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The Courtship of Peggy Carter (1/?)

When Steve returns to the 1940s, he knows he wants to be with Peggy, but he can't help but worry about how the years they have both lived through have changed them - so he proposes that they start dating and get to know each other again. But Peggy has her own ideas about how their courtship will go, and is a woman determined to get what she wants. Namely Steve. In her bed. Sooner than he seems to be planning to get there.

Read on AO3

Once again, happy holidays to you @margarethcarter! This is getting a lot longer than anticipated so I've decided to start putting it up in parts. I'm hoping it will only be two parts but it miiight stretch to three, I'll see how it goes. I hope you enjoy this first part though - it's up on AO3, but I've also put it below the cut for you :)

And thanks to @steggyfanevents for organising the Secret Santa exchange!

The music had long since stopped playing, replaced by the distant sounds of the neighbourhood outside - the birds chirping in the trees, children riding their bikes through the street, the rattle of cars passing - and the clacking of the record continuing to spin on the player, but they were still dancing, swaying slowly back and forth in a circle. Peggy had closed her eyes, resting her head against his chest and listening to the steady, solid thump of the heartbeat beneath it, feeling the strength of his arms encircling her and the lingering warmth where he had kissed her.

He still wore the same cologne. She had almost forgotten it, but breathing it in brought the memories flooding back in sharp focus; how he had held her close when they were trapped in a safe house in Bulgaria during a snowstorm, the too-brief stolen moments when they were both in London between missions, the last kiss before he had jumped on to the Valkyrie. Suddenly tears were gathering beneath her lashes and she couldn’t help tightening her grip where her fingers were curled into his shirt.

“Steve?” she whispered. “This is real, isn’t it?”

It had to be real. It had to be. She had dreamed of him so often, of his arms, of them dancing, but never with such vividness. And she had never dreamed of his cologne.

“Yes. It’s real. I’m real. And I’m here.” His voice was soft, but even so Peggy could feel the vibration of it.

Finally she lifted her head up and opened her eyes, and there he was. The afternoon sunlight fell across his face, making his hair gleam a burnished gold and his eyes shine a bright, clear blue, and oh, she still caught her breath to see him. There were lines on his face that hadn’t been there four years ago, at the corners of his eyes and mouth that spoke of smiles and laughter and some on his forehead that told of worries and anxieties.

He hadn’t said much when she opened the door and found him standing there - they had both been too overwhelmed and she had been too much in shock for any sort of serious conversation - but he had offered a short explanation of how he had survived the crash and travelled through time, enough to convince her that this really was her Steve and to spark a burning curiosity about all he clearly had to tell her. She hoped that his being here meant they would have enough time that he could tell her all of it, that she could learn the stories behind each and every one of those lines.

Which was why her next question was, “And this . . . you being here . . . is it for good? Or do you have to go back?”

Steve held her gaze, serious and steady, the way he always did whenever he wanted her to know that what he was about to say was something he had thought over carefully.

“I’d like it to be. I came back because this place, this time, is where I belong. I wanted to come home, to have the life I never got a chance to have. And I want, very much, for that life to be with you.”

For a moment Peggy felt as if she had forgotten how to breathe, her chest tight and her heart beating painfully hard against her ribs. She opened her mouth to tell him yes, that she wanted a life with him as well, but before the words could form he had brought a finger to her lips to keep her from speaking.

“But,” he continued softly, a tenderness in his expression that made her glow with warmth, “I don’t think that’s a decision either of us should be making right now.”

A faint frown creased Peggy’s forehead. “Why not?”

“Because of how good this feels.”

She couldn’t help quirking an eyebrow, one corner of her mouth curling upwards. “That’s a bad thing, is it?”

Steve chuckled. “No. I just mean . . . I’ve dreamed about being here with you for so long, it would be easy to rush into this. To forget that . . . a lot of time has passed, for both of us. And that we’re probably both different people than we were when I went into the ice.”

