7603/Don't You Owe Me a Dance

Don't You Owe Me a Dance
Date of Scene:	23 May 2019
Location:	Operations - The Triskelion
Synopsis:	Peggy comes to ask Steve an important question about a party. They end up laying bar some hard truths. She leaves in an echo of tears and hairspray.
Cast of Characters:	Captain America, Peggy Carter

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Captain America has posed:
The sun's now past the zenith of the sky and still, behind his desk, Steve is toiling away. He's been surprisingly...covert while about the Triskelion today. The break room saw him briefly for a refill of his thermos of coffee and therein lies the proof that he can pull off 'civilian' well enough: jeans over boots and a white t-shirt beneath a blue plaid button-down shirt open to the second grommet. The man is back at his desk now, flipping through a stack of paperwork with a focused frown indenting his brow. Every once and a while, he looks up at the vertical holographic screen that functions as his desktop computer and flicks at it almost dismissively - it moves a corresponding file to a folder and he cross-references the materials to make sure it matches.

Sure, this might be better suited for a secretary or one of the recruits, but the Captain...volunteered for the work. Perhaps it's a way of calming the constant buzzing of his mind, burying himself in the hum-drum that is requisitions forms. His office door is half-open to allow him the chance to see people walking down the hallway of Operations as minor distractions or if they need something from him. On the door's placard: Special Agent - Steve Rogers.

Peggy Carter has posed:
The conversation with Tony, and all those old photos of Howard, it'd kicked up a lot of things for Peggy. So, she went to deal with them as she's been dealing with everything lately -- punching it out in the gym. She went over and over in her head in debate of actually following up on that request to Steve. Daniel was dead decades in this time but it had only been a handful of weeks to her. Sure, Steve was her oldest friend and confidant left in this world, but was it too fast? Then those words Tony said about money and time... Well, she finally talked herself into making the leap.

Before she backed out, and Peggy Carter didn't back down from many things, she asked the Triskelion if Captain Rogers was on board. Sure enough, in his office. So, she makes her way down the long hallways, still slightly sweating from the gym, hands wrapped from the punching bag but knuckles rough and cracked from just how hard she was going. A shower and she might talk out of it all. She takes a deep breath and looks to the door, a crack of a smile crossing her lips as she sees the placard. She still doesn't walk in without invitation, but knocks on the door frame. "Steve...?"

Captain America has posed:
The sight of the Captain almost studiously thumbing through the forms might entice a smile. It's counter to those days long ago where instead, he was standing behind a desk, grim and ready for the next location to hit with all the might and fury of the Howling Commandos.

The cessation of footsteps is a mild warning. The knock and the voice to follow has Steve glancing up through the semi-translucent holographic screen. His expression shifts rapidly through emotions in mild expectation to transparent surprise to a careful schooling to professionalism. A page is frozen pinched between thumb and forefinger as he swallows.

"Peggy, hey." Old habits die hard. You stand up when a lady walks into the room, especially Agent Carter. Pushing back his rolling chair, the man rises to his feet and comes around from behind the desk, abandoning his work entirely. His mouth shapes 'you' before he falls silent again, realizing that she's definitely alright - just been at the gym, by the looks of things. "Good workout?" he asks as nonchalantly as he can manage, hooking his thumbs on the pockets of his jeans as he stands before her at a comfortable distance.

Peggy Carter has posed:
It certainly was a flip of old times, when he'd have been off training or in the field and Peggy was the one behind desk with typewriter ink stained fingers. She's now the one in training sweats and scuffed knuckles while he's got the desk. She quirks a brow at that thought but smiles a bit wider as she comes in the room, giving it a once over. "They finally gave you your own office, hmm? Do be careful, it's a trap. They'll expect you to be doing paperwork every day now." She nods to whatever papers he had beek going through, her smile clearly on the edge of teasing.

"...good enough. I won't say I've been... Slacking. But before the last few weeks, I certainly spent more time in an office than on a field. It feels good to get back to it. Directorship was a leash." She never minced words in the past and that hasn't changed. Out of that ridiculous suit, having been training and back to active duty, she somehow looks a handful of years younger than even when she first tumbled from that strange device. Or maybe it's just the fact she has her hair tied back like she used to when they ran with the commandos, instead of down in office-appropriate stylized waves. "How... How are you holding... Up?" Oh no. The determination has slightly melted to now-awkward small talk. Just seeing him there in jeans, standing like that, trying to be non-chalant. It's enough to throw her mind all askew.

