driftfleet | ᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡɪɴᴅᴏᴡ, sᴡᴇᴇᴛ ɪs ᴛʜᴇ ɴɪɢʜᴛ-ᴀɪʀ ( ᴏᴘᴇɴ )

[ she is getting better.

This planet is far more welcoming than the moon and it doesn't take Steve long to understand she will do much better at the inn than in the captain's quarters aboard the Starstuck. The air is clear and the place is decent.

She finds him one early morning before he leaves for his jog and he knows better than to argue, especially when he knows she is right. A bit of a walk might do her a world of good and so he supports her as they make their way to the beach, her weight against him and his arm around her.

It's not so hot now, the sky is a mixture of oranges that quickly change to blue as he runs, welcoming a new day.

He is well aware of her even as he runs, not as closely as he was when she leaned against him but he casts a look in her direction every now and then and is perhaps a little relieved to return to her side after he has run a satisfactory number of rounds. ]

Gotta keep in shape somehow.

[ said with a smile as he leans to pick up one of those stones and look at it ]

That's a pretty keepsake.

[ the distance between them feels electric. on many a day, the air is charged when she speaks with captain rogers -- but today, it's taken on a different kind of energy. there had been a peace and an understanding between the pair of them, on their walk down to the shore, that could only have been born from the natural phenomenon of the planet. they had been warned against it, and yet they'd held onto each other all the same. as of yet, no memories have leaked through. but emotions have -- mutual ones.

she watches him inspect her stones and sticks. ] Maybe. If I keep them, they will be. [ she hasn't yet decided. ]

[ he wants to think that if they had to stay here for the rest of their time, that he would have held her close for hours with no worries about what she would see. There are things, however, burdens that he would not wish on her shoulders. Truths he had never spoken to her as they would only sting. Sitting by her bed 70 years from the day of their parting, I couldn't leave my best girl, her image in a terrible dream, coaxing him to come home with her and disappearing a moment later when he finds out he could not even imagine the future they've lost, the thought of it too painful.

What he feels, all of it, it is hers. The longing and the love and how happy she makes him simply by being, simply by her familiarity and closeness and how wary he is to lose her again.

How much of it leaked out, he isn't certain but doesn't mind it, either. Most of it must already be known. ]

The stones we can put in a jar with some shells. Might do for decoration.

Decoration! [ she smiles. ] We're decorating now, are we?

[ his capacity for spirit, for optimism, and for the way forward never ceases to amaze her. peggy reaches for a particularly appealing stone: flat, black, and matte. she turns it over between her fingers. ] Alright. We'll store up some stones like good thoughts in a jar. Staring with this one.

[ she holds it out to him. ]

[ she lights up and he has to smile when she does. He knows of her work from what files and historic archives had shown him but what affect it had on her, the details of it are a mystery. She is different than the Peggy Carter of his memories but then she smiles and it's as if nothing has changed. ]

Starting with this one.

[ he echoes, reaching to take it, fingers brushing against hers. He can sense the moment her feelings flow to him but doesn't pull back, not for a long moment. They're something to cherish, after all. ]

The one there isn't bad - probably a keeper.

[ an old one with spots but he picks it, still. ]

[ when their hands brush, it's like signing a covenant: putting stones in a jar is like saving up goodwill for the future. one that cannot exist at home, but which might dog them in the shadows of the fleet. happiness they can bask as it shines just out of step, a few yards ahead of them. together, but not. happy, but only because of an absence of grief. ]

I like it, in spite of itself. Here -- [ she reaches forward and deposits both in separate pile -- nearer his knee. ]

[ for a moment he thinks this could have been it. If fate hadn't robbed them of a dance and a future, they could have been sitting at some beach collecting stones and shells to take home. Rather then allowing the pang of sadness in, however, he expels it. For all that has happened, there is here, there is him and her and a growing pile of stones and not being happy with the chance of having it is a mistake he refuses to make.

His eyes scan the shore and he rises only to return with a large seashell shaped like a spiral. ]

There. That should do the trick.

Our makeshift jar? For the time being? [ there are moments when she doesn't need to be touching his hand to understand his intentions -- or to read the subtle flickers in his eyes, in his lips. peggy adds a bright blue and emptied mussel shell to the collection. ]

Mmhmm.

[ a hum. It has been his theory for quite some time that he's an open book to her, regardless of the planet. He looks at the shell she chose, the striking color of it and smiles ]

That's the nicest one yet.

All it lacks is a star. [ it is vaguely shield-like, isn't it? a little shield-shaped shell. the sensitive sentiment of it all almost makes her sick to her stomach, and yet it feels a lot less puerile when its shared between the pair of them. ]

[ he looks it, reaches to take it and turn it between his fingers before placing it down again ]

Doesn't seem like they'll need Captain America, here.

[ it's so quiet, after all. He used to imagine what the world would look like after the war, the measure of peace it might find. he may have never seen the world end but the after didn't quite meet the expectations. ]

It's quiet.

