encompass | ᴏᴘᴇɴ ᴘᴏsᴛ 2018+2019 ( ɢᴇɴ + sᴍᴜᴛ )

They won't see me.

[ he nods at her question. He could spend years like this, looking at her this closely. But spending any measure of time with her seems like a wonderful, wonderful gift - one that needs to bs taken advantage of. Besides, he can't simply look at her quietly.

He has to say something but hell, he's tongue tied. ]

Need help finding whatever it is you were looking for?

—You grossly underestimate the sort of impression you make.

[ she murmurs her protest. suggesting, of course, that she simply can't envision a scenario where someone doesn't see him. shoulders like his; gait like his. peggy knows that she could pick him out across a room of five hundred.

(but then again...that's her, isn't it?)

it's a moot argument, however. and one it seems she's already won because he shifts the conversation onto her work. tugging away from one of his hands (albeit not the other) she turns her head and surveys the pile of papers that awaits. ]

An alias. [ she huffs. ] Or what I think will be one. I'll know it when I see it.

[ the implication settles in the air: she's been sifting through pages and pages in the hopes that she might jog her memory. ]

But I wouldn't turn you down if you offered to audit the reports with me. Set aside anything unrelated to the USSR.

[ his lips curve into a smile. Turns out, he takes her first words as a compliment. He doesn't say anything of it, however; simply takes a seat and three piles of files and starts sorting through them, offering her a happy, ]

Yes ma'am.

[ his smile thrills and kills her all at once. it's the same small smirk he'd flashed over a broken radio—one that spoke of well-earned confidence and the assurance that rightness is on his side. steve had taken her critique as a compliment and peggy didn't much mind, really, when she give it some thought.

heaven knows her smile is near identical in reaction to precisely how he says ma'am. seeds start to sow in the in-between places of their conversation. or else it's more accurate to say that old, tired, chilled, hibernating seeds are sprouting anew. ]

Trying to keep an eye on an old—[ what should she call her? ]—adversary. She's notoriously tough to pin down. Russian trained, but long since gone rogue from her handlers. Ever so often she gives me the slip.

[ ...peggy waffles a moment before taking a seat directly beside steve. she reaches for a pile of her own to sort through. ]

Infuriating woman.

Adversary.

[ he echoes, looking up from his papers. A rogue Russian agent could do a fair deal of damage if left to her own devices. He can certainly understand Peggy being invested in this one. ]

You want to bring her in?

Always. It's difficult to get the drop on her.

[ she confesses offhandedly, and in a quieted voice. she makes it appear as though her attention is fixed upon the files in her lap but in reality (and without a doubt) she has every sense of hers, every instinct, trained on him.

her shoulder touches his. she exhales when he exhales. ]

However. [ peg clicks her tongue; her gears are already turning. ] She's never see you coming.

[ she brightens and raises her gaze to steve—so quick, she is, to put him to use. ]

You want me to find her?

[ he seems amused. He thought of a dance maybe a second kiss but doing good work is never something he'll back away from. Especially when he gets to work with her. After all these years, he's missed this, this natural back and forth - it's almost as if no time has passed at all, like muscle memory. ]

Just say the word. I'll read her file, I'll bring her in.

[ she is director peggy carter and can—on any given day—expect a certain level of deference from her staff. it was hard won and in many ways it remains an up hill battle, but she's grown...accustomed to it. but none of it, not a lick of it, compares to the easy collaboration between steve and herself.

yes, she wants to kiss him again. yes, she wants to dance with him. but more than those things (more than anything else) she wants to find their same page. to her quiet delight, it's as easy as opening an old well-loved book to a well-thumbed chapter.

it's a miracle. her chest remains tight. ]

Yes. [ soft; light; lighter than she'd intended to sound. ] That is—soon. You mustn't start right this second.

[ she drops a hand on his—as if suddenly and thoroughly afraid of losing him all over again . peggy laughs. ]

For years and years, Steve, I planned exactly what I'd say and do when I saw you again.

[ when. ]

I'm afraid I can't recall so much as a crumb.

[ there's work ahead of them. There's finding Peggy's Russian adversary, there's finding Bucky, there's HYDRA. the latter two they can talk about once he gets her out of this building, once he's sure they're truly alone.

For now, her hand rests on his. He turns his palm, entwines their fingers, runs his thumb across her knuckles. ]

I know how you feel.

[ it's telling. A shared experience means he's spent years and years thinking of her, too. ]

I'm here. I'm not going anywhere.

