Work Text:
Finding Hope
Steve stared blindly down at the battered little table he had righted in the middle of the rubble of the bar. The place where he had recruited the members of the 107th to become his team. His exchange with Bucky in this very bar kept playing through his mind.
What about you? You ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?
Hell, no. The little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight, I’m following him.
Steve choked on a sob. God, how could he have been so arrogant, so stupid, to believe that he could keep Bucky safe in the middle of a war? He should have insisted Bucky go home. Should have packed Bucky onto the next transport leaving for the States. Bucky had already fought and been through enough. He could have received an honorable discharge after he’d been held captive and experimented on, God only knew how. But no, Steve had selfishly, stupidly, wanted Bucky with him. The way he had always planned, the two boys from Brooklyn taking on the Nazis. And it had seemed only fitting, like fate or destiny, that for the first time, thanks to Dr. Erskine and his serum, Steve had actually felt as if he could be the one to look out for Bucky, keep Bucky safe, the way Bucky had always done for him. Saving Bucky from his captivity at Hydra’s hands once had made Steve overconfident, so sure that he could continue to keep Bucky safe. A way for Steve to even the scales between them.
Instead, Steve had led Bucky straight to his death. Bucky’s last scream still echoed in Steve’s mind, the sight of him falling into the cliff hadn’t stopped playing through Steve’s memories in the last endless couple days since that fatal day and the grim trip back to their London base with Dr. Zola as their prisoner.
Steve had needed to escape the SSR’s underground barracks, needed to escape either the silent sympathy or the gruff attempts at consolation from the other Commandos. He knew they were mourning too, the loss of one of their own, and as much as he appreciated that they did sympathize, it had been too much for him. The camaraderie between him and the Commandos had grown over the last year of fighting, inevitably, but he wasn’t one of them, not really. He was the Captain, the leader, the one who had rescued them, the super soldier. And he hadn’t felt able to stay around them, not when he knew he would not be able to hide his tears, his own devastation. They might be mourning too but it was different for them. They had only known Bucky for a little over a year. He had known Bucky his entire life.
To their credit, no one among the Commandos had batted an eye when he had said he needed to get out, go for a walk or something. All they had done, in the sort of gesture that said so much more than such men would ever express in words, was to raid whatever private stash they had to come up with two bottles of liquor for him, one of gin and the other of whiskey, handing them to him without a word.
Steve hadn’t had a destination in mind but had found himself wandering through the rubble of war-torn London and it had seemed only fitting when he had reached the bar where he had recruited the Commandos, just a couple blocks away from their base, to find that in the months they had been on the front, the bar had been destroyed in an air raid and was now in ruins. He had picked his way past the rubble into one of the inner rooms, one of the few that still retained its roof and walls–no need to advertise his presence to anyone else who might be out in violation of blackout rules. Steve was in no mood to care about blackout rules as they might pertain to him but he had enough sense to know that any other such violators were unlikely to be the trustworthy sort and in his current state of mind, a fight or any other such trouble was the last thing he wanted.
So he had righted a chair and small table, finally able now that he was alone to give way to the tears. And then he had, for the first time in his life, set out to get deliberately, mind-numbingly drunk. With his past experiences in that regard, he hadn’t expected it would take long. Except it hadn’t happened. Even after finishing off the entire bottle of gin and at least half the bottle of whiskey, he remained stone cold sober–and even more miserable.
It occurred to him that for the first time, he couldn’t imagine going back to Brooklyn even after the war ended, not anymore, because Brooklyn would be too full of memories of Bucky and more than that, going back would mean having to face Bucky’s family. Having to tell them that it was his fault Bucky was dead, face their sorrow and their recriminations. Bucky’s family, who had also welcomed him in, had provided him with the first real glimpse of what a complete family unit, mother, father, children, looked like. The bustling warmth of the Barnes household had been a novelty to him, so used to the quiet of the apartment where he and his mother had lived, usually empty with his mother at work and then after she had passed, there had been only him anyway.
He would have been so alone in the last years since his mother had passed but he hadn’t been, because of Bucky. Because Bucky had never let him be alone, had insisted on pulling Steve into his family as much as he could. Bucky had been his best friend, his only friend for most of his life, the closest thing to a brother Steve had ever had. And Steve had failed him, let him die.
He remembered what Colonel Phillips had said to him after the experiment. I asked for an army and all I got was you. You are not enough.
