encompass | ᴏᴘᴇɴ ᴘᴏsᴛ 2019-2020 ( ɢᴇɴ + sᴍᴜᴛ )

[ meanwhile, peggy takes a bit more care when decamping to the floor. she manages her pencil skirt with moderate grace, opting to sit with her back against the end of the bed and her legs stretching in front of her - crossed daintily at the ankle.

for a moment, only the sound of the shuffling cards fills the air. ]

I told him to bugger off.

[ a brief pause. ]

He makes it hard to get anything done.

[ too nosy, to presumptive, too rakish. ]

He's being nice.

[ in his own unique way. Steve doesn't need the fuss but it's nice to see Howard and get Belgian chocolates or candy from Morocco. The man travels a lot and he always brings something interesting back. Aside of the terribly milky beverages and his many stories involving women, he's good company. ]

Do you see him very often? He told me you've made friends with his butler.

Nice.

[ she echoes, abandoning any attempt to answer steve's more personal inquiries. ]

The man is a mustachio'd menace.

[ peggy pauses in how she shuffles the card deck, and instead uses the whole pack to gesture firmly in steve's direction. ]

What did he stock your room with, hm? [ implying that he'd very much done so to hers. ] Go on. Tell me.

[ it's impossible to mistake that this is peggy asking the question. agent carter has been shelved for the night. ]

[ it's all very curious. She doesn't answer his question and on the other hand, she asks a question of her own, one that makes him frown in confusion. ]

I have boxes of candy.

[ that's what she means, right? ]

Don't you? He got me chocolates from Belgium and some candy from Morocco and I think I have a few boxes of Turkish delights.

[ more importantly, ]

Why? what did you get?

[ candy. good lord - what the devil has she ever done to incur howard's insufferable charity that steve gets candy and she gets silk? as a result, she doesn't hide her scowl.

but suddenly (tellingly) she can't quite look him in his face. ]

Not candy, that's sure and certain. [ at least not the sort of candy steve describes. ] He didn't leave me anything so useful.

[ she's still trying to decide whether she actually wants to answer the question. ]

[ she's holding more than a few cards to her chest. Steve's eyes glint as he looks at her. He considers his options; it's clear she's hiding something and Steve has to wonder what the hell Howard got her that got her like this.

In the end, he decides he can wait for it. He gestures to the deck. ]

Go on. deal us.

[ peg nudges the cribbage board into the space between them and proceeds to deal out a hand. she can see his curiosity pinging around behind his eyes, and she doesn't quite know whether the answer is worth the fuss. it comes with an implication.

hell, it comes with an expectation. ]

...Want to make the game a little more interesting?

[ speaking of expectations. ]

You know I won't mind but I'm pretty sure I'm broke.

[ He has no idea if the army kept his few savings but either way, even if he has some somewhere, they're not available right here and now. It's easy to be less worried about it when he has this house and food on the table. It'll just have to wait for when they deem him fit to go outside again. ]

I do have a bunch of Turkish delights, if you like those.

Immensely.

[ because peggy carter is exactly the sort of person who enjoys a turkish delight - bottom, mid, or top shelf. makes no difference. but when she thinks about her corresponding riches all silk and straps and trapped in the wardrobe, she realizes she hasn't got all that much to wager in return. ]

But I haven't got much to counter with. Nothing in your size, at any rate.

Hold on.

[ he gets up, quick and graceful and heads to his bedroom. His drawers are stacked full of boxes. He grabs one and two simple handkerchiefs and heads back. He lays them side by side, putting five candies on each one. ]

Winner gets to keep them. How about that?

[ fair deal, surely. ]

Steve Rogers.

[ she practically drawls his name. the hour is too late to be chilly and distant. she misses him too much to switch her emotions off like some sort of lamp or lightbulb.

peggy picks up her hand and eyes the cards. ]

You're too nice for your own good. [ a pause. ] An enterprising individual might have bargained for more than letting me risk what's already his.

Well, they're not mine. I'm giving them to you. Whether you hold onto them or not remains to be seen.

[ he takes his cards and looks at them before smiling at her. Honestly, he'd leave a box for her tomorrow, rested against a tea cup but this, tonight, is different. ]

besides, I have about fifteen other boxes. So about it? do we have a deal?

[ he's happy, he's earnest - it all comes from her softer nature, her banter, her not-as-professional talk. ]

Fifteen.

[ her tone is dull, disbelieving. she's barely had time to register her card-hand, let alone think ahead to any strategies she might employ. ]

Good God. Now I hope he shows his neck 'round here sooner rather than later. So I can wring it.

[ she's oddly envious. cooped up in this house, with him, but he's got all the goodies. it makes her wonder whether howard didn't somehow imagine this exact scenario. ]

You'll cut back on our supplies if you do. Leave Stark alone.

