[ CLOSED ] i'll be lookin' at the moon but i'll be seein' you

[revlon]

WHO • peggy carter (revlon) & steve rogers (starspangle)
WHERE • deck 2
WHEN • forward-dated to the first week of july
WHAT • tmw your wartime girlfriend shows up in space when she should be hella old and super dead
WARNINGS • ...blood?? mildly graphic descriptions of injury

[ She remembers falling.

Anything that comes after that is hazy and indistinct. The way the room is spinning behind her closed eyes certainly doesn't help, nor does the swooping nausea in her stomach. But somehow, that all makes sense to her, as does how cold she feels. Because Peggy Carter remembers tangling with Whitney Frost, she remembers a horrible and sickening kind of agony (like ice, like one must imagine being sucked into a void must feel) when the other woman touched her bare skin, and then she remembers —

— falling. Again, she's back to that.

Falling off the landing, hanging by her fingertips, her grip slipping, and then — blinding white pain, the shock of air punched out of her lungs, looking down to see herself impaled on a piece of rebar —

Bloody Nora.

Peggy's eyes snap open when that catches up to her and her fingers scrabble for her abdomen, seeking out the injury, the metal, and finding... nothing. No pain, other than a vague sort of all-over ache to her body. No injury. But her clothes are torn, sticky and stiff with mostly-dried blood (her own blood, surely), and the skin healed underneath. Then her eyes adjust to the flickering gloom around her and she doesn't recognise any of it: they had been in a warehouse, not some aircraft hangar or factory or bunker. This isn't right. Despite the chill, perspiration pricks at her brow, her heartbeat picks up; something is dreadfully, horribly wrong.

She sucks in a breath through her chattering teeth, squeezes her eyes shut, and exhales slowly. All right. So either she's been — affected or transported or kidnapped, somehow, by Ms Frost, or she's lost consciousness. Or she's fallen to her death after all. Fine. Very well. One step at a time, Peggy Carter, that's the ticket.

Breathe.

But then — foosteps? She opens her eyes. Someone's coming. ]

Daniel? [ Her voice breaks, dry, unused. It echoes in the space. Peggy wills herself to remain calm as she pulls herself up to sit (her clothes stick to the ground), her hands groping for her weapon on the metal grating but finding nothing in the dark. ] Mr Jarvis?

Comments

[america]

Not quite.

[ Steve's response is quiet and blase at best, and all things considered, it's a fair attempt at remaining as calm as he possibly can be considering he's currently face-to-face (more or less) with what really is a ghost from his past.

He can't quite help but wonder whether this ship is beginning to play tricks on him; and cruel ones, too.

Nevertheless, his posture is tense, shoulders tight, expression serious and just this side of grim, studying Peggy because he wants to believe with every fibre in his being that she isn't real right now. This must be some new alien attack and he should alert the rest of the ship of its presence. Whatever this image of Peggy is, she's a hallucination, a manipulation not quite unlike what Wanda could do ... it's all just a trick of the mind.

So, why is his heart pounding against him like it's trying to escape his ribcage? ]

[revlon]

[ His voice is like a gunshot. Because it can't be Steve Rogers, there's no way in hell it's him, he's dead and she's accepted that, she's mourned him, and moved on. That was over two years ago. He's dead. Which means...

Well, which means she must be dead as well, if she's seeing and hearing him as clearly as she does now. But that revelation doesn't rock her as much as him simply existing. Being dead, she can handle. Being reunited with the man she loved and lost? Nothing has prepared her for that. ]

... Steve?

[ She breathes out his name, soft, incredulous. Tremulous. She doesn't cry easily, she beats back emotions when she tries to keep a level head in the field, but he will always be a sharp and painful thing. (And that in of itself is painful, because her memories of him are such wonderful ones.) She doesn't pull herself up to stand, she doesn't trust herself to.

If this is a trick, if by some slim chance she is still alive and Fenhoff or the Russians or the Zero Matter consuming Whitney Frost has poisoned her mind, then —

— then what? God, she wants to believe this. Her senses are screaming at her, torn in half: true, not true. She's at a loss. ]

[america]

Peggy.

[ Steve remembers her funeral. He remembers the sermon, the honourable speeches, the tears. He remembers the casket, smooth and solid, the weight of it on his shoulders echoing the weight in his heart. He'd lost so much time that when he finally woke up again, Peggy had lived out her whole life already.

He can't even help it when his eyes eventually land on the blood-stained blouse, heart surging with a renewed sense of worry that overrides any skepticism he might have been clinging to. She looks tired and she might need his help.

He'll be damned if he doesn't act anyway, hallucination or not.