Peggy let out a slow breath. Part of her - the part that for the last four years had been filled with grief, sorrow and longing whenever she thought of Steve - was afraid, terrified that this moment of joy in finding him again was going to be cut short, and leave her with nothing but echoing silence of his absence once more. She wanted to cling on to him as tightly as she could, to hold him to her so she didn’t have to face the pain of losing him again.

Another, regrettably more sensible part of her, recognised that what he was saying was true. The four years she had spent being overlooked at the SSR had left their mark as surely as the war had, and now she was reinventing herself again as the Director of SHIELD. She felt very far from the young agent that had worked on Project Rebirth.

And Steve . . . right now she could only guess at the sort of things Steve had lived through, the reasons for the weariness that lurked at the back of his eyes, the sadness that seemed etched into his face, mingling with his joy when he had asked her if he could finally claim his dance.

“So what are you suggesting?” she asked, forcing a calmness she didn’t entirely feel.

But to her surprise - and a little to her relief - Steve smiled.

“I’m suggesting that we date. Like we would have - should have - if things had gone the way we planned. Get to know each other as we are now. And if after we’ve dated for a while, we’re both sure this is still something we want . . . well, then we can talk about what’s next.”

Peggy almost wanted to laugh. “Are you telling me you travelled back nearly a century in time just to ask me on a date?”

His smile widened to a grin. “To start with, anyway.”

If she had still harboured any doubts about his identity, this would certainly have left her with none - all these years, and he still had such a flair for the dramatic.

What she wanted to tell him was that he was being ridiculous, and she didn’t need time to decide. That four years hadn’t been enough to dull the grief of his loss, that her few forays into romance had never filled the space he had left behind, that she loved him as much as she had always done and whatever they had both been through since could never be enough to change that.

What she did was to lift her chin and say, “Very well. When do you want to have our first date?”

“Are you busy just now?”

____________

Steve wasn’t as familiar with New Jersey as he was with Brooklyn - he had hadn’t really ventured much outside of New York before enlisting and the world he had come to know in the twenty-first century was very different from the one he had returned to - but he had taken some time to reorient and prepare himself before he went to see Peggy. As much as he wanted to run straight to her, he had been hesitant, even afraid; a photograph on her desk twenty years from now gave him hope that she had never stopped loving him just as he had never stopped loving her - but was it really enough to justify doing this? Leaving everything he had built in the future (or tried to build, anyway, although he had never truly felt as if he belonged there) behind? Turning up on Peggy’s doorstep and possibly upending her life?

They were the same questions he had turned over and over before using the Pym Particles but what it always came back to was this: could he live with it if he didn’t try? And the answer was no, he couldn’t.

Which was in the end why he was here. He had made his decision when he entered the date. Why else come to this particular point in time? This year, when he knew Peggy was starting to found SHIELD and had moved to near Camp Lehigh. When he knew, crucially, from his conversations with her in the hospital that she was single, and had been for a good few months after a brief relationship with a co-worker in the SSR.

Still, his decision did not guarantee hers, and the worry of upending her life was not something he took lightly. He knew she would be overwhelmed when she saw him - he had already seen it, every time he visited the hospital and her memory had faded again so that she had forgotten he was alive - and it felt . . . unfair, somehow, to appear out of nowhere in her life after four years of her mourning him, and expect her to know without a doubt whether she wanted to spend her entire life with him. If he hadn’t gone into the ice in ‘forty-five they would have had time to figure things out, to go dancing or to the movies, to talk over dinner and build a life where their every waking moment wasn’t dedicated to a fight.

Realising that was when it hit him: he did have the time now, and why not make the most of it? They could get to know each other again, build something new, and Steve could be sure that this really was the right decision for both of them and not just for him.

Actually planning a date was a surprisingly new experience. In his teenage years and early twenties, any dates he had had were all friends or sisters of girls Bucky was seeing and Steve had just been tagging along when their single dates turned into doubles at the last minute.. In the last few years, Natasha had occasionally set him up on blind dates (she had felt very strongly that he needed to get a life, and he hoped she would approve of his attempt to do so now), usually at the last minute and without his prior knowledge, and with her having made all of the arrangements herself.

