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Peggy Carter is standing outside the Stork Club, her hair done and her makeup perfect, when he appears.
She'd thought he would wear his dress uniform or civvies, but Steve Rogers is dressed as Captain America, here in public for everyone to see. She doesn't even mind it, the stars and stripes, because he does look handsome.
"You made it," she says, smiling.
He reaches out and takes her hand. His skin is cold and clammy, and she notices the blue tinge to his flesh, the way his lips seem colorless. "Are you sick?" she asks. "We can reschedule if you're sick."
"No," Steve says softly, his eyes even bluer in his pale face. "I'm just cold."
Peggy decides not to probe further - this whole thing is like a soap bubble, ephemeral and rainbow-hued, and she is loath to do anything that might pop it. Instead, she leads him into the club.
The band is playing a slow song, as if they knew Steve and Peggy were coming in. She wastes no time getting to the dance floor and turning to face Steve.
"Put your hands on my waist," she tells him, and he complies. She loops her arms around his neck - he's so tall, she thinks, that it's a wonderful thing to be wearing high heels, to have frivolous shoes again. The war has been over for six months, and things are starting to get back into a new normal. Britain is still in trouble--the blitz did its job of killing and destroying--but Peggy is pretty sure that, since they stopped HYDRA and the Nazis from ending the world, her country will rebuild.
Steve is awkward, moves stiffly like she knew he would. "Relax," she says. "You can bend your elbows."
Steve smiles, all sweetness and light, and steps on her foot. "I'm sorry," he says. "I really don't know what I'm doing."
"Just turn in a circle," she says. "This is slow dancing. It's no waltz, no foxtrot, but it's sweet and it's simple, and it lets me hold on to you."
"I meant to tell you," Steve says, his movements clumsy like a newborn colt and his hands burning ice cold through her dress. "That you look beautiful."
Peggy thinks that the girl she was, the girl before the war, would have blushed and giggled. But she's not nearly so innocent now, so she just puts her head on his shoulder. His body is hard and damp against her, and so cold it takes her breath away.
"I think I'm dead," he tells her.
"I know you are," she says. "We're looking for your plane."
She can feel his sad smile, knows that he is in pain by the way his clammy fingers clutch at her waist. "Tell Howard I'm sorry," he says. "That I wasted his experiment."
"He's not mad," Peggy says, as Steve steps on her foot again. She wonders, idly, why being dead hasn't improved his dancing.
"Can I see you again?" Steve asks, as the song ends.
"Leaving so soon?"
He looks sad, his blue lips pulled into a tight smile. "I think I have to."
"Yes," she says. "You can see me any time you want to."
Steve takes her hand and kisses it sweetly, and Peggy wakes in her dark room, cold and alone, the tears still wet on her cheeks.
Six years after the war ends, Peggy finds herself married and a mother twice over. She's left her job with the Strategic Scientific Reserve, and now spends days caring for her children.
She's in the park, in the middle of the day, walking on a path near a lake with her new infant son. She hums to herself, a slow and sad song from the radio as she walks, and her son gurgles up at her from his pram.
"Yes, I lost my little darling," she sings, "the night they were playing the beautiful Tennessee waltz."
"That's pretty," a voice says, and she turns to find Steve Rogers behind her.
He looks exactly as he did in her last dream about him, pale and shivering under his costume.
"Hello, Steve," she says, as if it doesn't faze her to find him in the park.
"How have you been?"
Peggy shrugs and keeps walking. Steve falls easily into step next to her.
"I have children now," she says. "And a husband."
"Is he good to you?"
"He is." She smiles. "I love him very much."
"That's good," Steve says, and she can hear the naked pain in his voice, he doesn't even try to shield her.
"You're dead," she says. "And I'm alive."
"How long have I been dead?"
"You crashed your plane six years ago, now," Peggy tells him, and from his pram her son makes a happy baby noise.
"Oh," Steve says, continuing to walk in silence at her side.
"The war is over," Peggy offers, when the air gets too heavy between them. "We won."
"Are people happy now?"
"Have people ever been happy?"
Steve shakes his head, and for a moment it looks like his hair is caked in icicles, even in the warm summer afternoon. "What's his name?" Steve asks, gesturing to the baby.