[ and it's welcomed as well as it can be unsettling. ]

Maybe less so the man, [ she admits -- a shady borderless they of the fleet who don't need him like she needs him. but then again, it was never captain america she needed. it was always steve rogers. ]

But the idea never goes amiss. And your Avengers are here -- some of them. They need you, I suspect. Wherever we are.

[ he sighs a bit. this, talking like this with her, with peggy it always seems easier to voice thoughts out, uncertainties that he won't easily bring up with many others. maybe it all started with their conversation in the rainy military camp after his less than successful performance and carried through to him voicing his thoughts to her 70 years later. ]

you know, it'd be a lot easier if all we needed to do here is fight invading aliens on planets. At least then, I'd had a plan.

Spoiling for a fight? [ -- but she understood the feeling. when she'd been here about as long as he had, all she'd wanted was a reason to throw a punch. and it happened on the dusty moon, over poker. and afterwards, she'd felt a little better.

but the feeling just came back. ] Afraid I can't help you with that one. I'm tapped out for the time being, Rogers.

[ a slow, humourless smile. ]

Not something I should wish for.

[ he tries to put aside ultron's words, of captain america who can't live without war. They're not entirely false but they're not a hard truth either. Instead, he reaches a hand to place near hers, the sidelines of their palms touching but only barely so. ]

You're doing good. In a few weeks you could try for a few rounds yourself.

'Gainst a wet paper bag, maybe. [ she breathes out. ] I underestimated his strength, you know.

[ which means she's likely also underestimated steve's, as well. and that's a strange concept. ]

It makes me balk a little at the future. At least your garden variety Soviet agent and general mafioso thugs go down when I punch them -- but it the sort of forces you must face? [ a low whistle. ]

When we first met, I did too. I thought he was highly trained, like Natasha and when the mask was off, I thought he will know me, that he'll remember.

[ suddenly, against all odds given the subject of the conversation, he smiles a little ]

You punch a lot of those mafioso people?

Los Angeles was lousy with them. Hired muscle, mostly, for crooked corporations.

[ her smallest finger brushes his. flashes of tussles and fights flicker across the mind. nothing concrete; mostly mixed, and not all of them mobsters at all. ]

[ it's a unique way to have a conversation. what steve knows about peggy carter's life after he went beneath a thick layer of ice, he knows from files, newspapers and video interviews and from what she told him herself, years and years after her adventures have ended. this is different in the way that it allows him a glimpse into what her life was like in a vivid, deeper way and he smiles both from being allowed and from the images themselves. he never got to see her quite like this and jesus christ, he hasn't got the slightest idea how she manages to do these things in dresses and high heels. ladies dancing in those always made him flinch, not to mention the heat of battle. ]

you're -

[ it's a weird thing. most chaps would fall for a gal who would whisper silly nonsense in their ear and hold onto their arm as they walk down the street, for steve rogers, seeing peggy carter as she fights, well.

beats the hell out of the more usual lady antics ]

Peggy -

[ it's said with a smile that's half amusement and half awe, no he has to ask. ]

How did you manage all of that in those shoes?

[ heavens above, he's endearing. her smile grows crooked while she watches his particular kind of awe steal across his face. as if he should ever be in awe of anyone else, hero that he was. is. would be. gently, she nudges her knuckles against his shoulder -- like a little push could banish that admiration straight out of his body. ]

Practise. [ she drawls, half sarcastic. ]

[ it's a funny thing. for all the serum and the Captain America glory, Steve admires this woman as she does him. What he has now, he worked for, no doubt but Peggy, she has worked as hard if not more. A little man, he has come to realize, still had an easier time in the world than a woman, at times ( more lunch orders than missions, he remembers she said and if it frustrates him he doesn't want to know what it made her feel ). it's her, after all, that believed in him after Erskine, he carried that faith with him long after they parted ways.

he's a hero, certainly but in his time, Peggy Carter is a legend, an acknowledgment he wishes she had earned straight after the war. ]

Practice.

[ a smile ]

Training in heels and evening dresses?

And wigs. Often, there are wigs involved.

[ is she teasing him? likely. but it's a loving sort of tease, because these are details she'd never had the time to share with him before he'd been lost. so many conversations had been wrapped up in the war. perfunctory, and professional.

she can be a lot less guarded, here. ]

Field operatives are trained for all manner of undercover missions. You never know who or what you might need to pretend to be.

-- Would have been horrible at it.

[ he has to smile. dear god, seems like her acting skills are top notch while Steve, well . ]

Not very good at pretending.

[ captain obvious. ]

We all have our strengths, [ darling. she doesn't say it, but the affection hangs there in the air. pregnant with possibility. ] And honesty is a rather fine one to have.

[ does she feel bad about all her lies? no. not really. but they do weigh a person down, in the long run. so many friends with whom she hasn't been honest. ]

When push comes to shove, you've never been anything but honest.

[ this line of work, the one they devoted themselves to demands more than what people would guess. being the ones to protect others, it has its price. still, Steve brought down SHIELD, the very organization she had founded only because he thought she would have done the same had she knows the magnitude of secrets and hidden truths, project insight. the trust he lost in SHIELD, he has in her and it's unshakable.

a beat and ]

wouldn't mind seeing you in a wig, though.

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