Work Text:
The Promise of Hope
Peggy looked up at the sound of Steve’s laugh, something going ridiculously soft and warm inside her chest at the sound, the sight of his smile. Really, she didn’t even know how it was that she had even heard his laugh considering all the other noise around her–the rumble of lorry engines as they dropped off equipment, the voices of people talking and the occasional rapped out order, the sporadic crash or thud as something or other was dropped and loaded or unloaded. The whole airfield was abuzz with activity in preparation for their being flown out to return to the front with their departure having been scheduled for–she glanced at her watch–an hour ago but they were, as usual, running late. But somehow, no matter all the other noise around her, her ear had picked up the sound of his laugh as if something in her was attuned to anything related to him so she would catch the sound of his voice, his laugh, no matter what else might be going on. It was absurd–but it was, somehow, true.
Her steps slowed just a little as she watched Steve talking to Bucky Barnes and was aware of a spurt of something like gratitude in her chest towards Barnes for his ability to make Steve laugh. These days, with the war at its height and the Allied higher command scrambling for a concerted push to end the war, the 107th had been going non-stop and of course, no one pushed himself harder or did more than the Captain. They all saw it and enhanced stamina and strength or not, not even Captain America was immune to exhaustion and it was worse for him, Peggy knew, because of the burden of responsibility he carried. He was the commander, the leader, and he lived and breathed every second of every day with the consciousness of his duty, his responsibility, weighing him down and while there was no one in the world who Peggy would trust more to carry the weight of the world, she did worry over him. The shadows under his eyes had been getting more visible and pronounced, the set of his mouth and jaw tighter, and his smiles and laughs had become rare. Admittedly, none of them had been laughing much–this was war, after all–but still, the Commandos were generally good about clinging to banter and ribbing to keep each other’s spirits up but Steve’s laugh had become almost vanishingly rare lately.
The drone of an airplane had Peggy looking up, although almost no one else around did, she was aware, because they were on an airfield after all so the sound was hardly an unusual or unexpected one and this was England and not the front lines. But Peggy had lived through enough of the Blitz that even now, she tended to tense and startle at the sound of an airplane and today was no different. She had to squint against the sunlight and then she saw the plane and her breath caught because in an instant she recognized that it was a German plane and it was armed.
And she abruptly remembered that among the most recent Nazi transmissions that had been intercepted and decoded–and then forwarded on to Colonel Phillips–was a new directive that had been sent out to specifically target Captain America. The Nazis wanted him dead or at the very least, rendered hors de combat. They had realized just how much he meant for the war effort, not only because of his strength and fighting ability but almost more importantly, for morale. He was practically the face of the war in America–America’s not-quite-so-new Hope, after all–and even among other Allied countries, his reputation was growing. While she’d been driven to the airfield today, she had even spotted a group of young boys playing and one of the young boys had been holding a wooden facsimile of Captain America’s now-famous shield–even in England, Captain America was a near-legendary hero. So if the Nazis succeeded in taking down Captain America, it would send a shock wave through the Allied forces and do more to make people despair than any other single act might. His life might matter more to morale and the war effort than just about any other single life–even the King’s or the Prime Minister’s or the President’s. Kings and politicians came and went but there was only one Captain America, would never be another one again. And while the rest of the world might believe that it was due to the super-soldier serum having been lost, Peggy knew better. There was only one Captain America because there was only one Steve Rogers and she was quite sure there would never be another man like him again. (And equally sure that she would never love another man even if she lived to be 90. No, Steve Rogers was it for her.)
Colonel Phillips was undecided as to whether to even tell Steve. Peggy knew he almost certainly would at some point–but she also knew that it wouldn’t matter even if he did because Steve was not the sort of man who would do anything differently just because of a more focused threat to his safety. She had told Steve even before Project Rebirth that he had a “noble soul,” and every day since then had only proven just how true that was. He was the best and the bravest man she had ever met–and as much as she admired and, yes, loved him for it, it also terrified her too so she could almost (almost) wish that he were just a little less brave.
He wasn’t carrying his shield but she belatedly realized that Steve was still conspicuous, easily identifiable as Captain America, because he wasn’t wearing the usual military uniform unlike all the other men (except for Howard, who was inside the hangar and out of sight anyway), but was actually wearing the Captain America uniform, or a new version of it, because Stark had been experimenting with another version of carbon polymer for the uniform and wanted to see how it looked and fitted. The uniform might be able to withstand most blades and at least partially deflect a shot from a simple handgun but not machine gun fire. The sunlight was glinting off Steve’s blonde hair like a beacon and Peggy was suddenly, chillingly certain that even the pilot in the plane would be able to see that Captain America was right there, an easy target. And Steve might have enhanced healing abilities but he wasn’t invulnerable and not even he could survive multiple gun shots to the chest or head–not that she had any intention of putting that to the test.
