Perfect recall is only perfect until it isn't. And although she'd been in the room for almost every pace the SSR and army had put Steve through, she feeds a thin vein of paranoia that he simply hasn't lived long enough on this side of the serum to know — with utter certainty — where each and every limit lies.
It is (perhaps) among one of her more unpopular opinions juxtaposed against her colleagues and superiors. Too many eye Captain America as though he is their infallible, perfect answer. Do anything; go anywhere; win every battle. And although her heart clenches every time she argues the point — after all, it's tantamount to arguing against Steve's potential — she prefers to think of it as being in his corner.
Always, always in his corner. Even if it means knocking him down a peg or three.
"—I'm perfectly fine." Peggy insists. And not for the first time. "Ask me again and I'll recite the field manual for surviving winter conditions. This isn't my first snowstorm, Captain Rogers."
Arch. A little chippy. Probably because she absolutly is cold — pink in her cheeks with such a natural, chilly flush that outdoes the best powdered blushes on the market. But instead of chafing her bare palms over her sleeves, she stiffly settles looks knuckles on her hips.
Steve actually appreciates that Peggy doesn't subscribe to the living myth that everyone else does, even if it means questioning his abilities. He isn't always sure of them himself, not with the suddenness of his transformation. So he puts up with things from her that he might not tolerate from anyone else, because he knows that she's ultimately on his side, that she sees the man underneath it all.
"I'd hate to be the only one reciting something from memory." His tone is dry as dust; maybe his vaunted patience isn't as boundless as it might seem. "We could start a fire," Steve adds, a little uselessly. His abbreviated version of boot camp did not include winter survival techniques, so he probably could do with a recitation of the field manual.
Part and parcel of treating Steve like the man underneath it all involves (among other things) subjecting him a prodigious roll of her eyes.
"We could start a fire, yes. I'm sure top brass would love to learn how your lungs handle smoke inhalation in a tiny, intentionally unventilated bunker."
— Hm. A touch too chippy, now. Peggy doesn't apologize; however, she does shoot Steve a wary, softened look. A knitting of her brows that suggests she feels genuine guilt for trying to get her claws in quite so deep. With a grumble, she has to acknowledge how the tension of fighting off a shiver is tanking her mood.
So she goes looking for something useful. Anything useful. And although Steve likely can't see its contents when she pulls open a narrow supply closet, he can probably hear her defeated sigh.
One thin cot, leaned the wrong way up against the closet wall.
"Fine, fine." Steve holds his hands up in surrender. "I was just trying to make use of what we've got." Namely, the table and the contents of the filing cabinet. But Peggy's right about the lack of ventilation, even if she's a bit sharp about it. Sharper than usual, which is a pretty good indication that she actually is cold.
He cranes his neck when she opens the closet, but he still can't see the contents. "I assume there aren't any parkas in there." Judging by that sigh, anyway. As terrible as he might be at judging women, he's getting better at reading Peggy's moods, at least. "Or even blankets."
She grips the edge of a thin, thin, thin blanket pre-tucked around a mattress that's nearly as scant. Rubbing the fabric between her fingers, she tuts the tip of her tongue against the roof of her mouth. It is (indeed) anything.
"There's a blanket," she tells him. Voice slightly muffled by how she's still facing the closet. "Singular."
Next follows a scraping sound and the sight of her hefting the metal-bodied cot off the wall. She manoeuvers it out of the closet and marches it to a narrow space against a corner. Just about the space with enough footprint to accept the thing. One might suggest it's laughable that she should take this physical burden on herself — grabbing the cot, lifting it, unfolding its rickety legs, setting in place — but she barks Steve off of helping her. If he tries, she manages to make it sound like a warning when she tells him the movement will do wonders for her core temperature.
Job done, she stands back and examines the sorry excuse for a bed with her hands returned to her hips.
Steve is pretty sure that the entire point of being a super-soldier is to shoulder physical burdens (hence the impressive set of, well, shoulders), but he lets Peggy handle the cot with only one instance of scolding. He's not foolish enough to provoke more; if she really wants to insist that setting up a cot is enough exertion to raise her core temperature, he'll let her do it.
