#wintercarter

[neon-vials]

Mail Order Groom

Relationships: Peggy Carter x Bucky Barnes

Summary: Marriage was not something Margaret "Peggy" Carter ever intended to enter into. For one, she wasn't suited to being a meek domestic housewife, and two, she hadn't met a man who would remotely be able to change her mind. Most of them were absolute boors, who didn't believe women should be allowed to think for themselves or do anything that wasn't tending to said men's needs.

Word Count: 1046

Rating: General

Warnings: Fluff

A gift for @buckybarnesxpeggycarter

Marriage was not something Margaret “Peggy” Carter ever intended to enter into. For one, she wasn’t suited to being a meek domestic housewife, and two, she hadn’t met a man who would remotely be able to change her mind. Most of them were absolute boors, who didn’t believe women should be allowed to think for themselves or do anything that wasn’t tending to said men’s needs.

She was happy to run her small town all by herself and didn’t care what the gossips and old fashioned idiots said.

But when it came time for re-election as mayor, her shady opponent managed to get the town council to revive an old law that would require her to have a husband in order to run for mayor.

Furious, Peggy nearly took Thompson’s head off, but all her lectures and wrath would not move the town council, several of whom were vocal opponents of a woman in leadership.

Aggravated beyond all reason, Peggy steamed for a while, but finally decided she’d either have to find a trophy husband somehow or give up and let Thompson run the place into the ground.

She made discreet inquiries with an agency that was known for matching mail order spouses for those in need of one. After filling out their questionnaire, she was put into correspondence with one James Buchanan Barnes, a bachelor from New York, who was interested in making a move West, but lacked the funds.

James handled her long distance interrogation with patience and honesty, both of which Peggy appreciated in a man.

She explained the reasons for her needing a husband and braced herself to be disillusioned once again, but much to her surprise, James' answering letter expressed outrage toward the town council and offered his full support of her run for re-election.

He sounded much too good to be true, but so far the private investigator the agency used to verify their client’s character had not been able to find any history of fraud with him. He’d been in trouble for assaulting a man before,  but the charges were dropped because James had been defending a woman's honor.

¤

“Can he cook, too?” Peggy’s friend Angie asked after Peggy shared the latest letter with her.

"He says he can, albeit nothing fancy. But I don’t need fancy. I need edible."

Peggy and Angie shared a chuckle over Peggy’s famous kitchen disasters.

“Well. I’d say snatch him up! You’re not going to find any better husband candidate in time for the election and he’s agreed to your conditions. So if you’re gonna go for it, go for it, Peg.”

And Peggy did. A couple weeks later, she waited at the train station for her prospective groom. She didn’t really know what he’d looked like, beyond his brief description of himself. As the passengers disembarked, Peggy scanned the crowd nervously, wondering which one was James.

A tall bearded man approached her, removing his hat to reveal a head of slightly shaggy dark brown hair.

“Mayor Carter?” He asked, looking hopefully at her with very attractive blue eyes.

Peggy’s stomach did a flip as she realized just how very handsome he was. Please let this be James! begged the voice in her head.

“Yes,” she managed to reply calmly. “Are you James Barnes?”

“I am. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, ma’am.”

James held out his hand and she returned his firm shake, both seeming to silently be sizing each other up. He was pretty tall and broad shouldered and looked sturdy enough to endure the hard work of the West, but his eyes were kind, not hard, and he looked like he smiled a lot.

All in all, it was a very promising picture and Peggy found herself not nearly so opposed to marriage as she had been.

James, on the other hand, couldn’t believe his good fortune. He’d already fallen for the strong spirit of the woman he’d been writing to and now seeing her in person, he was almost struck speechless by her. He hoped she would give him the chance to try and win her heart.

¤

“I trust your journey was uneventful?” She asked, as she drove them out to the ranch she owned. Of course, she couldn’t live there herself right now, but it would make a good home once the two of them married.

“It was,” James answered. “Unless you call the overly loud snoring of my old roomate to be eventful.”

Peggy chuckled. “Well, here you’ll have the whole place to yourself, at least for a little while.”

“You don’t live here?”

“No. Too many headaches for a single woman to live alone out here. I’m rooming in town for now. When we marry, I will move out here with you. I much prefer the space out here.”

“How much time do you have to make a decision on marriage before the election?” James questioned.