And she knew even warning him would do no good because as she knew all too well Steve was not the type to take cover himself, would only see everyone else to safety first. He was still the same man who had thrown himself on top of a grenade during Basic training.
Peggy didn’t think, just reacted, not bothering to try to raise her voice over the other noise, only sprinted forward faster than she had ever known she could move. All she knew was that she would die herself before she let Steve be shot right in front of her.
She saw him turn and see her–and recognize the threat–a split second before the first burst of bullets split the air and then she was cannoning into him and sending them both hurtling to the ground, his surprise probably the only thing that allowed her to actually knock him down. She wasn’t big enough to shield him completely but she could protect his more-vulnerable torso and head with her own body. They landed heavily and she was distantly aware of his arms gripping her as she attempted to curl over him and then the percussive thunder of gunfire was all around and she tucked her head down until she felt his hair brushing her chin and shut her eyes and desperately willed herself to become heavier, resisting any attempt to roll them over. Dust and debris swirled and she felt a searing burn slash across her arm–she must have been hit, she thought rather fuzzily–and then just as the burst of gunfire ended, the drone of the engine starting to recede, she felt something slam into her head, setting off a flare of white-hot pain and then the world went black.
“Peggy? Peggy! Peggy, wake up. Please wake up. Don’t leave me. Peggy!”
Peggy returned to consciousness slowly, becoming aware of a throbbing ache in her head and pain in her arm and Steve’s frantic voice just above her, the touch of his hand on her face. She felt a little fuzzy, tried to take stock. She must have been hit but how serious was it? She didn’t think it was bad but… It took some effort but after a moment, she was able to lift her lids, blinking, until her vision cleared and she saw him, Steve, his face very white and streaked through a layer of dust. She was the one lying on the ground now and he was kneeling over her.
“S-steve?” she managed. He was alive but had he been hit at all? “You okay?”
He choked a little. “Yes. Oh God, Peggy…”
Reassured, she let her eyes drift closed again for a moment as she tried to judge how hurt she was. Only her head and her arm hurt, her arm less than her head but her head did ache like the devil. Everything else felt fine. She blinked her eyes open and tried to lift the hand on her uninjured arm to her head but he caught her hand in his. “Don’t try to move. How do you feel?”
“Head hurts,” she managed succinctly. “What happened?”
“A shot grazed your arm and one of the shots hit a crate and sent a block of wood flying and it hit you. How’s your vision? Can you see? Are you dizzy, nauseous?”
She blinked again, slowly. “‘M okay, I think,” she managed slowly. “Just a headache and my arm hurts.”
She belatedly realized that her face felt wet. Wet? Why? It didn’t feel like blood, wasn’t sticky enough for that. And then she focused on his eyes–his damp eyes, realized that some of the streaks on his face were from tear tracks through the dirt. Her heart gave a funny little thump. Had he cried–over her?
He choked again. “Peggy, you–” he stopped, swallowed. “What were you thinking? You–how could you do that?”
She frowned–or tried to frown. Her facial muscles didn’t quite seem to want to cooperate. “Was I supposed to just let you get shot?”
“Yes!” he burst out in a fervent whisper. “Yes. better that than anything happening to you!”
“Stupid,” she managed. “I’m… just one agent, replaceable. You’re not.”
“You are not replaceable to me!” He broke off and then went on, forcibly trying to sound calmer, as he added, “To anyone. You’re the best agent we have.” He stopped again and then abruptly said, “Don’t ever try to do that again.”
She tried again to frown and managed a faint one. “You can’t give me orders, Rogers.”
A strange sound escaped him that was something like a groan, a sob, and a laugh all in one. “The hell I can’t. I’m a Captain, remember?”
Her lips managed to twitch at this echo of their past exchange.
But then he met her eyes, very seriously, and all levity faded as she saw the look in his eyes, her heart suddenly fluttering and the pain in her head and arm momentarily receding. “Peggy, I–” he broke off. “You saved my life. Thank you,” he finally managed and then forced a small quirk of his lips that ended up looking strangely distorted, it was so obviously fake. “But I’m still upset over what you did.”
Peggy ignored that. She knew quite well that he wasn’t actually upset in that sense–and even if he had been, she would still do the same thing again if the situation came up. And now that the immediate reaction was subsiding, her head and arm really did hurt but nothing else seemed to be injured. She attempted to move and he immediately caught her uninjured shoulder, holding her in place, and she narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m fine, just a sore head and arm. Let me up.”