"I could," he starts haltingly, then stops. "You know, the serum raises my body temperature." Of course she knows, she's read all the files and watched most of the examinations. "If you wanted, I could help keep you warm. Just- just by sitting under the blanket with you, that's all." Now he's back to his usual fumbling inability to speak to women, now that there's any sort of implied intimacy.
At his tenative start, she turns on a heel to look at him once more. Yes, a heel. Peggy's presence here today was strictly supervisory. When she's got no intention of actually joining a field mission, her appearances are smart and polished in her uniform jacket and skirt.
Her expression remains remarkably schooled as he delivers his next suggestion. It is (fortunately and unfortunately) a much, much better option than simply setting a fire. Her tongue darts over her lower lip before her teeth catch in the same place. She wonders if Steve understands how much odder the offer becomes when he rushes in to clarify that's all.
Peggy inhales. Peggy exhales. Peggy lets her attention linger a little too long on his — yes — impressive set of shoulders. More than that, she's seen the charts of on his basal body temperature taken as an average over three weeks. How strange, how weird, to be able to simply call such a detail to mind about another human being. Some days, she wonders if Steve even realizes how familiar his body is to her based on reams of paperwork alone.
And then she starts to shiver. So, relenting: "Section 8.5. When issued gear no longer provides sufficient insulation, and no external heat source is available, personnel should consolidate body heat. So sayeth the manual."
Maybe Steve's spent too much time around the other soldiers, who would have some very different recommendations for warming up - the kind that are impractical and absolutely not listed in any sort of field manual. Speaking of which, Steve has his doubts about the advice to share body heat, but if that's what Peggy needs to make her feel better about the whole thing, he'll let her have the flimsy pretense.
The cot creaks as he settles his weight on it, but it holds, and Steve tucks half of the blanket around himself, holding the other half out for Peggy. "You might be warmer if you were wearing pants." Stating the obvious a bit there. Steve certainly appreciates the sight of Peggy in a skirt, but it's awfully impractical in situations like this.
A jab she makes only because his are the only trousers in the room. It underlines, if a bit flint-like, how underprepared she does feel for this particular set back. It isn't that she doesn't want to experience Steve's unusually elevated basal body temperature; rather, she might have liked the opportunity for a different (hmm) approach.
But she shimmies in beside him. It's blimmin' awkward — at first. Peggy sits stiff on his left, ankles crossed and tilted under the body of the cot as she sits ramrod straight beside him. The blanket is...nothing, really. But him. Hip to hip; shoulder to shoulder. It only takes a moment before she feels how preposterous it's all become.
Smoothing out the ego from her voice, she lightly lays a hand upon his elbow. Ah, yes. Warm indeed. A frisson ladders up her arm and spreads like a fine root system through her chest and shoulders. The contrast makes her realize exactly how chilly the room has become.
"Steve," a rare gentle application of his name. Title peeled back. Familiar. "Would you — lie down? And I could..."
The hand that isn't settled on his elbow lifts and draws a kind of line in the air. And then another line next to it. And I could lie down beside you.
"Why, you want 'em?" His accent shines through in the broad vowels of the sentence, as it often does when he's being particularly ornery. But there's something earnest about it - he would give her his pants if she expressed any need for them, even if it would leave him sitting in the middle of a frosty room in his underwear. It's not like the cold can do him any harm (probably), it would just make him uncomfortable.
And speaking of uncomfortable: even though Steve's the one who offered to keep Peggy warm, he's still just as stiff as she is when she sits next to him on the cot. Somehow, he's failed to prepare himself for the fact that sharing body heat does, in fact, involve physical contact. He swallows nervously and rubs his palms on his broad thighs, wonders if he ought to put an arm around her. (Bucky would say yes, but Bucky would say yes about a lot of things involving women.)
Then Peggy asks him to lie down, and Steve wonders if she's just trying to make him put off more heat, because he can feel his cheeks burning at the suggestion. "I, uh-" Oh god, now he's stammering again. He coughs into one hand. "Of course. If that's what you want."
Or maybe he could shovel through the snowdrifts outside with nothing but his bare hands. That might be less humiliating for him.
Nevertheless, he gamely stretches out on the cot lengthwise and tries to pretend that he doesn't take up most of the room on the narrow cot. There's still enough room for Peggy to squeeze in next to him, and that's what's important.
