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"I think you're as good as you'll get, Rogers," Natasha says. She pulls her hand from atop his, a movement like a leaf slipping in the wind. They've been at it long enough that there’s a fine sweat along his temples; the day gone by without him noticing. The sun is setting outside the Tower windows, painting them a blinding gold before the evening fades away. Natasha tilts her head, trying to catch his eye. "Not sure what exactly you're going to do with all these lessons, though."
He turns towards Brooklyn like the North Pole, drops his forehead against the cool glass. For a moment, just one, he lets himself pretend -
- he's in Prospect Park, passing a Coke back and forth with Bucky, their fingers slipping through the condensation, the heat immense, pressing them down into the dry grass -
It's too quiet up here to indulge himself, the air conditioning a low hum below the florescent lights. Steve sighs, straightens. "I'm not sure myself," he admits.
***
Steve startles awake in the dark, hands out and swimming against the suffocating press of blankets fallen across his face. Breath short and sharp in his throat. JARVIS opens the blinds without being asked, like he has every day for the last week, and he lets the wan light of the rising sun wash over him. Imagines the warmth of it, pictures a roaring fire -
- the men gathered around it, cigarette smoke almost covering up how rank they smelled after weeks in the woods, canvas uniforms wet & moldering on them but they have a bottle of cognac pressed on them by Dernier and they don't mind, this once, just -
Steve pushes out of bed, half his pillows tumbling to the ground. He picks them up with shaking hands. By the time he's out of the shower, skin flushed with the endless hot water, the sun is making its way above the horizon. Time to go, then.
It feels like sleepwalking, climbing atop his bike, the roar of the Harley's engine nothing more than the rumble of Bucky talking in his sleep the next bedroll over. The wind has the promise of a bright spring day, the last of the cool ones before summer sets in.
Jersey is one long highway wavering its way through marshy reeds and falling down bridges. Steve sees warehouses long abandoned, paint flaking away into the long grass. He wonders if they were here in his time, if this was where the women workers made bombs, guns, planes for the war. Women with stocking lines drawn on with eye pencil because of the silk shortage, lips painted Victory! red and their hair curled immaculately against their shoulders...
Steve stops for gas just shy of Delaware. He's punching buttons on the pump trying to figure out how to buy the cheapest grade when he sees movement out of the corner of his eye, coming fast towards him. He's turning, scrabbling for his shield before he can even think about it, knees bending, heart racing, when he realizes -
He doesn't have his shield, it's back in that big ugly tower -
- and it's just the station attendant, running towards him with an exasperated expression on his pudgy face.
"Whoa man, you can't pump your own gas." Steve stares at him, waiting for a punchline or an explanation. He hadn't had this problem in New York, had he? Did he break some new rule and no one had told him?
"When did this happen?" Steve asks finally, frustration mounting when the man just scoffs at him.
"Like fifty years ago. Not from around here, are you?"
Steve huffs and shoves a twenty at him, stalking away before he realizes he should probably watch just in case. He can't quite make himself turn around, something turbulent inside him, so he ends up at the edge of the parking lot staring uselessly out at the cars flashing by. He unclenches his fists when the attendant comes up with his change, not even realizing he'd been holding on so tight there are half moon indents on his palms. Steve stretches his fingers out against his jeans, feeling the stinging subside. It feels like his body's trying to be sick, which is ridiculous. He never gets sick anymore, not on camp rations, not even in the trenches with men shitting themselves from bad water and fever.
He drives through Delaware without noticing it, lost in the roar of the highway and the yellow lines disappearing past his tires, over and over and over again. It's not until he hits a wall of DC traffic, the sun high overhead and beating down against his shoulders that he realizes: he's nervous. Alien attacks, shells exploding around him, the noise of Soviet tank engines - steady as she goes. The world moves in slow motion around him. This, this feels like a live animal trapped between his rib cage, like all his childhood fears of purgatory.
It makes sense, he supposes. She's been the only person in his whole life to make him nervous.