Steve had been defiant, angry at being discounted yet again, even after the serum had worked and made him so much more, stronger, than he could ever have imagined. Even if at the time he’d felt as if this new hero’s body thanks to the serum were some sort of too-large suit that belonged to someone else, he had thought that maybe, finally, now that he was taller, bigger, people might take him seriously but it hadn’t happened, not immediately.
But now, sitting there in the dark, he thought that Colonel Phillips might have been right. He wasn’t enough. What good was it to be Captain America–absurd title that it was–with all this strength and endurance when he couldn’t even keep Bucky safe?
And now, he had to survive without Bucky somehow. He had never been without Bucky, not really, and he didn’t know what to do now. They were still at war but at that moment, Steve wasn’t sure he could find it in him to keep on being Captain America, go on fighting without Bucky to watch his back.
The sound of footsteps reached him and he sniffled, trying to blink back his tears, before he turned to see Agent Carter–Peggy. Oddly, he felt no surprise and no reluctance or self-consciousness either. It didn’t occur to him until later to wonder at this, not only that he felt no surprise that she had sought him out and found him even in a blackout, but more, that he hadn’t felt even a little self-conscious at being caught in tears. He knew himself well enough to know that if anyone else had found him, he would have been abashed, would have immediately attempted to hide all traces of tears, even if he would likely have failed. But somehow, when he saw her, oddly, he only thought, of course she found me.
And even though just minutes ago, he would have sworn he wanted to be alone, didn’t want any company, he found that he didn’t mind her presence. More than that, he was even… glad to see her, felt the first faint spark of warmth inside his chest at realizing she had come to find him, than he had felt in days.
She had become, somehow, a friend, a real friend, and something more than a friend too. Because he liked her. She was beautiful and smart and funny and more than that, she was the only woman he had ever met who had seen something good, something worthy, in him from the beginning. He would never forget it, the moment at Camp Lehigh when she had met his eyes, her gaze direct, her lips curving faintly, and he had realized with some shock that she–the most beautiful woman he had ever seen–was looking straight at him, not through him the way most women did, and was smiling at him.
What he didn’t understand was how he could somehow also feel so… comfortable with her, oddly. It made no sense because he still didn’t know how to handle himself around women and even the months on the USO circuit when he’d been surrounded by the dancing girls, who had made their appreciation of his new hero’s body clear, hadn’t helped with that because their attentions had only made him want to flee. They had been so… intent, so… predatory, if that didn’t sound ridiculous to label dancing girls as such, and it had felt so fake to him. Because he’d known perfectly well that they only saw his newfound height and muscles, his unearned title as Captain America, and knew nothing about him and would never have given him a second look as Steve Rogers.
Peggy wasn’t like that, had never been like that. And even though one of her looks, her smiles, could make his brain go blank, make him feel stupid, strangely, he also felt comfortable with her, at ease. Put simply, he trusted her. Trusted her enough that he didn’t mind showing his vulnerabilities to her. Because she had taken him seriously, seen him as someone worthy of respect, from the beginning, when he had only been Steve Rogers, when he’d been shorter and physically weaker than she was. And because of that, with her, he knew he never needed to pretend to be anything other than what he was, just Steve Rogers. With her, he wasn’t Captain America, the hero or anything like that. He was just himself.
With her, he somehow knew he could grieve and cry and not fear being judged or mocked.
He leaned forward to pour himself another finger or so of whiskey, although at this point, he was drinking more by rote than because he expected it to have any palliative effect. “Dr. Erskine said that the serum wouldn’t just affect my muscles, it would affect my cells. Create a protective system of regeneration and healing. Which means… I can’t get drunk.” He had figured that much out at least. “Did you know that?”
“Your metabolism burns four times faster than the average person,” she responded, bending to right a chair and setting it on the other side of the small table before she sat down, her legs neatly crossed at her ankles, arranging her small purse on her lap in one of her unconsciously elegant movements that never failed to mesmerize him–and still did, even at that juncture. He didn’t know how she did it, how she could look so at ease even in the midst of rubble, how she was always so effortlessly graceful. “He thought it could be one of the side effects.”
He remembered a day about a month ago when they had returned to camp after a mission to rescue another troop that had been captured by Hydra, and he had seen her, Peggy, stepping out of the communications tent with that same unconscious grace and his steps had almost faltered in spite of himself at the sight of her. She’d been the most beautiful thing he’d seen in days; she would be beautiful anywhere but in the middle of war-torn Europe, she was even more so, seemed like a symbol of hope for better times, a reminder that a world existed outside of the front. She had seen him and even at that distance, he’d seen the way her eyes had brightened, the faint curve of her lips, and he had realized with a leap of his heart that she was glad to know he’d returned safely. Bucky, beside him as always, had also seen and had elbowed him, commenting under his breath, “what the hell does she see in you anyway? Doesn’t she know that you’re an idiot where women are concerned?”
