ᴏᴘᴇɴ ᴘᴏsᴛ 2019-2020 ( ɢᴇɴ + sᴍᴜᴛ )

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tony!

[efficacy]

[revokes]

[ it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

With Tony, it's always been a bit of a hit or miss. After he lost his parents around that time of the year and of course, was not very willing to talk about it, each year consisted either him ignoring the holiday altogether or over compensating. Morgan changed things - no father can go ahead and ignore Christmas altogether with a kid but Pepper put her foot down on the over-compensating thing, too since the one year he got the kid a full-sized merry go round.

go figure.

so they've settled on a grand Christmas within certain boundaries. What those boundaries were, well. ]

-- I really don't see why we can't throw her a Frozen themed Christmas. The guys from Disneyland said they wouldn't mind coming over. I'm paying them overtime.

[efficacy]

Honey...

[ There's an air of patient tolerance clinging to every syllable of Pepper's tone, like she's had to explain this several times already. Which she has. Tony's hearing was selective when it came to certain things. She finishes readjusting the bright red ponsettia on the kitchen window sill, turning to snag the oven mitts; the scent of fresh shortbread cookies is filling the air. Snow drifts lazily down behind the window, and with only a couple of weeks left until Christmas, Tony's grand ideas to give Morgan another over the top holiday ramp up steadily. ]

We've been over this, remember? It's too much. The house already looks like every Christmas catalog threw up on it.

[ Albeit conducted with Pepper's discerning taste so it's not too gaudy. She pulls out a tray of cookies from the oven and leaves them to cool on the stovetop, giving Tony a fond smile as she slips the oven mitts off-- already anticipating a counter-argument. ]

And you already spoil her enough as it is.

[revokes]

Oh come on, kid loves Elsa and Elsa's basically you, independent, way too stressed, narrow waist, awesome hair.

[ he lists all those qualities while walking to the holo-table, swiping left to show her a rough sketch of what he has in mind. ]

We could have the whole thing on the roof - snow machines - some of that weird snow man dolls, themed food, disney princesses. Kid could perform Let it Go with Elsa.

[ he points his finger at her. ]

She knows all the lyrics, hun.

[efficacy]

[ Pepper snorts as she turns the oven off, returning dryly, ] Thanks a lot.

[ A long-suffering sigh escapes her at Tony's sketch; he's really been planning this to the T. Not that it surprises her in the least, but it is making it harder for her to turn down without making the Grinch out of herself. She pours them each a mug of warmed, spiced cider and hums in wry amusement. ]

Oh, I know she does. Trust me.

[ They've both been subjected to Frozen directly or indirectly too many times to count. Hell, Pepper knows the lyrics by now, too. Joining Tony by the holotable, she hands him one of the mugs. ]

What happened to good old Santa?

[revokes]

Uh, come on sweetheart.

[ he takes a sip of cider and looks at the flurry little scene on the holotable. ]

what's better - a fat old geezer shoving himself through the chimney without consent or an independent, strong woman with killer hair, a beautiful dress and ice powers? you're the one who said to encourage her to have female idols. Elsa's not even married.

[ just saying. ]

[efficacy]

Just so you know, preying on my feminist beliefs especially in regards with our daughter to get your way is absolutely ruthless.

[ Just saying. She hates it when he's right. Sometimes. Pepper heaves a sigh, shoulders jumping up and down. Morgan does love Frozen and Elsa. There's no way to turn this down without looking like the mean parent. ]

Fine, but this is not going to become a habit, okay? She's not going to grow up expecting her rich parents to just give her what she wants on a silver platter. And you'll better make sure Disney doesn't get wind of this-- they are rich enough without bleeding us for copyright infringement.

[ The Mouse is the worst cutthroat of all. ]

[revokes]

I'm going to take it as a compliment.

[ he presses a soft kiss to her cheek. he knows he's right and he knows when he's about to get his way. ]

I promise. You know I know what's up. I got given everything except for what I wanted.

[ toys, computers, cars but never a hug, never 'I love you'. He made a tentative peace with who his father was and still he aims to do better, to be better for Morgan. ]

And don't diss the mouse, you know I love the mouse.