He hesitated but after a moment, released her shoulder and instead, gently, so very gently that she couldn’t help but think that if she hadn’t already lost her heart to him, she would have done so at that moment, he slid his arm under her shoulders and carefully helped her to sit up.
Peggy briefly allowed herself to lean against him. She wasn’t dizzy but her head did still ache, enough to make it feel a trifle unsteady on her neck, if that made any sense. And he was so warm and solid, a bastion of strength and reassurance. Just being near him like this made her feel safer, stronger. She glanced down, saw that Steve had already wrapped a piece of cloth around her arm, staunching the bleeding, and she could feel some sort of bandage on her head as well.
And then her eyes focused again on the ground beside her, noting the row of bullet holes just beside her along with a small puddle of blood. Her insides went a little cold as it occurred to her how close she had come–but what mattered more was that he would have been safe, at least she thought he would have been. And she was fine, would heal in time.
“Steve.”
Bucky Barnes came loping over and Peggy looked up at him.
“Carter. How’re you feeling?”
“I’m fine,” she answered, more by rote.
Above her, she heard Steve release a little huff of breath. “Yeah, Buck?”
“Fire’s out, things are under control,” Barnes answered.
“What about casualties?”
Barnes hesitated and then answered, “One of the engineers, Marshall, is dead. Another, Collins, was hit in the shoulder but a medic says he’ll be fine.” He paused and then went on, with distinct reluctance, “Phillips wants us in the air in the next hour.”
She felt every muscle in Steve’s body lock in automatic, instinctive protest. It went without saying that she, of course, was in no condition to be flying anywhere, at least until tomorrow at the earliest.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Steve stated flatly.
Peggy struggled to sit more upright so she was no longer leaning against him and Steve immediately turned to stare at her, concern wreathed all over his face. “Peggy…”
She met his eyes, ignoring the pain in her head. “You’re going,” she told him. “This mission is critical.” Captain America and the 107th had been redirected to reinforce the Allied offensive to try to ensure the liberation of Paris now that Operation Overlord was over.
“But you–”
“I’ll be fine.” She softened her voice just a little. “Go, Steve. It’s your duty.”
She knew those would be the magic words, as it were, but for once, Steve still hesitated. Something inside her marveled. She knew just how strong, how unwavering, Steve’s sense of duty was–but now, his loyalty, his… caring (some part of her mind shied away from using any stronger word)… for her was enough–almost enough–to override that sense of duty. She held his gaze a moment longer. “Go, Captain.”
“Steve?” Barnes prompted although neither she nor Steve even bothered to glance up at him, their eyes locked. She felt the pain in her head receding a little as she focused on the blue of his eyes. Really, he had the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen. And the way he was looking at her… he made her feel like… like some combination of a formidable Amazon warrior and the most beautiful woman in the world. She didn’t even know how it was possible considering she had a splitting headache, could feel a bandage on her head and arm, and knew she was covered in blood and dust and sitting inelegantly on the ground in a torn, dirty uniform but somehow, it was.
But then again, Steve had always looked at her so. Looked at her so that she somehow knew that he truly saw her, all of her, her mind, her heart, her very soul (as fanciful as the thought was). With Steve, she never felt as if he saw only certain parts of her body, the way most men made her feel. And she somehow knew that in Steve’s eyes, she would always be beautiful. He had seen her covered in mud after marching on a wet day, had seen her tired and unwashed and, yes, bloody and he had still, always, looked at her as if she was the most beautiful, incredible woman in the world.
“We’ll do as Peggy says,” Steve answered after a moment. “Tell Phillips and Stark.”
She felt a little warm glow of pleasure in her chest at his words, strong enough that she could momentarily forget about her own wounds, his clear implication that he wasn’t following Phillips’s orders but rather hers. It wasn’t the first time he had demonstrated such faith in her but she thought she might never get over the wonder of it. She sometimes thought that this was why she loved him–or at least one of the reasons–because of the way he respected her judgment and her abilities, the way he was willing to follow her lead more than any other man she’d ever known.
“I’m sure I’ll be following behind you in the next day or two,” she assured him. It wasn’t entirely true but a girl could hope. And she really did think that at this stage of the war, Phillips would give way to her insistence to be allowed back onto the field as quickly as possible. By now, he knew that she was as capable of handling herself in battle as any of the Commandos, even if he didn’t like to acknowledge as much.
Steve’s mouth looked tight but he only said, “I’ll see you once this mission is over.” the words were a promise.
And she already knew he kept his promises.
“I’ll hold you to that, Captain.” Her voice softened. “Stay safe.”
