Open RP Post

[womanofvalue]

PSLs welcome

AU extra encouraged

Comments

[womanofvalue]

It's been years. She doesn't know how to get across how much she's been hurt in that time, but she's sure that it likely shows on her face. It's been years of her thinking that Steve is dead and not knowing what to do about it. She hides her gaze by sending her eye contact to the ground, breathing in sharply.

"Will you show me to the bedroom? I'd like to unpack," she says, to avoid allowing herself to break down. There's a mission at hand and she'll lock herself in the washroom in order to let her emotions out later.

[bearstheshield]

"Yeah, of course. Right this way," Steve says. He reaches out and touches her hand, just enough contact to guide her down the hallway, and drops it almost as soon as he does; it's just as electrifying as the first time he'd met her and time hasn't helped. What could help it, honestly? Steve doesn't think anything would change the pull he feels between he and Peggy Carter.

"Look, Peggy, I'm so sorry I broke my promise. That's not the kind of man I am. I'm going to make it up to you, somehow, even if it wasn't my fault. It doesn't matter. I'm the kind of man who sets things right no matter why things went wrong to begin with. I'm going to set this right too."

[womanofvalue]

The moment his hand touches hers, she feels her skin prickle with anticipation and want, the likes of which she thought she'd buried a long time ago. Her grief is warring with her joy and she's not sure where her emotions are landing, only that she's got Steve here alive and she's still too mad to properly appreciate that. She hitches her bag a little tighter and follows after him.

"For the sake of this mission, I think we'd best set the priority of information gathering first," she says, as professionally as she can, though her eyes refuse to move from the curve of his jawline and the plushness of his lips. "That's how we do this right and it means convincing our mark that we're a harmless couple." She eyes him speculatively, smiling with nostalgia. "Your former silhouette would have helped in that."

[bearstheshield]

"I don't think anyone would have believed a guy like me could land a dame like you," Steve says, giving her a little grin and laughing to break the tension. Peggy is right, which isn't surprising, and he draws in a quick breath to help steady himself. They have a mission right now that's more important than anything that lies between the two of them.

"How I look now is probably a lot more believable than how I looked back then."

[womanofvalue]

Peggy starts to fold her clothes and hang the appropriate ones, unable to stop himself from staring at him. It keeps happening, where she stares at him like she's going to lose him again, and when she's done, she ends up sitting on the edge of the bed (the only bed in the room) and reaches out to take his hand in hers.

"Steve," she murmurs, her voice a strangled knot of emotion. "I missed you so much," she murmurs. "I still can't believe that you're here. That you're here with me and we're working together again. And I love every single version of you," she promises. "No matter your height or weight or measurements."

[bearstheshield]

"It's the same for me with you," Steve assures her. He has both her hands in his and he squeezes them lightly, just enjoying the solid weight of them and knowing that he can touch her and look at her as much as he wants and know that she isn't just a memory or a daydream. She's real and she's here and she's his.

"Doesn't matter what you look like, what you carry...it's you that I love. It's always going to be you, for me, no matter the distance or the time apart."

[womanofvalue]

It's such a bittersweet thing to have this and know that now they have to turn around and work. It's so wonderful and yet, she can't forget that she was lied to. She can't forget that he's been hidden away from her. Slipping her hand away from his, all that she can do is wonder how she makes this work.

"Lucky for us, then, that we're meant to play happy families," she says, trying to be bright. "Think you can convince the man that Captain America took a docile, gossipy wife?"

[bearstheshield]

"I think I can. Captain America is Captain America, after all. He wants something nice and normal," Steve says. It's strange to talk about himself in the third person so he shakes his head to clear it and tries to get over the fact that he gets to play husband to Peggy Carter as a matter of work. It's...almost too good to be true.

"Are you fine with having Captain America for a husband? Tights and all?"

[womanofvalue]

How on earth is she ever going to get it through that thick head of his that she loves him for who he is? Peggy holds back the half-irritated, half-fond sigh and tries not to let everything show on her face, because she'd be a terrible spy if she allowed him to see every emotion. "Were you intending to wear the tights in our marriage bed?" she deadpans with a curve of her lips upwards, knowingly using humour to deflect away from the truth.

That there was and is a large part of her that, before the war had ended, had intended to have and hold, to keep Steve Rogers as her husband as an equal and fight alongside him. He would never have made her into the housewife that this assignment requires her to play.

"Do you?" she asks, suddenly. "Want something nice and normal?"

