44NOTE: This chapter was updated 4/26/2020, and the chapter ending dramatically changed. If you read this chapter before that date, you will want to re-read it before continuing to chapter four.
Chapter Three
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Fingers of early morning light crept through the narrow window and slipped across Peggy's pillow as the dawn broke. She was already awake; had been awake for hours, staring up at the ceiling, reliving the night before and wondering if it had all been some sort of dream.
Steve Rogers was alive. He had come to her - had danced with her - had left her with a kiss that still burned on her lips and made her heart stutter in her chest. Surely, surely it had all been a wild, insane, beautiful dream. It certainly wasn't the first time she'd dreamed of his return.
She doubted it would be the last.
There seemed no purpose to remain in bed any longer. Rolling out of the creaking hideabed, Peggy made it up mechanically, folding it away and rearranging the sofa cushions without paying the least attention to them. She dressed in her favorite tweed skirt and jacket, applied her brightest shade of lipstick, and took a deep breath as she adjusted her hat with fingers that trembled. Her white-faced reflection stared back at her from the small mirror by her door. Ducking her head, she looked away. She didn't want to recognize the painful hope burning in her reflected eyes.
Then, without allowing herself delay, she opened the door, stepped out with a firm tread, and descended the stairs of her apartment building.
And there he was.
Steve Rogers stood on the sidewalk, his back against the brownstone of the building, evidently waiting for her. He looked up and saw her at almost the same instant she caught sight of him, and for a moment the whole world reeled. Peggy closed her hand tightly around the narrow iron balustrade beside the steps, uncertain whether her knees would hold her.
She'd very nearly convinced herself that the night before had been a hallucination. Only the dark bruise on her hip from walking into the table the night before had given her any sort of proof that perhaps she hadn't dreamed the whole thing. But now he stood before her - tall, solid in the light of early morning, somehow even more real than the man in whose arms she had danced and wept only a few hours earlier.
"Hello, Steve," she said softly.
"Hi," he answered, his voice equally low. He was looking at her the same way he'd looked at her the night before - the way he'd looked at her during a few unguarded moments during the war.
It still made her heart turn over in her chest.
They might have gone on looking at each other forever, lost in each other's eyes, if it weren't for a newsboy who dashed between them, his heavy bag knocking against Steve's knees and breaking the moment. Steve blinked, and seemed to realize he was staring at her. "Hi," he said again, sounding rather breathless. He stared a minute longer, forehead furrowed, drinking in the sight of her, and then grinned and gestured. "Breakfast?"
Neither one had managed much sleep. They walked down the street side by side, Peggy's fingertips pressing into the rough fabric of his jacket as she took his arm; the hem of her skirt just brushing his leg.
It all felt completely surreal.
As luck would have it, Angie was working the breakfast shift at the diner when they arrived. She waggled her eyebrows and eyed Steve with significant interest as she brought Peggy's usual, followed by Steve's triple order of eggs, hash browns, and sausage.
"Anybody tell ya you look an awful lot like Captain America?" she asked Steve, setting his plates in front of him. Peggy stiffened, but Steve simply smiled.
"Sure," he said. "Sometimes. But my folks came from Ireland. I don't think I have any relatives in the US."
Angie eyed him up and down again, but seemed to let the issue go. "I know how that is," she agreed, nodding. "My second cousin's wife looks exactly like Hedy Lamar. I keep telling her she could make a fortune in Hollywood."
Somebody called her away then, and Steve and Peggy were left alone with their breakfast. Peggy had the sudden hysterical feeling that they probably looked like a perfectly normal couple facing one another over their bacon and eggs, rather than two people severed by time and space and unexpectedly reunited.
"Smooth," she commented rather shakily before the silence between them became awkward, and reached for the sugar. "Where did you learn that line?"
"Nat," Steve responded, then recollected himself visibly. "Natasha Romanoff, an agent I work with." He paused, pain in his eyes. "Used to work with. She never did give up trying to give me tips for going undercover."
Oh, yes - Natasha. Steve's friend - the woman he'd mentioned the night before who had laid down her life for her friends. Peggy wasn't entirely sure how she felt about the woman, but she couldn't do anything other than respect that kind of dedication.
After all, it wasn't unlike what Steve himself had done.