“You too.” he looked at her for a moment longer and then before she had any idea of what he was about to do, let alone could react, he bent and she felt his lips brush ever so lightly against her skin, high on her cheek, almost at her temple.
Peggy blinked and tried not to gape, her pulse suddenly leaping, heat climbing into her face. He had–he had kissed her. The barest peck really and on the cheek but still, he had kissed her.
He was no longer pale, had flags of color in his cheeks, one corner of his mouth kicked up ever so faintly at what she guessed was her gobsmacked expression and she struggled to try to bring her expression under control. His eyes softened and warmed. “Thank you, Peggy.”
And then before she could think of a response, he had pushed himself to his feet in a fluid movement that assured her more than anything else could have that he truly was unharmed–and something inside her eased–and then he gave her a quick salute before walking away.
Barnes lingered for a moment longer and Peggy looked up and met his eyes, daring him with her expression to comment on that kiss. “What is it?”
A faint smile tugged on his lips but he apparently decided discretion was the better part of valor and all he said was, “You really are a pair, you know that?”
She felt herself flush and opened her lips to respond although she wasn’t entirely sure what she could say but he forestalled her.
“Seriously, thank you, Carter.”
He turned to leave but she called him back, remembering the Nazi directive. “Barnes.”
He paused. “Yeah?”
“Take care of him.” She knew it wasn’t necessary–Barnes, of all people, had always had Steve’s back–but something inside her had to say it.
“Til the end of the line,” he answered briefly and then he, too, was gone, following after Steve.
Peggy watched her Captain go, followed by his best friend, and wondered if it was normal or some sort of strange side effect of a concussion that she swore she could still feel the warmth and softness of Steve’s lips against her cheek.
And tried to tamp down on the worry she always seemed to feel these days whenever she watched Steve go off on some mission. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t always been aware that the middle of a terrible war–the worst war the world had ever seen by all accounts–was the worst possible time to have fallen in love (not that she’d had any choice in the matter or could have helped falling in love with Steve regardless) but every time she watched Steve leave, she became viscerally aware of it all over again. She had every faith in his abilities, knew very well just how strong he now was–and perhaps more importantly, how clever and determined–but she also knew how brave he was (stupidly reckless, Barnes tended to call him) and that Steve always put the safety of others first before his own. And as much as she loved him for it, it terrified her too. And she could only send up a silent prayer to God and the heavens that Steve would be safe.
Steve almost hung sideways out of his seat in the back of the plane peering down at the ground rapidly falling away behind them. Irrationally, he knew, as they were already too high for him to see Peggy even if she were out in the open to be seen, which he didn’t think she was anymore, but he couldn’t help it. Absurd as it was, it felt as if there was some sort of string or something connecting him to her, making it almost physically painful to be leaving her behind. As if he’d left part of himself behind with her.
Somewhere in his mind, he heard her voice scoffing at him for being dramatic–and fine, he knew he was being dramatic, to say nothing of being fanciful–but that was how he felt.
Part of his insides still felt clenched tight as they had been since the moment he had turned to see her sprinting towards him and to see the German plane looming over them and he hadn’t even had a split second to recognize the danger before she’d been barreling into him. He suspected in any other situation–and possibly even now–Bucky was never going to let him forget about the fact that a relatively small woman had been able to knock him down–but he had simply been too shocked to try to brace himself. It had never occurred to him–not ever–that any woman, let alone Agent Carter, would do such a thing, act to shield him from anything. He was, well, Captain America, the super soldier, the one with the enhanced strength and stamina and healing abilities. He could carry two or more regular men without breaking a sweat, could run at least twice as fast as most men even carrying gear, healed from most bullet wounds within a day or two. He was the one who’d been engineered to shield and protect others. Sure, Bucky had his back but that was the force of habit and even Steve knew he couldn’t single-handedly do everything himself but that was why he had formed the Commandos as it was.
And yet, Peggy–Peggy, who knew very well just how effective the serum had been–had still sought to save him, moved to protect him.
It had all happened so fast and after she had knocked him down, he hadn’t immediately been able to try to move, to push her off him so he could shield her instead because his brain had gone utterly blank as his body had registered that Peggy was lying on top of him, his face pressed against her shoulder, every one of her soft curves flattened against him, was burningly conscious of the feeling of her–her… um, chest–pressed against him. And he’d felt a flash of shocking, utterly inappropriate, arousal such as he’d never felt before–then again, he’d never been this close to a woman before and this wasn’t just any woman but Peggy–and he’d frozen stupidly in place, unable to think or breathe or do anything at all but feel. He hoped belatedly that Peggy hadn’t felt or been aware of his body’s reaction to her or she might think him some sort of pervert.
