Chapter Text
As she would maintain for many years afterwards, Peggy hadn’t wanted to go to the pub in the first place.
It wasn’t that she disapproved of such amusements. She liked a stiff drink as much as the next field agent (though not, perhaps, as much as Colonel Phillips, who kept a bottle of bourbon at the back of his middle desk drawer for “medicinal purposes”).
And she appreciated that the boys from the 107th invited her along on their madcap outings—not out of a misguided sense of chivalry, or some crack-brained scheme to charm her out of her knickers, but because they genuinely enjoyed her company.
Along with their fearless leader, the three biggest troublemakers of the group were in London for one night to accept an award on behalf of the 107th. Dugan, Barnes, and Morita had been invited to accompany Steve to the award ceremony, but not to any of the PR opportunities that followed. While Steve spent his afternoon posing for pictures with various elected officials, his boys would spend theirs loitering around the SSR’s London headquarters, trying to convince Peggy to come out on the town with them that night.
Peggy was in no mood.
It had been raining in sheets all day, and her umbrella had already given out on the walk in. Her office—little more than an alcove with a door, really—had sprung a leak during the night, which meant she’d arrived that morning to find a stack of finished paperwork completely drenched. Aside from shoving her desk against the wall and putting a rubbish bin under the steady drip, there wasn’t much to be done.
The cavernous underground war room had begun life as the Brompton Road tube station. The station had been shuttered a few short years earlier, in favour of the larger, cleaner, and more modern Knightsbridge. When the war began, much of London’s abandoned underground infrastructure was repurposed as bomb shelters, but the SSR had been quick to claim Brompton Road for their base of operations.
The station had electricity, lifts, and working lavatories, which was about all that could be said in its favour. It was poorly-lit, damp, drafty, and absolutely freezing. Her colleagues wore scarves and gloves at their stations. Everyone (Peggy included) kept discovering urgent reasons to consult with Colonel Phillips, who kept the office’s only kerosene heater under his desk.
Thanks to some especially severe belt-tightening, there was no comfort to be had even in a hot drink: the coffee was dismal sludge, the tea in the communal bucket had been stewed to within an inch of its life, and there was, naturally, no milk or sugar to be found anywhere on the premises.
Peggy had spent most of her day hunched over her typewriter, re-typing nearly twenty pages of reports. Phillips would undoubtedly skim these for two seconds, before they disappeared into the SSR’s vast storehouse of files, never to be seen again.
Her back ached, her hands were numb, and her tea kept going cold before she could finish it. Her feet felt like blocks of ice inside her shoes.
So when the invitations started, Peggy’s polite-but-firm no, thank you was already locked and loaded, and her aim was true.
She hadn’t counted on the boys being either bored or bold enough to try their luck again as a trio, wedging themselves into her office three abreast, with Dugan as the filling in the sandwich.
“I said no, gentlemen.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard this song before,” said Dugan, grinning.
“Me too,” chimed in Barnes. “‘Her lips said no, but her eyes said—’”
“On your bike,” said Peggy curtly.
“She’ll change her tune when we tell her who’s coming,” said Dugan. “Won’t she, boys?”
His companions gave solemn nods.
“Yep,” said Morita, drawing the word out. “She’ll come around pretty quick when she hears that we convinced him.”
Peggy glared at each of them in turn.
“All right,” she said at last. “Who is it?”
“Me, of course,” said Howard, shoving his way in between Morita and Dugan. “See? I told you she’d be excited.”
“Thrilled,” Peggy deadpanned.
“I think she thought we meant someone else,” said Barnes.
“Someone taller,” Dugan agreed.
Howard feigned indignance. “Taller, maybe, but I can guarantee I’m a better dancer. Did you know there’s a leak in your ceiling?” he added helpfully.
“Right. All of you, out.”
The unholy barbershop quartet reluctantly took its leave.
