1point5kidsandaruger | but here you are, in front of me

but here you are, in front of me

Peggy got the news straight from Howard himself. She didn’t wait for Phillips’s approval, though he gave it anyway; within the hour, she was on a transatlantic flight to New York, having bullied and manipulated her way on board.

She hadn’t even changed, hadn’t packed before leaving, just rushed straight to the hospital upon landing, half in a daze and in disbelief. Howard was there already, but she barely stopped to say a word except get his room number, and then she was gone. Up elevators and stairs to the right floor, where she froze outside his room.

None of them would dare lie about something like this, but standing here now, it felt like all the air was getting sucked away. Count to three. Deep breath. Slowly, Peggy slips her hand around the knob, but it’s another few seconds before she can will herself to open it.

And when she does, when she steps inside, it’s all she can do but keep from crying, because there he is, sleeping. As if he were merely resting after a long day. His chest moves slowly up and down, but Steve Rogers is there. Alive.

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He dreams. He thinks he does. Aware of it, vaguely, in that way someone half-asleep realizes consciousness is on the horizon. The dreams are fragments, familiar voices and half-formed faces punctuated by the wind and a groaning so deep he feels it all the way to his bones. In a lucid moment he's almost sure he sees Howard hovering behind a stranger, a voice saying You can't be here, before true darkness hits.

When the dreaming comes back, it's the wind, interrupted by a steady beep and woosh that gets louder even as the wind fades away. He shivers, and the motion sends little splinters of pain and numbness through every limb. His eyes don't want to open.

Steve coughs, and raises one hand with excruciating slowness to rub his eyes.

She goes still, exceedingly so, watching him wake up. Movement. More unnecessary confirmation that he's alive. It's a few seconds before she walks a few steps forward, silently tiptoeing towards the edge of his bed.

She wants to call for him. Take his hand. Sit on the bed. But patience is a virtue, one she has mastered. It doesn't stop her from idly fidgeting with her fingers. Then she can't help it.

"Steve...?" It's quiet. Hopeful. Tentative.

He freezes, and the sudden jerk that comes with the motion sends a whole new wave of pain through him.

Dreaming. He's still dreaming.

Dreaming of a hospital with Peggy standing in the doorway, dreaming of something after -

Dreaming of having something after. If this is dying, it's crueler than he thought it would be.

He can't speak. Not so much that he's unable, but her name knots itself in his throat and makes it difficult to do much more than breathe.

A slight strike of panic hits her at his reaction, but she swallows, stares, takes a deep breath. He's just woken up. Who knows what he remembers, what he thinks. The plane had gone down.

With careful steps, she comes around to the side of his bed. She moves her hand, as if reaching to take his, but suddenly pulls it back, curls it into a fist at her chin.

There are a thousand things she wants to say, to do, but she can't decide on any of them. Finally, she sits gently on the edge of the mattress, opens her mouth to speak but only bites her lip.

There's a degree of terror he can't get around as she comes closer. She's not saying anything. If this were a dream, she'd- What? Does he really know what his mind would do with this situation, given free reign?

The pressure of her at the edge of the bed is too real. The sound of her breathing. The movement of cloth. The smell of her, the way her clothes are almost haphazard, wrinkled, so out-of-character it's a fresh shock to notice.

He lifts one hand again, faltering several times before he manages to touch her sleeve. A syllable. A sound. Then, "Oh. ...Hi."

Any restraint she had is gone at the sound of his voice, a sound she never thought she'd hear again, the mid sentence cut-off that was supposed to stay with her forever. A simple hi, his touch. She snaps.

Peggy tilts herself forward, settles her arms into an awkward embrace on his shoulders and buries her face against him, feels him breathing, moving, alive. "Hi," she chokes out in return, half a laugh.

