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lavellenchanted · 7 years ago

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Before Your Eyes

Steggy Positivity Week | Day 5: Tropes, Kinks or Cliches

No one needs to say what’s going on between Steve and Peggy. They can all see it.

Erskine discovers it because of a fight, and because he has always been perceptive when it comes to other people.

He’s busy going over all the final preparations for the procedure that will, he believes, change the course of the war (there’s no room for false modesty in this), when Phillips appears in the doorway. The colonel looks if possible even more disgruntled than usual and barks out, “If you want that skinny kid to actually get to the injection part, you might want to point out that getting himself beaten to a pulp on a regular basis ain’t going to help.”

Which Erskine understands to mean that Steve Rogers has gotten into yet another altercation with one of his fellow recruits. Not that the official paperwork will say that, of course. Steve doesn’t report whoever it is that he keeps fighting with, and the recruits will close ranks if asked. But they all know where Steve’s “training injuries” are really from.

He makes his way to the medical bay, but stops at the entrance when he realises Steve isn’t alone.

Agent Carter is standing beside the bed, looking down at him, her arms folded and her forehead creased into a frown.

“Tell me,” she’s saying, “are you trying to get yourself killed?”

Steve’s reclining back on the bed. One eye is swollen shut, in a kaleidoscope of blues and purples, and one arm is strapped against his chest. It’s a good thing they’re not planning on performing the final procedure for another week or so, as he doesn’t look in any state to undergo it now. He gives a faint shake of his head and winces. “No, ma’am.”

“I have to tell you, that’s what it looks like.”

“Aw, I can take a few bruises.”

Even from a distance, Erskine tell that Carter is rolling her eyes. “I’d be less concerned if some of the other privates had bruises as well.”

“You’re concerned?”

There’s a pause, only the length of a heartbeat, and when Carter replies her voice is still professional but it’s lost some of the briskness. “I’d like to see you succeed.”

Steve is quiet, shifting on the bed. “I’m not … I know I should probably let some things go, but I’ve never been good at keepin’ my mouth shut when I think something’s wrong.”

As he speaks he leans his head further back, staring at the ceiling, so he doesn’t see Carter’s expression change.

But Erskine’s still watching, and he sees. He sees the tension drain from her body, her shoulders lowering, and he sees her forehead smooth out, the frown disappearing. Her eyes turn soft and warm as they drift over Steve Rogers, and there’s a kind of light in her face, a recognition of something. Erskine wonders if she’s even aware of the way she leans into towards Steve as she answers.

“Believe it or not, I do understand. I’ve never been good at it either.”

“So what do you do about it?”

A smile curls her lips. “I learned to fight back.”

“Hey now. I can throw a few punches, as well as take ‘em.”

“Not effective ones. And we’re going to sort that out as soon as you’re back on your feet.”

Smiling, Erskine turns and starts walking away. He doesn’t want to interrupt them, and he can speak to Steve later.

He doesn’t know if anything will come of it, with the two of them. They’re alike in a lot of ways, but different in as many others and he thinks that even if it doesn’t that perhaps they can still help each other. And privately it’s nice to believe that in the midst of a war, something good can still grow.

***

Phillips sees it all the way through the basic training, because he has two eyes and he’s not an idiot.

He sees it every time the privates pull themselves over a wall or crawl under barbed wire, the way Carter watches with unshakeable focus until Rogers hauls himself up, filthy, bloody and scraped to pieces, but whole, when she takes a breath and nods to herself. He sees it when in the moments between exercises Rogers’ eyes follow Carter across the camp, and how when she’s watching Rogers pushes himself just a little bit harder.

When a couple of the other recruits turn up one morning in inexplicably bruised jaws and moving a little more slowly, he sees the way Rogers and Carter briefly look at each other, and a mingling of pride, satisfaction and something else crosses Carter’s face as she turns back to her work.

To be far, Phillips can’t exactly blame Carter for preferring Rogers to the other recruits. Gilmore Hodge, for example, might be in peak physical condition, probably able to bench press twice Rogers’ weight, but he is, undeniably, an asshole. More than once Phillips has been tempted to punch him himself, but he’s here to train soldiers, not nice people.

Rogers is … nice isn’t the right word for it. He’s got guts, and nerve, and he’s here because he believes it’s the right thing, not because he has dreams of being some kind of national hero. He’s got character the others don’t, even Phillips can admit that.