Absurdly, Steve felt fresh tears prick his eyes at the memory. Oh God, Bucky… Bucky, who teased him about women but who had also always tried to find dates for Steve. Bucky, who had been popular with girls and who had never seemed to understand that girls weren’t interested in a scrawny pipsqueak who was shorter and skinnier than they were. Steve remembered once telling Bucky that he should just give up on finding dates for Steve, after yet another disastrous attempt at a double date had ended with Steve’s so-called date spending the entire evening hanging on Bucky’s every word, giggling foolishly at everything Bucky said, and generally doing a very good job of acting as if Steve were invisible, the equivalent of a potted plant and even less interesting. And Bucky had slung an arm around Steve’s shoulders and only said blithely, “Aw, that just means that she wasn’t good enough for you. The right girl will see past all that.” Steve had scoffed at the time and only thought that it was evidence of Bucky’s blind loyalty. Now, it occurred to Steve that Bucky had been right. The right girl had seen past all that, Steve’s lack of height, his skinniness, his puny frame. Peggy had seen past all that from the beginning.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she told him quietly.
He slanted a look at her. He hadn’t expected her, the direct, no-nonsense agent, to give him a trite platitude. “Did you read the report?”
“Yes.”
He gave a shaky little scoff. “Then you know that’s not true.” He had failed Bucky. And he would never forgive himself for it.
“You did everything you could.”
He saw Bucky fall, heard Bucky’s scream, again in his mind and inwardly flinched.
“Did you believe in your friend?”
This question surprised him into glancing up at her as she met his eyes with all her usual directness, compassion shining out of her dark eyes.
“Did you respect him?”
Of course he had respected Bucky.
“Then stop blaming yourself. Allow Barnes the dignity of his choice. He damn well must have thought you were worth it.”
Her use of profanity startled him enough that the words penetrated his fog of grief. He remembered, again, the moment when he had recruited Bucky and Bucky saying that he was following “the little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight.” And after he had rescued Bucky from the Hydra base in Krausberg, when the cross-beam had collapsed and he had told Bucky to get out of there before the entire base exploded and Bucky had yelled at him, “No, not without you!” Steve had seen all of Bucky’s stubbornness in his eyes, his voice, and known that Bucky meant it. Bucky had never left him behind before, would never have left him behind in that Hydra base. It was why Steve hadn’t even bothered arguing, had only decided to take that crazy, running leap across the expanse of the base, even as he was more than half convinced he would never make it all the way across.
And Steve realized absolutely in that moment that Bucky would never have agreed to return home while Steve carried on being Captain America. Steve knew Bucky’s loyalty too well to believe that anything he could have said or done would have persuaded Bucky to let Steve go to war alone. He would have needed to knock Bucky out and heave his unconscious body on to the next transport home to try to get Bucky to leave and even if Steve had done any such thing, he was perfectly sure that the moment Bucky had regained consciousness, he would have found a way to return to the front, if only to ream Steve out for trying to ship him home. No, Bucky would never have let Steve go to war alone. And Bucky, after all he had been through, fighting for months and then being captured, had known better than anyone how dangerous it was but Bucky would still have insisted. He heard Bucky’s voice in his mind. I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.
Allow Barnes the dignity of his choice.
Bucky had known what he was doing. And it occurred to Steve too that if Bucky were somehow here now, Bucky would have been the first person to tell Steve to stop being so self-important, stop acting like he was responsible for everyone and everything.
And the war wasn’t over. Steve had become Captain America for a reason and the reason still existed, had become doubly personal now. Even more personal than it had been from the beginning when he had wanted to avenge Dr. Erskine’s assassination, live up to Dr. Erskine’s hopes for him.
Steve looked up at Peggy, saw the understanding in her eyes, and he was reminded, again, that somehow, she had always believed in him. Remembered her telling him that if his experiment could work only once, Dr. Erskine would have been proud that it had been Steve. His eyes faltered for a moment under her clear-eyed gaze, as he wondered, not for the first time, what she, this fearless, capable agent, had seen in him from the beginning to make her believe in him so. “I’m going after Schmidt. I’m not gonna stop until all of Hydra is dead or captured.”