Captain America has posed:
At her comment in regards to his current abode, Steve glances around as if he half-came to the realization that it is, indeed, his office, placard and all. A soft laugh escapes him, the smile at least passing over his lips before it melts away into something more appropriate and polite. Still, he listens, and very carefully keeps his attention upon Peggy's face rather than letting it wander. She's...glowing, though only a candle-watt's worth -- and it's plainly not fair.

However, watching the woman's composure collapse a little has him feeling both mollified and mortified. It flickers through his brows despite his attempt to remain stoic. A little sigh. "Oh, well..." A hand rises to rub behind his ear as he looks to one side and then back to his desk again. "Good, I guess. You're not wrong. 'm expected to look over materials at least a few times a week. They don't have me chained to the desk yet. Dunno how you ever did it," he offers with a weak laugh. Immediately after, his lips pull to one side; that was dumb, Steve, good job.

He recovers and flicks his brows up. "So...how're you holding up?" If it seems like he's holding his breath, he is. It's a hell of a question to ask and he knows it.

Peggy Carter has posed:
"I'm... holding up." Peggy echoes, utterly lacking any real information except for the fact that she's been bruising her knuckles raw on a punching bag routinely and that's probably not a great sign. But then, it's an echo of someone else in this room when he first returned, so maybe it's not a surprise. A heartbeat later, a little, half cracked laugh just suddenly breaks free of her throat and she pushes one hand back through her sweaty hair. "...Well... we've really... Mucked this up, haven't we? Can't even stand in the same bloody room together..." Thirty years in the US and she still talks like she's come right out of north London.

"...I'm... not great. Every time the shock wears off, part of me just wants to scream, but it's better to hit things so I go do that. Eventually I get to sleep. Wake up the next morning, go through it all again. The mission will help. Time... will help more. I'm sure you understand... well, almost more than anyone." She confesses quietly, her smile not reaching her eyes but the expression was more honest than anything else she'd painted on coming in here. She couldn't keep up the lies, not to him. Not very long at all.

Captain America has posed:
A low-burning pain takes up residence behind his sternum. It's not Barnes' old gunshot wound acting up. The immense wave of empathy can be seen to wash through Steve's eyes, greying them out to an extent. He can barely make himself keep up the shared gaze, dark and infinitely sad as Peggy's eyes are. Boots make soft scuffs on the office-carpeted flooring as he fidgets; the tingling up the middle of his back is dismissed with a subtle tightening of his shoulders in a roll. He defies the want to simply turn around and hop out the nearest window. It'd be so much easier, but this? This is ripping stitches. They've got to come out.

"Wish I had some wisdom for you," the Captain begins, his voice low and hollow in places. "But like you said, it's time. Time and...a support system. Something to do," he gestures at his desk along with a glance to the piled papers. "Someone to talk to." His throat can be seen to bobble. His gaze drags up off the floor and to her face again. "Things to hit." It's a pale attempt at humor at best. "I do understand."

He does and somehow, it still feels like it's not enough.

Peggy Carter has posed:
"...You know, I... I don't know if I was any better a mother than Howard was a father. And I know he was shite. I saw it in Tony's eyes. I know how Howard worked. He didn't change. I... worked that much too. Missed that many dinners. Always justified it because I was keeping them... Safe. Making the world a better place. It was important. We'd have time in retirement. There'd be time..." Peggy breathes out faintly. And then their wasn't. She drags one hand across her face, not quite having been able to meet his eyes but now she forces herself to look up to those baby blues. The one set of eyes she never thought she'd see again. She takes a slightly shuddering breath.

"And now there isn't. I got time back here... I thought I'd lost forever. And... lost so much else. I swing between being... over the moon and being utterly devestated and I just... I don't know what to *do*. What to do with it... about it. Dammit, Steve... None of this makes sense." Her breath catches again. She's not crying, not fully, but there's that glassiness in her eyes that she's been fighting to not even acknowledge. It's probably the first time she's let herself voice these words since waking up fifty years later.