It wasn’t as if he were clueless, but somehow he felt like a nervous sixteen year old when Peggy, who had asked him to wait while she changed, came down the stairs in a light, floral-patterned dress, her hair freshly brushed and her scarlet lipstick perfectly reapplied. God, she was beautiful. He had always known it, but seeing her again it suddenly struck him anew and he would swear his heart actually skipped a beat.

“You look lovely,” he said, voice slightly husky.

A blush reddened her cheeks. “Thank you. So where are you taking me?”

“I thought we could go for a drive, maybe find somewhere to get some ice cream and take a walk.”

“Sounds lovely,” Peggy replied, pulling her coat on and following Steve out to where the car he had rented was parked along the curb. “And like you’ve put some thought into it.”

He chucked, holding the door open for her. “It never hurts to be prepared.”

When thinking about places they could get to in an afternoon’s drive, his main concern was that it was far enough away from Camp Lehigh that they were unlikely to be recognised. As proud as he would have been in other circumstances to shout from the rooftops that Peggy Carter had agreed to go out with him, he knew that, realistically, it would only complicate things for any of the people she worked with to spot them out together.

Of course, it didn’t take Peggy long to work that out.

“So we’re heading to Philadelphia, are we?” she commented, glancing at the road signs.

“I thought it might be nice to walk along the river.”

“And less likely that anyone we know will be there? Or run into us, at least.” When he flushed, she just laughed. “I’m not offended, Steve - it’s not like I think you’re ashamed to be seen with me. If it were anyone else, I might be, but I know you. And I know you being back here must be . . . complicated for you.”

Glancing across, he gave a wry, only slightly sheepish smile before turning his eyes back to the road. “‘Complicated’ is an understatement. I’m still figuring out some of the details.”

“Such as?”

He shrugged. “Whether it’s better to officially be back, or to use a pseudonym and fly under the radar. If I’m myself I can claim a military pension and I don’t have to worry about people figuring out who I am . . . but honestly, I don’t want to go back to being Captain America, and I’m not sure Steve Rogers will ever be allowed to live a normal life. I’ve been going by Roger Grant for the apartment I’m renting.”

As much as he missed the convenience of the internet for a lot of things, coming back to a time before everything was computerised and constantly monitored and verified electronically had made keeping a low profile while he decided how to handle things much easier.

“I don’t really know what to advise you, my darling - I know for a fact there are people who would love to use you to revive Project Rebirth,” Peggy said regretfully, and Steve wondered if she was aware of how easily the endearment had slipped from her lips. Hearing it from her again made something glow, soft and warm, inside his chest. He had missed her calling him that. “But trying to live as someone else for the rest of your life won’t be easy. Who else knows you’re back?”

“Right now? No one. I figured I’d reach out to a few people soon, people I trust - the Howlies, Howard Stark, maybe Colonel Phillips. But I haven’t yet.”

“Well, I’m flattered to be the first person to know.”

Steve glanced at her again, and took one hand off the wheel to reach over and take one of hers so he could bring it up to his lips and drop a gentle kiss against the backs of her fingers.

“Of course you were the first,” he said in a low voice. “There was never any question about that. You’re by far the most important.”

“I see someone’s learned a thing or two about talking to women,” Peggy said with a laugh, but there was an aching tenderness in her eyes as she watched him and when Steve finally had to return his hand to the wheel she let hers fall down to rest on his knee and kept it there the rest of the way to Philadelphia.

___________

“How long has it been for you exactly? In terms of years you’ve actually lived through?”

After getting to Philadelphia they had driven around for a while before settling on taking a walk through Fairmount Park, and had been lucky enough to find an ice cream truck parked just down the street from the entrance. Steve had bought them both a cone - chocolate for Peggy, strawberry for himself - and hand in hand they strolled through the autumn sunshine, enjoying the sweets and relishing the fact that they were here, and together. It was a perfect October day, the sky bright and clear, the park filled with trees that had all turned red and gold and seemed almost to glow in the afternoon light.

Now that her ice cream was mostly finished, however, curiosity had begun to scratch at the back of Peggy’s mind. There was so much she wanted to know still - how Steve was here, what had happened to him, why he had only just come back now - and while she knew (or rather hoped) it would take a lifetime to unspool all of the details, there were some things she wanted to know to help her understand what it was he had been through.