Joke's aside, they've landed themselves in a rather sticky predicament. Peggy is just prideful enough not to back down — certainly not now that his paradoxically endearing annoyance has surfaced. There's a local-boy bite to his retort that makes her want to chomp back. Call the bluff. See who capitulates first. It's not a terribly mature instinct, and she tamps it down the moment all his backtalk gives way to a tender flush on his cheeks.
So goddamn endearing. It almost makes her question her motives — whether she'd jumped a little too quick and a little too fast to experience his body heat for herself. But rather than ask herself whether she might've been able to withstand the cold alone for another hour or so, she gingerly picks her way into the narrow sliver of space he leaves behind.
She quite literally made this bed. Now she'll condemn them both to lie in it.
Peggy lowers herself on first a palm and then an elbow. Her back to his front — tucked in such a way that she can feel the full rise and fall of his breaths against her spine. It's just as awkward and stiff as when they'd sat next to each other, only now there's one undeniable line of connection from shoulder to hip; they haven't quite found it in themselves to tuck their knees together yet. She rearranges the terrible blanket over their bodies (it doesn't eactly fit, now) and does her level best to focus on what matter: him, charitably hot against her. She's gotta admit it's working.
A little too softly, voice deflated by the act of lying on her side, she says: "...You should probably recite the plan again."
Forget lying back and thinking of England; Peggy intends to cool off even the most inchoate simmer with work.
Steve tries and fails to find an appropriate spot for his hand, then just throws caution to the wind and gingerly settles it on Peggy's hip. It's hardly a safe place, but they've left anywhere safe far behind, and now his best choices are...well, bad and worse. Her hip isn't neutral at all, but it's the best he's going to get.
He's almost afraid to breathe, to move, to do anything in this frozen (ha) moment of tension that threatens to overwhelm him if he does even the simplest thing. Maybe Peggy doesn't feel the same way - maybe it's easier for her than it is for him. Maybe it would help if he wasn't half terrified of intimacy. There are a lot of what-ifs at work, certainly enough to keep him from being anything other than a perfect gentleman.
"The plan." He clears his throat. "Right." Duly, he launches into yet another recitation of troop positions and the carefully plotted path to avoid the patrols. At the moment, he's pathetically glad for something to do to distract him.
Honestly, Peggy isn't faring much better. Oh — her external features are well-schooled. She allows a false slack to settle through her spine and shoulders. But if she wasn't being intentional about her breath and her racing, puzzling thoughts...? She might feel just as paralyzed as him. Especially when his palm (wide, warm, his) finds the curve of her hip.
How mindful of her not to shift her muscles just then. And she, too, is grateful for a task into which she can bury her attention. She knows the plan as well as he does and offers the barest nod of her head — back of her skull grazing his chin when she does — for every correct point.
And the whole time she fixes her eyes on the articulted cord running from the light bulb, stapled across the ceiling, and then running down the wall.
Steve picks his flawless way through the plan. Pride squirms in her stomach. Pride, sure. And in a soft voice, she asks: "And the passcode, once you're back on the radio?"
Every time her curls brush against his lips, Steve has to redouble his efforts to focus on the plan. He's extra careful to enumerate each and every gun emplacement so that he doesn't think about things like brushing Peggy's hair aside and kissing her neck, among other terrible ideas. If they just concentrate on the mission, they can make it through this. (Never mind that they'll be snowed in for hours; he's not thinking about anything beyond making it through the next few minutes.)
The tone of voice she uses - soft, almost vulnerable, in a way Peggy never allows herself to be - nearly undoes him. He squeezes her hip lightly before he replies, "Oscar Sierra Foxtrot Tango." Is he overstepping a boundary? Very probably. Carefully, he edges his knees up to fit behind hers.
— The way his hand barely tightens speaks volumes louder than any bright, passionate advance. Peggy isn't unobservant. She isn't naive. She's built at least a portion of career on reading others better than they read themselves. And while Steve is a man of unparalleled integrity, he's never quite been able to shroud his affection for her. It's never been overbearing or salacious or unwanted. Rather charming, actually, how he'd sit rapt across the table from her. How he'd circle her orbit.