“You won’t be alone.”
He met her eyes again, saw all her own strength and determination in them. She had been referring to the Commandos, he knew, but it occurred to him that she was also promising that she would be with him. As she was here for him now.
Steve had been on his own for almost a decade now, since his mother had passed. And even before then, he had become accustomed to being alone, dealing with things on his own, because his mother had always been busy with work and then had been ill herself so he hadn’t wanted to place any additional burden on her. And in all that time, since his mother’s death, it occurred to him that only two people had cared enough to seek him out to make sure he wasn’t entirely alone. The first had been Bucky, who had promised that he would be with Steve “til the end of the line.” And now, Peggy, who had sought him out when he’d been feeling more lost and alone than he ever had before. He wasn’t alone, even now, because Peggy was there with him. It wasn’t the same, didn’t ease the hard knot of grief in his chest for Bucky, but it did help, a faint flicker of warmth kindling inside him.
Their eyes met and held for a long moment, for long enough that Steve had to lower his, a little… nervous of what she might be reading of his emotions. It felt like… too much somehow, more, felt a little inappropriate, to find himself noticing, being distracted by, Peggy’s mouth even now.
And more to give himself something to do, he poured himself another finger or two of whiskey and tossed it back. “Bucky would find it hilarious that I can’t get drunk,” he found himself telling her. “I could never hold my liquor before. Bucky dragged me out to a bar a few nights after my mom’s funeral, insisted I needed a night out to get my mind off things. I had something like two drinks before I was so drunk he basically had to carry me back to his place and dumped me on the couch to sleep it off.” He didn’t know what made him share this memory of Bucky with her–and later, it occurred to him to wonder that he’d even wanted to share a story that was hardly flattering to him with her, of all women–but somehow he felt as if he could.
There was a brief pause and then Peggy held out a hand. “Pour me some too.”
He blinked and stared at her. “You want some of this?”
She arched her eyebrows at him faintly. “You are not, I trust, going to tell me that ladies shouldn’t drink liquor?” It was the first time that a faint thread of her usual dry humor had entered her tone.
If he had been, he abruptly changed his mind. “No,” he hurriedly assured her, “but it’s not… very good. It’s Dugan’s stash and he’s hardly a connoisseur.”
“This is wartime. I’m fairly certain only the king has access to good liquor these days.”
Some part of him couldn’t quite believe he was doing this but he acquiesced, pouring a small amount of whiskey into the glass and handing it to her. He tried not to notice the spark of reaction that streaked up his entire arm when their fingers brushed.
She eyed the glass then lifted her eyes to his as she raised the glass in a toast. “To your friend, Bucky Barnes, a true hero.”
Fresh tears welled up in his eyes, his throat closing at the simple tribute to Bucky, all the more powerful for its very simplicity. And it meant so much more coming from her, who was so brave and determined herself, because he knew she was not the sort of person to use the term, hero, lightly.
She drank the whiskey in a few sips with enough confidence that it was apparent it was hardly her first time drinking alcohol–and not for the first time, he marveled at the apparent contradictions of her. She was such a lady, with all that term conveyed, with her elegant accents, her poise, her grace, appeared as if she could be entirely at ease even if invited to take tea at Buckingham Palace. And yet he’d also seen her appearing entirely at ease in an army camp in the middle of a war, capable of loading and unloading a gun in no time at all with a brisk efficiency that put most of the Commandos to shame. He really had never met anyone like her before and he could no more deny his fascination with her than he could have kept the sun from rising.
She set the glass back down, wrinkling her nose in a grimace that was somehow… adorable, although he had never thought to associate the word with her, the briskly capable, fearless agent, before and made a mental note never to mention it to her aloud. It was absurd how she could make even a grimace of distaste look elegant.
She met his eyes. “Don’t you dare make a comment about how you warned me.”
Amazingly, he felt his lips twitch slightly. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
She nodded with prim approval. “Good. You’re learning, Captain.”
“Well, I try.”
She gave him one of her bright-eyed glances, her lips curving ever so slightly, and his heart leaped. He felt suddenly rather light-headed and it occurred to him vaguely that alcohol could not intoxicate him but apparently, Peggy Carter could.
A sudden memory flashed into his mind, of a day a year ago now, in the brief window of travel while he and the Commandos had been heading towards the second Hydra base, when Bucky had found him sketching her, with her curly head bent over a notebook as she worked on decoding the latest Hydra message they had intercepted.