“Hm, about twelve years?” Steve said after a moment, finishing off the last of his ice-cream cone and absently licking some stray drips from his hand. Peggy felt herself warming as she watched, rather regretting that they were in a public park. “I woke up in 2011, and I travelled back here from 2023.”

“Twelve years.” Pushing the very inappropriate images she was envisioning to the back of her mind, Peggy focused her attention back on his face. Twelve years was a long time - three times as many years as she had lived through since he was lost. She tried to imagine living with the grief of his absence for another decade and shuddered. “So you’re . . . thirty-eight now? Or thirty-nine?”

He had crashed the Valkyrie a few months before his twenty-seventh birthday. Peggy remembered that 4th July; the war had been over in Europe, and, though there were still plenty fighting in East Asia, many troops were finally home. There had been a fantastic array of fireworks and parties to celebrate Independence Day, but Peggy hadn’t been able to bring herself to take any joy in them. She had sat home alone, looking at Steve’s picture and wishing he were there with her.

“Well, I guess technically I’m one hundred and five. But if you don’t count the years I was frozen then thirty-nine, I think.”

Peggy laughed. “Let’s go with thirty-nine. If it’s the former then either you’re practically robbing the cradle or it makes me something I’d rather not think about.”

It was still strange to think about, admittedly. The Steve she had lost had only been three years older than her, but now there was a whole decade between them. Although -

“You don’t look twelve years older,” she mused. There were a few lines around his eyes and mouth, and above all there was that look of tiredness that suggested he had lived through a lot, but in general terms he didn’t appear to be any more than late twenties or early thirties.

“An effect of the serum. I do age, just . . . a bit slower.”

“Is the serum how you survived? After the Valkryie?” Her voice caught a bit on the last word. She rarely talked about that day, about Steve, with anyone, and even now, though he was standing in front of her, alive and whole, she could feel the grief starting to rise up inside her, tears prickling hot and uncomfortable at the back of her eyes.

Not wanting him to see how close she was to crying she turned her head to look at the path as they walked, and tried to concentrate on the warm, solid feeling of his hand in hers.

“Yeah. They said it was because of the increased metabolism and the boost it gave my immune system, that the ice just put me in a kind of suspended animation.”

Her lip trembled.

“Do you - do you remember any of it?”

“No. I don’t even remember the crash. I remember seeing the water rushing up toward me . . . then nothing after that until I woke up.”

Peggy closed her eyes, trying very hard not to think about the fact that another version of him was out there right now, buried in the ice and the dark, all alone and abandoned by his friends.

“I should have looked harder,” she said, voice thick with emotion. “I should have insisted - we should have kept going until we found you. I’m so sorry, my darling, I let you down –”

“What? No, no, Peg. no.” With her eyes still closed she didn’t realise that Steve had stopped and moved round in front of her until she felt his hands come up to cradle her face. His palms were warm, slightly calloused, his thumbs brushed tenderly across her cheeks. Blinking her eyes open, she found herself staring directly into his blue ones, only scant inches of air between them. “You have never let me down. Not once. You - you’re my rock, Peggy. You’ve kept me going through so much, even in the future. I’d think about what you would say, what you would tell me to do and it gave me the courage I needed. It’s okay. It’s really okay.”

The tears were gathering along her eyelashes, she could feel they were about to fall - but then Steve leaned in and with such gentleness she caught her breath he kissed them away, his lips brushing softly over her eyelids like the lightest touch of a snowflake in winter. Almost instinctively she brought her own hands up to rest on his chest, her heart seeming to expand in her breast with more love than she knew what to do with.

“Don’t cry,” Steve was still murmuring. “I would never have chosen to leave you if I didn’t have to but . . . it’s okay. I ended up where I needed to be, until I could come back to you. And I did come back. I’m here. It’s okay, Peggy. You don’t have to be sorry for anything.”

“I just hate the thought of you out there, all alone.”

“I didn’t feel a thing, I promise you. It was like being asleep.”