And so it means something when he squeezes her hip. Means something else, too, when she feels the warmth of his thighs press against her hamstrings.
"Well done," she praises him. Unclear as for what, actually, as she hooks a stocking covered calf around his shin. Hauling some of that heat a little nearer.
Hard to feel guilty. They'll be here for hours, she knows, and the sooner they get over their stilted awkwardness then the warmer they'll be. She'll be.
It might be unprofessional (it is unprofessional), but Steve hasn't wanted to hide his feelings for Peggy completely. Mostly, yes; he doesn't want them to get in the way of accomplishing their objectives, and they've always been able to work together without issue. He's found himself increasingly eager for those rare scraps of affection she shows - something as small as addressing him by name when they're alone, for example. Being able to touch her is in a whole other league of its own.
"I told you I knew it," he blurts out, for lack of anything better to say. He doesn't want to address the whisper of nylons over his pants, the feel of her body heat warm under his hand. He relaxes just a fraction, lets out a long breath he'd been holding. They'll be fine, he thinks. He just has to keep his mind off of, well, everything.
Just as well she's faced away. She lets a smile slip — strangely pleased by his knee-jerk interjection. And by the slow, steady realization that proximity hides nothing. She can feel his exhalation. The soft, slow sink of tension. As a professional button-pusher, she has to wind her instincts up on a tight leash. She has to decide first whether she's prepared to take responsibility for what happens if she does anything more than the bare minimum to stay warm.
And she is staying warm. The plan, however silly, is working. Her cheeks might still be pinked with exposure to the room's colder air, but she can feel her core warming up. Her toes and fingers might still feel a little icy, but she can solve half the problem by wadding a corner of blanket up around her knuckles and tucking her fists under her chin.
"I didn't doubt you did," she confesses. "But it never hurts to practice."
Except (perhaps) when that practice gets you snowed in with the one other person to whom you feel inexorably, inevitably magnetized to.
As Steve relaxes, he scoots just a hair closer to Peggy - to keep her warm, of course, and with no other ulterior motives. Unable to see her face, he has to go by the reactions he can feel, whatever he can read into what she says (which is absolutely nothing). So he errs on the side of caution and chooses to keep his hand right where it is.
"Because the seventh time's the charm?" He can't help but needle her a little bit about her insistence on repetition. On the other hand, he's not opposed to the ultimate consequence of their actions, namely the way they're huddled together under the blanket. This hasn't featured in his closely held fantasies about Peggy, but it's sure to make an appearance in the future.
"Because you should know better than to rest on your laurels."
She doesn't censure him. It's barely a critique, really. More like — an expectation. An understanding. An oft unspoken acknowledgement of how fickle circumstances can be and how they all go but for the grace of those who walked ahead of them, kicking rocks off the path. It's a standard she doesn't hold everyone to. Just herself, him, and the other howlies.
He relaxes. She lets her weight tip back toward his chest, laying more against him than simply beside him. If she wanted, she could probably turn her cheek and see the slant of his nose. Maybe a spray of eyelashes. But she doesn't. Seeing his face so close — hmm. She too keeps closely held fantasies and all of them (if discovered) would earn him social accolades and her a scarlet letter, of sorts.
...But, oh, wouldn't it be nice to hold his hand? Her fingers twitch under his chin. Weighing risk and reward.
"Mm," he agrees, and the sound is more a rumble in his chest than anything audible. Steve doesn't expect anything to go flawlessly, but one thing he can do is make sure he does his part - which includes memorizing their plan of attack. So he can't fault Peggy entirely for quizzing him on it, but he can tease her a little about the extent she goes to. It's a gentle ribbing, the most intimacy he feels he's allowed to show.
Except that now - now - her hand is just below his chin, and it would be so easy to tip his head and kiss her fingers. Just a quick brush of lips, nothing more. But he keeps his resolve and holds his head exactly where it is.
She feels that rumble down to her bones. Like the head of a match struck against her spine. Brief and bright and it leaves her wondering how she can coax another out of him. Her teeth grit with whatever willpower is required to not meet his hum with a careful, questioning echo.