He wraps his arm immediately around her waist, turns his face to her hair, and wonders if they've ever been this close before. The kiss. A half-dozen solitary moments in spaces too small to avoid contact. But never like this, not with this kind of desperate... something. He shudders, feeling the cold of the wind through the broken glass in front of the pilot's chair. Her picture sliding down the dash over the trembling needles he didn't know how to read.

"Hi." There's something else to say, there's a million other things to say, but... "Hello. Hi."

He laughs, and it comes out strangled. "Am I late?"

She curls into him, laughing at his repetition of greetings, at everything, not quite sure why. Her hands fist into the shirt he's wearing, so tightly she thinks it might rip. If someone were to walk in right now, she wouldn't notice. Wouldn't care. It's strangely liberating.

"Extremely." She tries to say it teasingly, but it's full of more words and emotions than she intended.

"Sorry about that." Deep breath. Steve closes his eyes and puts his free hand over hers, everything aching. He's exhausted, confused, and can't bring himself to care all that much. "Did everyone make it? Did we do it? The plane..."

Turning her palm, she lets go of the fabric, leaving it wrinkled, and she intertwines her fingers with his. She draws in a breath, for several reasons, her feelings running higher than they have in weeks.

"Yes. We did it. You did it. Everyone made it. The war is over."

Something unknots and he collapses against the pillows, eyes closed. Thank God. Thank God.

He's not even sure what he's thankful for - what he isn't thankful for. No more close casualties. Skull's plans destroyed, the world at peace again. He'd almost forgotten peace was more than the nostalgia of old men before the first war. His home, safe. Peggy, safe. "I'm going to kiss you," he says.

He'll find the energy for it. "Just give me a second."

She laughs again, feels her lips curling into a smile. She turns her head so she can see him better, watches a certain tension slide out of him. Slowly, she unhooks her other hand from his shirt and brushes the hair from his eyes.

"I'm not going anywhere."

He catches her hand and kisses her fingertips, eyes still tightly shut. To know she's there, right there, is enough for the moment. He'll muster up the energy to do more than that, eventually, but the relief of it all - well, it's exhausting.

"Miss, you can't be in here," someone says, and Steve stirs enough to take in the nurse coming Peggy's way - and to silently wish the woman well in the afterlife.

Peggy shifts slightly to look over at the nurse when she comes in. But she doesn't sit up or let go of Steve. Despite that, she still manages to look authoritative in her slight glare.

Her voice is stern, commanding, every ounce a military and intelligence agent ready to issue an order. "I've every right. I'm Agent Carter, of the SSR. As you may or may not be aware, Captain Rogers is part of it as well."

She's only just found him again. There's no way she can bring herself to pull away yet.

Edited 2012-03-19 18:54 (UTC)

He loves it when she does that.

He really does.

Though he also feels a little bad for the nurse, who looks like she's torn between talking back and backing down.

"I'm all right," he says, to the room in general, since he's not sure which of them he's trying to address. Of course, he's not letting go of Peggy's hand, either.

"Mister- Captain Rogers, you've... You were..." It's clear she's not exactly sure how to put what he was, and Steve can't exactly blame her. He should be dead.

...He really should be, shouldn't he.

"How long has it been?"

The nurse fidgets awkwardly for a moment, looking back and forth between them.

Peggy turns back to Steve to answer his question. She takes a heavy breath and squeezes his hand. "It's August now, Steve."

It comes out slightly more emotional than she intended, and she has to inhale again before she adds, "You were catatonic in the ice."

Their guests seems to decide leaving them alone for the time being is the preferable option; Steve doesn't notice her leaving until the door shuts.

"I..." There's the wind again, the groan-and-crack, the settling of metal and the slow screech of it bending out of shape. Bile burns in the back of his throat and he rolls on his side, away from Peggy, until the urge to throw up subsides. Six months. Six months, frozen alive. "How...?"

She sits up on her knees, and her hand hovers at his back anxiously for a few moments before she gently rests it on his shoulder, in a hopeful comforting manner. But she can guess by his posture and tone everything he's not saying out loud.

