#(by which I mean Steve swears like a sailor always but now it's british)

[thesokovianaccords]

a dazzling haze, a mysterious way

It's New Year's Eve. It's a wedding. Of course, there will be dancing. Happy happy holidays from your Steggy Secret Santa @captainjimothycarter! Here's a fluffy moment where Steve and Peggy are happy and dancing and still wreaking just the right amount of havoc. (also on ao3)

“I can’t believe you’re here. I can’t believe you’re still alive, actually.”

Steve grimaced. “Me neither, honestly. I thought there was a chance I’d be turned away at the door. Though I told them I’d be a terrible godfather, so I’m not sure what they expected.”

“Probably not for their four-year-old to pick up some particularly colourful vocabulary from her favourite Uncle Steve.” Sam tilted his head, a smirk ready at the corner of his mouth. “The video is hilarious, though.”

Steve snorted, and then looked around in a panic. “You’re gonna get me in trouble.”

“Oh please, like Tony hasn’t been showing the clip of his mini-me calling a senator a twat to everyone here.”

“Okay, speaking of? Why does everyone assume it was me? Could’ve been Peggy that she picked it up from.” A single skeptical eyebrow from Sam and Steve sighed. “Well, it’s possible.”

“Steve, you’re the one who picked it up from Peggy. She’s more discreet than you—even if she said it first, we both know who Tony and Pepper are going to believe. She probably threw you under the bus.”

He wanted to come to Peggy’s defence, but he knew that Sam was right. Peggy was absolutely ruthless, especially when it came to their goddaughter—and though he’d never admit it (to her or anyone else), it was one of his favourite things about her. 

So instead, he took a gulp of the whiskey she’d handed to him (warning him against stealing the “good stuff” she’d hidden behind the stage) and shifted his weight, subtly changing his line of sight so he could watch the dance floor out of the corner of his eye. The Stark-Potts wedding was years in the making, and New Years Eve was the perfect anniversary for them—with the reception quickly reaching the exact level of pomp and circumstance the date called for. The decorations sparkled, the champagne flowed, and the bride and groom made their rounds attached at the hip. All as it should be.

Despite his joy for his friends reaching this long-awaited milestone, though, he could admit to himself that he was distracted. Not just by dodging Pepper’s glares and Tony’s mocking “language” comments after Morgan’s hot mic moment.

Sam was ranting about something to do with Bucky—Steve was used to faking attention on their ongoing squabbles—when a shimmer of red and a young giggle pulled the rest of his focus. Just in his line of sight, Peggy twirled a laughing Morgan around the dance floor, her stockinged feet flying in the air as they spun, catching the lights reflecting above as they went. 

“Oh, I see how it is,” Sam said, pulling Steve’s focus back from where it usually was, these days. “Predictable.”

Steve shrugged, sheepish. His many denials over the years had been met with disdain, disbelief, and outright mockery from his friends. No point in even trying to maintain a sense of mystery. (Or respectability—Peggy’s words). 

“Dance floor’s heating up. Do you mind—”

“Go on,” Sam said, shaking his head in faux disapproval. “But if you’re leaving me to my sorrows, leave the drink.”

Steve laughed. “It’s your head if it’s all gone—Peggy’s not the only one who knows how to throw someone under a bus.”

With a clap on Sam’s shoulder, Steve walked toward the wooden floor, the many reflected lights of the disco balls dotted around the room spinning around him. The effect was dazzling, and dizzying. Though he couldn’t blame it entirely on the decor.

Peggy’s dark brown curls caught the light as she shifted back and forth, Morgan perched on her feet, both pairs of shoes long abandoned. As Steve made his way through the crowd of other dancers, he caught his goddaughter’s eye and winked. Over the brassy call and response of the band, he caught snippets of a quick back and forth between the two before Morgan stepped down onto the dance floor, dropped into a 

“I seem to have lost my partner,” Peggy said, throwing a wry grin over her shoulder as Steve closed the last few feet between them. With an ease he’d never believed he’d manage, he caught her hand and spun her like one of the mirrorballs around them. 

“I think I overheard something about Uncle Rhodey and a three-tier cake,” he shrugged, pulling Peggy into a light hold as her free palm landed like a brand right where she’d first touched him all those decades ago. Even with those many years, and the infinity of light, thoughtless touches they’d contained, her hand still burned him with the best sort of heat. Like the first time, every time.

“It’ll be hard for you to hide from the bride and groom out here.” She went up on her toes to counteract their differences in height as they stepped apart and together—without her heels, she had lost several of the inches that brought them face-to-face when they danced. “Pepper’s out for blood.”

Steve leaned closer, pulling Peggy in and tapping his forehead against hers. “It’s all about strategy. No one will even notice me standing next to you—you’re glowing.”

Peggy laughed, her head tilting back with the force of it, and Steve was helpless to do anything but follow, dipping her with the slide of the trombone. When he spun them back into step, her cheeks were red and her eyes twinkling. “You are so full of it. I’m wise to your game, Rogers.”

“And what game might that be?”

Peggy tapped his chest again. “I’ve got my eye on you, darling.”

“Good.” The lights spun around them, and he closed his eyes for a moment, confident as he led them in a dance they knew by heart, perfected in dance halls and bars and their cozy kitchen with only the refrigerator light to guide their steps. “That was my plan all along.”