[ she wants very much to believe him. how nice it would be, peggy thinks, to be possess his same depth of conviction. but she's lost him before—and as losses went, that one had been the chief informant of her skepticism going forward. it was never a challenge to trust in happiness, only a challenge to trust in it staying.

but she takes comfort in other things: the easy way he takes her hand, the mercy shown when neither of them try too hard to say too much, the assurance that the longing is-was-always-will-be mutual.

peg turns her head to look at the wall clock once more. thirty minutes, yet, until latimer takes his coffee break. she sucks in a breath of air between her teeth and (with an impatient sigh) uses her free hand to slap the file back onto the desk. ]

Nor is Agent Latimer. [ going anywhere. ] Are you quite certain I can't tempt you to tell me what's really afoot? Straight away? Right here?

Dead sure.

[ he is not sure who to trust. He trusts Peggy will, once she knows what they're up against but telling her will have to wait along with a million other things he wants to say - some professional, some wonderfully intimate. ]

I can wait.

[ he says as he picks up another file. He doesn't say it but his smile seems to challenge, can you? ]

[ can she?

patience isn't her strongest suit—but the woman loves a challenge, loves one dearly, and the one he presents with crook of his mouth is all she needs to get her blood pumping once again. his arrival may indeed be a delight and a miracle, but this is her domain. her castle.

peggy untwines their fingers but only so that she can plant her hand on the desk and turn her whole body toward him. head-on.

eyes front. ]

Give us a hint. Something. Anything.

[ she isn't ordinarily this cajoling. at least not by nature. but peggy sees fit to bat a lash and drawl out a vowel if she thinks it might in some capacity soften his resolve. ]

[ he can't talk about the work up ahead but steve supposes there's no harm in telling her a bit about him. He wants to, terribly so. Only - where to begin?? He looks through the files and starts with, ]

2023.

[ he meets her gaze and holds it. ]

That's the year I come from.

[ all her cocksure posturing drains away. and although her stare never leaves his, she can feel how her heart bottoms out in the pit of her stomach. of all the possible explanations—of all the reasons why—this was certainly never one that she and howard had dreamed up on those evenings when they both got a little too drunk and a little too nostalgic. ]

2023.

[ she repeats. and tilts her chin as she does the math. ]

Bollocks. [ peggy's spine straightens. ] If you don't want to tell me where you've been, so be it. There's no need for bad jokes.

[ he shakes his head and reaches for her hand again, squeezes it. ]

I've never lied to you. I'm not about to start now.

[ he didn't take too much with him but he does have his old phone; no reception, no wifi but the pictures stored on it are there. He swipes right and shows them to her, Time's square, central park, different time stamps, 2009, 2014 - a picture of a bleak, grey city reads 2022. ]

I told you. I have a lot to tell you.

[ it's agonizing to sit still and watch him fiddle with the small block (brick?) he removes from a pocket. peggy watches as it sheds light. watches, too, when that light seems to coalesce into impossibly accurate photos. her fingers twitch; she wants her hands on whatever he's got. she is not herself a technologist—but she admires the work of those that are. and this? this, whatever it is, seems ripped straight from howard's wildest imaginings.

time's square. central park. the geography makes sense to her; not all of the architecture does. her intake of breath is audible; heavy; disbelieving, still. ]

...How long has it been?

[ it only now occurs to her that if he's telling the truth (if, if, if) then a separation of decades to her mightn't be the same span of time for him. and at the sight of that sorry bleak city, she finally gives in to temptation and tries to take the device out of his hand.

she wants to scrutinize it. ]

They found me in 2011. So really, it's only been about twelve years.

[ a long time but not as long as the time gap might suggest. He hasn't lived through all these years. Bucky did, he thinks - though hopefully Steve can fix that now. ]

It's a long story.

[ he lets her hold his phone, lets her inspect it. ]

I've missed you.

[ it's probably evident but still. He will say it a thousand times - now that she's here. That he's here. ]

[ questions bubble up in her blood. who was they? where was he found? what did he do for twelve years? how did he find his way back?

but instead of ask one (or any) of these questions, peggy tucks down her chin and focuses instead on the funny, thin little block. as her fingertip skims the surface, the whole image seems to move (swipe) aside before being replaced by another. with a soft noise of surprise, peggy pulls back her finger and inspects first her skin and then the screen.

—she starts to think about the practical applications of steve's knowledge, his experience—

but then he commits to words what has already been communicated in another fashion and—lifting her head—she nods. ]

And you've been missed in turn.