Habit had him quickly flipping his notepad closed but Bucky had only rolled his eyes. “Don’t bother. You’re not subtle. I’ve never seen you look at any girl the way you look at her.”
That was easy to say since Steve had never met anyone like Peggy Carter before.
“You know, most fellas when they’re sweet on a girl actually go up and talk to her. They don’t just stare at them across an army camp and draw pictures of them.”
“I’m working my way up to talking to her,” Steve had responded wryly. What he had not said, even to Bucky, was that he wanted to give Agent Carter–Peggy–more time to forget about his idiocy in kissing Private Lorraine just a couple weeks before. If–when–he next spoke to Peggy about anything remotely personal, he hadn’t wanted it to seem as if he were just replacing one woman with another, or something, the way Peggy had caustically observed. Hadn’t wanted to seem as if he were like the proverbial sailor with a girl in every port. Because he’d already known that whatever this was between him and Peggy–and Steve had no idea how to define it beyond knowing that he liked her, liked looking at her, liked hearing her voice, and he wanted her to think well of him–was more than that.
Bucky had given a crack of laughter. “Sure you are. Say, as someone who’s actually spoken to girls before, I could help. Tell her all the good things about you–which should take all of 10 seconds–and then when that’s done, I’ll start making stuff up.”
Steve had snorted at that. “Thanks but no thanks.”
Bucky had shrugged. “Suit yourself. But you’re being dumb, you know. Just go talk to her and try not to say something stupid. If you can help it.”
“You’re a jerk, you know that,” had been Steve’s rejoinder to this teasing.
“Idiot,” Bucky had returned, not missing a beat, and dropped his hand on Steve’s head, playfully using it as a sort of arm-rest as he pushed himself to his feet. And then, being Bucky, had gotten in the last word by tossing back as he walked away, “Just go talk to her.”
Steve found himself choking on something that was a laugh and a sob commingled as it occurred to him that he was talking to Peggy now, talking to her as he had never really spoken to anyone else. He felt yet more tears welling as he heard Bucky’s voice in his mind saying, I told you, didn’t I?
He swiped his hand over his eyes, a little abashed almost in spite of himself. He let his hand fall and ventured another glance at her to see that her eyes were soft with compassion, as she watched him. Compassion but not even a particle of pity or mockery–and after his years of being a sickly child and young man, Steve was something of an expert at recognizing either of those emotions when directed at him. “I–I’m sorry,” he offered after a moment. “I just… I’ve known Bucky my entire life and I… I can’t believe I’m never going to see him again.” Just saying the words aloud had him almost flinching.
There was a brief pause and then she said, her voice quiet, “I lost my brother too. He died early on in the war.”
The words jolted him. He knew she had a brother and from the way she spoke about him, knew that she must have been close to her brother, but he had not known that her brother was dead. And for the first time since Bucky’s fall, he forgot entirely about the ache in his chest in thinking about someone else’s–her–loss. He hadn’t missed, either, her use of the word, too, acknowledging that Bucky had been like a brother to him.
“Oh. I’m sorry. I–I didn’t know,” he managed lamely.
The corners of her lips tipped upwards ever so slightly even as he saw the tears glistening in her eyes, and at that moment, he thought her courage, her strength, just about took his breath away. “How could you have known?” She sniffed a little but the faint ghost of a wistful smile lingered. “Michael was… my champion, my best friend.”
His whole chest hurt with an almost physical pain. She really did understand exactly how he felt and while he would never have wished such a thing for her, hated the thought of her grieving, there was a strange sort of comfort in that, along with a kindling warmth in his chest because she was sharing this little glimpse of her past, her life, with him. And he hadn’t known her for this long, watched her as much as he had, without realizing that Agent Peggy Carter kept her own counsel, out of necessity if nothing else, as one of the only women in an army camp. He had already known that he trusted her but it occurred to him now with a sort of wonder that she trusted him too.
“Oh,” was all he could think to say, inanely. And then blurted out before he could think better of it, “That’s why you joined the SSR.”
“Yes. He was the one who recommended me to the SOE, always believed I should be out in the field.” She paused, her eyes still a little damp with tears, but managed another flicker of a smile. “So now you know why this dame joined the Army.”
This glimmer of her usual humor made something inside his chest clench even as he couldn’t help but wince a little at the memory. “I suppose it’s too late for me to apologize for that.”
She arched her brows faintly. “Apologize for calling me a beautiful dame?”