"Henry," Peggy tells him. "For my husband. Henry Carter Willis."
Steve smiles, and his hand brushes hers on the handle of the pram. It's just as cold as it was before, and the shock of it sends shivers up her spine. "You have another?"
She nods. "A daughter. Nancy Stevens Willis."
"Stevens?"
She smiles softly. "Gone but not forgotten, Steve."
He looks like he might cry, so she stops walking and turns to face him. He puts his hands on her waist, and she loops her arms around his neck like a memory of the last time she saw him, and they're in the Stork Club again, swaying to the soft strains of Tennessee Waltz.
"I don't know where I am," he says. "But I don't think I'm dead."
She doesn't say anything, just tries to lead him gently, tries to save her feet from being trod on the way he does. He holds her close and the cold cuts her, but she wouldn't give it up for anything in the world. She knows, in a small part of her brain, that this can't be real, that she loves Henry, that this is just a fantasy, but she decides to indulge it, chooses to dance with Steve Rogers like it's the most natural thing to be doing.
"You're a good teacher," he says, his breath icy in her ear.
She laughs, an airy sound, and it carries her into wakefulness. Henry is next to her in bed, his breath even and soft as he sleeps. She is glad for his slumber, because there is no one to ask about the tears frozen solid on her cheeks.
Peggy is at the cinema, and it is dark. Her daughter fidgets in the seat on her right and her husband is on her left, holding her hand. The film is scenes from the war, the real war, faces of all the men and women she knew, all the men and women who died.
Which is why Peggy isn't at all surprised when Henry's hand goes cold in hers.
"Hello, Steve," she says, without looking at him.
"Hello," he says, and she can feel his eyes on her, inexplicably hot in contrast to the chill of the rest of him.
"You've been gone a long while now," she tells him. Nancy is gone, and the seat on her right is empty, but Peggy isn't alarmed. It makes sense in the same way that holding hands with a dead man makes sense.
"How long?" he asks.
"Sixteen years," she tells him. "It's 1961."
"What's it like?" he asks.
"Your country elected a Catholic. And there are fifty states now. We're in a war that they call a Cold War, because no one fires missiles. I wonder, sometimes, what it would be like if Captain America were around, if things would be the way they are."
"And what do you decide?"
She shrugs. Her fingers are numb from his coldness, but she can't bring herself to let go or pull away. "I decide that Nancy needs shoes and Henry needs a new bicycle and Robert is going to need a polio vaccine next month. I don't have time for what ifs."
Steve is silent for a long moment. "There's a polio vaccine now?"
Peggy laughs. "You'd be shocked at what we can do. They have pills now that stop you from getting pregnant."
"How do those work?" Steve asks, and she can hear laughter in his voice, too. "I can't even imagine."
"It's a hormone thing," she says. "For women."
"So, do people live on the moon yet?"
Peggy puts her head on his shoulder, and he lets go of her hand to sling an arm across her back. It burns cold, like icy metal against her skin, but she loves the shivers it provokes.
"No," she tells him, and they're in the club again, holding each other close as Elvis sings about love in the way that only he can.
"I'm sorry," Steve says, softly.
"You're not so bad a dancer."
"No, for dying."
Peggy shrugs. "Honestly, sometimes I think you were the lucky ones. Some of the others - it was hard going back to life, living like people again. Some of them never quite made it."
"Still," Steve says. "I wish I could have really danced with you."
"You are," she tells him, looking up into his eyes.
He steps on her foot again, and she laughs. He gazes down at her for a moment and then, in a move that she's never sure if she makes or he makes or is just the logic of a dream, they're kissing. His mouth is cold but comforting, and when he pulls away from the timid press of lips, he's got a tear on his cheek.
"Are you still happy?" he asks.
"I am," she says. "And you're still in my heart."
"Keep me there," he says. "I think it's the only warmth I have these days."
"Always," she whispers, pressing their mouths together for another stolen kiss.
When she wakes this time there are no tears on her cheeks, but her lips are dotted with flecks of ice.
He's already in the restaurant when she arrives, and she breezes past the maître d' with only the barest nod.
"Mr. Tracy," Peggy says, approaching the table. "I was so sorry to hear you died."
The man looks up, and his face is younger and slimmer than Spencer Tracy's ever was, and there is a frozen quality to his beauty. And Peggy's pretty sure Spencer Tracy never dressed up as Captain America.