He held her gaze as he spoke, each word quiet but deliberate, so she could see that he meant it and wasn’t just trying to spare her feelings - he really did believe that it was alright. That he had made his peace with what had happened.

Slowly she nodded, something that had been twisted so tightly inside her since the day she lost him finally beginning to loosen and ease.

They stayed that way, watching each other for several more long heartbeats, until Peggy finally smiled and said, “I thought you said you came back because this time is where you belong.”

Amusement glinted in Steve’s eyes. “I did. And it is. I belong wherever you are.”

And then, teasingly, he leaned slightly forward, his lips just hovering over hers . . . before stepping back and taking her hand again. Peggy watched him, wordless with surprise, the autumn breeze suddenly feeling much colder without his warmth blocking it out.

“Come on. It’s getting late. What do you say we get something more substantial to eat before I take you home?”

Oh, she was in trouble. Steve Rogers, it seemed, had learned more than just how to talk to women.

_________

It was fully dark by the time they pulled back up outside Peggy’s house, the moon riding high in the sky behind a wispy veil of cloud and the street lights casting a warm yellow glow over the road.

Steve could hardly believe that it was only a few hours ago that he had been working up the courage to knock on her door. A pang of regret rippled through him at the thought that the day was already over; he wondered absently if there would ever be a day when he did not feel desperate to hoard every second with Peggy that she would grant him. Knowing the hollow grief of a world without her, he suspected not . . . and yet he hoped there would be. He hoped that this was just the first day of many they would spend today, and that eventually he felt certain that they would have all the time they wanted.

It seemed that Peggy was as reluctant to say goodbye as he was. When he turned the engine off she didn’t reach for the car door but leaned back in her seat, her dark eyes moving intently over his face.

“Hey,” Steve said softly.

“Hi,” Peggy replied, her lips curling into a gentle smile.

“What are you thinking?”

A faint furrow appeared in her brow. “Just . . . that I’m worried I’ll wake up tomorrow and find this was all a dream.”

The words were quiet, and Steve felt something inside him tighten in response; he couldn’t help fearing the same thing, having dreamed about her so many times in the last year. As much to reassure himself as her, he reached over and took her hand in his, running his thumb gently back and forth over hers.

“Yeah. I know what you mean.”

Her fingers squeezed his. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve dreamed about you.”

“No?”

She shook her head, causing one dark curl to fall loose over her forehead. “No. I used to dream about you a lot, in the first months after . . . We never talked, but you were just there. Holding my hand, or smiling, sitting with me. I’m not particularly religious these days, but sometimes I would think maybe it was your way of telling me you were alright, wherever you were.” She gave a wry chuckle. “Clearly that wasn’t the case.”

“I don’t know. I dreamed about you, too. About taking you for a dance, or just being able to come home to you. Maybe some part of us was finding each other.”

Peggy narrowed her eyes slightly, looking at him like she wasn’t quite sure if he was serious or not. “Do you really believe that? It’s a lovely thought, but it just seems . . . so impossible.”

Steve shrugged. “Improbable, maybe. But I’ve met Norse gods and actual sorcerers. Not a lot seems far-fetched to me any more.”

There was a silence, and Steve only realised there were still a lot of details he had to tell Peggy about his life in future when her eyebrows lifted almost to her hairline.

“Norse gods and sorcerers?”

“It’s a really long story. I’ll tell you on our next date.”

She smiled. “There’s going to be a next date, then?”

“Isn’t there?” he countered, grinning.

“That depends on how this one ends. A gentleman would walk me to my door, you know.”

Laughing, Steve obediently got out of the car and came round the other side to hold Peggy’s door open for her. She slipped her arm through his as they walked the few feet up to her porch, leaning into him with a tenderness that made him want to press her close to him and never let go.

They came to a halt on the steps, Peggy turning to face him; standing one step above him, their heights were nearly equal and he didn’t have to look down to meet her gaze, wide and dark and hopeful.

“I suppose this is goodnight, then.”

“I guess so.” Bringing one hand up, he tucked the curl that had fallen loose in the car behind her ear. “Would it be alright if I gave you a goodnight kiss?”