[bearstheshield]

"Sometimes," Steve admits. He wants something nice and normal, yes, but that doesn't mean normal for her while he goes out and saves the world. "Sometimes I want for us to have this right here - to be together, to not have to worry if the other is coming home. I don't think we'd be happy with that, though, and if we got a chance to really make a go of it, I would want it to be on our terms, in our definition of normal."

They've both got scars, wounds from the war and beyond, and he doesn't think that's ever going to fit into a perfect little neighborhood like this. "Sometimes I want a chance to just take you out dancing on a Saturday night."

[womanofvalue]

Peggy rubs her palms up and down her thighs as she thinks about what Steve is saying, about how he wants normal and not-normal all at the same time and how badly she craves that, too. Standing, she begins to work the buttons loose from her skirt, eyeing Steve pointedly and gesturing with her fingers to get him to turn around. "A little privacy," she says, as if they haven't seen each other in next to nothing already.

"We could go dancing, you know. Here," she points out, fetching the nightgown from her valise. "There's a little place not too far and it wouldn't be outside of our cover stories to go dancing on a Saturday night, have the one I was promised and then denied."

[bearstheshield]

Steve turns around and gives her the privacy. They're playing at being married, not actually married, and he owes her every courtesy. They're starting over, more or less, and he shouldn't be seeing her in next to nothing without her express permission.

"I would love to take you dancing. Let's work that into our cover. There's nothing that says we can't have a little fun while we're working."

[womanofvalue]

She feels a chill going down her spine and she knows that it has nothing to do with the cold. After all, the cold would have nothing to do with why she feels the frisson of hope and anticipation as she slides into the creamy silk negligee that covers her from shoulder to knee, with small cap sleeves to keep her comfortable. She clears her throat to give Steve the all clear to turn around as she digs through her things in order to find her curlers, knowing that it will take her mind off everything in order to keep her hands busy.

"Have you learned yet?" Peggy wonders, trying to still her excited, rapidly beating heart. "If I have to bring steel toed heels, I'd appreciate the warning."

[bearstheshield]

"No, not really. You're probably going to want the extra protection," Steve says, turning back around. His throat feels a little tight at seeing her and he's not certain that he'll get through this without telling her exactly how he feels about her in ways that she might not be prepared to hear right now.

He thinks he probably needs a little extra protection for his heart. He's still madly in love with her, as in love with her as he'd been before that last mission and that promise of a dance but he knows a lot of time has passed between now and then. Does she feel the same way?

"Sorry. I didn't have a lot of time for dancing lessons."

[womanofvalue]

She can't help the way that she lowers her head just a little to have Steve's eyes on her so attentively. She's pleased that the clothes are doing the job they are (Rose is surely due for a promotion) and she's rather hopeful that the look in his eyes means only good things for their future, once she gets past the being lied to part.

"What did you do?" she asks, crawling under the covers and patting the space opposite for him to take. "And change, will you? Unless you intend on sleeping in that," she says, eyes roaming over his still terribly attractive body.

[bearstheshield]

"Worked on taking out HYDRA cells that held out after the war," Steve says. He goes to find something to change into as well, strangely shy about changing in front of Peggy when he normally never has a problem changing in front of the men on his team. Times have changed, he guesses, and Peggy still makes him feel like a teenage boy getting his first glimpse at a real woman.

"A lot of solo, tactical missions. I did a lot of field testing for Stark's technology too. He is constantly coming up with new things, Howard, and I'm indestructible enough that they trust me with it."

[womanofvalue]

Peggy doesn't take her eyes off of him, not now that she has him right in front of her. She's still so worried that she's going to blink and he'll vanish right in front of her eyes, before she's even had a chance to reach out and feel as to whether he's real. "Howard comes up with a lot of things that might kill you," she says, her eyes wide with criticism as she thinks of some of the things she'd seen in his lab. "Please tell me you're dredging up someone's common sense to know when not to say yes to Howard," she all but pleads, given how terribly things could go.

[bearstheshield]

"It takes a lot to kill me," Steve says, shrugging one shoulder. "And, up until right now, I didn't know I had one very important reason to live. Now I have a reason to be more cautious than usual so I think I'm going to be saying no to Howard Stark a lot more often. Do you think that's a fair trade, Peggy?"

Steve certainly hopes so.