And although she might venture a guess that Steve would disagree, she knows the power balance tips in her favour. It's her duty not to press further; closer; beyond this careful useful conceit of body heat. No doubt, he holds his responsibility tightly in his hands and imagines himself the one who shouldn't impose on her. Peggy knows he's exactly so wholesome. She also knows that's exactly why the responsibility is, in fact, hers.
Without any obvious next sentence, she lets the silence stretch. Stretch and peel, leaving only their whisper-soft breath and the occasional too-loud creak of the cot. It takes a while for her current reality to cement itself under her skin.
Two minutes; four minutes; eight minutes. Then, dreadful quiet: "Steve—?"
Silence falls, and Steve tries not to tense again. His breath seems to come too loud; every small move he makes rustles and creaks. He's hyper-aware of every little noise, and he wonders if it seems as deafening to Peggy as it does to him. That old feeling of not knowing how to talk to girls resurfaces - not that conversation is necessary, per se, but it seems the only way to distract from their proximity, the way they seem seconds away from crashing into each other if they aren't careful about it.
"Peggy?" Her name falls from his lips easily, with a comfortable familiarity - lips that are almost, but not quite, close enough to brush the nape of her neck when he speaks.
There's never been a better time to say. Except, except, except, there's never been a worse time to say it either. She chews on her confession — rolling it around in the hollow of her cheek. Why now? Why has this fragile moment compelled her to pull the curtain back (just a little) on parts of her she usually keeps well-draped. Posed.
Having set it in motion, she needs a little courage to continue. She burrows into the miserable blanket, shoulders shimmying against his chest. And when she opens her mouth next, she veers vulnerably into the macabre. Aloud, she describes a location: a packet of letters, hidden under a false bottom in a trunk. The trunk sits at the foot of a bed in a permanent billet back in England — as close as she has to a permanent address even if she spends more time on the continent than home. It almost sounds like a parody of his gun placements and troop movements. A different kind of recitation.
"If anything were ever to happen—" she continues. To me, she means. "You should speak to the old quartermaster on base. Tell him your name and he'll give you a key."
It's only natural that she should think something will happen to her before it ever happens to Steve. He might spend more time under real fire, but — as has been well-stated already, she's familiar with his files. His limits and his hardiness. No, if anyone is making it out of this war? It's Steve Rogers.
"I would appreciate it if you made certain the letters reached their intended recipients."
As Peggy speaks, Steve curls around her - half-instinctively, half-deliberate, as if he can shield her from any harm with the bulk of his body. And if it came down to it, he would - but it's more likely that if anything happens to Peggy, it won't be something he can prevent. One of the reasons why his fantasies are so numerous is to occupy the space that might otherwise be taken by fears, the terrible knowledge of everything that can go wrong during a war. Sometimes it feels as if he stopped to worry about her safety, he'd never be able to do anything else.
"Of course," he promises her. Steve doesn't try to reassure her that she'll be fine, that nothing could possibly happen. She deserves better than simple platitudes. So instead he splays his hand across her stomach, warm and solid, everything he can offer her without actually saying it.
— His palm travels past her hip. Warm, it settles above a shield of buttons and wool. Silk, beneath, but he can't feel the way his pressed hand slides silk across her skin. And for a flash, she feels nearer to him than she ever has. Physically, sure. But she half-imagines her heart leaping backwards into his chest. Y'know, metaphorically. Emotionally.
Peggy settles into the hollow made by his curling figure. She holds his centre — shivering not from the cold but from the eerie intimacy of having articulated a fear out loud. A fear of leaving him behind. Because (of course) there's a letter for him. And it spills out enough obvious truths that she almost feels bad for conjuring it tonight without making good on all the regrets she's already committed to paper. How often I thought of kissing the soot off your cheeks whenever you returned.
Instead, she trails her fingers down her own body until they hit gold and lace with his. A tight, warm grip threaded between his knuckles. Oddly, suddenly possessive. It's meant to say things she can't quite convince her tongue to touch.
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It is (perhaps) among one of her more unpopular opinions juxtaposed against her colleagues and superiors. Too many eye Captain America as though he is their infallible, perfect answer. Do anything; go anywhere; win every battle. And although her heart clenches every time she argues the point — after all, it's tantamount to arguing against Steve's potential — she prefers to think of it as being in his corner.