Captain America has posed:
Thank god she's not looking dead into Steve's eyes as she begins to explain. It's like body shots, the minute flinches that each revelation and reminder lands on him and his psyche. Mother -- Tony's eyes -- retirement -- and with severe effort, he does his best to tighten up his composure when those glossy dark eyes rise to his again. Barnes would recognize the fragility of his mask in a heartbeat, and the Captain silently prays that he makes it through this encounter without saying something idiotic.

"No...it doesn't make any sense." His voice is still no louder than before. His shoulders have slowly slumped, losing their rigid tension in the war between uncertain discomfort and pained understanding. "It won't...not for a while." This has the feel of a terminal diagnosis, in a way. "Took me a few honest fights to find my place 'nd sometimes... Sometimes I'm reminded that nothing's the same. 'nd that won't ever go away." He doesn't offer her a napkin, tissue, handkerchief, not just yet, because memory reminds him that Peggy Carter is made of steel and Kevlar.

Peggy Carter has posed:
A faint, slightly shakey nod comes in turn to his words. Her throat so tight she can't even speak a heartbeat or two. But he was right, and he'd understand if anyone did. He was right. She breathes in deeply through her nose and stares up at the ceiling for a moment as she composes herself. Never let'em see you cry. A crackled, strangle of a laugh finally breaks the shaking silence. "You know...I came in here to ask you to dance. Tony's birthday party... he's having a party, and I was... I was going to invite you. You still do owe me a dance, Steve Rogers. But... It'd feel awful, you know? Going off to a party, having fun with you... being... Happy, when they're gone? They're just gone. You... don't deserve that. Neither of us do."

Captain America has posed:
As if someone had slammed a pole to his own steel spine, Steve Roger's stance takes up a ringing stillness. It'll become apparent very quickly that another step onto a delicately fragile surface has been taken. His blue eyes slide to one side and then close; the proud profile of his face takes up a passing anguish as if he's beating a reaction down within himself -- beating it down and down and down until it's merely acid reflux and not words spilling from his lips willy-nilly.

Lips are licked, dry and now wetted and it changes nothing. "Nope. Neither of us do. I..." One of his hands drags down his mouth as he looks at the joining of carpeting to boring beige office wall. "I'm with someone and I can't do that to 'em, Peggy. 'nd I'm sorry. I'm sorry as all hell. It'd be like..."

No, it wouldn't be like straying from Daniel, he's dead.

"'m sorry," the man breathes, his lips then compressed into a thin, miserable line. Still, he has the gumption to at least bring his eyes back to Peggy's face again, because if anything, he'll face the consequences of his decision with them open.

Peggy Carter has posed:
"Oh." It's just another shock. It really shouldn't be, Peggy knew just how wonderful he was and how long they'd all been gone. But, for a moment, it's a tablespoon of salt in a whole bunch of open wounds. She stares at him, utterly emotionless for a handful of moments as her mind processes what he's said. Finally, she gives a slow nod. "Of... of course. I don't... How silly of me, to have assumed. I'm glad, Steve... No one deserves to be lonely. No one. Whomever she is, she's a lucky woman." Peggy offers with a numb sort of smile, but her words don't feel like lies. She means them, even if she's in shock. She still wouldn't lie to him.

She looks down a moment and just starts walking away, but deeper into his office, not into the hall. She walks over to those windows, her body trembling ever so slightly that it might not even be visible. She stares out at the evening, hands leaning on that window sill, gathering every last bit of composure she can against a flood of emotions she cannot sort. "...I love you, Steve. I always will. Nothing stopped that. Nothing will. Even marrying Daniel... I love him too. Loved... him. Both can exist in the same space. This isn't some... Fairy story where there is only one. People lose people. We move on. It doesn't change what was."

Captain America has posed:
Thank god she walks -- even if it's to put distance between them that feels as if someone's pulling his heartstrings one by one until they're strained to snapping. Peggy's attempt at a smile batters him like iron butterfly wings in a hurricane and leaves him looking so very much older about his eyes. He watches her shadow lengthen into view within the fall of the sunlight through panes with an oblique glance, wondering if it would be possible to simply melt through the floor itself and disappear. The Doctor knows how to do it. Why can't he?

The admission from her has Steve staring at the back of her back hair, pulled up and curling underneath at her nape from sweat and effort. His eyes fall to the bandages around her knuckles and linger; they blur out before he blinks hard a few times and wrenches himself back.

