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

[ 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. ]

[ no one smiles at peggy the way steve does—at times both innocent and cajoling. but always, always, always earnest. the very hint of it on his voice is enough to draw her head back, cause her to square her shoulders, and watch him with guarded excitement.

her affection for him holds an arm wrestling match with her curiosity for his circumstances. however-many-minutes left (and counting) and she decides to trust him, to trust that he’ll share his intel when the time and place are right, and for now they ought to enjoy this.

her affection wins. soundly. ]

Do you disagree? [ she challenges (glad to challenge him) and tips her chin. ] Should we instead sit shoulder-to-shoulder and knee to knee and diligently wait out Agent Latimer?

No.

[ he shakes his head, cheeks flushed a light pink. her lipstick is smudged and steve can only guess his own lips carry her color the thought makes him stare at her, utterly speechless before he cups her cheeks ( he wants to touch her, he realizes ) and kisses her, soft and determined. ]

I can knock him out.

[ what, it's utterly harmless. ]

[ the day she lost him—the day they all lost him—is the yardstick against which peggy measures all other losses, all other defeats. likewise, the buoying happiness she feels when he kisses (again, again, again) will no doubt become a benchmark of its own. she hums against his mouth before she tastes him. kissing steve is like kissing a memory: car fumes and crisp air, dragging her straight back to their first kiss.

she draws back and her cheeks are also pink—warm under his hands. her eyes stay bright and wide and fixed on him. she laughs. ]

He’s a good operative. [ peggy argues—but it’s a superficial conversation, settling like a thin sheet over a more important exchange: the way she lays her palm against his chest, searching for a warm heartbeat beneath his clothing. ] I hired him myself—poached him from the Los Angeles office before the SSR disbanded.

[ her next breath is an audible one; it hints at a certain measure of pleasant tension. ]

—But I’ve got a better idea.

[ steve has missed her so much that, at times, it hurt. Now he relishes the little discoveries, how soft her hair is, the scent of her perfume, the chance to look closely at her eyes. He drinks her in, sight and scent and touch. ]

He'll come to in an hour. No harm, no foul.

[ he offers with a small smile. ]

'm listening.

[ peggy scoffs. ]

No harm except for the internal investigation launched by one of ours being conked unconscious on his own turf.

[ he’s darling; he’s lovely; he’s charming the very cynicism out of her voice with just the crook of his smile. peggy sighs, sidles backward until she’s simply sitting beside him once again, and rubs a hand against the back of her neck. ]

I’ll take him his cup of coffee. He’ll be so busy wondering what the devil that means—whether he’s in favour or trouble or both—that he won’t notice you as you slip through the side exit.

That is very confusing.

[ he agrees, smile lingering. It comes to show that perhaps steve, even now, understands how peggy carter seems like a riddle wrapped in am enigma. He takes an empty page, scribbles an address in Brooklyn and places it in her palm. ]

I'll wait for you here.

[ he’s got an address.

in brooklyn.

and peggy can’t sort out whether she’s glad or mad or something else entirely that this slip of paper, this scribbled address, suggests to her that he’s taken time to obtain it. she memorizes the numbers and half-reckons she can visualize the street, the corner, the building from those alone. it’s wishful thinking. ]

—How long since you arrived?

[ slowly, with a measure of grace, she unfolds herself from her perch on the desk. ]

Three days.

[ he already misses her. She moves and he missed her proximity and how warm she was and the way her lipstick tasted. He almost follows but instead offers a bit of information. ]

I wanted to make sure - I didn't want to intrude.

[ on someone else, on perhaps a whole different relationship. ]

Intrude? Intrude on-- [ what? peggy's frown betrays a hint of consternation (or else of disbelief) as she puzzles through whatever earthly reason steve might have had to delay their reunion.

she is already three steps in the direction of the closed door, but this particular revelation is worth turning on her heel. her lips press together (and, yes, he's right, the colour has smudged) and she pauses with one hand on her hip. ]

You wanted to confirm whether or not I'd descended into spinsterhood. [ but she smiles, quick and smirking, as she chooses to reshape her indignation into something lighter, brighter, more playful. ] How downright strategic of you, Captain Rogers.

[ but! now she hesitates... ]

Is it 'captain,' still?

Wanted to make sure I don't ruin something good.