[efficacy]

You really shouldn't,

[ she retorts without missing a beat, even as she tips her head a little into the kiss and slings her free arm around him, idly rubbing the small of his back through his sweater. A wordless acknowledgement, along with a fleeting sad smile, in response to his words. He's the best dad in the world for Morgan and his extravagances stem from love, but sometimes he does need a little reining back. ]

Oh, I diss the mouse. In less than ten years they'll have bought out every single rival in the entertainment field and every new feature will be just another take on Frozen or re-imagined Star Wars.

[ She smiles sweetly, sipping on her cider. ]

You were joking about the Disneyland guys, right? [ He'd better have. ]

» steve

[mucked]

[ nsfw: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9! ]

[uprightness]

[ may, 1950.

The days are getting warmer and after two weeks, so does Steve. At first, he was still prone to feel the chill every so often, to sleep through the days, to struggle to put on weight. But the serum flushed most of it out of his system by now. At first there was only one other visitor, but Steve hasn't seen Howard in days, even though it is his house.

Mostly, it's him and Peggy. He's been her mission even before he woke up. It's something else, getting to spend all that time with her. Her hair is longer, and he can finally see her in more civilian clothing.

She's bossy as hell, too. ]

--- with all due respect ma'am, I really think they can stop makin' these.

[ howard's crew of mad scientists created a series of milk-like beverages. They helped Steve put on weight.

They were also terrible. He looks at the brand new jars and speaks up, again. She's somewhere above him on the first floor. ]

I'm not drinking these.

[mucked]

[ like a miracle, he'd returned to her. to them. because, by times, peggy still needed to pinch herself and be reminded that he wasn't found and revived and rehabilitated merely for her own sake. there's steve's well-being to be considered. and, beyond that, the investment made by the american military. they wanted every t crossed and i dotted within a full, comprehensive report outlining whether steve rogers is still fit to...well, fit to do anything, really.

so it falls to her. the rest of the howlies are overseas and howard never did have an official title with the ssr - though the agency is quick to take him up on the offer to use his fine country estate, the one with acres and acres of wooded land all around them. privacy for miles. it's a huge, echoing house. it's got enough bedrooms that a family of five could live in the rooms between hers and steve's. still, he feels unbearably close.

- just now, she hears him down in the entrance hall. she might be one floor above him, but she can see him as soon as she leans over the second story balcony. peggy folds her arms on the banister. ]

Drink them. Don't drink them. That's your business. [ except that she'll have to record his reluctance, later, in a fresh series of hand-written notes. ] But at least move the whole lot of them out of the entranceway.

[ these deliveries, these dead drops, were all getting a bit ridiculous. howard mightn't visit as often as he used to, but he damn well interfered. when peggy had first moved into the mansion, she'd opened the wardrobe in her assigned bedroom only to find an array of fine silk lingerie - all somehow perfectly matched to her size. howard had left a little note simply telling to have fun "doing" your duty.

but, thus far, she's managed to keep things awfully professional - barring a wandering eye or two. ]

[uprightness]

[ there she is. Steve smiles as soon as he sees her. It can't be helped, she's captivating in many ways that go beyond physical beauty.

Steve knows he's missed on years at her side. Rationally, he knows Peg might even be seeing someone else. She's a hard professional. Steve tries to melt some of the steel away every so often. ]

Yes ma'am. Thought I'd ask you if you want to try 'em instead of tea.

[ he did make tea. He points to the kettle on the stove before picking up all the boxes and carrying them away. ]

[mucked]

[ she does indeed have her own thawing to do. made a little uneasy by the depth and potency of her own feelings, she's stuffed them down into a lock-box. even so, there's no forgetting the last kiss they shared. no forgetting their tearful goodbye. peggy tries to pretend like it's all business as usual, but they've caught themselves in the middle of longing glances.

it's all she can do to shake her head and bend once again to her clipboard.

but today he's made tea. she hums, standing far far above, and doesn't descend the staircase until he's already gone. upon his return, peggy is entrenched in the kitchen with a cuppa and a stack of garibaldis. she isn't sitting on a chair but, rather, leaning against a counter. ]

...How are you sleeping?

[ she does this, on occasion. simply asks questions before he can charm her fully with his small talk. before he can coax her into a cribbage game. before he can talk her into listening to baseball on the wireless. ]

[uprightness]

[ he thinks a lot about Peggy, in many ways that he shouldn't. In the war, she carried a scent of soap and gun powder, these days she's wearing perfume. Steve likes it, it's rich and aromatic rather than flowery.