“Well, when you put it like that, it sounds silly,” he huffed a little. He didn’t mean to apologize for calling her a beautiful dame, even if it wasn’t the most graceful phrase. “More for questioning why you were there, I guess. It was stupid of me.” As if she didn’t have as much right as any man to decide to serve. He’d been curious about her, wanted to know all there was to know about the beautiful, capable agent, but it had been a ham-handed way of expressing himself.
The faint curve of her lips deepened slightly. “At ease, soldier. Believe me when I say I’ve heard much worse.”
Did that make it better? He didn’t think it did. “Well, here you are, Agent Carter of the SSR, out in the field, more than holding your own.” He paused and added more quietly, “Your brother would be proud.”
The curve of her lips trembled a little. “I hope so. He always believed in me.”
“He sounds like a good brother, a good man.”
“He was.” She paused and met his eyes, her own soft. “Like your friend Barnes.”
His throat tightened at the mention of Bucky’s name, felt the sharp stab of pain in his chest. “Does it ever go away?” he found himself asking and realized only after he’d said it how vague the question came out.
He opened his mouth to clarify, explain what he meant, but before he could, she responded, her tone gentle. “No. Grief lingers, stays with you. It just becomes easier to carry. It becomes a part of us, something we learn to live with.”
She had understood what he meant. He had the odd sense that somehow, she understood him. Maybe she would always understand him. He didn’t know how or why but at that moment, he was sure of that. And he thought, not for the first time, that he was glad she had come to find him. He had not expected it, had not even realized it until he had seen her, but he was glad. She had helped.
But he didn’t know how to tell her that. A brief silence fell as he studied her, this woman who was so much more than he had ever imagined a woman could be–the sort of woman he would never have had the nerve to even approach before. And he felt a brief moment of unreality even now that it was really him, Steve Rogers, the scrawny kid from Brooklyn, sitting here with her, Agent Peggy Carter of the SSR, and it was, somehow, amazingly, comfortable.
It should have been absurd–it was absurd–but he felt an odd sense of… calm, of peace, settling over him. On a cold night in the ruins of a bar in a city an ocean away from his hometown and somehow, he felt comfortable, content. Found himself thinking crazily that he could happily stay here like this, with her, for hours.
But even as the thought crossed his mind, he heard a faint sound from outside, in the street, and they both straightened up, their stances almost mirroring each other, as their eyes met and they stilled. His senses went on high alert, all the instincts he had honed after more than a year of being at war focusing, as he knew were hers. The faint sound came again and he sensed rather than saw her relax a little. And although he wasn’t sure why, her release of tension worked on him too. He trusted her instincts, he realized.
“An animal of some kind, I think,” she offered, her voice just above a breath.
That was very likely true–if she said it, he believed it–but the whole incident had reminded him that they were, after all, sitting in the middle of a war-torn city at night in the middle of a blackout with blackout rules in effect. She had come to find him, making her way through the deserted streets alone, he realized with a stab of belated dismay. “Blackout rules are in effect. Should you even be out here?”
She arched her brows at him faintly. “I could say the same to you, Captain.”
Well, yes, that was true but he was, well… “I have accelerated healing,” was all he said. He knew better than to say anything about his being a man. And anyway, with her, he knew she was far from helpless; he had no doubt that her small purse carried a gun. That he hated the idea of her being in any risk was his problem.
Her lips curved slightly. “And I’m with you and some might say that being with you is the safest place to be in the middle of a war.”
“Would those people still say that, even after what happened to Bucky?”
She met his eyes directly. “They should.”
And he understood that what she meant was that she would still say that. She felt safe with him. Warmth sparked inside him because she hadn’t mentioned Captain America at all but just him and somehow, that felt significant too.
He hesitated but after a moment, went on, “But we probably have tempted fate for long enough.” He recapped the bottle of whiskey, about three-quarters empty, and stood up, watching as she followed suit, straightening her coat as she did so, and he thought, again, that it really was amazing how she managed to look so neatly put-together even in the middle of a war.
For a moment, he hesitated, briefly considered offering her his arm or his hand but then his courage failed him, or his sense prevailed. This wasn’t a date and she was a capable agent and he didn’t want her to think he was somehow patronizing her.
But for all that, he edged in front of her before they exited the inner room and made their way out of the ruins of the bar, back into the street, casting a sweeping glance around before he moved out of the way and allowed her to join him in the street. Which she did, after a quick look at him that told him she’d noticed and known exactly what he was doing, but somewhat to his surprise, she made no protest. He felt an absurd spark of pleasure as it occurred to him that she was indulging his protective instincts. (He didn’t kid himself that it wasn’t an indulgence on her part; if she hadn’t chosen to allow it, she was more than capable of making him give way to her.)
