doctor's orders - sousa

[womanofvalue]

Peggy suspects that jumping right to dinner with Daniel might be a little too much for them, but there's nothing against lunch. Certainly, not when Peggy is also trying to avoid certain appointments so that she's not told something that she already knows -- she's healing slowly because she's pushing too fast and it will never fully feel the way it used to. Still, with her phone on the table, she gives Daniel a brief smile as she excuses herself from the table to freshen up, once she's finished eating. "Order me a tea, please," she says. "Tell them it's for me, they'll prepare it right."

She slides away, but leaves her purse and phone with the knowledge that Daniel will keep them safe. There are still the case files she'd brought for them to discuss and she has high faith that he won't simply leave.

However, what she hadn't anticipated was a very irate nurse sending Peggy a text to the number on file with a very curt message: Ms. Carter, you have missed two appointments. Please be at our offices for 2PM today for your follow up. The tone is angry enough, but the two follow up messages reminding her are no less firm, the last giving a long (as long as possible) explanation of the complications that might arise.

Peggy returns, blissfully unaware, and settles back in her spot. "Did they come by to take the order?" she asks hopefully.

Comments

[ssrsousa]

He hadn't actually meant to look at her phone. He really hadn't. He had planned to just look out the window and order her some tea while she was gone to the powder room. He'd never been a snoop if it wasn't for professional reasons and he didn't want to start now, especially since lunch had gone pretty well, as far as he was concerned. They'd talked about nothing particularly serious, but he always liked spending time with Peggy, even if they weren't saving the world. Especially if they weren't saving the world.

When her phone buzzed and buzzed and buzzed again, he debated for a moment, then looked at it, just in case it was some kind of emergency. It wasn't. Instead, there was something that looked like three little telegrams on the screen, each with a more serious tone.

He didn't know what on earth Peggy had done to herself to need to see a doctor with that kind of urgency and that kind of list of symptoms, but he was pretty sure he wasn't gonna like the explanation.

When she came back, he slid the phone over to her without a word, although he was pretty sure his face was having a whole conversation.

[womanofvalue]

Peggy slides back into her seat, her face the picture of confusion and calm when she catches Daniel looking at her like she's done something. She shakes her head with worry before she sees the little light on her phone blinking accusingly. There aren't many people with her number, so she's expecting a job when she picks it up. What she doesn't expect are the rather angrily-toned messages from the doctor's office.

Palming it, she tucks it away in her purse and lifts her chin to stubbornly set herself up to ignore it. "Did you order my tea?" she patiently repeats, breathing in and out a little faster than before, terribly worried for the impending conversation.

[ssrsousa]

That proud little lift of her chin was Peggy Carter ignoring something, or at least trying to pretend that she was. He'd learned her tells eventually, and she was sure he'd learned his. As much as they all tried to not have them, they did. Some were more subtle than others.

"Yeah, the waitress said it was coming right up," he replied, and continued to look at her. It wasn't like he thought he was gonna break her and this wasn't an interrogation (yet), but he was worried. He was really worried.

[womanofvalue]

Peggy gives a grateful nod, though she does have to wonder if she shouldn't ask for it to be spiked. She nearly gets to the point of turning all the way around to ask if that's possible when the twist makes her pause, go rigid, and then settle back against the booth. Perhaps if she actually went to her appointments and took her drugs, she wouldn't have this lingering pain.

"I'm not allowed to say," is what she lands on. "It contravenes our agreement, as it means I'd be telling you about your future."

[ssrsousa]

He watched her twist and then freeze in what was probably pain before she turned back around and tried to play it off. Because of course she'd tried to play it off.

"My future involves you not going to the doctor when you're supposed to because you got hurt somehow? Somehow I'm finding that hard to believe."

[womanofvalue]

Damn him for being practical and logical and even in all those ways she typically enjoys. She doesn't like it so much when he turns that against her. She presses her lips together and sighs as she checks her watch and then the time of the appointment. "Come on, then," she says, as she fetches out money to pay for her untouched tea and the lunch, sliding into her coat with the grace and ease of a woman who's stubbornly decided what's going to happen now.

"If you want to know, you can come to the appointment," she says. "Besides, I'm fairly sure if I don't go, they will send someone after me."

[ssrsousa]

He wasn't sure he wanted to go to the appointment. He'd had enough of appointments in his life. At the same time, now he was even more worried. Peggy Carter didn't just give in about, well, anything. That she was meant she might be more hurt than even she wanted to admit. And it apparently had something to do with him. What if he'd hurt her? He didn't know if he could look at himself in the mirror if he had.

With all of that information, it didn't take him long to decide that he was going, if only to make sure that she actually went. He levered himself out of the booth and got his crutch arranged with the wool overcoat she'd found for him, then motioned that she should precede him.

"They might. Doctors are picky like that, especially when people skip two appointments in a row."

[womanofvalue]

In her defense, she'd been well enough to continue on missions at home. Perhaps, though, that might have worked against her, seeing as they had been rather hard on the body. Coming here and becoming sedentary couldn't have been good for herself, though she's still adjusting to the healing process. She doesn't know how much he wants to know, is the problem, and there's quite a history to this.