“About three weeks,” Peggy answered. “But I have already made up my mind. I want to give you a chance to get to know this place and see if you could actually endure marriage to me. I tend to scare the men off.”

“I don’t scare easily,” James replied with a small smile.

¤

Sure enough, James was still there three weeks later and he and Peggy went before the judge to be joined in holy matrimony.

“What a lovely ring!” Peggy admired after it was over.

“It was my mother’s,” James explained, looking down at her left hand with a proud expression. “Father had it specially made for her.”

“Oh, James. I’m honored,” she said, very touched that he’d given her a family heirloom after such a short time of courtship. “You didn’t have to give me this.”

“I wanted to,” he told her honestly. “My mother would have loved you.”

And I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you. He thought.

Peggy trotted out her new husband at her announcement of running for re-election and the town went wild, except for the sulky town council members, who were forced to accept her entry and very unhappy about it.

It didn’t take long for James to win the heart of Peggy and the loyalty of the town.

Thompson was soundly defeated and sulked for a long time.

[ftandy]

PSA: Bucky loved Peggy first. And he doesn’t have a single regret.

[neon-vials]

Out Of Time

Relationships: Bucky Barnes x Peggy Carter

Summary: AU where Bucky goes back in time instead of Steve

Word Count: 1.5k

Rating: General

Warnings: Fluff, angst, brief mentions of death

A gift for @buckybarnesxpeggycarter

It had been exactly two years since Bucky left her; since he lost his grip and plummeted to his death from the train.

Not a day went by that Peggy didn’t think of him, whether it be a flash of a goofy childish smirk in a crowd or the blue eyes of her coworker or every godforsaken time someone would call her “Ma’am."

Peggy hadn't danced once since. She couldn’t bear to do it when she still held the guilt of rejecting Bucky's very last offer of a dance. She had originally done it in an attempt to uphold the sercrecy of their relationship, but in hindsight it ended up doing more harm than good. People said she needed to get her head out of the past, but the past is where he was, so Peggy thought she'd stay a little longer.

The voice of her assistant rung out, drawing her attention from the files she was mindlessly scanning to his exasperated frame.

“Agent Carter?”

Shaking her head to clear it, Peggy forced a half-smile on her lips as she replied, “Yes, Charles?”

“I’m sorry to bother you, but there’s a man here that is incredibly adamant about seeing you. I told him that he needs to schedule an appointment but he refuses to leave. Should I call security or-?”

"No, no, it’s fine. I’m not very busy at the moment so you can just send him in,” Charles was half-way out the door as she called, “Feel free to take a break, afterwards! You’ve been working especially hard lately; you deserve it!"

Peggy heard a retreating, “Thank you!” from Charles just before the door closed, and Peggy closed the folder on her desk before putting her head in her hands, in an attempt to prepare herself for the likely pugnacious client that was seconds away from walking in.

The distinct sound of the door opening and closing reached her ears and Peggy slapped on her best smile before she lifted her head.

The eyes tend to play tricks on the heartbroken, but Peggy was sure that what she was seeing before her was real.

In an instant, Peggy was on her feet. The chair she was sitting on was launched backwards, slamming it into the wall, and her hand ripped the pistol from its place taped under her desk. Peggy pointed the barrel between the eyes of the man, of the person that looked frighteningly similiar to the love of her life, the man who disappeared into a ravine;

Bucky.

His hands slowly rose over his head, one gloved and one not, standing in surrender as his fingers trembled and his eyes welled with tears.

Her heart ached to touch him but her mind knew better, so she stood with a desk and a gun filling the space between the two of them, suspicion and distrust in Peggy's eyes as she stared him down.

“What and who are you? Who sent you? What are you doing here?” she fired off in rapid succession. Peggy's emotions swirled further and further into chaos the longer she looked at him, drinking in his features that look nearly the same as they did before he left on the ill-fated mission, albeit a little more hardened from the weight of a life that Peggy had no knowledge of that rested on his shoulders.

He stepped closer to her, his voice like wavering satin as he spoke, “Peg. It’s me. It’s Bucky.”

“Prove it.”

His gloved hand lowered toward his pocket and Peggy tightened at his movements, her eyes reproachful as her finger jumped to the trigger.

He froze, holding her gaze as he murmured softly, “I’m not going to hurt you. I promise. I'm not going to hurt anyone ever again.”