[ most assuredly. ]

Every day. [ she closes her hand around his photography device, ignorant to the reality that it is indeed a phone. ] Perhaps every hour. Hard not to—[ she twirls a finger, indicating the whole base ]—after all, this is where it all began.

[ where we began. ]

They're quite proud of that fact. They put up a sign.

I don't care about them.

[ he says, keeps his eyes fixed on her, taking in her gestures and her expressions. She's so terribly familiar, everything about her seems just right, just as he remembered. It's been years but he knows her as well as she knows him. ]

I'm not here for them.

[ just her. ]

[ her mouth goes dry. drier. it takes a hell of a human being to fix her in place with a look; steve manages—and then some. she holds in her hand a marvel of future technology, a glimmer of what's-to-be, but it might as well be a lump of clay for how unimportant it feels under the weight of his attention.

sod the clock. sod her questions. sod agent latimer. because at long last steve's charm and steve's determination circumnavigates her impatience and her curiosity.

peggy advances on steve in order to claim a second kiss. something fierce and deep and wanting—something that speaks directly to the claim he makes, that his appearance here in this year is a calculated one. he's here for her.

she needn't ask him about his feelings. just as she needn't tell him about hers. it's as good as said with other words and other proofs.. ]

[ he's seen a lot in 12 years. Seen the damage HYDRA left on so many - on Tony, on Bucky, on SHIELD. He'd seen a hole in the sky and a city flies, he'd seen the world falls to its knees and rises again and after that, Steve has decided he's done enough, that he's ready to go back home and live his life, just as Tony and Nat told him to.

Home.

Home isn't Brooklyn, it isn't SHIELD or its agents. It's just her, just Peggy - just the right partner he's been longing for all these years. He's seen so much loss. The world is okay now - Steve is more than ready to just live.

It still takes him by surprise, her moving close again. He had embraced her but she catches his lips with hers and steve forgets to breath for a moment before he drops the file he's holding and pulls her closer, his phone wedged between them. She smells nice, he dares to rest one palm on the small of her back and touch a lock of dark hair with the other. He's never gotten to do this before. ]

[ contrary to certain reports by certain operatives, director peggy carter isn't made of stone. despite being all but married to her work, she's taken a lover here and there in the last handful of years. good men, interesting men, attentive men—but none ever quite measured up to her lost love. kissing them was never like kissing him.

he remained a titan in her heart.

and she kisses him until her lungs burn. her body twists; her fingers grab for the solid certain plane of his side, gripped through the material of his coat. and the touch of his palm on the small of her back is more reassuring (she's quite certain) than anything else she's ever felt.

even after she kisses him, she lets her mouth trail along jaw—heedless of the last few smudges of the day's lipstick. and when she finds the shell of his ear, she tells him: ]

Twenty-seven minutes.

[ until they can slink out of the facility and speak in confidence, in privacy, about anything and everything. ]

[ his mind is blurry. He forgets everything, past and future. all his attention is fixed on the present, on her proximity and the touch of her lips. Steve feels just about ready to put aside his burdens and worries and just feel. He's been thinking and longing for her and just mow, letting her step away seems nearly impossible. With every kiss and touch he assures himself she's there, that he's not too late. Not anymore.

Steve clutches her close, presses a soft kiss to the bridge of her nose and echoes his earlier words ]

I can wait.

[ though he's far more distracted, now. He presses his forehead against hers. ]

So long as you don't move.

[ a tinny, thin-bodied voice—a voice of weakness—asks haven’t we waited long enough? but peggy ignores it. now’s not the time to get greedy. not with the prize in her eyes. not with him solid and present and real—realer than any daydream or nightmare, because he’s made a cameo in both.

so, for once, she’s inclined to listen. she doesn’t move—well, alright, she doesn’t move away. but surely he won’t begrudge her an insistent little tug, hauling him nearer, practically hauling him into her lap just to get at him and sneak another kiss beneath the boundary of his—whatever he’s wearing. she doesn’t spare a single grey cell in processing fashion over processing him. ]

Won’t make any promises. [ her warning is muffled against his throat. ] A modicum of movement might be—necessary.

[ she's fast and serum or not, he can feel that she's also strong. steve remembers how flustered he used to be when she taught him hand-to-hand combat - at her proximity and her passion. just now, at the receiving end of her true passions, he can barely think, can barely remember to breath. she's warm and close and she smells like perfume and shampoo. he holds her close, hand dropping to her knee and squeezing it. ]

necessary?

[ he asks, smiling. ]

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...crawls back weeks later.

eeee!

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