Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The best way to hide is in plain sight, or so they say. They've carefully drawn this plan with the help of Howard, Phillips, the Commandos, and, completely against Peggy's will, Angie. God knows she wanted to keep everything under wraps for her security, but the first smile she saw on Peggy's face after Steve returned had her guessing and pressing relentlessly until she got an answer. Not for the first time, Peggy thought her actress friend would make a great spy. All of them put together the broad strokes of the play they were to represent for the world: Steve's new identity as Major Grant Stevens, his addition to SHIELD impulsed by Phillips against Peggy's opinion (somebody in SHIELD was against every single decision taken, so it occurred to them it might as well be Peggy this time, only to be soon convinced by Major Stevens' professionalism), the idea of subtly planting the seed of the rumours of a mutual attraction and a budding relationship, a discreet courtship and engagement, an intimate ceremony. That was, as Angie put it, the storyline.

The script, the fine details, was all Steve and Peggy. They spent hours on end working on the exact timeline to make it believable, but not too obvious. They had actual notepads full of text written in code, just in case they got in the wrong hands, detailing how everything was supposed to occur. Sometimes they would get stuck on a "scene", and get the perfect idea for it after a round or two of lovemaking. They talked about the past, about the future, they danced, they made plans, Steve grew his beard, Peggy pretended, albeit half-heartedly, to find it abhorrent, they kissed, and Peggy could swear she had never been quite as happy as that month living together in preparation of Steve's reintroduction to life in 1949. She also had never been as glad of having bought her house in a suburb where construction was barely starting and neighbours were way too far away to notice she had been keeping company for weeks. Now that they are playing their roles and he is staying at an apartment downtown, the house feels too big and too quiet and apparently she doesn't know how to sleep in her bed on her own anymore. Peggy sighs and walks to the door of her office:

- "Major Stevens? A word?"

Steve stands up and walks towards her, somehow in a slightly different way, posture and all, sporting the beginnings of a shy smile, all while fixing his glasses. His body language is not entirely unlike himself, not if you knew him before the serum, but you wouldn't recognise Captain America in him, even if you had met him in the field. Method acting, that's what it's called, apparently, according to Steve. Angie was amazed when he told her about that. 

The door closes and she waits a bit, staring at him. His hearing remains as extraordinary as on the first day post-serum, and he nods, letting her know nobody is within listening distance if they keep the conversation quiet. 

- "I hear you've been asking around about my relationship status", Peggy raises an eyebrow comically. She truly cannot be mad at this.

- "I wouldn't call it asking around. I just asked Patricia, in confidence, whether she knew if there was a Mr. Carter."

- "In confidence? You might as well have asked Dorothy" 

- "I wanted to plant the seed of a little rumour among the secretaries, not to announce it from the rooftops. Also, I need them to think that I'm crazy about you, not that I'm a complete idiot and a terrible judge of character." 

- "Steve..ns", she sighed. It is sometimes still hard to use his fake name in spontaneous situations. "This was not in our script. Are you in a rush?"

He seems to stop for a second and listen again to check there is no one nearby.

- "Have you seen your tits?" It takes her by surprise, and she has to bite a laugh. There is a smirk there, and a stare that she recognises from intimate moments, and she wants to grab him and take him home, and possibly not leave the bedroom ever again. "Because I haven't lately. For almost three weeks and a half. The sooner the rumour mill starts, the sooner it makes sense for you to show some interest, and for us to have a date and then..."

- "Are you regretting the method thing already?", she teases him.

- "How many dates does it take again in the 40s to...?"

- "You used to live with Barnes, and I'm sure he had plenty of dates. How many did he use to need to...?"

- "Buck? Not very many", he shakes his head, smiling, and lowers his voice even more. "I'm on edge about him too."

- "With the intel you brought, we have the exact location and moment to extract him while we are supposed to be in our honeymoon. We can do nothing but wait until then. Just, please, stick to the script."

Steve nods and looks towards the door. Somebody is approaching.

- "What have we been talking about here?", he whispers.

- "The revised protocol you gave me yesterday." Peggy raises her voice slightly when she sees a shadow getting closer to the door "could you have a look at the other protocols from the department of security for tomorrow, Major Stevens?"

- "Of course."