Her stockings are nicer, too. He shouldn't be observing her but it stands out. He walks back into the kitchen. Her question makes him smile. ]

Who's askin'?

[mucked]

[ the corners of her mouth twitch upward. it's a sly, near-smile. the only real acknowledgement that he must (at times) chafe under this arrangement. they're not being allowed their natural course, because she can't be just peggy for him.

although, god above, she damn well wants to be. ]

Whoever you'll actually answer. [ she says, sipping her tea between words. ] That's who.

[ she'll set the "uniform" aside for a moment, if he prefers, but it'll all end up in the report anyway. ]

[uprightness]

[ steve figures that as soon as they let him off her leash, they could talk. For now, Peggy is seeing to her duties, perfectly understandable. Steve has his own agenda; he thinks that she might agree that it's understandable too. ]

Like a baby.

[ he reaches for the kettle. The tea is for her. He needs a coffee. ]

[mucked]

[ ...her eyes narrow. it's as if she always knows when he's lying, but she never quite takes him to ask for it. not in so many words. except perhaps to say: ]

Funny. I thought I heard pacing, last night, 'round three o'clock.

[ which only means that she was up and awake, too, though mostly it's because she couldn't quite knock him out of her thoughts. the snow had just begun to recede around the country house and he'd dared to head outside, yesterday, and chop wood for the drawing room fireplace.

she'd watched from a second story window. and, she must confess, her attention had been a little less than professional. ]

nsfw » an au of this same au...

[mucked]

[ howard's requisitioned mansion offers up all sorts of noises during the night. its wooden bones creak and, occasionally, the windows rattle in a stiff breeze. the sounds are comforting enough—even at night—but peggy still has the wireless turned on low as she fills the emptied half of the wardrobe with her actual clothing. as she does so, her thoughts drift back to the previous evening. to steve, piling his arms up with silk. and earlier in the day, how exactly like himself he looked during his run. it's such a delight to have him returned to her, even if she can't quite find the words to tell him so.

they've been stuck here together for weeks and their wheels seem to spin in the same old mud. their eyes speak volumes but protocol continues to get in the way. the only place where she gets the outcome she truly wants is in her imagination, where they both somehow manage to cut through all the words and red tape and taste each other until they're dizzy. she leans a shoulder against the wardrobe, thinking about how they'd sat outside in stark's garden after his run and how she should have grabbed him by his beautiful broad shoulders and hauled him down to earth. she should have locked her legs around his waist. she should have pressed her curious, greedy hands underneath his sweatshirt.

the thought makes her shiver. and tonight, like the handful of nights before it, she gets lost in a version of the day that didn't happen but should have happened. peggy thinks about his arms around her body and his smart mouth on hers. she thinks about that piercing quality in his blue eyes and how very much she'd like to be pierced by him indeed.

—her own hands trail the inside edge of a silk dressing gown. she was so near to going to bed, yes, but one chore followed after another and now she's not certain she'll sleep at all. she holds a palm to her bare stomach beneath the gown, beneath a soft pajama top, and takes a few steps across the floor to half-sit on the edge of the room's desk. heedless of waiting paperwork, she uses the desk to support herself as she thumbs the soft skin of her hip and pictures his running clothes smudged with dirt and grass.

peggy exhales his name. a kind of low, exasperated oh, steve. her hand wanders lower, pawing between her thighs and the barrier of her pajama shorts as she accepts that there won't be any peace tonight until she exorcises this fantasy—plays it through her mind, imagines how it might have gone, and guides herself to a happy-but-insufficient release without him.

her break quickens all alone in her room. ]

[uprightness]

[ it's a slow sort of evening, same as many that came before. They eat dinner, they listen to the radio and they part ways. Steve goes to his bedroom to read, Peggy goes to hers where, steve thinks, she must be filling the day's report on how he's doing.

Only tonight features a restless energy that has always been present but has now grow stronger. Only last night, he carried a pile of lacy underwear from her bedroom and they haven't been far from his mind. She hasn't, either. He thinks about the way she's crossed her ankles as she sat with him on the floor, and the way her tone changed from purely professional to something else, something private. Peggy, rather than Agent Carter.