He isn't sure what spurs him to actually move his feet but one moment he's standing at a distance, back rigid, hanging on to his skepticism, and the next he's crouched by her. He doesn't reach out and touch her, but he could. ]

You're hurt.

[revlon]

[ He says her name and her heart breaks all over again. She's almost let herself forget what her name sounds like, shaped by his voice. Then she blinks, startled, still disoriented and even more so when he's suddenly at her side. She can feel the heat off of him, practically; and suddenly she's transported to the war, a foxhole in the dead of winter, and Steve Rogers was the warmest thing for miles around. Then she's jerked back into the present, staring blankly at him, the exacting blue of his eyes, and it's delayed, how her hand finds her stomach again and while the blood streaks her fingers, stains her clothes, she's unhurt. ]

No, I'm — I think I'm all right.

[ But the way she says it, it's clear how surprised she is by that. Peggy pulls the short jacket aside, the blue blouse half-untucked from her trousers, and there's a slice of her pale skin that peeks through. There's nothing. ]

I'm all right, [ she repeats, but it's faint, unsure. She looks back at him, and that same hand lifts off her skin like she wants to reach out and touch him, but she stops short. And she says the most absurd thing but it's also the only thing she can think to say: ] You've cut your hair.

[america]

[ The absurdity - because, yes, it really is the best word to describe it - of her statement has Steve a little jarred out of the moment. It makes his expression, serious and cautious, suddenly crumble; it nearly makes him laugh.

A hallucination wouldn't say that, would it?

His features soften even while he does one last check to be sure she isn't sporting any wounds on her. He's glad, at least, that she's okay. Whether she's real or not, he isn't sure he could bear it if she were hurt. ]

I did. [ He confirms, hand going up to touch the shorn blondness on his head as though he has to be sure her statement is true. ] Couldn't show up on an abandoned spaceship looking anything but my best.

[revlon]

[ Just when she thinks she's found some vague, tentative footing on the situation, something new comes along to knock her off her tenuous balance. ]

I beg your pardon.

[ Peggy Carter, unflappable under most circumstances and utterly thrown by this one. She's swung from dizzy (still dizzy) to bewildered to stunned to utterly flabbergasted. It's almost too much but she manages to keep her head somehow, even as she closes her eyes to rub at her pounding temples. ]

An abandoned, [ she repeats slowly, ] spaceship. A bloody spaceship. That's it. [ Her free hand waves through the air, short and sharp and dismissive. She's still covering her face with the other. ] I'm dead, obviously. I must be. You're not — [ She lifts her head up to look at him, less dazed, and more laser-focused with her scrutiny and her warring emotions, her heart pounding hard against her ribs. ] You can't be here. She's succeeded, then, blown us all up to kingdom come —

[ She's getting up as she says this, moving more quickly than her body is ready to, and her legs nearly give. ]

[america]

[ Steve moves with her, reaching out to catch her this time, instinct driving the metaphorical wheels of his body. He doesn't have to think about using his strength to help someone else; he just does it.

And with Peggy - well, dream or not, she feels very real and very solid and warm in his hands. The way she speaks is too ... it's nothing he could imagine, anyway, even if it's quintessentially her.

The suddenness of the realization that she could be real hits him so hard he nearly lets her go just as quickly. Only nearly, because he doesn't actually move to drop his hands.

How can she be here?

She's almost exactly like he remembers her from the War. No, she's changed, too, though he can't quite put his finger on it. Whatever it is, she's still as remarkable as the day they first met when he was still practically invisible. ]

Hey, hey - [ he chides gently. ] Careful, Peggy.

Look, I don't know a whole lot about how I got here either but ... I'm afraid we're definitely on some kind of space-craft. No pilot, no crew, and uh - [ He hesitates, but only for a moment. ] - a couple of close calls.

[revlon]

[ She half-jerks away from his touch when it first connects but then she settles into the support of his hands because her legs still feel unsteady. He's real, then? Or at least, he's a real person; she can't trust that the face he wears is real. She's seen things these past few years that make questioning that sort of thing utterly within the realm of possibility. It doesn't do to be skeptical when one is an agent of the SSR but the balance is a careful thing.

Still, she's shaking her head. ]

That's not possible.

[ She's so cold. Bloody hell. She's looking around them, her eyes linger overlong on his hands on her with a sort of painful desperation settling in the tight lines of her expression; she wants to believe that he's here with her. The rest, the spaceship — a spaceship! — is immaterial at the moment. Peggy exhales, half expecting her breath to mist between them, and she thinks of the last time they saw one another on the mountain, in a futuristic base that looked somewhat like this one.