Chapter Text

Peggy has quite the background as a spy to be good at feigning interest in a man she doesn't care much for. Pretending to have no interest in the love of her life, though? Hardly her forte. Even Phillips, and god knows Phillips made a deliberate effort not to notice that kind of thing, saw how she felt about Steve from the beginning. It isn't easy to look his way in the office and act like he is a colleague just like anyone else. She has the feeling somebody is going to take note of it, and it will blow their elaborate cover in no time, so she might have overdone the paying no attention to him. But now the ball is rolling and either she starts sneaking curious glances at him, or everyone will assume she is not interested, and Steve's attempt at rushing the rumour mill will be worth nothing. She has been doing her part for two days and a half, and it has already become abundantly clear that Major Grant Stevens is very well-liked among the ladies at SHIELD headquarters. Peggy feels, as she has many times in the last few weeks, thrilled that since the foundation of SHIELD she has the habit of calling collaborators to her office very frequently to discuss different issues, which gives her a good cover to at least have some privacy to talk to Steve alone every now and again. 

They talk about the protocols for a while because, part of a cover or not, he is doing his job and his contributions are helping considerably to polish some aspects SHIELD can use help with, and then Peggy seizes her opportunity. 

- "You asked Patricia about my love life because the girls at the office are all over you, didn't you?"

He shrugs and there is a hint of a blush you have to stare to see, but Peggy does, and she smiles. He would have left things like that before, but the Steve that came back from the 2020s is slightly different that way.

- "I'm a catch, you know?"

- "Oh, are you?" the corners of Peggy's mouth curl in the beginnings of a smile. God, she misses the everyday banter.

- "You know some women really appreciate the look of a uniform." 

- "One would say women have grown tired of uniforms after the war, but to each their own, I suppose."

- "I'm tidy."

- "You have a total amount of about seven things of your own, I'm not sure one can be untidy with that amount of possessions."

- "I can cook"

- "Most of the meals you claim to be able to make contain between two and five ingredients that can't be found in this time and place."

- "Touché. Women tend to have a good opinion of my looks, I don't know if you have noticed," he winks at her.

- "To be fair, I can almost get a glimpse of a handsome man under that beard." Peggy teases him.

Steve leans slightly towards Peggy's desk and looks positively naughty, so it's not entirely unexpected when he whispers:

- "And I think you and I will agree I'm not half bad at eating pussy."

Not entirely unexpected doesn't mean he doesn't get a kick from under the table.

- "Will you please stop with the sexual lingo from the future?", Peggy hisses, "you know it makes me nervous."

- "I know it makes you feel some way, and it's not nervous," he bites the tip of his tongue, looks down for a second and then back again and mouths "I love you. I miss you."

There is sincerity, and vulnerability, and a bit of loneliness in his eyes and it kills Peggy that they have to be apart this way, even if it's temporary. 

- "This is hard. It's harder than I expected," he clears his throat.

Humour is working to endure the situation, and it's not like they have a lot more options, so humour will have to do.

- "Well, it's been harder at other points in time", she stares at his crotch, "I can attest to it."

Steve tries to bite back a laugh, but he does not really manage to and looks slightly taken aback because of it.

- "Two can play that game, Major Stevens. And I don't think it hurts our story to have people hearing I make you laugh. How do you feel about doing your little coffee scene tomorrow?"

It worried her endlessly from the moment they decided to do it, not reacting adequately or naturally enough, and their colleagues getting suspicions about their story. It turns out she didn't have to worry. At all. It was all planned. There is a coffee room in the office, with a drip coffee maker, some snacks, and a big and open enough space to be a great location to gossip in, as well as about. Steve, in his Major Stevens persona, was to go there first and Peggy would follow about a couple of minutes later for an "accidental" encounter. She gets there just when he has just poured his own coffee, they stare into each other's eyes for a second too long, and he offers to pour her coffee:

- "Black, with sugar, right?"

She clears her throat and answers, trying to sound the right amount of nonchalant to make it feel not nonchalant at all to anyone overhearing.

- "I see you are a man that pays attention to detail, Major."

- "Only when it's important."

And there goes another silence that is there just a moment longer than it should. Alright, this feels good. They've thought this, they've talked about this, they've written notes about this. And now they are ready for the final touch. Her part there, being believable, is what has her fretting. 

He gives her her mug back, and says "it's hardly the best coffee in Washington DC, but it will have to do", with a soft smile.