"No." It falls like a stone from his lips. "Nothing changes. I..." It's not a laugh, more of a quiet choke. "Y'know, I planned on proposing to you...once it was all said 'nd done. The war. HYDRA." He lifts his chin up from the futile tuck, an unconscious attempt to curl away from this necessary cruelty inflicted upon them both. "But nothing's done. Not yet. And nothing's changed because of it. There's always gonna be a space in my heart for you."

Peggy Carter has posed:
The silence weighs more than one of Howard's double decker airplanes. Peggy stands there, dead still, not even breathing for a few moments as he mentions the proposal. It was not a thing she ever expected to hear. Her head sinks forward, so her forehead and the tip of her nose rests against the glass of the window as her eyes shut and she just lets a few of those silent tears cut their way down her cheek.

She shouldn't feel as if she's lost twice. Daniel had a good life. Steve had a happy one, a woman, another life. Somehow, she still feels as if she's lost that chance at happiness now twice over. "...I... didn't know." She whispers so faintly that it might only be his super soldier hearing that lets him understand the words at all.

Captain America has posed:
"Pegs..."

He catches the wisp-thin reply and it draws him a few steps closer to her. Hands rise as if he'd do something -- anything -- to take back what he just said -- and linger there uselessly before his chest in the dwindling light of the sun pouring on to them. Somehow, it's still cold and he's still shaking inside.

"Pegs, you couldn't have," Steve forges on, his voice thick. "I was...'nd the plane...'nd look, I'm...I'm an idiot. Look, 'm sorry. I wasn't there for you 'nd I should've been. 'm here now though, for...for what comfort that stupid sentiment's worth." He sighs harder, the air ripping through his tight throat. "'m sorry, just...should've said nothing."

Still, grasping at hope like a dying man, he adds, "Peggy, you...you still have a place in my heart. Nothing's changed there. Look...can't..."

Peggy Carter has posed:
As he stumbles over more words and keeps trying to fix the wound he's firmly ripped open, Peggy finally turns on the ball of her foot and full front faces him. Her face is splotched with tears and her nose a touch red, but it's not into full on ugly cry yet. Peggy never lets herself cry like that, not when anyone might be anywhere near. Even as she stares up at him, those last few seconds of static on a radio playing through her head on loop. An echo of the first time she had to say good bye.

"Steve..." It's not a question this time. She knows he's there -- impossibly there. But she's still lost a part of him, lost that chance they might have had. "Loving each other is... different... Than being *in love*. Different than... getting a second chance at what was. That's gone. I... understand it's gone. You've got someone and she's the luckiest girl in the world. I had a life myself... I said goodbye, but it's gone now... And you standing there changes *nothing*. It's just... " She wants to say more. Wants to scream about how unfair it is, how the loss is somehow twice felt, but she doesn't. He doesn't deserve that. She just shakes her head slowly again, "I'm... sorry..." And then moves to try to step around him and to the door. She needs to get out of that office before she says another damn thing.

Captain America has posed:
The pain of never again being able to live in precious naivity takes him at the throat. It closes off as Steve looks into her dark eyes and something in him falls dreadfully still and quiet.

//No, it's not gone,// he wants to say. But doesn't.

//I can be your second chance, Peggy,// is on the tip of his tongue. But it never leaves his lips.

Instead, her words echo in him, hollow as he's gone. The room bleeds away to the bombed-out bar in London. Again, her words resonate and now, he's choked by them.

She moves too fast for his stunned mind to process, a blur in her workout gear and dark hair and tear-smudged face. For all the serum might have been Erskine's greatest triumph, right now, he's just human. Turning in place, Steve watches her approach the doorway and whispers on a breath, "'m sorry too...'nd I still love you."

Peggy Carter has posed:
Either she didn't hear him or she can't bring herself to turn back. Not being a super soldier herself, even if she still looks supiciously young, maybe she just didn't hear it. But she's still walking on, fast down the hall, not quite certain where she's escaping to but knowing she has to escape. It's just too much. The missed proposal, the missed second chance... The loss of her last life. For the moment, it's simply too much, even for Peggy Carter. She rounds the corner down the hall and her footsteps disappear off into the evening unless he'd run to catch up with her, instead leaving him with nothing but her fingers and nose print on his window and the faint smell of her sweat and perfume on the air.

And hairspray. The faint scent of her hairspray in sweat damp hair. The same as it's been since 1943.