ɪᴄ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴀᴄᴛ

[uprightness]

STEVE ROGERS;

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[mucked]

Two weeks! [ she echoes. ] Planning on doing a great deal of waking, are you?

[uprightness]

I hope to.

[ there's no point nor merit in ever denying that part. In fact, he goes and shuffles closer, his lines against hers. Lord, he missed her. Now more than always, he hates that she had to deal with something like this for 3 weeks. ]

This is my favorite part of the day, after all.

[mucked]

[ she forces a roll of her eyes. really, it takes more effort to be annoyed than usual. which is, in itself, annoying. ]

Who knew you were such a teddy bear, Steve Rogers.

[uprightness]

You did.

[ he counters at once, not really minding the accusation ( mostly because it's absolutely true as of late ). ]

You've been living with me for months now and you're the sharpest person I know. So you must have known from the get-go

[mucked]

I knew a lot of things from the get-go. [ she answered, a little too quick. a little too honest. ] But that realization? Well. It wasn't quite so instant. It took time.

[uprightness]

Probably because it has only become relevant a few months ago.

[ hinting that perhaps everything starts and ends with her. What's become a fact between the two of them might never hold with anyone else. It's simply something that's only true with Peggy. ]

[mucked]

[ and, at that, she wraps her arms around his broad broad shoulders and hugs him close. a few months ago, he says? god, she knows she would have happily cuddled him close before it -- no matter how difficult each step has been. ]

There's still a bit of trouble, I find, in remembering that a few months ago was indeed a few months ago. [ all she remembers in some flashes is home. ]

[uprightness]

Time is tricky.

[ he agrees, his tone turning a shade more somber. It's true and is relevant to just about anyone on the fleet but he reckons time has never been their friend even before the fleet.

Steve can't help but resent this situation. It feels as if the atroma are sending tests their way to see if the foundation might crack. ]

But still, it's probably the only thing we can use in this case.

[ give it time, as they say. ]

[mucked]

[ she grabs his hand. and, in what appears to be at first a bold move betrays itself as something altogether different when she settles his warm palm against her abdomen's scar. ]

For one, I keep forgetting this has healed up. I catch myself favouring the side of me while I walk or grab for things -- not realizing there's nothing there to favour.

[uprightness]

[ he splays his palm above the scar, tracing it with a finger. he doesn't have a single one, himself. even the scars he had before the serum were healed by it. peggy's different but steve thinks of each one of them as a token of what he loves best about her, strong ideals and nerve to match. ]

What else?

[mucked]

You.

[ she skirts her answer with care and caution. it's honest, all the same. it flirts with the edge of raw and reminds her that there is so much she hasn't told him -- hasn't dared to. some things seemed easiest not to say. ]

I catch myself forgetting you're more than merely a memory. [ but his touch helps. and so does the heat of his skin when she noses against his brow. ] And that thinking about you doesn't need to come with so much sting in every thought.

[uprightness]

[ he shifts, stretches an arm beneath her and tugging her closer against him. He knows that particular notion, at least. His own surge of memories sent him into a reclusive mess all those months ago. She's handling the dissonance much better than he had at the time. ]

Anything I can do?

[ for him, at the time, the best cure was moments like these; her quiet embrace and her presence but he knows better than assuming they are exactly alike in that regard. ]

[mucked]

This certainly doesn't hurt.

[ being wrapped up in him with such a tangle that she can't be certain where one of them ends and the next begins. it's precisely the sort of intimacy that would have spooked her off a year ago. it comes back to her, now, like second nature and reminds her that here is where she's meant to be.

for the time being. until the atroma see fit to spit her back out into the harsh light of home. ]

It makes sense, this.

[ more sense than the mess waiting for her back in california. ]

[uprightness]

[ it's one of the only things that truly frighten him, the day the atroma will decide their heartbreak is much more interesting than their romance and she'll be stolen away from him or he would be from her. what was once a thought about all that could be is now very vivid in his arms. steve knows that given a thought, he would fight every battle to stay by her side, to not part from her for a single now, not now when he has a clear idea of what they'll be missing.

he remembers burrowing into her, leaning against her in his old room, on his much smaller bed and how that alone had chased away tension and pain and heartbreak. he kisses her shoulder and nods. ]

it really does.