And then there had been the moment when he had felt her body jerk and go limp above him–the worst moment of his life, since his mother’s death. Even, possibly, worse than his mother’s death because as hard as it had been, he’d known by then that his mother’s death was inevitable and impending. This, though, had come out of the blue. He had a feeling he was going to be having nightmares for years to come about the endless few minutes after that moment before he’d been able to gently turn Peggy over and realized she was breathing, was alive but unconscious, and then scanned her body for gunshot wounds before he’d seen the blood on her arm and realized she’d been grazed and then also found the wound on her head. He thought his heart had only started beating again at the knee-weakening realization that she was very much alive, her pulse strong and steady under his fingers.
“She’s a hell of a dame,” Bucky murmured, just barely audible over the noise of the plane.
“Yeah, she is,” he agreed and then broke off, caught himself, backtracked. “What–who?” only to realize, belatedly, that his attempt at saving face had been pathetically bad because Bucky snorted and rolled his eyes. Okay, fine, yes, he knew he wasn’t exactly subtle and Bucky knew him too well anyway.
Thankfully, he and Bucky were the only passengers on this particular plane, were crowded in with most of the Commandos’ gear instead. The other Commandos themselves had gone ahead but Steve had insisted that he be in the last plane to leave and Bucky, of course, had been equally adamant that he wasn’t leaving until Steve did.
“Just as stupid and reckless as you are too,” Bucky went on.
Steve scowled at Bucky in automatic offense, although he knew that Buck didn’t mean it like that. “She’s not stupid. She’s the furthest thing from stupid.”
“What would you call running in front of a round of machine gun fire to save someone twice her size?”
For the first time since it had happened, Steve felt a faint smile curve his lips, knew he must look and sound ridiculously besotted but he couldn’t help that, as he answered, “Amazing. And fearless. She’s absolutely fearless.” And she was brilliant and funny and kind and so beautiful she could reduce him to stammering incoherence in about a second flat. (He wondered for about the millionth time how it was that Bucky never seemed to have any trouble talking to pretty girls whereas Steve only had to look at Peggy Carter sometimes for him to seemingly forget every word of the English language.) He suspected he could use an entire dictionary’s worth of words to describe Peggy Carter and not come close to doing her justice.
Her courage might take his breath away but he was still terrified and humbled and awed at the realization that Peggy Carter was willing to risk her own life to protect him. He already knew that he would happily give his life in order to protect her, keep her safe–for that matter, he would happily walk barefoot across the face of the earth just to get her a blade of grass that she wanted, would do anything at all just to make her smile–but it had never occurred to him that she might feel even a fraction of the same protectiveness.
“You ever gonna tell her you’re crazy about her?”
Steve felt his cheeks flame until his ears and even the back of his neck felt hot. “I–there’s a war on, Buck,” he protested. And there were rules against fraternization–although admittedly it sometimes seemed as if those rules were honored more in the breach than in the observance–but more importantly than that was the fact that he knew that Peggy’s career, her role in the SSR, was tenuous as it was and could not withstand the sort of gossip that would inevitably arise if anything came of their, um, relationship now. (And he cared far too much about Peggy to do anything that might put her job at risk.) The Commandos ribbed him about Peggy being his best girl–which she was, of course, even if Steve had yet to articulate that anywhere outside his own thoughts and hadn’t dared to define what the emotion was he felt for her–but they also knew that neither he nor Peggy had–or would–act on it and with the Commandos, he knew that mild teasing was as far as it would go–not that he would have allowed it to go any further than that either.
Steve sometimes reflected ruefully that it was just his luck that he would finally have met his right partner, the woman he’d been waiting for and hoping for his entire life, a woman who actually liked him for him, not just for the height and muscles the serum had given him, in the middle of a terrible war when it wasn’t appropriate to do anything about it and he had to live in fear of something happening to her.
But then all he had to do was set eyes on her and he couldn’t regret anything at all about having met Peggy Carter, could only feel gratitude. Because she was like a miracle–it was the only word he could think of that seemed to fit. There were days he swore that just the sight of her, her bright eyes, her smile, the dream and hope of a dance with her, were all that kept him going, that her faith in him was all that allowed him to get up every day and keep being Captain America. In the middle of a war where he saw terrible things–ugliness, brutality, so much violence and death–every day, Peggy Carter stood out like a beacon of hope, a reminder that things like beauty and goodness still existed. Seeing so much evidence of man’s inhumanity to man and living in the middle of such inhumanity almost all the time weighed on him more than he had ever imagined when he had so readily volunteered for Project Rebirth. It didn’t change his commitment in the slightest but it was harder than he would ever admit to anyone. And he sometimes thought that she, her steadfast hope, was saving his very soul in these dark times. (And then he heard her amused voice in his mind calling him out for being dramatic.)