"Steve," she breathes.
"Hi," he says. "Sorry I'm not Mr. Tracy."
She waves his apology off and takes a seat at the table. There is food for her, and wine, which appears without being delivered and tastes of nothing.
"It's okay," she says as she takes a bite. "I can have that dream another night."
Steve laughs. "How is your family?"
"They're well, thank you. How is--" She curses inwardly and takes a hasty sip of wine to cover her rudeness. Sometimes, when he's sitting there in front of her, it's easy to forget that Steve is dead. "I'm sorry. I guess things don't change much for you."
He echoes her, drinking deeply from his glass of wine. "So, who is this Mr. Tracy?"
"Spencer Tracy," she says, and Steve's face falls.
"The actor?"
"Yes," Peggy reaches out and takes his hand across the table. It's cold to the touch, but she was expecting that.
He just shakes his head. "Shame," he says.
"A lot of our people are gone, now," she says. "They're saying that cigarettes will kill you. Give you cancer."
Steve just shakes his head. "That doesn't seem right."
Peggy drains her wine glass. The whole room shifts to black and white suddenly, and the band strikes up - and where did they come from? They're playing a song she knows on the tip of her tongue, a sad song about longing and wishing. She stands and offers her hand to Steve, her dress long and elegant suddenly, in contrast to his silly costume.
He leads her onto the floor and pulls her close. The cold of him cuts, but he wraps his right arm around her waist and clutches her right hand in his left, pulling it to his mouth for a soft, arctic kiss.
He's getting better at dancing, she thinks, as they sway together.
"He'll kiss her with a sigh," Steve sings softly, his breath tickling her neck. "Would you, would you?"
She knows the song now, it's from San Francisco, and it just affirms her belief that she should be dancing with Spencer Tracy in this dream, not Steve.
"We have to stop doing this," Peggy says softly. "Meeting this way."
"I can't," he says, and his voice is flat and sad.
"I have to let go of you, Steve."
"Please," he says, and it's almost a prayer. "Don't give up, please."
"You've been dead for twenty years. More."
"And you have a husband and children and I bet you don't even wear red lipstick anymore. It's okay if you don't want to dance." He lets go of her, and the sudden rush of heat between their bodies almost knocks her down. "But please don't let go of me."
She has a response; she has several. But before she can give them, she feels hands on her, and she jolts awake.
"Peggy?" It's Henry, her husband, and he's looming over her where she lies, clutching her pillow. Her throat feels raw and her face is cold and wet. "You were dreaming."
She doesn't say anything, she just lets him curl up behind her and hold her close. She lets his warmth pool between them, bring her back to the present, but she doesn’t sleep. Instead she lies awake the rest of the night, studying the ceiling, worrying about what will happen if she has to face Steve again.
Peggy dreams of being young and beautiful, of being sad and hopeful. She dreams of the days after the war, the days of rebuilding and heartache. She dreams of meeting Henry, of holding his hands, and his kind eyes. She dreams of falling in love.
Henry kisses her in her dream, softly, the way he did the night they went driving and she told him about her part in the war. His lips are soft and his hands are big. She knows him so well, this kind man who served in the 27th Armoured Brigade at Normandy, this man who makes her feel safe and confident. She leans into his embrace and kisses him back.
She's surprised when he turns cold; she hasn't felt that thrill in her stomach for nearly twenty years.
"Steve," she breathes, and he runs the knuckles of his hand over her cheekbone.
"You're beautiful, Peggy."
She catches her reflection in his eyes, and laughs quietly. She's not the young woman she was before, when she was courting Henry. She's herself now, white hair and saggy skin, wrinkles and laugh lines.
"You're a flatterer, Steve Rogers."
He kisses her again, sweetly, and she almost doesn't feel his cold. "I don't have to flatter you. You're stunning."
"I'm an old lady."
"Doesn't matter," he says, kissing the crows' feet and the sun spots that have cropped up on her cheeks and forehead. "I'll always think you're stunning."
Peggy believes him, for reasons she can't quite quantify. It's not like Steve never lied - hell, she helped him cheat and steal on more than one occasion - but he's always been earnest with her, guileless. "You haven't aged," she says, plucking at the fabric of his uniform. "You never age."