[ steve finds out that he doesn't at all like the sight of her walking away. This feels like a dream - if she walks out she would disappear forever. He wants to crowd her against the door, wants to press close and forget about intel for one night, take it all back and simply stay with her. He realizes that he also owes her many explanations. Torn between the two notions, he decides he'll try to combine the two somehow. ]

You can say that.

[ captain, still. ]

I'll see you in a bit.

[ her snicker leaves her lips like thing, tinny laughter. and a vulnerable patch in her soul wants to tell him that there wasn't ever something good which could be ruined. she doesn't say it, however, for a hundred little reasons. the past isn't worth dwelling on and now isn't the time to tell him all about a failed long-distance relationship with a fellow agent--one she left behind in los angeles when she shifted her attention back onto the east coast during shield's initial days.

no, now isn't the time. nor will it ever be. he's here; he's hers; no one's history matters but theirs. ]

Soon.

[ she promises because she, too, can feel the under-the-skin pain of parting ways with him already, so quickly, right now. peggy drags her teeth over her bottom lip--thinking long and hard about kissing him again--but promptly realizes that if she did that they'd never get out of here.

and she'd never get answers.

so! with a breath to steel herself for this sudden second separation, she ducks out the door. steve is left listening to the sound of her heels retreating down the hall as she heads for the break room to fetch a cup of coffee for agent latimer. ]

[ he sneaks out, quick and quiet. Once he's outside, he fills his lungs with crisp, chilly winter air and realizes he wants to go back and see if, indeed, she's still there.

In the end, he goes back to the apartment. The place is tiny. A small bedroom, a tiny bathroom and a little living room with a fireplace. Steve boils some water for tea and places his jacket on the back of one of the chairs.

And he waits. ]

[ peggy’s plan works. poor agent latimer didn’t seem to know what hit him—suddenly the recipient of a rare cup of coffee, brewed and delivered by none other than the director herself. she was sweet (sweeter than usual) and obliging when she left him his mug, urging him to savour it while he had the chance. and that she would be knocking off “early” tonight, after which both of them chuckled at the irony—given it was already quarter to midnight.

to say the least, latimer had no sweet suspicion that anything might have been amiss with the comings and goings at the base. and peggy, eager for once to be well shot of work, didn’t waste any time loitering behind to find out if any such suspicions developed.

she takes a car—one of howard’s, as there always seems to be a spare hanging about the base—and relies on her familiarity with the city to bring her a block away from the address steve had written down on a piece of paper she still keeps carefully folded in her jacket pocket.

eager (so so eager), she takes the stairs two at a time, even in heels, and has to steel herself a moment before rapping her knuckles sharply against his door. hers is a deep cut: a pattern of knocks that she’d last used long ago, during the war and with him, to identify a howling commando safehouse behind enemy lines. ]

[ it's been a while ( a long while ) since he had to boil water, to make tea like this but it's a nice change - there is a happy whistle from the kettle as her knock comes, wonderfully familiar, intimate and private.

Steve hurries to the door. He started a small fire. He almost wishes he had something nicer to wear than a white t-shirt and jeans. Still, he lets her in and locks the door after her. ]

Hi.

[ he looks overwhelmed, as if this is the first time he's seeing her. The sort of awe that isn't going to go away anytime soon. He hurries to the kitchen. ]

I made some tea. If you'd like.

[ she remains attentive but silent as she steps inside his small, chosen apartment. peggy takes stock--the fire, the table, the drab colour of the walls--and wonders how a man newly landed in a foreign year even manages to afford such a thing after only three days. had he brought funds with him? did he know something she didn't know?

well. evidently, he knows plenty she doesn't--that's one reason why she's here, tonight, with so much expectation welling up beneath her breast. but there are a clutch of other reasons alongside: bittersweet and heartfelt and straining in the back of her throat.

but it takes the sound of the bolt sliding into place behind her before she says anything--speaking after his retreating form as he disappears into the kitchen. ]

Tea would be grand. [ this feels all dream-like. her breath catches and she begins to unbutton her coat. ] Black and hot as hell.

Yes ma'am.

[ easy and natural as that. Steve remembers many nights where they would boil tea over a short-lived fire in east europe or the forests of France. It was black back then, too. seems like that hasn't changed since the end of the war. it's nice, finding out these little things about Peggy.