Bucky reached out and punched him in the shoulder. “Well, after what she just did, I don’t think you need to worry that she might not like you. Hard as that is to believe.”
Steve coughed and felt his cheeks heat up all over again. “It’s not–I don’t–she hasn’t–” he floundered and finally gave up. “Shut up, Buck,” was his brilliant response instead.
Bucky snorted a laugh. “Hard to believe Carter’s not swooning over you, sweet-talker that you are.”
He shot Bucky an entirely ineffectual glare. Since becoming Captain America, his relative size compared to most men meant that it was actually much easier to intimidate other men than he even cared to do but that obviously didn’t apply to Bucky, who knew him too well for that. Bucky continued his snickering until Steve reached out and shoved him, not with any real force–Steve was too aware of his own strength and knew that actually shoving Bucky with even half his strength would knock Bucky clean out of his seat and into the wall of the plane with enough force to knock him out–but hard enough that it stopped Bucky’s laugh.
Bucky’s words aside, Steve was conscious of a spark of hope kindling inside his chest. He couldn’t be sure but surely, he thought, Peggy’s protectiveness was not solely about his importance to the war effort. He knew she liked him, even cared about him. They had become friends, for lack of a better word, although Steve was well aware that his feelings for Peggy were not at all friendly in that sense. But whether she could truly care about him, care even a fraction as much as he was aware he was rapidly coming to care about her–already did care about her–was something he didn’t know, was not quite sure he could believe, even now. Some part of him still felt like the skinny kid from Brooklyn who’d been ignored by every woman he’d ever met and Peggy Carter was the most beautiful woman Steve had ever seen, to say nothing of being clever and quick-witted and determined and brave. And some part of him couldn’t quite imagine that a woman like that could really care for him. At times, he was convinced that she was so far out of his reach she might as well have been a star.
She might have all but promised him a dance but she hadn’t promised anything more than that and, well, Steve’s dreams about Peggy had grown apace with his feelings and he knew he wanted much more than just a dance with her. He wanted to ask her to go steady, to be his girl, wanted to hold her and kiss her and, well, do more than that with her, do the sort of things he had only heard and read about thus far and that he tried very hard not to think about at all. His most daring, secret dreams and wishes had started to include things like–oh God–rings and churches and Peggy wearing a white dress–images that had his heart stuttering in his chest and his lungs struggling to work properly until it was almost as if he still had the arrhythmia and asthma that the serum had cured. Even though when he dared to think such things, he was also half-convinced that Peggy would laugh in his face or slap him or something.
But she had saved his life at risk of her own.
It might still be a little hard to believe but he felt hope, persistent hope, burning brighter in his chest. One day, when the war was over…
As it happened, it was five days before Peggy saw Steve again and he wasn’t the one to find her but rather she found him.
Peggy was on her way to the communications tent to decode the most recent Hydra transmission they had intercepted because Colonel Phillips had gruffly informed her that she wasn’t going to be allowed to take part in any combat action for at least another fortnight, never mind Peggy’s insistence that she was absolutely fine now. But then she overheard some of the other soldiers conversing in French, caught the words “Captain America” and “explosion” and “doctor” and felt her heart plummet, everything inside her going cold. Oh God, what had happened to Steve?
She turned and hurried towards the medical tent instead, dodging swiftly around the usual bustle of camp in the aftermath of a mission, feeling as if a vise had clamped around her heart and lungs so she couldn’t breathe properly. The vise didn’t ease until she reached the medical tent, ducking inside, and saw Steve lying on a cot, his legs heavily bandaged, another bandage on his arm, and yet another on his head. But he was alive and conscious.
She hated to see him injured but she felt the tension inside her easing because she knew that thanks to the effects of the serum, he would almost certainly be fighting fit by tomorrow.
He saw her and his eyes lit as he struggled to push himself upright and she knew that he was about to try to stand–Steve was probably the only man around who still persisted in standing whenever she approached (in the exigencies of war, everyone else had basically discarded the courteous practice but not Steve)--except Bucky Barnes, standing by Steve’s side as always, shoved Steve down with a hand on his shoulder.
Steve opened his mouth, no doubt to protest, but Peggy forestalled him. “Don’t you dare stand,” Peggy ordered, her surge of relief and attempt at hiding it making her voice much crisper than she might have intended. “Really, Captain, what have you done to yourself?”
“I’m fine,” Steve answered. “How are you doing?”
Barnes snorted. “Fine, he says,” he interjected sarcastically. “The idiot stepped in front of a grenade and almost got blown to bits.”