"The serum," she says quietly, having gotten that much out of her conversation with Howard. She should add 'kept you alive' but the words get lodged in her throat.

Edited 2012-03-21 05:45 (UTC)

He presses his hand over hers, her skin feeling almost hot, even though he knows the temperature of the room and Peggy herself haven't changed. Six months.

"Sounds like I got some catching up to do." The try for levity doesn't work. He closes his eyes and focuses on what the alive part means, everything it means. "...Is my rain check still good?"

She finds herself scooting over, leaning closer, knees brushing against his back. Putting her other hand on top of his. She squeezes it.

"Completely good." If her voice is shaking slightly, it's because of, well, everything. The hospital room suddenly seems too tiny.

Silence. He's drifting, a bit, and when he realizes it - when the familiarity of not-quite-dozing, recognizing sounds without registering them sinks in - he bolts awake again with a flash of pure terror.

Steve blinks at her. He feels the way he used to, like the bottom of his stomach dipped into one knee and got stuck there. Weak, breathless - nothing he thought he'd feel again.

"Don't let me sleep." Deep breath. He hauls himself completely upright, letting that take before he tries to slide his feet over the edge of the bed. "I think I've done enough of that."

Peggy slides herself to sit beside him, tentatively resting a hand at his back.

"I won't," she promises, at least for now. She caught the terror in his face, can't even imagine what he's going through right now. she wonders if he can be allowed to leave the hospital room; it can't possibly be doing him any good mentally right now. Slowly, she starts to lightly rub his back, not entirely aware she's doing it.

He relaxes again, a little surprised by the action, but not about to tell her to stop. Steve touches her knee. Finds her free hand again and hangs on, distantly fascinated by how pale his fingers look twined through hers.

"I'm going to marry you," he says. It's quiet enough that anyone standing close to them would miss it. "I'm going to marry you, and get an apartment with you, or a house, our own place, and we're going to have ten kids and a dog that chews on the furniture."

Blink. "...If you'd like to. If you want to."

For a moment, she takes in his words. Everything it means. It almost feels like her heart skips a beat, and she hates the stereotypical nonsense of it, but something happy rushes through her.

Peggy shifts, wraps both arms around him and pulls herself closer into a hug.

She laughs, softly, buries her face in the curve of his neck. "I'm certainly not opposed to it." Once she's said it out loud, the idea of it really takes clearer form in her mind. And she's okay with it. He's here, he's alive; isn't that enough?

Another laugh and then she pulls away enough to look at his face, give him a mock stern glare. "Though you better expect some bartering over the number of kids."

Wait.

Wait, did he just propose?

Wait, did she just say-

"If you really want more kids than that, we'll definitely need a house."

She said yes. He proposed and she said yes. Steve tries not to feel dizzy and fails.

"Don't make me change my mind," she mutters, resting her head against his shoulder. She can hear his heartbeat.

He proposed. It was hardly conventional, but she never wanted that anyway.

She said yes. Essentially.

He was alive. Sitting in her arms.

She leans back up, presses her forehead to his. "What I want is for you to kiss me now, Captain Rogers."

"I think I can manage that."

He slips a hand up along the line of her jaw and into her hair, and takes her close for a kiss. It's chaste, brief, a brush of lips - he's trying to remember the sensation of their last before he climbed on that plane, their first in the two years they'd known each other. The way her nose bumped his and he felt her hair catch in the straps of his helmet.

Again, still gentle. Lingering this time, tasting the spice of mint on her breath. Steve blinks and draws back slightly, the words coming out before he can stop them. "I haven't brushed my teeth in six months."

Her hands move, to just touch him, one at his shoulder and the other sliding to the back of his neck. She kisses him back, just as soft, just as chaste, and a small part of her can't help but think it a dream.

Then he pulls away, speaks, and Peggy laughs. Happily, gently, and all her disbelief is gone. Steve. "Don't think less of me if I say I don't mind. It's easily fixed."