[mucked]

[ when everything else around them still manages to make her skin crawl (the atroma, the planets, the pinging back and forth between memories) it's him what remains a constant blessing between it all. as she'd said: it makes sense. snuggled here, with him. ]

Back in '47, it's -- shambolic. [ the ssr. her friendships. her relationships. ] It's easier here with you. I suppose I should feel ashamed of preferring space over home.

[uprightness]

If you should, then so should I.

[ it's a predictable answer but one he's glad to finally out to words. steve's life has been a puzzle he's been trying to put together since 2012. it's all different, here, everything fall into just the right place. there are concerns and troubles - questioning thoughts that simply do not linger here. ]

i've been trying to recreate the concept of feeling at home since they pulled me out of the ice.

[mucked]

I never bothered. [ to recreate home. she left what was familiar and home-like behind. only... ]

No. That's not quite honest. I moved to New York, after all. [ and peggy had never put this to words before. not exactly. she wets her lips and leans her cheek against the top of his head. ] I can't say I landed there by accident, can I?

[uprightness]

I joined SHIELD.

[ he offers, one bit in favor of another. he will tell her about that in years and years to come, for her but it makes all the difference telling her that now, too. ]

I know for a fact that wasn't accidental.

[ he didn't agree because of any argument fury had made; it was always just because of her, because it was her legacy he was helping to uphold.

in the end, it's why he took it apart, too. ]

[mucked]

[ now. there's a knot. peggy squirms a moment, evidently uncomfortable with this initial topic. she knows so little of shield except for what steve and his fellow once-avengers have shared with her. but, on top of that, she'd heard a great deal else from agent fitz.

peggy bites her bottom lip. she doesn't want to say it. and yet. ]

And apparently I named it SHIELD. [ peggy traces a shape -- shield-like -- on the back of his neck. ] Odd bit of sentimentality, that. Sounds unlike me.

[uprightness]

It stands for something other than a shield.

[ but honestly, he never really gave it much thought. SHIELD was always just that and steve didn't think that there was any reason behind the name. he never asked peggy about it in their conversation, either. he wasn't sure she'd remember and he never wanted to upset her, either. ]

took me a while to memorize it, really.

[ it's a jest, of course. his memory was always sharp. ]</small.

[mucked]

Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division.

[ she recites it with care. peggy's known the words for near two years -- indeed, that's about as long as she's been in the fleet. her nose crinkles by the end.

and she admits: ] It's a mouthful. A clumsy mouthful. Even so, I'd wager good credits that you remembered it straight away. Cheeky bastard.

[ don't play pretend with her, steve rogers. ]

[uprightness]

I'm telling you it took weeks and weeks.

[ he makes it sound so dramatic, as usual but it's a poor joke, seeing as he's still smiling through the complaint. He shifts, kisses her chin first, then her cheek. ]

What does the L stand for again?

[mucked]

[ oh she would love to come up with something witty and playful and false. but the augment glitch does its work, dragging a 'helpful' answer out of her: ] Logistics.

[ she growls, indignant, in the wake of it. a fine distraction is found in kissing his mouth a moment. brief. ]

Are we certain I did the naming? Can't we blame someone else?

[uprightness]

Oh come on, it's not that bad.

[ his nose bumps against hers and if his kisses become a degree fiercer, if his fingers escape her own to travel up her side beneath the cotton of her shirt, it's surely to lift her mood. surely.

she's not going to let him get away with it but it's worth a try. ]

it's not like the Avengers is much better.

[mucked]

The 'Avengers' is awful. You should all feel ashamed of that one. So dramatic.

[ her hand curls against his bicep; she gives his arm a shove and shifts gears long enough to mutter a whispered: ] Oi, now, what's all this about?

[ oh she knows what all this is about. ]