“Bucky!” Steve hissed and then focused on Peggy. “I’m a little banged up,” he admitted, “but it’ll be fine. I’ve got accelerated healing, remember?”
Peggy narrowed her eyes at him. “Do you have some sort of strange affinity for grenades, Captain? First at Camp Lehigh and now this?”
“Wait, what happened at Camp Lehigh?”
Neither Peggy nor Steve so much as bothered to look at Bucky let alone respond as Steve held her gaze, lifting the shoulder of his uninjured arm into a small half-shrug, one of his characteristic gestures. “There were three soldiers by the grenade so I had to knock them out of the way. I’m more likely to survive than they are.”
Of course Steve would see it like that. And it was even true although Peggy did not want to admit that and wasn’t going to do so out loud. “You should still take better care. Don’t you know how much all the men look to you?”
“Good luck convincing him of that,” Barnes snorted. And then added, his voice a touch louder than necessary, “I’m going to go check on Morita. Don’t do anything stupid ‘til I get back, punk.”
“How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you,” Steve retorted to Barnes’s retreating back, although his eyes didn’t stir from Peggy’s.
Peggy bit back a smile. Steve and Barnes really were more like brothers than just best friends, their exchanges frequently characterized by jibes at the other’s expense. Barnes was the only person, aside from herself, who ever called Steve by his first name but about half the time, Barnes called Steve by mildly insulting epithets such as ‘punk’ or–rather amusingly, considering Steve’s appearance now–‘runt’ and ‘squirt.’ (It had initially caused some confusion and a little bit of hilarity when the Commandos had heard Barnes calling Steve ‘runt’ and ‘squirt,’ more so when Steve not only didn’t appear to mind but also answered to such epithets, understandably since the Commandos had never seen Steve before the serum.) Steve returned the teasing, calling Barnes ‘idiot’ or ‘jerk’ but even with all the teasing, the unshakable loyalty between them was quite clear. And in the course of this war, they also had a way of communicating and working together even without words and no one missed the way that they each always had the other’s back.
Peggy glanced around and then pulled up a stool to sit down. “What happened to Morita?”
Steve’s expression darkened, his mouth setting, so he looked more concerned over Morita than he did over his own self, which was so like him. “He was hit in the leg and he sliced his hand open on some wire.”
“Will he be all right?”
He grimaced. “I think so. I hope so. The leg wound was on the calf and he didn’t immediately pass out or anything but I’m no medic.”
No, he wasn’t but they were all, for better or worse, becoming better judges of which wounds were life-threatening and which were not with every day that passed and they saw more of each type of injury. Thus far, the 107th had been almost insanely lucky, had not lost a man yet, but Peggy wondered–and feared–how long their luck would hold and what might happen when it did run out. And her vulnerability because of her feelings for Steve only made her fears worse.
Steve’s eyes and his expression softened as he studied her. “Seriously, how are your arm and your head?”
“I’m fine,” she told him, lifting her injured arm to demonstrate. The healing gash on her arm pulled a little when she did so but it wasn’t bad and it was still sensitive if she hit it against something but she didn’t mention that. She really was fine.
He gave her a small smile. “I’m glad.” He hesitated and then abruptly glanced down, some color creeping into his cheeks, as he admitted, his voice very low, “I was worried.”
Oh, this man. Peggy’s heart thumped unevenly against her chest and not for the first time, she thought inanely that she might owe an apology to her childhood playmates and old school-mates for her rather superior attitude toward them when those girls had whispered and giggled over cute boys and how their insides went fluttery over them. Peggy’s younger self had been so convinced that she was somehow immune to that and for the most part, she had been. And then she’d met Steve and with him, around him, she sometimes seemed to have reverted back to the blushing schoolgirl she had never really been.
She tried to sound tart but was aware that even to her own ears, her voice was too soft for that. “I can take care of myself, you know, Steve.”
He looked up to meet her eyes, opening his lips and then closing them again.
She arched her eyebrows. “What is it?”
He hesitated but finally answered, “As Bucky would say, I’m not sure running into the line of fire constitutes taking care of oneself.”
“If that’s your way of telling me that in a similar situation, I should do something different, permit me to inform you, Captain, that you can think again.”
His lips twisted rather ruefully. “Well, since I know I can’t give you orders, I don’t suppose asking nicely will work?”
She laughed in spite of herself, feeling another now-familiar but still-terrifying rush of love for him. He really was adorable. “I’ll try to take care as long as you will.”
He grimaced. “There’s a war going on,” he noted wryly.
“Exactly,” she nodded. They both knew that neither of them could promise to stay safe.