"You're going to have to tell me how much I'm allowed to tell you," she warns. "There are both personal and professional parts to this story."

[ssrsousa]

"There usually are, aren't there?" he asked a little wryly. For people like them that lived in the shadows, personal and professional tended to run into each other, sometimes literally.

"Where's this doctor's office that you're needing to go to? Can we walk or are we gonna need to get a cab?"

[womanofvalue]

She assesses where they are and how far it is, knowing that the appointment is sooner than she likes. "We'll take a cab," she says with a deciding nod, stepping out towards the street in order to hail one, glancing towards Daniel and feeling a touch hopeful that she can start to unravel all the secrets so that she's not holding them so close to her vest. She can't keep it up forever, or she'll feel like she's living a double life, again.

"I'll start with broad strokes. If you're satisfied, I can leave it there."

[ssrsousa]

He did like that the cabs here were often a little easier for him to get in and out of than the cabs in New York. Not always, but often enough that he didn't have some kind of undignified struggle when he was just trying to go somewhere.

"You tell me what you're comfortable telling me and I'll tell you if I'm uncomfortable hearing it, how's that?" he suggested, since he didn't want to push her too much. Pushing Peggy meant she pushed back or even completely shut down.

[womanofvalue]

Peggy helps him into the cab so that she can follow afterwards, settling the skirt of her dress in as she debates where she needs to start this story. "You moved to Los Angeles, became Chief," she begins, because this is factual and rational, no emotions to it. "There was a case that brought me in, thanks to Jack's sending me. The police wrapped it up, but I knew there was more to it and so I took vacation and stayed. It turns out that we were pursuing Whitney Frost, a terrifyingly clever woman hellbent on recreating an experiment that happened by accidental chance at Isodyne."

"She was mad with power," Peggy says, staring straight forward as she handily avoids all comments as to her involvement or Daniel's personal life. "She had absorbed something called zero matter," she murmurs, voice tipped low. "It gave her abilities."

[ssrsousa]

Peggy Carter was a lady, through and through. She could get dirty when she needed to, but then she'd go and take a moment to settle her skirt properly when she sat down. It was one of the things he liked about her.

He did manage not to let himself get too distracted by her legs and instead focus on the story she was telling him, especially since it was sounding complicated. He half-smiled wryly at Jack sending him Peggy, though. Jack probably intended it as a punishment to them both, but Daniel knew he couldn't have been sent a better agent.

"And I'm guessing those abilities didn't include playing the piano by ear," he noted.

[womanofvalue]

"Most certainly not," Peggy says darkly. "Her power was a dark, all-consuming thing. She murdered men, allowed the power to begin driving her mad." She keeps Jason Wilkes out of the story for now because he's not relevant to the case and her injury. When the cab stops, she leans forward to pay, murmuring a grateful comment to the driver before she steps out, waiting patiently for Daniel to follow.

She'll continue the story as they spend their time in the waiting room, though a quick check of her watch informs her that she'll be heading in within the next fifteen minutes.

[ssrsousa]

He only knew of a few people who'd gotten anything like enhanced abilities and done something good with it. Everyone else seemed to have taken it as an opportunity to be the worst person they could be. He wasn't a pessimist, exactly, but it was a little depressing to know that it had continued even in LA.

He followed Peggy out of the cab, then glanced up at the medical office building. The one good thing about doctors' offices was they nearly always had elevators, although he was noticing that a lot more places had those in 2017 anyway.

"Of course she did. And were you one of the people she tried to eliminate on her little rampage?"

[womanofvalue]

"I had to stop her. That was the case," she says, a determined and firm look in her eyes. "She got it in her head that she needed to recreate the initial experiment that created the zero matter, which involved a nuclear warhead," she notes, reaching out to place a hand on Daniel's elbow gently, mostly to steer him out of the way of zooming wheelchairs and other hallway stragglers.

"She got her hands on me and I felt...empty. Emptier than I've ever been. In the process of trying to escape, I fell backwards in a disused factory and landed on a very pointed, long piece of rebar." She gives him a press-lipped look, trying to smile through the memory of that pain, but it's hard.

"It went right through."

[ssrsousa]

It was good that she had a hand on his elbow to keep him out of the way of other people when she told him she'd taken a rebar through her stomach thanks to a madwoman with a nuclear warhead. He knew they needed to get to her appointment and he didn't want her to be late, but he still stopped short and stepped into an alcove.

"Are you telling me you have a rebar hole in your stomach?" he asked in alarm.

[womanofvalue]

Peggy allows herself to be pulled and pushed, going limp in order to allow him to bring her into private. "Yes, a rebar hole is through my torso," she says. "Which is why the doctors have been rather strict about my follow ups. Apparently, I haven't been very good about letting it heal," she says critically, which isn't her fault. She's been doing none of the work she used to, why shouldn't it be healing faster?