Something in Peggy cracked at his words, at the tone in his voice that was full of so much tender love and longing. She lowered the gun while her head was screaming no but her heart refused to listen; she couldn’t help but trust him.

The tension in his shoulders relaxed and he continued to reach down, fishing a small object out of his pocket before slowly advancing forward, placing it on her desk, and backing away.

Peggy sucked in a deep breath to keep the tears at bay but she failed miserably. She didn’t need to open it to know what it was. Her fingers were trembling as they close around the beaten compass, and the tears fell heavy and unrelenting as she seen the old picture of her nestled within.

With weak knees, Peggy walked towards Bucky, letting her eyes devour him in his entirety as she fell into his arms. The familiar scent washed over her and his touch felt like home and it was all too much. She noticed that his left arm felt off, metalic even, like it was a prostethic of some kind, and she realised his hair was a good bit longer, and he had a beard, but she was too overwhelmed to even bother questioning. She was sure he'd eventually give her an explanation to everything.

The soon room filled with her sobs and she eventually managed to muster a simple, “How?”

His head buried into the crook of her neck and Peggy could feel his own tears trickling down her skin, pooling in the dips of her collarbones. His hands found the small of her waist and the nape of her neck. It took him a moment to gather himself, his lips brushed against her skin as he started to pull away, choking out, “You might want to sit down to hear it.”

“Not a chance,” Peggy asserted, gripping his collar with both hands before pulling him towards her, crashing her lips to his in a passionate kiss. His lips were full and so was her heart as the kiss stretched on for a few seconds more before Peggy pulled away, a soft smile on her face as she observed the red lipstick that decorated his lips.

With a gentle touch, she ghosted her fingertips over his mouth. His hot shuddering breath fanned over the back of her hand, causing a shiver to run down her spine. The feeling was both familiar and foreign as she had not felt it for so long. Bucky placed his hand over hers and held it, pressing her fingertips to his lips.

“I've missed you.”

His eyes flashed at her words, holding so much pain and sadness and love as he murmured, “I missed you, too, Peg.”

*Seven years later*

“Can I have a bite?” Bucky asked with his best puppy dog eyes, looking down at the cookie-holding little girl that sat innocently on his lap.

She shook her head, “No!” before taking another bite. Bucky’s mouth dropped open in shock and Peggy couldn’t help but laugh as he feigned hurt, holding his hand over his chest, “Do you not love me anymore, Ivy?”

Ivy furrowed her brows at Bucky, “I love you, Daddy. But I also love cookie.”

Bucky let out a laugh before stood in one swift motion, wrapping a strong arm around his daughter to carry her at his side like a football. A high-pitched squeal escaped her as he charged toward Peggy, she only had enough time to stand before his arm was around her waist and he was carrying her on his other side.

Peggy and Ivy yelped and laughed along with Grant who was sitting on the ground watching as Bucky spun around, yelling like a mad man while he ran throughout the living room, hopping over the coffee tables and vaulting over the couch and practically bouncing off the walls.

“Jamie! Put us down!” Peggy yelled between laughs and he was quick to oblige, pulling the both of them tight to his chest before falling back on the couch beside their son in a heap of limbs and hair and cookie crumbs.

“No, again!” Ivy squealed from her spot mushed between her and brother and father’s embrace. 

Peggy couldn’t help but grin wide as she gaze at her daughter's excited form. Her eyes sparkled, holding the same innocent, wonder-filled look in them that Bucky did when she first met him at a boot camp all those years ago. Tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, Peggy leaned forward to press her lips against Ivy's forehead before prying herself from Bucky's metal grip, “You heard the girl, take her for another whirl,” he was halfway through lunging for her when she held a hand up, a single brow cocked, “without Mom this time.”

Bucky rolled his eyes at her sass before shooting her a wink and stealing a quick kiss, earning a “Yuck,” from both Grant and Ivy . He was quick on his feet as he held Ivy in his arms, twirling around the living room floor with her giggling and shrieking in delight.

Crossing her arms over her chest, Peggy settled into the couch, watching the scene play out before her. A content sigh escaped her lips and a warmth spread from her heart as she wrapped an arm around Grant's shoulders and pressed a kiss to the top of his messy dark mop as he cuddled into her side.

They finally got their happy ending.