It wasn’t the first time they’d implied that there was something between her and Steve. She didn’t appreciate them doing it within earshot of Colonel Phillips, though she was certain there must be talk already: Steve’s last visit to HQ had ended in a legendary bust-up between them, after she’d interrupted him with Private Lorraine, mid-embrace.
She wasn’t only angry that Steve had kissed someone else. She was angry that he’d kissed a woman he barely knew, after he’d made himself out to be a different sort of man. She’d felt foolish for believing him, for liking him, when he’d told her he was waiting for the right partner.
She was angry that he’d had the nerve, afterwards, to try and brush it aside, pretending it hadn’t meant anything. She’d seen it with her own eyes. If a kiss like that didn’t mean anything, how many others had there been? And how many more would there be while they were apart?
(And, though she’d never admit it, she was angry that Steve appeared to be a decent kisser. She’d long suspected he might be: men who were good with their hands usually were.)
Then, to add insult to injury, he’d brought up Howard’s one-sided flirting—as though she had any control over the invitations and innuendo men chose to pitch at her day after day, as casually and aimlessly as they dropped their litter in the street.
If that was all it took to drive Steve into the arms of another woman, then perhaps it was best that they remained separated by the English Channel for the time being.
*
Peggy applied herself to her work, ignoring any further overtures. As much as she appreciated the inclusion, she didn’t want to spend her evening sitting in a smoky pub, drinking cheap beer and bellowing herself hoarse. She wanted a hot bath and a warm bed. There was only one person she was interested in inviting to join her in either, and even if she hadn’t still been a bit cross with him, the chance of her seeing him at all on this brief visit grew more remote with every hour that passed. His itinerary included supper with Senator Brandt the Strand Palace, and was liable to be a late night—the senator’s aide had also arranged for a room for Steve at the hotel, presumably to avoid cutting their evening short.
She was grateful Steve would have a chance to get a decent meal and a good night’s sleep while he was in London, even if it meant she wouldn’t get to see his preposterously handsome face in person. She knew from the dispatches that he was doing gruelling work, and that he often passed up opportunities for respite so that other men could take leave.
By six, it seemed as though the boys from the 107th had all cleared off at last, along with the rest of the office. Peggy slipped into the women’s locker room to change clothes. Transit to and from home in uniform for women was allowed, but not precisely encouraged—and the uniform had a way of making a person more approachable, which was the very last thing Peggy wanted at the end of her long day.
She quickly tidied her hair, reapplied her lipstick, and refreshed her eau de toilette, before donning her trusty navy shirtwaist dress. It was outdated, slightly threadbare at the cuffs and collar, and not all of the buttons quite matched; however, it was still serviceable, and a decent fit.
Peggy knew that dreary, drab attire was a small sacrifice for such a worthy cause—but she still longed for the day when she could have new dresses every season, with features and embellishments, in colours so rich her mouth watered at the thought.
Daydreams of pleated skirts and pockets carried her all the way back to her desk, where she collected her hat and gloves, and tried to revive her mangled umbrella. A battle-scarred, black-winged beast of burden, it had once belonged to her grandmother, and had been patched and repaired many times over. After a protracted struggle, she finally conceded defeat, and laid it to one side. Perhaps the scrap-man would have some use for it.
Just as she’d started to don her Mackintosh, she heard Barnes’s customary “shave-and-a-haircut” knock on the open door behind her.
She didn’t bother turning around. “For the last time, sod off!” She didn’t often use that kind of language in a professional setting, but if they weren’t going to accept a polite refusal, then—
“Yes, ma’am,” said a familiar voice.
She spun on her heel.
Steve was leaning against the door frame, hands in his pockets. His dress uniform jacket was tucked under his arm, his sleeves rolled up to the elbow. His tie had come loose, his collar unbuttoned, and his hair was mussed, tumbling boyishly over his brow.
He looked, in short, half-undone and entirely ravishing.
