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Holding Peggy, Steve isn’t sure he’ll be able to let her go.
If it was his call to make, she’d be walking out of here with him, today. His apartment isn’t much, but it’s a damn sight better than a hospital room. And who could possibly know better than him what she needs right now? No one else alive has been through it.
But it was a no-go with the doctor, and with Fury. Steve doesn’t want to push too hard and get his visitation privileges yanked before he’s even had a chance to ask her how she’s doing.
She’s still trembling, her face tucked against his chest. He holds her even tighter, as if he can somehow squeeze the shakes out of her. She feels small, thinner than he remembers, though that could just be his memory playing tricks.
There’s so much he wants to say, but not in front of an audience. So he makes a stupid joke: “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”
When she lifts her head, her face is flushed, in a way that makes it tempting to kiss her cheeks. He pushes that feeling all the way down before it can show on his face.
She smiles thinly. “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, is that it?”
“Something like that.”
“It’s a long story,” she says, sounding exhausted. Her tears have left a dark patch on his lapel.
“Okay. Next time.”
She looks as though she doesn’t quite believe he’s coming back.
“Is there anything you need?”
She looks at him blankly.
“Clothes, or…” He has no idea how to shop for women’s clothes, and he hates to imply that there’s anything wrong with what she’s got on, but he can’t think of another example of something he could bring her. SHIELD has the essentials covered, and all the things he remembers her liking are from a half-century ago and a continent away. “Or anything,” he finishes, stupidly. “Whatever you want. I can bring it.”
She gives the question serious consideration. “Perhaps a newspaper. Or a book, unless they’re very hard to find?” She catches him smiling at her question, and looks a little miffed. “Tony Stark gave me to understand that everyone uses something called e-readers now.”
Steve does, in fact, own an e-reader, though he only uses it to borrow library books on Overdrive. “People still read books,” he assures her. “I’ll bring you a couple.”
“Thank you.”
“Fiction? Non-fiction?” His bookshelf is mostly the latter, but he can go shopping. He remembers her liking English detective novels.
“One of each? They’ve been getting me up to speed here with films, but I can only watch one or two before I feel as though my head’s gone hollow.”
“Yeah. I know how that goes.”
“I’m not quite sure what to make of it all.”
He nods. He remembers that feeling: the wonder and magic of living in a science fiction future, mingled with the most profound sense of loss.
He can’t help wondering what would make Peggy volunteer to leave everything behind—but a part of him is selfishly, desperately glad she did.
“Sometimes I make lists,” he admits.
“Lists?”
“Yeah, I mean—there’s so much. It can be tough to keep it all straight.” He lets her go and rifles in his pocket for the little black notebook he always carries. He flips to one of the less embarrassing pages. “Here, look: movies. Any time someone says to me, ‘you have to see this movie,’ I add it to the list.”
She takes a small step back, hands smoothing over the front of her sweater. “Back to the Future. That sounds instructional.”
“Not as much as you’d think. And only one song-and-dance number in the whole thing.”
“Shocking.” Her smile is real this time, her cheeks dimpling. “Did you ask for your money back?”
And just like that, it hits him: she’s really here. They’re really here, having an ordinary conversation about movies, even if it is under strange circumstances.
It feels good, but it hurts too. It’s like there’s a little piece of him, right at his core, that’s still been frozen all this time—and now it’s thawing, painfully fast, and he can’t remember how to breathe through it.
He doesn’t speak, but something must show on his face. She squeezes his arm gently. “All right?”
“Yeah,” he says at last, hoarsely. “Everything’s great.”