He reads the same page fifteen times before he decides to call it quits and take a bath. He hears her just as he sinks in the water and nearly slips. He's never really caught a sound from her bedroom before, but just now, he hears her move, a few steps, her deep breaths and something that sounds like his name only it can't be.

surely it can't.

He decides to try and think of something else. After all, she would have called him if she needed something, she would have come knocking. ]

[mucked]

[ she would have tussled with him between the rose and the lilac bushes, she thinks. she would have had him on his back and she would have made him into her throne—sitting astride him with the blue sky above like one giant spectator. she would have finally found the words to explain to him how much she needed him—his frame, his strength, his skin against hers. but also his heart and soul and gumption. she wants every last lick of him. in effect, the mansion has allowed for it (or a version of it) seeing as how it's just him and her. day in and day out.

her knuckles crook and graze the outside of her pajamas. with a huff of breath, she hops a little more fully onto her desk—steadying a bare foot against the chair. and peggy wonders just where his mouth would fall level if he were knelt on her floor.

god, yes. the thought is enough to coax her fingers deeper, beneath the waistband of her pajamas and to toy instead beneath silk. she tests a fingerip against wet, hot folds and mumbles an additional curse. and she considers how many evenings she's spent still in his company when she's gotten this damp and needy and moved. she's been near him too much. all that nearness is going to her head. ]

[uprightness]

[ he soaps his arms when he hears her again. She sighs and swears and steve can hear her as if she were right there in the tub with him. That thought is enough to make him hard, just below the surface of the water. He thinks he can tell what she's doing, if to judge by her low tone but he doesn't dare to overthink it. He shouldn't think about it, about how Peggy must be in the room next door, taking care of herself when Steve has spent weeks wanting to take care of her, himself.

He runs a hand over his face and mutters a soft damn it. She must not realize he can hear her, she must have no clue that she's driving him crazy. ]

[mucked]

[ the irony of this whole endeavour—their bid to chart and quantify the lengths to which he retains his abilities—is that peggy doesn't for an instant think he can hear this. the mansion's got thick enough walls, surely, and steve's always been circumspect enough in the past to downplay that particular skill. nor does she anticipate the odd confluence of which walls abut where and why he might still be awake at this hour.

none of it crosses her mind when she's altogether too busy imagining how worthwhile it would be to rub holes in the knees of her stockings if it meant riding him outside in the garden. then again, it's hard to say what she would make of it if she knew. a very real part of her might revel in holding his attention captive.

she leans back on her desk, one palm thudding against the surface to better support her as she circles a tight bundle of her nerves with a delicate fingertip. the sound is wet and primal and telling. and while she touches herself, she tries to synthesize what she knows about steve's attention to detail to how he might attend to her details.

the thought makes her shiver. she says his name again—rough and wanting. ]

[uprightness]

[ the water's too hot, or maybe it's steve that's running too hot. He hears something that signals of wood, she's not on the bed, that's not the sound of a mattress. He tries to put an image of her, is she sitting in the chair, legs leaned on the little ottoman? he can hear a wet sound and hell, he's hard, he wants -

what? to be the one making Peggy sigh and gasp, to hear everything a little clearer? to help her find an outlet to the same tension he's been feeling for weeks? He leaves the bath, reaches for a towel.

His skin is moist but he pulls his sleep trousers up and makes it all the way to her door before pausing just shy of knocking. he wants and wants, and even now he lingers. ]

[mucked]

[ —with only the door left to muffle her noises, everything comes a little further into focus. the soft squeak of her desk legs as the whole thing shudders; the rustle of a silk robe as she loosens it further, lets it fall off a shoulder; she way her breath has quickened just since he'd left his tub and stalled outside her bedroom.

more than that, the acoustics suggest that she's not exactly facing the doorway, but angled ever-so-slightly away. in the time it had taken him to arrive exactly where he stands, everything had ever so slightly escalated. her sighs betray a rhythmic, penetrated quality—as though the apex of a thrust of fingers never fails to drag a half-moan from her lips. she's enthralled. lost, deep, in imagining the day they'd wished they'd had together.

and as the sounds pitch a little higher, it's obvious she won't last long. if he stays where he stands, he'll hear it all. ]