It’s just too bad he doesn’t think the kid’s strong enough to survive what Erskine wants to put him through.

On the day of the procedure, Phillips shifts uneasily, wondering if they’re about to watch a good kid die in front of them. But he uneasiness is nothing compared to Carter’s.

As it starts, her fingers curl over the metal railing of the observation platform, clutching so tightly that her knuckles turn white. Phillips can feel the tension radiating from her, and he notices out of the corner of his eye the way her jaw clenches when Rogers starts to scream, the faint tremble in her shoulders before she breaks and leans forward to shout at Stark to turn the machine off.

But by God, the damn thing works.

If Phillips hadn’t noticed these things beforehand perhaps, when it all goes to hell, when Erskine’s dead and the project suspended, and Rogers is about to leave with Senator Brandt, perhaps he would have thought it was just the strangeness of having to look up at Rogers that caused the look on Carter’s face.

“It was a pleasure to work with you,” she says to him, holding a hand out.

With his new build, Rogers’ hand engulfs hers when he takes it. Phillips isn’t one for romanticising things, but he thinks you’d have to be blind not to see the way they both still at the touch, eyes locked on each other like no one else is in the room.

“You too. I hope we meet again, Agent Carter.”

When, months later, Phillips is watching a newsreel about the front and he see Carter’s picture inside Roger’s compass, it is no way a surprise to him. And it’s rather amusing the way Carter looks at him as if it might be.

***

Howard figures it out when Peggy asks him to fly a plane into German territory so Captain America can go on an unauthorised rescue mission.

He leans back over the pilot’s seat to make sure they’re ready for take-off, but stops before he says anything. They’re sat opposite each other, Peggy going through what intelligence they have on the base Steve will be infiltrating, but they’re both leaning forward, bodies curved towards each other like magnets drawn inexorably closer. They would barely have to move further to touch each other. He wonders if they’re even aware of it.

It’s partly because he’s convinced that they’re not that he suggests he and Peggy stop for fondue on the way back (well, that and he’s hungry). They’ve fallen silent as they near their destination, but Howard can still feel the tension swirling round them and someone has to say something. So he does.

If his eyes may have been deceiving him before, then his ears certainly aren’t because he hears it – in the faltering way Steve stumbles over his complete misunderstanding of what fondue is, and in the depth of silence that is Peggy’s answer. Looking out over the night sky, face hidden from the pair of them, Howard grins in amusement.

The amusement fades when Steve jumps from the plane. For a fraction of a second Howard glances over his shoulder, but that’s all it takes to see Peggy staring out the door as if she’s contemplating following him. Her profile is very still, her expression composed, but her eyes are bright with hope and fear and a look that Howard has never seen her wear before.

As he turns back to the controls he hears himself saying, “He’ll be okay.”

He doesn’t know why he said it. When Peggy asked him to fly the plane, his first thought was that whatever the serum had done to him, Steve had no experience in the field.

When she answers, her voice is soft and there’s a faith and conviction in it that, somehow, speaks to something deep in Howard’s core. “I know he will be.”

***

If there are two things that Bucky knows well, it’s women and Steve Rogers. So if only one person was going to notice, it would be him.

It takes no time at all to realise they’re attracted to each other. But he can’t say he sees it just because he knows Steve, because, frankly, he’s pretty damn sure the entire 107th sees it when they make it back to the Allied base and despite the fact that everyone’s cheering for Captain America, the only thing Steve and Agent Carter seem to be interested in is making eyes at one another.

It takes longer to realise how deep it goes.

The first inkling comes during a briefing, when Steve starts arguing with Phillips and the rest of Command about which Hydra bases they should be prioritising. He’s drawing himself up, planting his feet, and he may be a lot taller and broader but Bucky has known Steve since they were five years old and he instantly recognise the signs that he’s gearing himself up for a fight.

Sighing, Bucky’s about to step in when Carter moves around the table. She doesn’t say anything, just comes to stand beside him and if Bucky hadn’t been looking for it he might have missed the way the tips of her fingers come to rest over Steve’s on the table.

That’s all it is, only a light touch. Neither of them look at each other, but Steve takes a breath and Bucky doesn’t know if anyone who doesn’t know him would see it but he draws himself back in, restraining himself, and he manages to come to a compromise with Phillips.

It’s only as they walk away that their eyes meet, and Carter’s lips curl with fondness and pride.

Bucky knows for sure in the winter. The Commandos have taken down a base near the Russian border, and retreated back to a safe house before the snow sets in – only to find it already occupied by one Peggy Carter, also returning after an undercover operation.