Steve weaves the Harley between stopped traffic, the honking cars overwhelming after almost four hours alone on the road. The heat rises off the pavement in slow waves, visible to the naked eye. He'd been here once before, with the USO tour, but hardly anything looks familiar.
He stops at a market and spends too long staring at roses, trying to remember what his Ma told him about giving flowers to a lady. Probably no one cares anymore what the colors mean, just like no one really wears hats these days. He picks victory red anyway, and buys too many things - sandwiches, ginger snap cookies, a basket of strawberries and a bottle of wine. Steve feels ridiculous loading everything onto the back of his bike. He'd spent what used to be a months salary on a battlefield daydream -
- because Alsace in the summer was beautiful, there was no denying it even with towns in rubble and the sloping vineyards pungent with grapes rotting on the vine. The days were clear and dry, green hills stretching as far as the eye could see. So different from everything he'd ever known, before. Steve had felt for his compass in his pocket, thought about if she were here, he'd bring her a basket full of fresh food, eggs and cheeses and bread and apples, all the things the war had taken. They'd lay down in the grass under that impossibly blue sky, the uniform gone and nothing but warm skin and his fingers tangled in those soft brown curls -
The retirement home is a long brick building shaded with tall oaks and rimmed in brightly colored flowers. Steve sits across the street on his bike for a long time, the humidity filling his lungs. He grabs the roses, hesitates over the canvas bag filled with the things he'd bought, but after a moment slings it over his shoulder.
The air conditioning is a shock to the system when he steps through the door. It smells clean inside, like soaps and fresh linens; the walls are pale cream and hung with watercolors. He can hear the low crackle of televisions, and someone laughing down the hallway. It doesn't feel like a hospital. It feels like a home.
"Hello, can I help you?" Steve startles at the voice, but thankfully no alarm bells sound off in his head, and hands stay relaxed at his side. Even his gut knows the place is safe, apparently. The woman behind the desk is dressed in green scrubs, an expression of polite interest on her round, lovely face. Steve coughs, his voice rusty after the long, lone ride.
"I, uh ... I'm here to see," he sucks in a breath, completely unable to remember her married name, "Peggy Carter?"
"Ah yes," the nurse smiles, "You called yesterday, right?"
Steve nods, tongue struck dumb. Probably couldn't string a sentence if his life depended on it, right now. He signs the guestbook, fills out a few forms, and then he's being led along, trailing behind the nurse. She leads him down the hallway and out into a garden filled with trees and down winding paths, passing small fountains that cool the still air, until finally, finally -
There she is.
Peggy reaches out a hand for him to take while Steve's trying to find his voice, her skin cool as fresh paper under his own. Her hair ... Peggy's hair is a cloud of white, but it's curled just the way it used to be, brushing against her shoulders. She's wrapped in a lace shawl and a blanket on her lap, like she could be cold on a bright spring day. She was so small now, as small as he was when they first met, short years and a lifetime ago - but the same strength is in the tilt of her head and the crook of her mouth, eyes shining, tears about to spill over but with a ... with a smile, like she was daring him to say something about it and she ...
She's still so beautiful.
"Hello, my darling," Peggy manages, "You made it home after all."
Steve's on his knees in front of her before he even realizes he's moving, his arms around her, gentle as he can be but she gasps anyway, and it's perfect for one long moment while he can feel her heart beating against his chest. He's dizzy, overwhelmed, and it's not like he didn't know what to expect, saw the changes everywhere he looked, but ...
They're both wiping at their eyes when he pulls back, embarrassed. Peggy just laughs gently at whatever expression's on his face and suddenly Steve can breathe again for what feels like the first time in weeks.
"I knew it was you," Peggy says, "the minute you popped up on the news - fighting aliens, Steve, really - everyone thought they'd dragged that old costume out of storage but I knew you better than that."