And then found himself wondering if he was imagining the fact that she stayed close beside him as they made their way through the quiet, deserted street.
His gaze flitted around, taking in the ruins around them, the evidence of the Blitz and all that London had suffered in the last years. But even amid the ruins, he could see some evidence of the beautiful old city London was, must have been, before all this devastation–the city it would likely be again, once the war was over. It occurred to him that he wished he’d had the chance to draw sketches of London before so much of it had been destroyed in the Blitz. The few sketches of London he’d done during their previous stops had been of war damage, not of any beauty.
Peggy’s steps slowed as she paused for a moment and he glanced at her then followed her gaze to what she was looking at, a storefront that was one of the few along this street to have survived the bombing and was, by all appearances, still operating. And someone, the owner, had even found and placed a very small pot with a single blooming flower on the window ledge inside, an oddly discordant spot of color, a tiny piece of life and beauty, in what was otherwise a bleak street full of destruction.
Her lips curved slightly while he felt his breath momentarily stall in his chest at the courage of that single action, the silent defiance it represented. A courage that was everywhere to be seen in London right now, he knew, even from what little he had seen of the city thus far. After all that the city had endured, it was still here, its citizens undaunted.
This was true valor. He thought about people back home in America. Aside from Hawaii and Pearl Harbor, the American people, its citizens, had not seen anything of actual war which was how you could get the loudmouths like the jerk in the cinema that day just before he had met Dr. Erskine for the first time, the ones who had no real sense that a war was raging and didn’t care. It was different here in England, in London, where the war had been raging in their backyard for years.
Steve was as American as could be, was proud of his father for fighting and dying for his country, and he had spent the last few years wanting nothing more than to be able to serve his country. He was, well, Captain America, even if Steve himself had had nothing to do with picking the grandiose moniker. But it occurred to him more powerfully than it ever had before that it was an honor to be allied with a country like this. A country where its ordinary civilians, its women, were still fighting, enduring, just as much as its military forces, and even after five long years of being battered, its civilians were still standing tall. After watching his mother, Steve was the last man to ever doubt the strength of a woman but he thought even his mother’s brand of quiet resilience paled before the sort of strength, of bravery, it took for ordinary civilians, many of whom were women now with most men gone off to fight, not only to endure but to persevere after acts of warfare destroyed their homes for years on end and still be standing tall, growing flowers where they could. Put like that, it was almost not surprising that this was the country that had produced a woman like Peggy Carter. He might be Captain America but he was proud to be fighting beside and in defense of a country like this.
“London is a remarkable city.” And its citizens were even more so.
She glanced at him and met his eyes and again, he had the sense that she knew exactly what he was thinking. “Yes, it is.” She glanced away and then murmured, more to herself than to him, “‘This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.’”
Not for the first time, it occurred to Steve that Agent Peggy Carter was too smart for him, too… cultured. The words sounded only vaguely familiar to him but even for him, it didn’t take a large leap of deduction to guess, “Shakespeare.”
She slanted a look at him. “Very good, Captain America.” She placed the faintest emphasis on the last word.
She was teasing him, again, and he really wasn’t sure why he never minded when she teased him but he didn’t. It was like when Bucky teased him, it was a sign of friendship, because there was never anything mean-spirited about it. She might be too smart for him and goodness knows, he was all too aware that a smile or a look from her could make his brain go blank like any idiot, but at the same time, she never made him feel like that. She made him feel… as if he were enough–no, as if he were better than he had been, as if he could actually be, well, a hero.
They resumed walking and made it the rest of the short distance back to the SSR’s underground barracks without incident and Steve stayed beside her as he accompanied her to her door, going past the hallway that led to the other end of the barracks where he, and the rest of the Commandos, were located. A concession to her being one of the few women, she had a room on the side of the barracks reserved for the higher-ranking officers, with Colonel Phillips a couple doors away.
She glanced back at him as she placed a hand on her door knob. “Good night, Steve.”
“Peggy,” he blurted out before he’d consciously realized he was going to do so.
She paused and turned to look at him, her brows faintly arched. “Yes?” she prompted after a moment when he said nothing more.
