips pressing against the top of her head, and her hands on her shoulder blades, from which warmth seems to flow.
"How did you get in?" her voice is hoarse from screams and sleep, as she bends in her arms, pressing closer to the woman.
"I'm a professional," Nat is silent for a couple of seconds, thoughtfully running her fingers through her tousled long hair. "When we were driving back from the mission, I felt you, your condition, and then you were screaming, so I couldn't literally sit in the next room and do nothing. I broke the lock, don't be mad."
"It's the first time I've really slept in so many years. Thank you."
She closes her eyes, continuing to talk about nothing with her, stopping when Steve and Tony literally fly into the room, freezing on the threshold with their mouths open. They mutter something about an alarm from a broken lock and a ready breakfast, closing the door and moving away from the bedroom.
Peggy hears a quiet laugh above her head and feels the calm she has been looking for for so long.