Steve grins. "Never did know when to quit." He lifts the bag he'd brought, glad after all. Peggy smiles at the roses and exclaims over the ginger cookies, surprised that he remembers her favorite things. It leaves him speechless for a moment, just a few weeks ago you found them in that camp outside Paris and we ate them with whiskey poured in our tea, but the moment passes.
He squeezes next to her on the bench, cuts strawberries for her with the plastic knife packed away with their picnic. He sneaks glances at her over the sandwiches until she catches him at it. The wine is warm in the sun and they drink straight from the bottle, passing it back and forth as Peggy chuckles at how long it's been since she drank like that.
"My grandchildren were so bored of my war stories before," Peggy says mournfully, "But now it's 'Nana, Nana, tell me more about Captain America!' Reminds me of those terrible radio plays that were all the rage." Steve groans - he'd known about them, laughed and blushed at the teasing over the horrible "Betty Carver", always needing rescuing from the evil doers of the week. He'd never met anyone less in need of a rescue than Peggy.
He tells her about the Battle of New York, as the papers called it. About Thor - fighting a myth in the forests of Germany had been the most familiar thing he'd done since waking up. "He shook my hand after and congratulated me about surviving a hit from his magic hammer." He tells her about Coulson and his near-mint trading cards, just a bit of foxing around the edges.
They laugh about the Starks. "Like herding cats!" Peggy cries, both hands to her cheeks to hide her giggles. Steve can't stop staring at her, at the way she moves. He wants to touch her again, a hand to her elbow, a brush against her hair. She's telling him a story about a teenaged Tony trying to put the moves on her, feeding her some ridiculous line about a paper he had to do on VD during the war. "When I tried to tell him about governmental prevention efforts he interrupted me to say, 'I was asking about you, aunt Peg,' and winked at me! I couldn't help myself but I just started laughing and I don't think I stopped for a month."
Do you fondue? floats across his mind and it's a jerk of anger and jealousy that wraps around his heart, a fist in his throat. It's consuming for a white hot second, all the things he never got to do, to see, and if he'd been there he'd have knocked some sense into that little punk before - but then he sees Peggy's face, the mirth in her brown eyes ... He's dizzy again, release breaking like a wave against his heart to see her smile.
As if it's contagious Steve starts snickering, picturing Tony with pimples on his face putting his best line on the best gal Steve's ever known, and Peggy's laughing with him until they're howling with it, tears streaming down their faces. The sun's started to set without them noticing, hours gone by. Steve watches the light turned golden against her face, dappled by leaves, and their grins are painted on even as the laughter fades. Her expression softens, warm like the day was warm.
He takes a breath to steel himself, and stands. Holds a hand out.
"I was wondering..."
Peggy's watching him closely, eyebrow lifted, and it's just like the look on her face when they'd wiped another Hydra base off the map, makes him feel just like that. His heart’s pounding. "I was wondering if I could have that dance."
Her face falls. She smooths her hands over her skirt, across the tops of her legs. "Steve, I ... I'm afraid that's not possible. Not for years, now." Steve looks, and sees for the first time the fact that her feet don't touch the ground, the wheelchair tucked discreetly some distance away. Peggy lifts her head, looks him unwaveringly in the eye.
The breeze picks up, a breath against his skin. Steve thinks, absurdly, about his hands, about the weeks following his transformation where he could crush a doorknob if he wasn't careful. He'd used them to break open tank hatches, shatter bones, but he thinks... he'd always hoped that he could be gentle enough for her.
Steve turns his hands palm up. "May I?" he asks, steady.
Peggy sighs, a corner of her mouth flickering upwards. "Not even death would stop you," she smiles. She reaches up.
He picks her up delicately, slipping one hand under her knees and one between her thin shoulder blades. She's light as air as he lifts her to his chest and tucks her head beneath his chin. He slides his hand to the base of her skull to bury into her hair the way he's always dreamed of. Her fingers are on his cheek, and she closes her eyes. Her tears are wet against his throat.
They sway just like that, their only music the wind, until the sun has set and all the light has gone.