Work Text:
It’s done.
They’ve taken care of Whitney Frost, survived Thompson’s idiocies, and celebrated the return of Ana Jarvis and Jason Wilkes to the land of the living. And now it’s time for Peggy to go home. The clock is ticking down, though he doesn’t know when her flight is, and he’s having a harder and harder time staying away from the whiskey stashed in his desk. Peggy hasn’t said a word and it makes him hope, and then he hates himself for hoping. Silence doesn’t mean the enemy has gone or that the bomb isn’t going to fall. Silence means the bomb is on the brink of falling, he just hasn’t heard it yet.
If he’d heard it, he might still have his leg.
So he buries himself in the paperwork and tries not to hear the tick of the second hand, so sharp it almost makes his ears bleed. When she’s gone he’ll have time to numb himself with the booze, but she could show up at any time and he doesn’t want her to remember him drunk.
Hell. He doesn’t want her to remember him. He wants—
And there she is. Standing in his office door, though God knows it’s late, and this is it. This is the bomb and it’s about to explode, and this time he’ll lose more than his leg. He takes about five seconds to wonder how quickly he can get smashed to avoid feeling anything, then reaches for his crutch. He’s not saying goodbye sitting down.
“Paperwork?” she says lightly, though her eyes are anything but light.
“A chief’s work is never done,” he answers, just as careless and hates himself for that, too.
Silence falls and the clock is ticking and he’s waiting for the explosion, the hit. He just wants to get it over with but as long as she’s here, she’s not there and he can still believe in the battlefield illusion that all’s clear.
“When’s your flight?” he asks.
She turns pink and her hands are clasped too tightly. That’s when he notices she doesn’t have any luggage with her.
“I...” Her voice trails off. She clears her throat and every muscle in his body tenses, bracing. “I thought I might stay.”
He lurches forward, thrown off-balance. She steadies him with a hand on his waist and she’s two steps nearer than she was before. But even once he’s got his feet under him again she doesn’t pull away. The heat of her hand soaks through his shirt and her grip is firm, strong. Like she’s not willing to let go.
And he looks into her eyes and he’s drowning.
So he does the only thing he can think of. He kisses her.
She meets him halfway and her other hand settles against his back. She tastes like a warm spring rain, clean and fresh, and if he’s drowning so is she because she won’t let go any more than he will.
“That’s a yes, then?” she says, when they finally come up for air.
He leans his forehead against hers, his hand in her hair. He’s smiling, he can’t help it. “What do you think, Pegg?”
Her hand comes up to cover his, and her bright red lips curve in a smile that erases all fear of a falling bomb. “I think you owe me a drink,” she says.
He laughs softly and she laughs with him.
It’s only once they’re settled across from each other, trading ridiculous smiles, that he realizes the clock on his wall has stopped ticking.