He busies himself with it for a moment, making two cups of tea, bringing them to the little, old coffee table and taking a seat on the sofa, gesturing for her to sit as well. He can't help but looking at her, it would seem. He's tempted to touch her, her arm, her cheek.

he's promised, however. ]

I'm not sure where to start.

[ she hesitates. unusual, for her. but peggy can’t quite decide whether it’s best to remain standing or whether it’s prudent to take the proffered seat straight beside him on the sofa. her toe taps; her fingers clink near-silently against the edge of a tea-cup she stoops to pick up from the coffee table.

she takes a sip before it’s even had a change to cool a little. the heat is a welcome distraction all the way down her throat. it reignites a fire. ]

Let’s start with why you’re back.

[ she hums. and, tucking her skirt beneath her, takes a seat that positions her once again shoulder-to-shoulder with steve. ]

That's the easiest part.

[ and so he's glad they can start with this. It's a simple question that also has a simple answer ( not all of them do. ) ]

I spend so many years knowing I've missed out on a whole life. I knew I couldn't get it back. I tried to move on, start over.

[ like you told me, he wants to say and doesn't. ]

But when it turned out I could go back - I finished my work and I did. To have a life.

[ it’s a remarkable thing: to him—to hear anyone—so wholly and unabashedly advocate for their own happiness. it’s certainly a hurdle she’s failed to scale on many an occasion. even now, even when confronted by such a fine example, peggy can’t help but feel a funny little twinge of surprise.

she has to ask herself: could she ever have done the same?

but rather than chase that question too far down its rabbit hole, she chooses instead to gulp down another hot mouthful of tea. ]

Quite a feat. [ she answers, quietly, and reflects upon her own guilt stitched into this moment. she’d failed to find him; it takes him, breaking the very rules of the universe, to bridge the chasm separating them both. ] How can I be certain you’re here to stay?

[ a selfish question. it’s hard to say whether she’s asking if the science will stick or, just possibly, if he won’t end up compelled to take up another fight and (in the process) be torn away again. ]

I would have came sooner, if I could.

[ he knows that as sure as he does his name. Once Bucky got a shot at a life, he could have gone back if he had his chance. he looks at her and decides to tell her the truth of it. he promised her, after all. ]

When I woke up and I found out you found SHIELD, that was part of why I joined. One of the first things I did was to look for you. When I got to see you again, it meant the world.

[ he touches the very ends of his fingertips to her palm. ]

I've missed you every day. Even if I could go back, I wouldn't.

[ her tongue clucks at the revelation of so much future- and past-knowledge. it’s a challenge to parse his grammar, his tenses, and for a moment she has to wonder what he means when he says he looked for her. does he mean now?

does he mean then?

peggy raises a hand and rubs, quasi-nervously, at the back of her neck. she’s so so unaccustomed to nervousness—what is it about him and his forthright nature that puts her so squarely on the back foot?

she tries not to let it show. ]

What made it possible? Why now?

[ why not several years ago, why not the very moment after he’d disappeared, why? ]

It's a very long story. You're going to have to bear with me.

[ much of it sounds unbelievable. He tells her there is life out there, in outer space. He tells her about Thor and how much he's helped them, how they named his people gods because of their powers, even though they were not. He tells her about the creation of their universe, about the stones. ]

Peggy - the cube. There is a stone in there. The space stone. If you know how to use it, it can take you anywhere in space.

[ it's...a lot. as if everything else tonight wasn't already fit to overload her with information, steve takes her beat by beat through the last few years. his last few years. although she can tell that he's still hoarding a detail or three to himself. when she senses so--when she hears the tell-tale symptom of a gap in the story--she allows herself to frown.

(and, for a moment, she allows herself to think a little too long and hard about the practical applications of a stone with such power.

peggy downs the rest of her tea and places the empty cup on the table. ]

It's an awful lot to take on faith, Steve. [ but if there's anyone she'd believe... ] Which means it will be a hard sell to anyone else. Barring Howard. Perhaps.

that's not even the crazy part.

[ he admits with a tired smile. Honestly, even as he told her to story he found it hard to believe. ]

I don't know if I should tell the story to anyone else. The stones brought something terrible with them. nobody should ever look for them. the less people know about this, the better.

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