He nestles his face against her shoulder, one arm around her waist. His fiancé. There's a thought. And suddenly he wants nothing more than to get her a ring, any kind of ring, even if she doesn't care about having one. It's Peggy Carter and he wants to do this right.

...Though rings should probably wait until after he's cleaned himself up.

"...Where are we, anyway?"

She heaves a tiny but content sigh, quietly appreciative of his closeness. Her thumb idly brushes over his skin at his neck, this man she just agreed to marry, though she doesn't quite realize she's doing it.

"A hospital, in New York City."

Exhale. New York City.

He hadn't realized until that moment just how much he missed it. Just how much knowing the place is intact means. Not being told, but knowing that he could walk outside and see a familiar skyline, whole and undamaged.

"Can we leave?"

"I... I'm not sure. The last I heard, you were confined to bed, but you were comatose at the time." She pauses.

"They might want to keep you for observation." But there's a definite hint to her tone that she disapproves, on some level. He's healthy enough -- that much she's found out from Howard. He was just... sleeping. Getting out would probably be better for him than sitting cooped up in a room all day.

"But I don't imagine they can quite force it."

"I want to see it." He grits his teeth and stands, carefully, trying to keep himself balanced and mostly succeeding. "If they need to observe, they can send someone to keep an eye on me, but I'm not staying here."

Peggy climbs to her feet, taking careful but gentle hold of his arm -- steadying him without babying him. She knows he can; it doesn't mean she's not there.

"Then we'll go see it." And if she has to take out guards or persuade nurses for it to happen, so be it. But she doesn't really think it'll come to that.

Walking isn't as difficult as he expects it to be. Sure, it hurts, but he had half his childhood - okay, most of his childhood and adult life - to learn to deal with pain.

The nurse from earlier spots them and vanishes down the end of the corridor, which Steve can only imagine means there's going to be some well-meaning doctor coming to insist he go back to bed.

He doesn't let himself relax until the elevator doors slide shut on the view of the floor.

Once he relaxes, seems to get a better hold of himself, Peggy lets go of his arm and her hand slides into his, simply holding it, as they stand in the elevator. But she's prepared to be any kind of support, physical or otherwise. She punches the buttons, and it begins its descent.

She shifts a little closer, unconsciously at first. "It's warm out," she says idly. Commenting on the weather seems almost trite, but for once in her life, she's not quite sure what else she wants to say at the moment. "For autumn."

Edited 2012-07-01 05:38 (UTC)

There's something about her mentioning the weather that almost undoes him. It's so simple. So un-loaded, so without urgency.

He lifts her hand to his lips and holds it there, not kissing her, just resting his face against her skin. "One of my favorite times of year."

She looks up at him, giving his hand a brief squeeze even as hers rests at his lips. There's a warmth there, more than anything that's come with the tiniest of their touches before.

"Mine, too. Especially in New York."

The elevator reaches the ground floor and the door finally pings open. A nurse pauses to look at them, then does a double take as if familiar with appearances, but says nothing, continues on her way.

Peggy brings their hands down. "Shall we?"

Edited 2012-07-10 21:19 (UTC)

The walk to the doors seems interminably long. He can see trees out the front, which is briefly confusing until he spots the sign - Rockefeller University Hospital. Campus. They're on the campus. The undecimated, autumn-bright campus.

He puts his free hand on Peggy's arm to steady himself as they walk out into the sun. Students, meandering back and forth, some with their faces in their books and others sharing gossip - many of them women, a handful of boys who would have been too young to serve during the heaviest periods of recruitment. Someone laughs, loudly, and a teacher looks up to give Steve and Peggy a sympathetic glance before she keeps walking.

It smells like the city. Dirt, exhaust, garbage, oil, rumbling under the scent of plants that take the edge of grime away. He closes his eyes and inhales, the shock of home hitting him in a fresh wave.

That, more than anything, drives home the fact that they did it.

"It's over," he says.