"If you would wait fifteen minutes, you can hear all this from a very annoyed doctor," she says, but her eyes scan his face, touched by the concern. She reaches out to lightly fix some stray hair at his temple. "You found me, you know," she says. "You were the one who helped me off of the rebar, got me first aid."

Look at that, she doesn't even have to bring Violet into the story. That's a handy little trick.

[ssrsousa]

They were sharing the alcove with some vending machines that hummed enough to make their conversation less audible to anyone outside of the alcove and he was glad of that.

His first thought was to want to see the wound to confirm for himself that it wasn't in any vital places, but that was both inappropriate and not helpful. At the same time, he didn't want to see it at all. He didn't want to think of Peggy having any more scars.

"The doctor's gonna talk about circulation patterns and healing stages and making sure that the skin doesn't get tight around the scar," he said knowingly, because he'd heard a similar lecture. "That's not gonna tell me that you're alright and that I got you that help fast enough."

It didn't matter how fast it was, it wouldn't have been fast enough. There would have been so much blood and she would have been in so much pain. He was so worried about her that the light touch to his temple barely even registered.

[womanofvalue]

There are times when she thinks that Daniel Sousa is every bit as much of a good man as Steve Rogers ever was and she knows without a doubt that had he been there at Project Rebirth, Erskine would have been hard-pressed to find someone better. She tips her head to one side to smile at him fondly. "You sound as if you've heard the speech before," she notes. "You got my help straightaway and you were there within seconds, I assure you."

"Mr. Jarvis and his wife kept me suitably cared for after," Peggy promises. "I'm walking, talking, breathing," she points out. "Shouldn't all those things indicate that I'm all right?"

[ssrsousa]

He had heard the lecture, and she knew that. He didn't ever want her to have to hear it, though. He knew their job was dangerous and that people did die in the line of duty. He hadn't liked Krzeminski much, but he'd mourned the man when he was killed all the same.

"Walking, talking, and breathing are good signs, but there's a big difference between that and alright," he argued. "But for now, I'll let that part go so we're not late to your appointment."

[womanofvalue]

She doesn't roll her eyes, but it's a close thing. She can't imagine he would ever give Thompson this lecture, but then, she also can't imagine Jack Thompson allowing himself into the field in such a manner. She brings Daniel with her to the check-in and informs the nurse that Peggy Carter is here, much to their surprise. "Daniel is coming in with me," she informs them, in a tone that brooks no argument. She won't have it any other way and the challenging, stubborn glint in her eye also demands that no question be asked.

"You can come this way," the nurse says, offering Peggy a gown. "There's a place to change beside the room, then the doctor will be with you." Peggy takes the awful blue thing and waits, patiently, for the nurse to leave. "Have a seat, I'll come in shortly," she says. "I have to change into the newest fashion."

[ssrsousa]

He hadn't expected her to tell the nurse that she wanted him to come in with her, and he nearly objected in front of the nurse, but decided to have the conversation privately instead of in front of the entire waiting room. He looked like he should be the one visiting the doctor to most of these people, probably.

Once they were in the exam room (which looked a lot like all the other exam rooms he'd been in, although there hadn't been a computer in any of his), he resumed their conversation.

"Peggy, you don't have to have me in here for this. I can wait in the waiting room. I know what it's like to feel a little exposed and vulnerable at the doctor. If you tell me what the doctor says, that's enough for me."

Even if the other version of him had patched her up and maybe even held her hand while she bled all over everything, he wasn't going to presume that he had the right to be here.

[womanofvalue]

Perhaps it might be seen as an intimate gesture, but though Peggy has been repressing those feelings, she also knows that there's a far more practical reason for her insisting as she has. "I don't want to have to repeat everything secondhand while you stare at me as though you don't believe what the doctor has told me," she says, calling over from the curtain as she trades her dress for the large blue wrap. It covers much the same as the dress, but hugs far less than before.

She settles in stocking feet on the bed, knowing that he's seen her through worse. Besides that, if he ever does catch up and wants more, he's going to have to get used to a scratch here and there. "If you're feeling uncomfortable..." she trails off, as if giving him the out.

[ssrsousa]

The level of trust Peggy was showing him was like a punch to the gut, especially when he'd just recently accused her of treason and sleeping with Howard Stark, at least in his time. And now she was having him sit in on a doctor's appointment while she wore nothing except her underwear and a flimsy blue hospital wrap. He'd always felt pretty damn exposed in those and had tried to avoid wearing them as often as possible. Hers actually covered everything it should cover and even opened in the front instead of the back, but it was still a hospital wrap.

"Alright, yeah, I'd probably do that," he admitted. "You and that stiff upper lip, you know?"

He was sort of proud of himself for even managing to tease her a little. He really did want to hear how she was, though, and he had gotten good at interpreting doctorese too. He knew when a doctor was hedging or trying to just be soothing instead of telling the truth.

"I'll stay," he decided, but turned the extra chair a little more towards the wall before he sat down in it. He wasn't quite facing the wall, but he wasn't facing her directly either.