"Do I ever meet her?" she asked, and saw a thoughtful guardedness leap up in Steve's face.
"Maybe?" he responded, stabbing at the hash browns with his fork. "She didn't tell me much about her past."
"And you're not going to tell me much about my future." It wasn't a question. Peggy just knew it, the same way she knew that Steve was Steve. Sure enough, he shook his head, jaw squared.
"I know some things," he admitted slowly. "But I run the risk of creating a new timeline just by being here. Anything I tell you is liable to change, and a little misinformation can be dangerous."
Peggy nodded, musing. Even if his return did change the timeline, she couldn't bring herself to feel much of a loss over a changed future she might never have - not when the man she had mourned so deeply and for so long was sitting across from her, even if only for a short time.
"Was I happy?" she asked at last. "In that life, I mean."
Steve took his time chewing a mouthful of breakfast. When he could speak again, he nodded, slowly.
"You had a good life," he told her quietly, and that was enough. It was all she wanted to know.
Unlike the night before, their conversation over breakfast mostly centered around Peggy. Steve kept steering the conversation back to her life - the end of the war, her time in the New York SSR office, the trip to California.
"What about fellas?" he asked, and then floundered as though he hadn't meant to ask in quite that way.
Peggy laid down her spoon, folded her hands, and raised an eyebrow with a cool air that belied the suddenly increased tempo of her heartbeat. "What exactly are you implying, Captain?"
He fidgeted with his fork, dropped it, and only just managed to slap a hand onto it before it skittered off the edge of the table. "I mean," he said more carefully, "that it's been years. You're a smart, beautiful woman," the simplicity with which he uttered that sentiment very nearly took her breath away, "and I know I'm not the only guy with eyes." He looked down at the fork in his hand, and then back up at her. "You seeing anyone?"
Peggy arched her other eyebrow to match the first. "I hope you don't think I go around kissing people when I'm otherwise committed," she retorted, but there was no real bite in her words.
"No, ma'am," Steve was quick to say. "But as I recall, I was the one who kissed you. Should've asked first."
The memory of last night's kiss was too much to dwell on. Peggy's breath snagged in her throat; she ducked her head momentarily to avoid meeting his eyes across the table.
"I've gone out with a few people," she said at last. "After all, I thought you were dead."
There was no blame in Steve's eyes when she looked up at him - only understanding and an old, deep sorrow. This man was certainly far older than the Steve Rogers who had naively made assumptions about her and Stark so long ago.
"I know," he said. "I was - or as good as, anyway. Found anybody special?"
Peggy tugged at the edge of her napkin. "I thought I had," she said simply. "He was a good man. You'd like him. But it turned out I wasn't as in love with him as I thought." Then, feeling this conversation was growing entirely too one-sided, she turned the table. "And what about you?" she demanded. "It's been more than twice as long for you. Surely you've found someone."
Steve crumbled the crust of his toast between his fingers. "Went out on some dates," he said, voice low. He paused, then offered her a crooked smile. "Turns out it's a little hard to find somebody in a world where everyone knows you only as Captain America."
"But certainly not impossible?" She was sure there were exceptions, but at the moment Peggy couldn't think of a single reason why any woman wouldn't be attracted to him. He'd constantly been dodging them back during the war - secretaries, WACs, star-struck women of every nationality. British to the core, Peggy barricaded herself behind her teacup. "I imagine there were plenty of women who would have been delighted to get to know you as Steve Rogers."
He looked her straight in the eye. "Probably," he admitted. "And for a while there was one I thought maybe things could work out with - but it didn't end up going anywhere." He shrugged, looking slightly sheepish. "Turns out she was related to you."
Peggy set her teacup down so suddenly that the liquid inside sloshed over into the saucer. "Surely not my granddaughter?" she demanded, horrified. Steve shook his head hastily.
"No, not a direct descendent." His toast was now a little pile of crumbs; he absently pushed them together with his fork as Peggy's heartbeat slowly returned to its normal speed. "I gave up trying after that. Haven't gone out with a girl in five years." He shook his head at her unspoken query. "Just didn't seem worth the trouble, and wasn't fair to them."
There was direct honesty in his face - honesty and weariness, and a spark of something that made Peggy's heart promptly speed back up again. He was telling her the truth.