All of the sensible reasons she had for keeping her distance suddenly seemed small and remote in comparison.
“Steve,” she said, unnecessarily. “Hello.”
“Hi.” The warm smile he gave her suggested that he hadn’t taken her dismissal personally, at least.
Peggy had imagined this exact scenario an embarrassing number of times: the two of them, in the office after hours, all alone. The fantasies ranged from fairly chaste (teasing, light flirting, an innocent kiss or two) to positively filthy (Steve’s hands roaming her body, his mouth open and demanding against hers).
Looking at him now, her preference was decidedly for the latter option.
Oblivious to the turn her thoughts had taken, Steve asked, “Rough day?”
“Not really, not—” Not anymore, she wanted to say, but clamped her mouth shut just in time. “I didn’t know you were coming in.”
“I’m not here—not officially. I was just gonna leave this on your desk.”
He jiggled a small brown paper packet at her. It took her a moment to recognize it as the portion of sugar from a ration box.
“How on earth did you manage to hang onto that?”
“We’re still getting it in the K-rats. And I like to save mine for a rainy day.”
“It certainly is that,” she conceded, glancing up at the ceiling. “Are you sure you won’t miss it?”
A different sort of man, a smooth operator, would have taken the opportunity to feed her a line: not as much as I’ll miss you, or, how about you just owe me something sweet? But Steve just shrugged, and tucked the packet gently under the corner of her desk blotter.
Peggy was both touched and exasperated.
She knew that in combat, even with no experience, he could be confident, creative, and quick-thinking. He was almost certainly capable of applying that approach in other situations too. But he hadn’t—at least, not with her.
She wanted one romantic overture from him. Just one. A single, unmistakable gesture, something that couldn’t possibly be kindness or friendship or sheer accident.
She felt she deserved at least that.
Still, here he was, along with a packet of sugar that he’d probably gone hungry to save. It wasn’t a passionate embrace, but it counted for something.
And so she smiled, and thanked him, adding, “I’m glad I was here to accept it in person.”
“Me too.”
“I thought you had supper with the senator and his cronies.”
“I told him I had an early start tomorrow. I think he got enough of my time.” His tone made it plain that he would rather have spent his day getting shot at by HYDRA. “I told the guys they ought to ask you to come out with us tonight. I’m sorry if they bothered you.”
“No, it’s fine—I mean, yes, they did, but—” Being half-in and half-out of her coat meant that instead of breezily waving his apology aside, she wound up flapping her sleeve at him, ineffectually.
Obligingly, Steve stepped closer, and held her coat up by the collar.
“Oh,” said Peggy, letting him slip the coat over her shoulders. “Thank you.”
It was a simple gesture, one any kind person would make, and Steve was nothing if not kind. There was absolutely no reason for her heart to be racing, she told herself sternly.
His hand still held her collar; she turned, drawing the circle of his arm around her shoulders, as though they were about to dance.
Up close, she could see the faint dusting of freckles across his nose, the speck of a mole on his cheek. Details that the artists who depicted Captain America always seemed to miss, slight imperfections that belonged only to Steve Rogers. She was strangely tempted to brush her fingertips over them, to prove that they were real, that he was real.
His eyes were wide, his gaze clear blue and bottomless, and she suddenly felt in danger of drowning.
A hard pellet of water hit her cheek, making her jump.
“Don’t tell me it’s raining in here, too,” said Steve, glancing up at the ceiling with his hand outstretched.
“It’s London in April,” she observed, stepping out of the line of fire. “It’s raining everywhere.” She emphasized the point by setting her hat carefully on her head, at an angle that hopefully wouldn’t flatten the few waves she had left.
“Can I walk you to your train?” His look was hopeful.
“Actually, I live just on the other side of the park. It’s quite convenient, provided one owns a decent umbrella. But I was thinking,” she said, against her better judgement, “that I might just pop in for a drink, after all.”
Steve beamed. “Swell.”