She keeps him steady as they walk, observing as they stroll both the environment and him, her hand still in his with no plans to remove it.

The fighting's over all right, but Peggy's not stupid, and she's more aware than most of certain goings-on behind the scenes. Occupation shows no sign of ending, both in Europe and Asia. There's a reason she started learning Russian before the war even finished.

But that's to be shared later, and there's no sign on her face that she's thinking about any of it, about anything beyond the moment in a world where the war has ended and Steve survived. She gives his hand a squeeze.

"It's over," she repeats, echoing his relief. "People are celebrating everywhere."

And she can only imagine what kind of party the Commandos and Howard will plan now. An end to the war with a happier note.

The War to end all Wars. Steve shakes his head. He didn't believe it because his mother hadn't believed it, but now he doesn't believe it because he knows that's not the way people live.

"Good. That's good." He kisses her temple and rests his face against her hair, more than willing to stop if she wants him to, but not caring just now what anyone walking by might think. "I imagine we'll find plenty to keep us busy, just the same."

She thinks about leaning herself against him, but she holds back. Instead she squeezes his hand, a sign his actions are not unwelcome.

"I already have," Peggy admits. She pauses. "But that's for later. When they find out you've left and haul you back." There's a lightness in her tone of slight exaggeration, even if they both know the SSR will be all over him soon enough.

Work. She doesn't really want to talk about that right now. But she doesn't quite know what to bring up instead, either.

He isn't sure either, at first. Certainly they've talked about other things, but not in this context. Never even with the expectation of this context. There was a war on. There were more important things to do.

"I'd like to show you Brooklyn. My Brooklyn, I mean. Where Bucky and I grew up - all those places with the fights we used to get into."

Steve exhales slowly. It's going to hurt, going back there. No doubt about it. But he needs it, and he wants it, and he wants to show Peggy all the parts of himself he can point out in other places.

Peggy looks up at his face at the offer, and her smile is quiet, reassuring, grateful. "I'd like that," she says softly. His Brooklyn. His life. "I've never seen much of Brooklyn beyond the secret facilities."

Then she takes a tiny breath, pauses for a moment. "The next time we're in London -- " She pauses again; has she ever really offered this to anyone before? "If you'd like to meet them, my family is there."

She knows he doesn't really have one of his own, save Bucky, save the Commandos, and she can't even remember if she's ever mentioned anything about hers in more than just passing. But her brothers are there, her parents. They're so distanced from her job, and she's barely seen them the last few years, but they're her family. And she wants Steve to know them.

The smile that breaks over his face is as startled as it is genuine. "I would love to."

Though, gosh, what could Peggy's parents be like? That's an intimidating thought. And Phillips mentioned her having brothers, though he never said how many. Steve starts to grimace and catches himself. They can't be too bad - besides, Peggy will be there. He can't imagine anyone being unruly with her there to stare them down. Still - "How many brothers do you have?"

She beams, pleased by his reaction. "I think they'd like you."

But the slight grimace doesn't go unnoticed. It doesn't bother her -- if anything, she just grins at it, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze. "Just two. They're both younger than I am."

"Oh." Well. That's not so bad, then. "How old?"

Because Steve can deal with kids. Even if they probably aren't kids. It's just, you know, people his own age he seems to have trouble with.

"Twenty-five and twenty-two. But don't worry, they've learned to listen to me over the years."

Peggy started them young, what can she say? She's fully expecting them to try and make Steve squirm a little bit, especially once they realize what he's like. But she can't imagine them not liking him. She can't imagine anyone disliking this man. (Except maybe Red Skull, but that's another story.)

"How could they not?" Peggy's brothers. Why hadn't he considered them before? Well, he had, but not in the context of a meeting.

He looks up at the trees overhead. "How's Howard? How is everyone? I'm.... sorry, for putting you through that."

That doesn't begin to cover it. He hardly knows what to think, what they must have thought - it makes his stomach twist.

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but here you are, in front of me

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