Their eyes met and held for a long, charged moment as Peggy’s breath stalled in her lungs. His hair was standing on end, no doubt from when he’d pulled his helmet off, the shadows under his eyes were deeper from the tiredness after the last couple days of battle, his face was grimy, there was some dried blood still on his brow from under the bandage on his temple and he had a cut on his lip although she knew that would heal within the hour. But Peggy thought, not for the first time, that she had never seen a more handsome man, the blue of his eyes startlingly vivid against his dirty face.
And looking at him, seeing him again, his tall, powerful form, she found herself abruptly remembering what it had felt like when she’d been lying on top of him. Absurdly, really, since she hadn’t thought anything of it at the time–bullets having a way of focusing attention–but somehow, unconsciously, her body had catalogued the sensory memory of those few moments, the solid warmth of him pressed against her. And she hadn’t missed the way his body had reacted to her either–privately thrilled to the knowledge of his desire when she replayed those seconds in her mind, which she had. More than once. She felt color seeping into her cheeks at the thought, the memory.
She found herself standing up from the stool before she’d consciously decided to do any such thing, taking a step forward, her hand lifting on uncontrollable impulse to smooth his hair, in a mostly futile attempt at neatening it since the bandage high on his temple prevented much of an attempt at making his hair stay down. She felt him still, his eyes locked on hers.
She lowered her hand, tried not to flush. “No need to look completely unkempt even if you are injured,” she said inanely. Really, sometimes she wasn’t sure she liked this, the power of the emotions he brought out in her, the way they drove her to do things she might not otherwise do. This wish to touch him–no, this compulsion to touch him in some way so her hands almost itched with the urge. She had never felt such a thing before and she didn’t think she entirely liked it–she didn’t like feeling out of control–but where Steve was concerned, she couldn’t seem to help it.
She tried to cudgel her brains back into their customary working order.
What had they been talking about anyway?
Oh, right. Staying safe. Which was something they couldn’t promise but perhaps… There was something to be said for the importance of hope.
“I seem to remember, Captain, that I promised you a dance and I would never want it to be said that I don’t keep my promises. I trust you won’t let that happen.” It was, oddly or perhaps not, the first time either of them had outright referred to the dance she had almost, sort of, promised him. But she knew, somehow, that he hadn’t forgotten, any more than she had, wondered sometimes if it was possible that he thought about their dance as often as she did.
“Yes,” he blurted out a little hoarsely and then winced a little, his cheeks flaring with color. “I mean, no,” he hurriedly amended. “I won’t.”
Her heart seemed to squeeze. Not for the first time, Peggy wondered how she’d never realized before that such uncertainty, a man being flustered, could be so endearing, so… charming but she rather doubted that the same behavior from any other man would affect her similarly. Only Steve. Always, only Steve.
There was a thud and a muffled shout from outside, the noise breaking the moment, and she blinked, abruptly remembering that she should be at the communications tent because Colonel Phillips would be expecting the latest decoded transmission shortly. “I’m due at the communications tent,” she told him, “but I’ll hold you to your promise,” she added more quietly.
“I won’t forget,” he managed.
She really should be going but she didn’t move, couldn’t quite move. His eyes were so soft and so warm, looking at her with his whole heart in his eyes, looking at her as if she were a miracle. Her silly heart fluttered madly in her chest. Oh. Oh damn. He loved her. Just as much as she loved him. She had thought it, believed it, before, since that night under the stars in Austria, but this was the first time that she was absolutely certain of it.
She was vaguely aware of hearing voices outside the tent but they were, for the moment, alone and privacy was in such short supply these days. And he’d just been injured and she was standing so close and… and she just wanted to. She bent and brushed a kiss to his forehead, just above his eyebrow, one of the few relatively cleaner spots on his face (not that it would have mattered to her). She sensed or heard his sharp intake of breath.
And then she drew back, managed a faint smile. “I’ll see you later.”
His eyes were wide. He swallowed but even so his voice was hardly audible as he managed, “Yeah.”
Her heart squeezed on another rush of love at his awkwardness, reminded, again, of the old Steve, the one who had admitted in the car on the way to Project Rebirth that he’d never talked to a woman before. Even now, even after months spent on the USO tour surrounded by showgirls, even after nine months of being hailed as a hero, he still didn’t know how to talk to a woman.
It took concerted effort to force herself to step back, away from him, and then turn and leave the tent, conscious of his gaze on her back. And reminded herself for at least the millionth time that this was war, there were rules against fraternization, and her own reputation and career could not withstand any sort of scandal.
But the war would end eventually–for the first time in years, it seemed as if there might be an end in sight. And then… and then, she and Steve would have time.
~The End~