Peggy looked amused. “Darling, I’d be rather put out if you didn’t.”

“Well, far it be from me to disappoint a lady.”

He leaned forward, and as he did so trailed his hand down past her ear and along her jaw, until he could curl his fingers around the back of her neck and pull her in to meet him, pressing his lips to hers.

Hand to heart, his intentions were for it to be entirely soft and chaste, a sweet goodnight kiss, much like the one they had shared earlier today while they danced. But then Peggy let out a little sigh as their mouths met, her arms coming up to lace around his neck and her fingers carding through his hair, and Steve couldn’t help himself.

His free hand came up to Peggy’s waist, pulling her flush against him so that he could feel every soft line of her body, and he tilted his head, deeping the angle of the kiss. Peggy responded eagerly, her mouth falling open beneath his, and her teeth even nipping at his bottom lip, encouraging him on.

Heat flooded through him, the sound of his own thundering heartbeat filling his ears and the scene of Peggy’s perfume filling his nose and making his head swim. God, he had forgotten what it was like to kiss her. To really kiss her. The world around them had faded until there was only Peggy; the taste of her tongue, the sound of both their breathing becoming more and more ragged, and the feel of her pressed against him, each stroke of her mouth making him want to lose himself in her entirely.

Every part of him was alive and crackling with energy, desire pulsing through him with a fierceness that took him by surprise. He wanted to give into it, to let it take him and Peggy wherever it would . . .

. . . but some small, rational part of his mind held on, reminding him why he was trying to take things slowly.

With an effort that took all of his (not inconsiderable) willpower, he broke the kiss and pulled back enough to look at her - although he did not, yet, let her go entirely - and just that look was nearly enough to make him give in and start kissing her again. She was breathing heavily, her face flushed, pupils blown wide, and her always-perfect lipstick smeared at the corners.

“That was quite a kiss. But it doesn’t have to be goodnight, you know.” Peggy looked up at him, and Steve could feel his entire body rebelling against what his brain had decided. “You could stay, if you want.”

“No,” he said quickly, before his reasoning was drowned out by just how much he wanted her - but perhaps it was too quickly, as her eyes widened and hurt flashed across her face. “No, I didn’t mean - I do want to, of course I want to, it’s not that - it’s just, what I mean -”

It was so hard to think when he could still feel the warmth of her mouth on his. But the hurt had cleared from her face and, for some reason, she looked like she was trying not to laugh.

“What?”

“Nothing. I’m just glad to see you’ve not changed that much.”

He looked at her in confusion for a moment before he remembered their first conversations at Camp Lehigh, when he would stumble over his own words and struggle to get a complete sentence out. No one had ever managed to fluster him the way Peggy did, even then.

Relaxing a little, he shook his head and continued, “What I mean is, staying isn’t exactly taking things slow.”

Peggy pursed her lips, but to his relief - he wasn’t sure he had the willpower to keep arguing if she disagreed - after a moment she simply sighed and said, “No, I suppose it’s not.”

“Believe me, I hate saying it.” Leaning forward, he grazed the side of her nose with his. “But I don’t want to rush this and get it wrong. I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

“You’d better.”

Satisfied that he had managed to pull a smile out of her, Steve brushed one last kiss over her lips - and did manage to keep this one soft and chaste - and then stepped back. The cold night air swept in as they parted and he instead regretted letting her out of his arms, even as he knew it was the right decision.

“Would it be rushing things for our second date to be tomorrow?” Peggy asked. “Or are you going to make me wait a whole week?”

“Tomorrow’s good.” Perhaps it was rushing things a bit, but Peggy would be back at work come Monday and he didn’t want to wait until the next weekend any more than she did. “Tomorrow afternoon? We could go to the movies.”

“I can’t wait.”

Reluctantly, he turned and started back down the steps towards his car, and at the end of the path he gave her one last, lingering look over his shoulder. “Goodnight, Peggy. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She was still watching him from the porch and raised a hand in farewell. “Goodnight, my darling.”

He was already counting the minutes until tomorrow as he drove away.

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