Always, always in his corner. Even if it means knocking him down a peg or three.
"—I'm perfectly fine." Peggy insists. And not for the first time. "Ask me again and I'll recite the field manual for surviving winter conditions. This isn't my first snowstorm, Captain Rogers."
Arch. A little chippy. Probably because she absolutly is cold — pink in her cheeks with such a natural, chilly flush that outdoes the best powdered blushes on the market. But instead of chafing her bare palms over her sleeves, she stiffly settles looks knuckles on her hips.
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"I'd hate to be the only one reciting something from memory." His tone is dry as dust; maybe his vaunted patience isn't as boundless as it might seem. "We could start a fire," Steve adds, a little uselessly. His abbreviated version of boot camp did not include winter survival techniques, so he probably could do with a recitation of the field manual.
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"We could start a fire, yes. I'm sure top brass would love to learn how your lungs handle smoke inhalation in a tiny, intentionally unventilated bunker."
— Hm. A touch too chippy, now. Peggy doesn't apologize; however, she does shoot Steve a wary, softened look. A knitting of her brows that suggests she feels genuine guilt for trying to get her claws in quite so deep. With a grumble, she has to acknowledge how the tension of fighting off a shiver is tanking her mood.
So she goes looking for something useful. Anything useful. And although Steve likely can't see its contents when she pulls open a narrow supply closet, he can probably hear her defeated sigh.
One thin cot, leaned the wrong way up against the closet wall.
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He cranes his neck when she opens the closet, but he still can't see the contents. "I assume there aren't any parkas in there." Judging by that sigh, anyway. As terrible as he might be at judging women, he's getting better at reading Peggy's moods, at least. "Or even blankets."
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"There's a blanket," she tells him. Voice slightly muffled by how she's still facing the closet. "Singular."
Next follows a scraping sound and the sight of her hefting the metal-bodied cot off the wall. She manoeuvers it out of the closet and marches it to a narrow space against a corner. Just about the space with enough footprint to accept the thing. One might suggest it's laughable that she should take this physical burden on herself — grabbing the cot, lifting it, unfolding its rickety legs, setting in place — but she barks Steve off of helping her. If he tries, she manages to make it sound like a warning when she tells him the movement will do wonders for her core temperature.
Job done, she stands back and examines the sorry excuse for a bed with her hands returned to her hips.
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"I could," he starts haltingly, then stops. "You know, the serum raises my body temperature." Of course she knows, she's read all the files and watched most of the examinations. "If you wanted, I could help keep you warm. Just- just by sitting under the blanket with you, that's all." Now he's back to his usual fumbling inability to speak to women, now that there's any sort of implied intimacy.
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Her expression remains remarkably schooled as he delivers his next suggestion. It is (fortunately and unfortunately) a much, much better option than simply setting a fire. Her tongue darts over her lower lip before her teeth catch in the same place. She wonders if Steve understands how much odder the offer becomes when he rushes in to clarify that's all.
Peggy inhales. Peggy exhales. Peggy lets her attention linger a little too long on his — yes — impressive set of shoulders. More than that, she's seen the charts of on his basal body temperature taken as an average over three weeks. How strange, how weird, to be able to simply call such a detail to mind about another human being. Some days, she wonders if Steve even realizes how familiar his body is to her based on reams of paperwork alone.
And then she starts to shiver. So, relenting: "Section 8.5. When issued gear no longer provides sufficient insulation, and no external heat source is available, personnel should consolidate body heat. So sayeth the manual."
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The cot creaks as he settles his weight on it, but it holds, and Steve tucks half of the blanket around himself, holding the other half out for Peggy. "You might be warmer if you were wearing pants." Stating the obvious a bit there. Steve certainly appreciates the sight of Peggy in a skirt, but it's awfully impractical in situations like this.
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A jab she makes only because his are the only trousers in the room. It underlines, if a bit flint-like, how underprepared she does feel for this particular set back. It isn't that she doesn't want to experience Steve's unusually elevated basal body temperature; rather, she might have liked the opportunity for a different (hmm) approach.
But she shimmies in beside him. It's blimmin' awkward — at first. Peggy sits stiff on his left, ankles crossed and tilted under the body of the cot as she sits ramrod straight beside him. The blanket is...nothing, really. But him. Hip to hip; shoulder to shoulder. It only takes a moment before she feels how preposterous it's all become.