Stands to reason, if she's dead, that they reunite in the last place they were together. How grim. ]

This can't be — you can't be... [ Her voice breaks. ] I'm so sorry, my darling, but it's been two years.

[america]

Two years -

[ For the briefest of moments, Steve's got no idea what she means by that. Two years since what? Two years of what?

And then he remembers it all like it was only yesterday: the War, Erskine, the super-serum, Peggy, HYDRA and Schmidt ... the plane ... those last words of his. His promise. ]

Oh.

[ He doesn't tell her that for him, it's been seventy-five years - give or take. He doesn't have the heart to tell her that he'd been to her funeral, had seen her when she was at her most frail, a woman who had lived such a life even though it'd been a life without him.

Maybe she's not real and this is all some kind of illusion, but he wants to believe that it's her. He wants to believe that her warmth and the sound of her voice isn't something being used against him. ]

Well, that's a long story. [ He takes a breath, makes the decision - for now - to trust her, and slowly drops his hands back to his sides. ] I think, technically, I'm ninety-five now.

[revlon]

[ His hands drop away from her and she moves before she can stop herself, taking a half step closer to him and catching at his wrist. Her fingers are a little sticky with dried blood but they curl so gently around him, sliding across his palm, taking that one hand between both of hers.

It's so wonderfully real and she marvels at it in her own quiet way, brows knit, eyes bright, and jaw held tight against tears. She's exhausted, strung through, it makes everything bubble too closely to the surface. She can allow herself this weakness, perhaps. And he says ninety-five like it's supposed to mean something, it doesn't; but then again, none of this does. ]

You're not making any sense. [ Under any other circumstances, she'd ask, You expect me to believe that? but this is extraordinary on its own. Peggy takes a breath, looks up to meet his eyes instead of staring at their desperately joined hands like they'll yield better answers. ] It's got to be a trick of some kind. I wish to God it wasn't, you're so real, but I can't... Prove it. I need you to prove it.

i will dig this trope into the ground im not even sorry

[america]

[ Steve almost smiles, because here they are ... two people who desperately want to think they're seeing the other person but years of lies and falsehoods and tricks from all kinds of people and non-people alike have turned them skeptical, cynical, nonbelievers.

He doesn't move away from Peggy, even when she takes a step closer towards him, and he doesn't pull his hand from hers because that much contact feels like an anchor more than a distraction.

He thinks of something only the both of them would remember, something she could say to prove to him that she was really her too. ]

Do you remember what I told you in the car? Before we got to Erskine and Stark's lab. I told you after everything, asking someone to dance didn't seem to matter anymore.

I figured I'd wait.

[ Tell him what he was waiting for, Peggy. ]

screaming

[revlon]

[ No one else would know these words, some silly little phrase that they both took and ran with as the war grew longer and more difficult. It became a promise. The driver in the car hadn't overheard them and that horrible day in the radio room, she'd been alone to say her goodbyes in peace. No one else knows and she's never breathed this memory aloud to anyone else.

Her hands tighten on his as truth and reality slot neatly into place, as she's always known they would. ]

For the right partner.

[ There's an awful, heart-stopping moment where she thinks she might cry, but then she just laughs — this broken, little sound — and folds his hand against her heart. ]

Well, [ she finally says, shoring up her resolve, willing her voice to remain quite steady. ] I'm afraid we're both quite late.

[america]

[ His voice is soft. ]

Better late than never.

[ Steve folds his other hand over hers, and the relief in the breath he exhales is nearly palpable. It's a little like he'd been holding it, waiting for her to say the right (or wrong) thing and confirm this hallucination or this reality.

He couldn't have realized just how glad he is that this is the latter than the former until this very moment. ]

The impossible's become possible.

[revlon]

[ She doesn't quite trust herself to speak now, not with how exhausted she is, how brittle her carefully constructed walls have become in the face of all this shock and confusion; so she just nods (like a child, she thinks distantly and with some exasperation), and leans just that little bit forward — not to kiss him, alas, but — to rest her forehead against his chest.

She stays like that for a few long moments, breathing him in, feeling the faint pounding of his heart against her skin, and soon it becomes clear by the gentle hitching of her shoulders, that she's weeping. ]

[america]

[ Steve doesn't say anything. He remains still, just for a moment, right until he recognizes the quiet tremble of her shoulders and remembers that this is real. This really is Peggy Carter, not some complicated figment of his imagination or a trick laid out by one of their recent alien attackers.

He can touch her. This isn't a dream.

His arms move to wrap around her, slow and gentle. One broad hand rests against her back, moving in small circles. ]