[womanofvalue]

Peggy knows that there's a mission at hand and it will require their focus, but quite honestly, sitting under the covers of a wide bed with Steve changing into his sleeping clothes and talking about reasons to deny Howard his madder intentions wears down the last band of resistance and she falters, exhaling past her worries and anger. "I'm still cross that you've been alive and didn't tell me," she clarifies. "And you should know that if Howard is missing a limb the next time you speak to him, it's thanks to me."

"Steve, I..." She pauses, not entirely sure what she's meaning to say, because there is so much. "Come here," she says instead, patting the bed in front of her and thinking that perhaps this will be easier if he's next to her.

[bearstheshield]

Steve sits down on the edge of the bed near her. He hasn't made this move up until now mostly because he hasn't wanted to push past Peggy's comfort level but with her invitation, he's glad to follow her.

Everything in his mind is jumbled up. He's wanted to tell her, reach out to her over the past few years but he's been told not to. Now he's in a room and in a house full of everything he wants and not reaching out and taking it is a real struggle. Holding back his emotions is a true struggle.

"Yeah, Peggy? I am sorry. Really sorry. You know how it is when you're torn between duty between a person and country."

[womanofvalue]

Peggy still isn't sure who at the SSR she should simultaneously punch and thank for this assignment, but right now, all that she wants to do is focus on the man in front of her and not the mission. She reaches out past the covers to take Steve's hand with both of hers, making sure that she has his gaze when she locks eyes with him. "I know, Steve," she promises, because she's all too used to having to put her personal life second to place duty first.

Right now, in the shadows of the evening and no one here with them, there is no emergency and she even thinks that she can put aside duty while their mark sleeps the night away. "You mean every bit as much to me as you did during the war," she says, "and I," she exhales, and breathes the words that she's thought since the day his plane went down, "I love you, Steve, with all my heart. I didn't think we were going to ever have a future and now I learn that it's been shortened by duty."

"I know we're going to do this mission well," she vows, determined, "but if you think I'm going to let these days pass without getting all that I can of you before they dispatch you again to wherever they may, then you're as stupid as you are broad," she informs him. "And look how wide that serum has made your shoulders."

[bearstheshield]

Steve lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding and he's just so damned relieved to hear the words pass from her lips. He loves her, too, and it's a precious thing that he's been holding within himself in these years so that he can put one foot in front of the other. He loves his country. He loves his friends. He loves her as much or almost more than both.

His smile widens just a touch and he feels for all the world like the skinny kid that never got a dame to look at him twice instead of the broad, tall, perfect specimen that he is now.

"Well, I know it isn't exactly mission protocol or anything but Peggy, please, can I kiss you?"

[womanofvalue]

"I'd argue that it's perfectly within the mission parametres," Peggy reasons logically, the hint of a dancing smile on the corners of her lips, "if we are supposed to be posing as a married couple, I have to imagine that we ought to become quite comfortable and natural looking while kissing," she notes, though obviously it won't be happening so much when she's in her nightgown (at least, she hopes, you never know with missions). And he's gone and said please, like the perfect boy scout he is.

She grabs a handful of his shirt to give herself some leverage to pull herself in before cupping his cheek and stopping just before she's about to kiss him, the tip of her nose pressed to his. "You are going to take me dancing," she warns him. "Don't think one little kiss and a mission will get you off the hook, Captain."

[bearstheshield]

"I wouldn't dream of trying to get out of dancing. I would be trying to get into dancing," Steve assures her. With permission asked and granted, he leans in and kisses her the way he's been thinking about for years. It feels like he's been waiting his whole life for this in one way or another and he hopes that it feels as good for her as it does for him. Because oh - it feels amazing for him.

Peggy's lips are soft and when he touches his to hers, he deepens the kiss a lot faster than he intended. He's in over his head with this mission and he's hoping that she's level-headed enough to keep him from slipping under.

[womanofvalue]

Peggy lets out a small, soft, suppressed sound of surprise when suddenly Steve is kissing her far deeper than expected, but with absolutely all the passion she feels herself. She hooks her arm around his neck to allow herself some leverage upwards, aiming to challenge and give back as good as she's getting.

Now, the key thing is getting Steve's hands where she wants them. She looses her grip on him so that she can take both of his hands in hers, not breaking the kiss for a moment as she guides both those big hands (she still remembers how small and thin, how deft and nimble they'd looked) to her hips.

Dizzy with the kiss, Peggy worries that she's abusing company time, but she's given her life to the SSR, the least they can do is give her this time back.