[ it's nice, that they're close friends. Steve is still a little embarrassed about assuming too much about Howard and Peggy. He thinks, he suspects, they're closer friends now that they were in the war. He imagines they must have worked together during the last five years. He doesn't ask, though; maybe he'll hear about it from either of them some day.

They play, it's a chance to have a bit of conversation. Steve comments about the weather, about a book he's reading, about a game he's been listening to on the radio. ]

Have you traveled at all? Howard seems to do that a lot.

Here and there.

[ it's a frustratingly vague answer, she knows. as the game pauses for a bit of chatter, she leans her wrist on her leg - obscuring her card hand. ]

There's some back and forth with the London office - no surprise, really, that they prefer to send me over the pond whenever it's necessary.

[ there was california, too, but that was all rather unpleasant... ]

Howard's really the jetsetter. Me, I'm more than happy to stay put in New York. Put down a root or two. [ a pause. ] I've got a flat. And a flatmate, too.

It must be nice, though, isn't it? seeing England.

[ it's where she was born and raised, after all. Steve often wondered if she were homesick at all. She never said but that has never been an indication - Peggy has always been, after all, a very private person. Every piece of information she offers him is treasured. ]

That's nice. D'you get along? Are you friends?

[ it's odd, thinking about her with a roomer. ]

[ he asks about england and she lets the question slide. glance away, ignored, because she doesn't really know how to answer him. england is home, and always will be, but it doesn't feel the same as it once felt. there's a strain, there, in the carter household. it came in the door the day her brother died.

best not to let the evening turn so dour. instead, she smiles a little. ]

It is. We do. We are.

[ peg taps her ignored card hand against her thigh, just where her skirt hem seems to hitch and give way to silk stockings. ]

Her name is Angie. And, I'm sorry to say, a fan of yours. [ peggy's eyes glimmer. ] If she knew where I was this month and what I was doing? Good Lord, I'd never hear the end of it.

[ steve is interested, he is. Only she's distracting, too. There is a soft sound whern her fingernails touch the cards as she taps them with her fingernails, painted red. And then there's the stockings - he notices them again, they're different.

Still, she's just told him something. Something important, too. ]

She must be pretty great.

[ she's won over Peggy, after all. ]

D'you live in a nice area of town?

It's Manhattan. Theatre district. [ not brooklyn. ] And a nice enough part - not that the rough parts worry me, either.

[ she notices the way his eyes follow other movements, but she tries not to read too hard to long into it. ]

Near the office. Near enough that I can walk.

That's a very nice area.

[ fancier than what steve has ever been able to afford. What must her apartment look like? classy and stylish? small but airy? he doesn't ask, it feels too personal. steve takes his card, looks at them and chances another question, ]

D'you like it? work?

[ she doesn't talk about it too often, even though that's what she's doing with him all these weeks. ]

...There's nothing else I'd rather be doing.

[ it only sort of answers the question. working with the ssr comes with a hundred little headaches, but the victories more than make up for it. she loves her purpose. she loves her grind. she doesn't so much love the people standing shoulder to shoulder with her on any given day, but those things take time to change. ]

Doubly so right now.

[ it's a strain on them, she knows, that her duty is him and he is the subject of her current work. even so, she wouldn't trade it away. she wouldn't want some other agent holed up in here with him. ]

There are worse assignments I could've pulled.

You sure know how to flatter a person.

[ but he takes it as a compliment. He doesn't like to think he's making it difficult for her. It's not simple on either of them but for Peg, it's her job. She's being kind, in her own backhanded compliment sort of way. He wonders what else she does, how much risk she's at. She knows how to take care of herself.

Still, a part of him worries. Maybe it's best that he's her current duty, as much as he would have liked to be something else.

Besides, he likes this, sitting on her carpet, playing cards. ]

Is that what you're after?

[ her toes twitch. her posture stretches, briefly, as though sitting on the floor has become a little more trying. it's not that she's in pain or uncomfortable - it's just that she's become suddenly very aware of how they've never before sat so casually together. ]

A bit of flattery.

[ fuck it. peggy tosses her hand aside and instead reaches for a turkish delight, one of the ones she's meant to be gambling with, and pops it past her lips. ]

I'm not - hey.

[ he laughs but it's far too late for him to reach over and stop her. Steve shakes his head at her. ]

I think you're the one who cheats in cards.

[ he hasn't touched his, after all. ]

I could tell you how considerate a housemate you've been. Or how you make the best pancakes I've ever eaten.

[ she teases him, somehow managing to wield her flattery like a weapon in its own right. peggy reaches for another candy. ]

Or how you look damned good for a man who just spent the last five years of his life on ice.

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