"How long has it been?"
"It's 1991," she says. "Oh Steve, the world today. You'd be shocked. There's not a Soviet Union anymore."
He blinks like he’s confused at the idea, but he lets it fall. "And your family?"
She sighs and rests her forehead against his for a moment. "Henry's dead three years now. The kids are all grown up. I'm a grandmother."
"And you're happy?"
"Mostly," she says, shaking her head. "My memory is slipping, you know. I'm not always there."
"What do you remember?"
"I never forget the war," she says. "But I forget my keys, and I'm not allowed to drive anymore. I forget what I've forgotten, you know?"
"And me?"
She laughs, perhaps bitterly and perhaps sadly. "I could never forget you."
"Thank you for holding on," he breathes, kissing her again.
Peggy is old; she is old and has no time for nonsense anymore. She has a sense that this might be the last time she ever sees Steve, has a sense that it's now or never.
"I want to dance with you," she says, and as if on cue, the scene melts into a quiet room, dimly lit. There's a spotlight on the dance floor of the Stork Club, and Peggy takes Steve's hand and leads him there. The band is playing something soft and low, something that echoes forward from the first time they met like this, almost forty-six years ago.
He takes her in his arms, his body real and cold against hers.
She's gazing into his eyes - which are still so blue, after all these years, like the memory of a springtime sky - and she feels her breath catch. "If this is the last time I see you," she sighs, "then know that I have always held on. I always loved you, okay?"
Steve's smile is slow and slight, his lips barely quirking upwards. "I'm glad you had a life," he says. "I'm glad you had kids and a husband and good times. I'm sorry I couldn't share them, but I'm so happy you got them anyway."
"What about you?" she asks. "Would you say you were happy?"
Steve shrugs, his muscles rippling under her hands. "I'm dead."
"Well, that's no reason to be unhappy."
He laughs softly. "I'm happy here, with you. I'm not sure I actually exist any other times."
They sway together, Peggy's poor old knees creaking in protest, for a long minute. The singer is crooning, something sappy about love, but Peggy doesn't have time for that; she has dancing to do.
"Did they-- have they ever found me?" Steve asks, softly.
"No," Peggy says. "Howard looked. He looked for a long time. He found the blue box - the Tesseract? - but we never found you."
"Did I have a funeral?"
"You did. It was a sunny day, after the war. Me and Howard had our own little party for you. We shared beers and talked about you, and Bucky, and the other men we lost. We'd asked Colonel Phillips, but he was in Japan." She smiles at the memory. "We got drunk and threw rocks into a fountain, cursing the ocean. I took off my shoes and got my stockings wet, wading in to get the stones back."
Steve holds her close for a long minute. "I love you, Peggy Carter," he whispers in her ear, and she doesn't correct him, doesn't tell him that she's Peggy Willis. She closes her eyes, her cheek against his chest, and cries.
She wakes to a sunlit morning, birds chirping in the trees and icy tears drying on her face.
He isn't wearing his uniform when he appears, and that's how Peggy knows it's not a dream. He's wearing a simple button-up shirt and khakis. Old fashioned, she thinks, for 2012, but very Steve. Very much.
"Hello, Peggy," he says, softly.
The room is dim; it's constantly twilight in the hospital, the beeping machines that keep her going lend a surreal quality to the air that she can never quite shake.
"Steve," she gasps. Her breath comes short these days. They say it has ever since she had pneumonia last month, but she doesn't remember being sick at all. "Am I dead?"
He comes to her side and takes her hand. "No," he whispers. "I'm alive. They found me."
Peggy can't help herself - she starts to cry. She remembers bits and stitches, but her memory is mostly gone now, She remembers meeting with Steve, remembers that he was dead and still danced with her. It swims behind her eyes, the last seventy-odd years in fragments of pain.
"Hey," he says, and she registers his warmth, then, the actual radiating heat of another living body.
She can't respond; the tears and her breathing are too difficult to get around, but Steve doesn't get angry or short with her. He just smoothes back her hair and presses a blissfully hot kiss to her forehead.
His eyes are swimming in tears of his own when he looks down at her, love and concern warring across his face.
"Thank you," he says, touching her cheek softly. "For teaching me to dance."