"Why?" she persisted, even though it was probably a bad idea. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Why wasn't it fair to them?"
Steve's fork hit the edge of his plate with a clatter as he let it fall to the tabletop. He didn't move to pick it up, his attention wholly focused on her. "Because I realized I was measuring them all against you."
There could be no response to such an answer. It felt as though he had just laid his heart among the breakfast things on the table between them, and after all this time she wasn't sure she knew what to do with it.
So she just stared wordlessly at him - at the lines of his face, so familiar, yet so changed - at the way his shoulders hunched ever so slightly inward - at the blue of his eyes, all at once anxious and hopeful, but with that spark of something she was afraid to put a name to. She remembered now exactly why Steve had dodged all those women during the war. It had been a long time before she'd realized that he had eyes only for her, and even longer before she'd allowed herself to fully believe it.
If the way he'd kissed her last night was any indication, his feelings for her hadn't changed.
"Steve," she breathed, and then paused, searching for words. Something warm and ephemeral was rising in her chest - happiness, she realized vaguely. He leaned closer, looking at her like he had the night before, just after he'd kissed her.
"Need a refill?" Angie chirped over their heads.
Peggy jumped so violently that she nearly upset her plate. Steve started as well, the abrupt movement knocking his fork off the edge of the table. He groaned and disappeared after it, groping under the seat.
"No, thank you Angie," Peggy managed. Her friend's expression was very bright and very interested, and at that moment Peggy devoutly wished her at the other end of the earth.
"Sure?" Angie leaned over and refilled Steve's cup anyway, giving him an appraising once-over as he emerged from under the table, fork in hand. "Can I getcha anything else?"
Some peace and quiet, Peggy wanted to say, but restrained herself, fixing her attention on her plate instead, only half-listening as Steve fumbled his way through Angie's flow of conversation.
Only when Angie was called away by another customer did they both relax, staring across the table at one another. The friendly waitress had broken the moment, and Peggy suddenly found herself very depressed.
"I'm afraid I'm not quite the same woman you knew," she said, rather bitterly. She knew Steve had changed, and it didn't seem to make a bit of difference to how her traitorous heart felt about him, but she had changed as well. Perhaps if he knew the woman she'd turned out to be, he wouldn't still be looking at her that same way anymore.
His smile was a little sad, but the way he was looking at her didn't change. "And I'm not quite the same guy," he said. "It's been a long time for both of us, and I don't - I don't expect anything from you. Fill me in on what else I've missed?"
So she did, plunging back into the story of her return to New York, and her temporary position as head of the SSR office. It was somehow a relief to take refuge in the narrative. Steve Rogers always had been a good listener.
"But you probably know all this," she interrupted herself in the middle of her recital. "Surely I must have told you at some point."
Steve shrugged. She narrowed her gaze, trying to break him, but he just leaned back, a ghost of a grin on his lips that exasperated her even as she was reminded of old days. He had never been this good at keeping secrets. This man had clearly been trained during their time apart.
Between them, they dragged out the meal as long as they could, picking at their food, eating as slowly as humanly possible. Every so often, when Peggy glanced discreetly in his direction, she would find him doing the same, his warm blue eyes fixed on her. He never looked away in those moments, his gaze lost in her own until some clatter from the kitchen broke through.
She wondered if he would have to leave after this - if this would be her last chance to be with him. The thought made her heart ache unbearably. She'd survived his loss once, and she knew she could do it again, but the prospect was far from pleasant.
Only after every single crumb of his toast was gone, did Steve reluctantly excuse himself. "I could talk to you all day, but you'll be late for work."
"Hang work," Peggy retorted with sudden and unusual vehemence - a sentiment which she had never expressed in her life. Heads at nearby tables turned in surprise at her raised voice, but she didn't care. "I don't want to lose you again, not just yet."
Something tender sprang into Steve's face; something so raw and hopeful that Peggy felt as though she'd violated his privacy simply by seeing it. He laid his hand over her own in a gentle move that made her skin prickle and a sudden lump grow in her throat. "I won't leave," he promised. "But you got your work to do, and I know how important it is."