“Thank you.” He hesitated, not entirely sure what to say, how to tell her what it meant to him that she had come to find him, that she had managed to comfort him. He didn’t know how to tell her that he wasn’t sure how he would have made it through the night, made it past his fog of grief and guilt without her. He had set out to be numbed by alcohol but when that had been denied him, he had honestly not known what to do–and then she had found him. “For, well, everything. I–I needed a friend and you were there.” She’d been more than a friend but it was the only term he could think of to say. She’d been… what he needed.
He’d known before this that he liked her, that she was the girl he wanted to impress, the girl he wanted to dance with one day and if that went well, to kiss, and then, oh, to court properly, or something. But tonight had been about more than any of that. He had been drowning and she had saved him.
He met her eyes and finally just said, simply, because simple words were all he had, “It means a lot. So thank you.”
It was hardly eloquent but somehow, seeing the softness in her eyes, her expression, he thought that maybe, he hadn’t done so badly after all.
“You’re welcome,” she murmured. Their eyes met and held and his lungs seemed to forget how to function as he looked at her and he thought rather fuzzily that he would be happy just to look at her for hours.
And then–his thoughts froze, his breath tangled in his throat–she took a step forward, went up on her toes, and her lips brushed against his cheek, leaving behind a quick sensation of heat, an impression of softness.
And then she was stepping back and had opened her door. “Good night.”
“Night,” he barely managed to get out before her door closed quietly.
Leaving him to stare dumbly at her door, his heart thudding in his chest, wondering if it was normal that he swore he could still feel the warmth of her lips against his cheek.
He wasn’t sure how much time passed, a minute or so perhaps, before he managed to unstick his feet from the floor and he turned and walked quietly down the hall to where his room was.
He dropped down onto the narrow Army-issued cot, his hand finding the hard lump in his pocket that was his compass. The compass that had her picture inside it–and he was abruptly very glad all over again for the silly impulse that had led him to cut out the picture of her he had seen in a newspaper clip about the SSR and the creation of Captain America, in that wave of publicity that had followed his first rescue mission after Azzano.
His thoughts were sluggish but through the fog, he knew one thing for absolute certain, a truth that abruptly seemed to have been engraved on his heart. He was in love with Peggy Carter.
He had no idea if she ever would or could return his feelings. Even now, he found it hard to believe that she, the beautiful, formidable Agent Carter, could really care about him, just a boy from Brooklyn who was still awkward around women, had never even danced with a woman before. But at the moment, it didn’t matter. He was in love with her, absolutely, completely.
“I love her, Bucky,” he found himself murmuring aloud, as if testing the sound of the words. And of course, Bucky was, would have been, the first person he would tell.
In his mind, he could hear Bucky’s voice. Tell me something I don’t already know. You’ve never looked at anyone the way you look at her.
Tears pricked at his eyes and he let out a shuddering breath. It was so… strange, life, the way things happened. Strange, this combination of having suffered a terrible loss, a loss that had set up an ache in his chest that he could not see going away anytime soon, and at the same time, this sense of having found something so indescribably precious, having found the woman he had been searching for his entire life and had almost doubted he would ever find.
He had lost Bucky but he had also found Peggy. It wasn’t the same, could not be the same. But somehow, it meant that even now, with Bucky gone, he would still not be alone. Even if it was only as a friend, he wasn’t alone because Peggy would be there for him, as she had been tonight. And that meant something.
And he thought that as long as he had Peggy beside him, believing in him, he could go on fighting, could be the hero the Allies needed him to be.
And then, after Hydra was destroyed and the war was over, he would ask Peggy to dance. His first dance with the woman he’d been waiting for. And after that, he would see… if what he wanted, wished for, could actually be.
It was a little odd, to be planning, hoping, for a future after the war. For so many years now, since the war had started, all his thoughts and wishes had been centered on enlisting, having the chance to serve, fight for his country the way his own father had. And then after Dr. Erskine’s experiment, he’d been focused on being given a chance to prove himself in this new and improved body of his. And then, since he had really become Captain America and gotten what he wanted, the exigencies of wartime had meant he’d barely planned anything beyond the next day, the next mission. He had not been thinking or planning for anything after the war in anything other than the most vague hypotheticals.
Now, though, his wishes for after the war had found a focal point. Loving Peggy meant that his dreams for the future had acquired a specific goal, a life with her.
He had lost Bucky, the closest and the most enduring friend of his past, but in her, he had found hope again. And in the middle of a war, hope meant everything. She meant everything—and he had the sudden strange certainty that she always would.
~The End~