There’s not much by way of entertainment as the freezing winds batter against the windows and the world outside is obscured by a veil of white, so they pass most of the evening playing cards, drinking and laughing until one by one they finally fall asleep.

Bucky isn’t sure exactly what time it is when he wakes, just that it’s dark and late. Dum-Dum is snoring somewhere off to his right, and he can see Morita and Falsworth curled up nearby. The arm and leg he’s lying on are starting to go numb, so he shifts over – which is when he sees Steve and Peggy on the other side of the room.

They’re both awake, whispering in low voices. Peggy is sat back inside the circle of Steve’s arms, her head resting on his shoulder, and he’s holding a blanket draped around the both of them. Bucky holds his breath, feeling like he’s intruding on a private moment and not wanting them to know he’s awake.

As he watches, Steve lifts Peggy’s hands up towards his mouth and blows on them to warm them up. She gives a gentle, sleepy smile and one finger curls out to trace the edge of Steve’s chin.

“I hate the cold,” she murmurs. “I never appreciated British weather until I came here.”

“When all this is over, we can go somewhere warm,” Steve says, still playing with her hands, lacing their fingers together and rubbing his thumb in circles over her palms.

“Not too warm. One extreme to the other and I’ll just start complaining about the heat.”

“You can pick the place.”

As the whispered conversation continues, Bucky rolls back over, thinking he’s going to have to get used to thinking of them as a ‘we’. Not just Steve any more, but Steve and Peggy.

***

Natasha knew well before she even met Steve.

Or at least, she knew what was in his and Agent Carter’s files. She read Carter’s file back to front when she first joined SHIELD, and she read Rogers’ when he was pulled from the ice and she was told they were going to be working together.

So she knows that Carter was one of the Agents assigned to Project Rebirth, and that that’s where Steve met her. She knows that they worked closely together, that Carter was practically one of the Howling Commandos. She knows that footage shows Rogers carried a picture of Carter with him in the field. She knows that they were involved, although the level of that involvement has been debated since neither of them ever commented on it.

It’s curiosity to know whether he’ll comment on it now – and perhaps, specifically, whether he’ll comment on it to her – and what she might glean from it that, when faced with the pictures of Peggy Carter and Howard Stark in the abandoned training camp prompt her to ask, “Who’s the girl?”

But as she finds out, there’s a difference between knowing and knowing.

Because the look on Steve’s face stops her in the tracks. The emptiness in his eyes, like someone’s taken a knife and carved out everything that matters, everything good, and left him hollow. The twitch in his jaw, barely perceptible as he very deliberately, carefully, keeps his expression blank. The working of his throat as if he’s trying to find words with which to answer but just … can’t. The stillness that comes over him as he stares up at the picture, then turns and walks silently away as if to stay is too much, too unbearable.

That’s when Natasha knows. And when she really understands what it is he lost.

***

If there was anyone that wasn’t aware, there’s no question when Peggy Carter ends up in the twenty first century.

No one knows quite how it happened, other than it seems to have been the result of one of Howard Stark’s experiments gone awry. But they realise it must have already happened, in a sense, because there are sealed records of Carter’s disappearance in in the late forties, covered up by SHIELD and explained by her death on a mission.

She and Steve see each other for the first time in the main lobby of the new Avengers’ headquarters. Peggy’s coming down the stairs after a briefing with Maria Hill just as Steve appears in the main entrance.

They both stop, eyes meeting, and the very room seems to hush, waiting to see what will happen.

“Peggy.” Steve’s voice is quiet, but it carries.

That word is all it takes and then they’re moving towards each other, running, as unstoppable as a river bursting through a broken dam.

Peggy is swept into Steve’s arms, and she wraps hers tightly around him, burying her face into the side of his neck. They cling to each other, laughing and crying, fingers holding as close as possible. When Steve sets Peggy back on her feet their foreheads still press together, lips brushing over cheeks and eyelids and every part that be reached without breaking their embrace.

At Sam’s urging everyone in the room turns aside and gives them some privacy, but they share glances and smiles. No one needs to say anything – after all, it’s all right there to be seen.

#steggyweek2k17 #steggy #steve rogers #peggy carter #steve x peggy #THIS IS SUPER LATE #and also kind of got away from me #but I'm gonna try and get these last ones up before the end of tomorrow #otp: the right partner #my fic

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