"Not as important as you." Peggy felt her face hardening into the expression her brother had once called 'pugnacious.' "Once, Steve Rogers, you promised to show me around New York. I intend to call in that promise."
He looked unmistakably delighted, eyes filling with warm pleasure. "You sure they'll let you off?" he asked, his fingers closing more firmly around hers - and right then Peggy knew that nothing else mattered. She couldn't bear to ask Steve how much time he had left before he had to leave, but she also couldn't stomach the thought of missing a minute of whatever time she could spend with him.
So she raised her eyebrows. "As it happens," she archly informed him, "I've had a personal emergency that will necessitate my leaving the office for the day."
He grinned suddenly - a boyish expression that she hadn't seen in far too long. "You probably know New York better than I do at this point," he pointed out.
Peggy reached for her handbag and rather reluctantly withdrew her hand from his. "Not your New York," she retorted. "Half a moment while I phone in." She started to rise, and then paused. "Promise me you won't go while my back's turned."
He looked her straight in the eye and nodded. "I promise."
The phone in the diner was in a little closet back behind the counter, but Angie let her slip back to use it without complaint. She hovered as close as she could, listening shamelessly while Peggy informed the agent on the other end of the wire that a family emergency had arisen, and she'd be unable to come in to work that day.
It wasn't easy to explain that she wouldn't be coming in. Her position as acting chief was a tenuous one, and one she hoped would become permanent. Calling in late like this wouldn't do her standing any favors though.
When Peggy finally put the receiver back on the hook, she felt jittery and nervous from head to toe. In just a few hours her whole life had been turned on its head. She wondered if she went back into the dining area, whether Steve would have disappeared after all, a phantom of her own memory.
"He's some dish, English."
Peggy started at her friend's voice, and spun around to find Angie surveying her intently, head cocked, both hands on her hips. A dish towel dangled from her fingers, nearly touching the ground, and a teasing grin tugged at the corners of her mouth. Somewhat thrown off by the intensity of her friend's regard, Peggy attempted to pull herself together.
"He's an old friend," she admitted. Somehow Steve was seeming less and less real now that he was out of her sight. Her breath felt unsteady.
Angie eyed her. "Right," she said slowly, not bothering to hide her disbelief. "Tell me that again when you don't look like you've seen a ghost."
Well then. Peggy bit her lip and busied herself with her purse so she could hide her face for a moment. "You're sure he isn't a ghost, Angie?"
Angie snorted. "Ghosts don't clean up three orders of bacon, hash browns and eggs, and still look hungry when they're done." She hesitated. "You okay, Peggy? Need a Pepto or something?"
Angie's practicality was exactly what she needed. Peggy took a deep breath, and laughed a little as she looked up at her friend.
"Thank you, Angie," she said. "I'm all right."
And for the first time in longer than she cared to remember, Peggy realized it might actually be true.
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Hi, folks! The world has turned upside down, but I'm still here and so are you! Thought I'd do my part to help make your lives more interesting and give you something to read. :) I know life is crazy right now, and I hope you all are doing okay. I am working from home and keeping busy. I don't see many people though, so feel free to drop a line and say hi! Stay well, and stay safe. You all are important to me.
This chapter was a beast. I've rewritten nearly the entire thing several times, and if I don't post it now, then I never will. Thanks for your patience and support!
Replies to guests:
Sardinecake: Your PM feature is turned off, so I can't reply to your reviews - but I wanted to thank you! You left such kind and lovely reviews on so many of my stories, and they just made my day. :). Thanks tons!
Ryn: Thanks so much for your kind words! I know what you mean - I have a hard time reading stories that pair Steve and Peggy with other people too. And thank you! I'll definitely take a look at that older story of mine and think about publishing it.
DBZFAN45: Thanks for your review! Yes, this is my first time publishing a story that involves the Agent Carter storyline, so hopefully it'll turn out to your satisfaction! Thanks for reading!
Guest (Feb 8): Thank you!
Laughy Taffy: Hi, friend! So good to hear from you. Glad you're enjoying this story! (Also yum - my favorites - thank you!) Hope all is well with you. :)
Guest (Feb 22): Thank you! I am so, so glad you found that chapter endearing and romantic. I liked the lamp post moment too. :D Thank you very much for reading, and for taking the time to drop off a review!