- "You have just recently moved to the city and are already an expert in where to get the best coffee, Major Stevens?". Peggy aims to sound just a little bit cheeky, enough that someone could read it between the lines, but nothing definite. 

Steve leans into one of the tables and blurts out: "I know two places in this area that are really good, actually. They are family-owned, Italian, and really worth visiting. If you would like that, I could show you where they are." He sounds exactly the right mix of hopeful, nervous and tentative, the way they had planned it.

Two things happen then. First, the silence. Clearly, nobody at a reasonable distance from the coffee room was NOT listening, expecting her answer. Then, her reaction. She knew what she had to say and do, she had rehearsed it with Angie, and she had hoped she could be decent at pretending. Only it's not pretend. Maybe it's the moment, maybe it's how much she misses their life together, maybe it's the eye contact that makes her forget about anyone else around them. She just gets absolutely, honest-to-god flustered at "Major Stevens'" offer, she mumbles something, and leaves. And she is back at her office, back against the door, exhilarated that she's done even better than she expected, and rather puzzled about how realistically she has felt what Steve and herself have written in their script. Maybe that method thing works, after all. 

Chapter Text

Angie is just delighted to be an active part of the charade. In a way, it's easier for Peggy, seeing she will be the one doing most of the heavy lifting. Last week, Phillips made an appearance at SHIELD headquarters to meet with Peggy and have a chat about Major Stevens' contribution so far. He made sure some agents here and there heard him remind Peggy that she had initially been against his incorporation to the team, but Stevens had more than proved himself. Peggy conceded, making sure, for performative reasons, that she sounded simultaneously reluctant to admit she had been in the wrong, and not too mad that Stevens was staying. The three of them had had lunch, after Phillips' humorous accusation that she wanted to starve him to death out of spite for him being right, at Peggy's go-to spot for a quick bite, where Angie was working some months in-between Broadway gigs. That had been fun. They needed to be seen. Steve needed to act in awe of her. Peggy needed to half-pretend she wasn't enjoying his attention thoroughly. Phillips had to behave as if he found it all terribly annoying. All in all, not much acting involved. 

It is different today. For one, there will be no allies in the table with her, just audience that needs to be sold a story and eat it up. Peggy doesn't want the whole pretence to be too obvious, doesn't want to seem like a schoolgirl with a crush or something worse, and she particularly doesn't want to repeat this kind of scene, so she really hopes this works and gives the rumour mill some fuel.

She has been working on the planning of a series of missions, trying to polish each and every detail, and has offered to take her team of strategists for a decent lunch after days of back-to-back meetings. She opens the door to find Angie behind the counter, ready to play the role of her life and tackle any other waitress that might step on her path to do what she has to do today. She greets Peggy enthusiastically, smiles a lot, expresses her gladness to meet some of her co-workers, and enchants everyone in the group. It might be the closest thing to an acting gig for her this month, but she wouldn't mind a few generous tips on the waitressing side of things. Once they've ordered, Peggy excuses herself to go to the restroom and, when she is on her way back, close enough to the table, Angie approaches her, and says, just at the right volume to be heard, but pretend not to want to:

- "Is Colonel Grump not joining you today? And how about that handsome Major you have wrapped around your finger?"

Peggy does the best outrage face she can manage to pull off.

- "Angie!!"

- "He had eyes for nothing and nobody but you, English. I could've served him a brick and he wouldn't have noticed."

- "Don't be ridiculous!" Peggy is pretty sure she is blushing a little. She wasn't aware she could make herself blush on command. Fascinating, this method acting thing.

- "Just saying, English, if you don't put that man out of his misery, some other gal will. Think about that!"

When she sits back at the table, she notices, thankfully, a couple exchanges of knowing looks, and hopes to god she's given something that will be talked about. 

Steve's eyes light up the moment he clocks her entering the office. The way they always do. The way they have always done. Before the serum. After the serum. In the middle of the war. After the war, and the ice, and the future. When somebody else is there to witness, and when it's only the two of them. Right now, the wait feels unbearable, but Peggy tries to focus on the idea that, a year ago, she would have killed to have those eyes locking with hers just once again, let alone the prospect of starting a life together. She can see from the corner of her eye an agent looking at them with a hint of a smile. Good. She has always loved it when missions go exactly as planned.