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Privately, Steve thinks this is more an exercise in futility than anything else. It’s not like the serum had given him any more of an ear for music and he’d never gotten a good sense of rhythm.
And that’s, of course, before you factored in that his arms and legs each ended about six inches past where he expected them to.
Still, it was a laugh for the guys and easily the most carefree he’d seen Bucky since Azzano. And so he struggled on gamely.
“It’s one, two, three, you big lug,” Bucky calls from the sidelines.
“You get out here and try then,” Steve retorts.
“Dum Dum’s not really my type.”
“Hey, watch it,” Dugan mutters darkly and everyone laughs.
There’s a reason Steve’s never liked dancing (he’s not good at it), but after Peggy’s… overture he thinks maybe he owes it to her to try and learn.
Well, actually, Bucky thinks that and Steve just happened to come to the same conclusion about three minutes later.
(Bucky’s words exactly: “Steve, you lunkhead, you can’t step on a dame like that’s shoes. It’s embarrassing for you, sure, but mostly for me!”)
Which is how while returning from a mission, safely behind Allied lines, he’s managed to be wrangled into a clumsy dance class run mostly by a bunch of nosy know-nothings.
Steve trips over his feet, slipping a bit as he rights himself. It’s hopeless. Peggy may seem to have the patient of a saint some days, but he’s sure she’ll give up after the fifth or sixth squashed toe.
Maybe he should suggest her steel toed boots if they ever do manage to get that dance.
“Have not one of you ever been to a dance class?”
Steve blinks twice, trying to clear his vision. Maybe he actually fell when he slipped, and hit his head.
Emerging from the trees, Peggy approaches, the late afternoon light creating a glow around her hair. She looks like an angel. A very bemused angel.
He’s embarrassed- with his super sensitive hearing, he shouldn’t be caught flat-footed like this. Yet, here they are.
“Peg- Agent Carter,” he greets her and just about manages not to bound up to her like overexcited puppy. “What are you doing here?”
“Officially, you don’t have the clearance,” she reports in a lofty tone, then smiles a smiles that he’s pretty sure could cure frostbite. “Unofficially I’m on my way back to base. Thought I might catch a ride.”
It’s then he’s able to get past his own excitement to see her and the general sheen of beauty she always has, to notice her chipped nail polish, frizzy hair, fading bruises. She’s been roughing it for at least a day, if not more.
The men chatter and spring into action, already off to find her a place to sit, which makes him proud. She might not officially be part of the team he’s assembled, but it’s clear the men think of her as such.
But before they can just about call this stupid dance lesson finished, Bucky gets that look, the one that Steve knows means only trouble for him.
“We were just trying to educate Steve on the finer points of life, Agent Carter,” he announces. “Seeing how he gets invited to all these fancy parties with the bigwigs and all. Thought he shouldn’t make a total fool of himself.” Bucky pauses, a challenge in his eyes but this time it’s for Peggy. “Maybe you could help us out.”
There’s no way Peggy will take such obvious bait, he thinks. She’s too savvy. She’ll see through it.
Peggy turns her gaze to Steve, apprising and inscrutable. Steve shifts to stand a bit straighter, but resists the urge to go to parade rest.
“Yes, I believe I can be of some help,” she agrees.
Steve knows his eyes must be wide, because Dernier hoots and Dugan claps him on the shoulder and Bucky looks impossibly smug. They all clear off.
“First of all, it’s not boxing, you apes,” she lectures. “And it’s highly unlikely Captain Rogers is going to find anyone near his height, so I’m not sure why you’ve tried to match his weight class.”
Morita jumps into try and explain why Dugan was chosen and Steve bites back the urge to say there’s only one person he’d want to dance with at all.
Peggy steps closer. He can’t say she smells great, but then neither does he. She smells of sea air and a twinge of sweat, and unmistakably Peggy.
“Hands here, you great oaf,” she instructs, firmly placing one hand at the middle of her back, the other held in hers reverse of how Dugan’s hand was.
“Steve will have to lead. Don’t teach him to follow.”
She hasn’t really looked at him yet, explaining the steps to the crowd as she directs him through an easy waltz.
He thinks he comports himself admirably, for having his arms around Peggy Carter.
‘You can stop counting you know,” she murmurs. “You’ve got the rhythm now.”
He looks up from his feet. Bad idea. They make eye contact and he doesn’t know about her, but the world falls away for him.
Peggy stiffens in his arms for a moment and he thinks he’s done something wrong. But her jaw sets and she steps even closer.
“Of course,” she mentions. “If you know a partner quite well, the form rather takes care of itself.”
They must have been dancing longer than he thought because the peanut gallery has mostly dispersed.
She moves closer yet again and his hand on her back drifts lower, closer to the small of her back. Instead of clasped hands held wide, far from them, they rest nearer his chest than anything. She’s close enough to lay her head on his shoulder if she chose.
It seems for a moment she’s considering it, then shakes her head instead, leaning it forward with a little huff, until her forehead rests on his collarbone, telling him, “Oh, you’re trouble, Captain.”
She does that, he’s noticed, calls him Captain when they approach a line she seems to have drawn in the sand. He’s thought it was a warning for him to back off, but right now, he wonders if it’s maybe a reminder for her instead.
“Could say the same for you, Agent Carter,” he replies and is quite proud of himself of r not just outright announcing how crazy he is for her.
She lifts her head. They make eye contact again and now their lips are almost touching.
“Steve?” Her voice is a whisper. He nods for her to continue. How’s he meant to speak around the lump in his throat? “If it wasn’t clear at the pub…”
“I’ll take you dancing anywhere, anytime.” The words tumble out of his mouth in a race, but he means them.
She smiles one of his favorite smiles, the one that means Steve, don’t be ridiculous. “Within reason.”
“Anywhere, anytime.”
Later he’ll try to capture this new smile she gives him on paper. The drawing will be rather good, maybe one of his favorites, it won’t come close to doing it justice.
“You know,” Peggy says conspiratorially. They’re still dizzyingly close. “I do believe we’ve been set up."
Glancing around, he realizes that not only have the Commandos dispersed, they’ve made themselves scarce.
“I caught a radio transmission from Barnes hours ago,” Peggy admits. "I was on my way back though."
“Traitors, the lot of them.”
She laughs and lays her head on his shoulder. “I don’t mind so much if you don’t.”
He rests his cheek against her hair. Their hands rest fully on his chest now and she's pressed against him. He could stay like this forever. “No,” he says. “I don’t mind too much either.”
Careful steps turn into a sway with a slow turn. The sun begins to set. Some emotion too big and unwieldy to name swells up in his chest, but it doesn’t matter because for the first time in memory, he stops thinking and just is.