Smoothing out the ego from her voice, she lightly lays a hand upon his elbow. Ah, yes. Warm indeed. A frisson ladders up her arm and spreads like a fine root system through her chest and shoulders. The contrast makes her realize exactly how chilly the room has become.
"Steve," a rare gentle application of his name. Title peeled back. Familiar. "Would you — lie down? And I could..."
The hand that isn't settled on his elbow lifts and draws a kind of line in the air. And then another line next to it. And I could lie down beside you.
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And speaking of uncomfortable: even though Steve's the one who offered to keep Peggy warm, he's still just as stiff as she is when she sits next to him on the cot. Somehow, he's failed to prepare himself for the fact that sharing body heat does, in fact, involve physical contact. He swallows nervously and rubs his palms on his broad thighs, wonders if he ought to put an arm around her. (Bucky would say yes, but Bucky would say yes about a lot of things involving women.)
Then Peggy asks him to lie down, and Steve wonders if she's just trying to make him put off more heat, because he can feel his cheeks burning at the suggestion. "I, uh-" Oh god, now he's stammering again. He coughs into one hand. "Of course. If that's what you want."
Or maybe he could shovel through the snowdrifts outside with nothing but his bare hands. That might be less humiliating for him.
Nevertheless, he gamely stretches out on the cot lengthwise and tries to pretend that he doesn't take up most of the room on the narrow cot. There's still enough room for Peggy to squeeze in next to him, and that's what's important.
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So goddamn endearing. It almost makes her question her motives — whether she'd jumped a little too quick and a little too fast to experience his body heat for herself. But rather than ask herself whether she might've been able to withstand the cold alone for another hour or so, she gingerly picks her way into the narrow sliver of space he leaves behind.
She quite literally made this bed. Now she'll condemn them both to lie in it.
Peggy lowers herself on first a palm and then an elbow. Her back to his front — tucked in such a way that she can feel the full rise and fall of his breaths against her spine. It's just as awkward and stiff as when they'd sat next to each other, only now there's one undeniable line of connection from shoulder to hip; they haven't quite found it in themselves to tuck their knees together yet. She rearranges the terrible blanket over their bodies (it doesn't eactly fit, now) and does her level best to focus on what matter: him, charitably hot against her. She's gotta admit it's working.
A little too softly, voice deflated by the act of lying on her side, she says: "...You should probably recite the plan again."
Forget lying back and thinking of England; Peggy intends to cool off even the most inchoate simmer with work.
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He's almost afraid to breathe, to move, to do anything in this frozen (ha) moment of tension that threatens to overwhelm him if he does even the simplest thing. Maybe Peggy doesn't feel the same way - maybe it's easier for her than it is for him. Maybe it would help if he wasn't half terrified of intimacy. There are a lot of what-ifs at work, certainly enough to keep him from being anything other than a perfect gentleman.
"The plan." He clears his throat. "Right." Duly, he launches into yet another recitation of troop positions and the carefully plotted path to avoid the patrols. At the moment, he's pathetically glad for something to do to distract him.
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How mindful of her not to shift her muscles just then. And she, too, is grateful for a task into which she can bury her attention. She knows the plan as well as he does and offers the barest nod of her head — back of her skull grazing his chin when she does — for every correct point.
And the whole time she fixes her eyes on the articulted cord running from the light bulb, stapled across the ceiling, and then running down the wall.
Steve picks his flawless way through the plan. Pride squirms in her stomach. Pride, sure. And in a soft voice, she asks: "And the passcode, once you're back on the radio?"
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The tone of voice she uses - soft, almost vulnerable, in a way Peggy never allows herself to be - nearly undoes him. He squeezes her hip lightly before he replies, "Oscar Sierra Foxtrot Tango." Is he overstepping a boundary? Very probably. Carefully, he edges his knees up to fit behind hers.
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And so it means something when he squeezes her hip. Means something else, too, when she feels the warmth of his thighs press against her hamstrings.
"Well done," she praises him. Unclear as for what, actually, as she hooks a stocking covered calf around his shin. Hauling some of that heat a little nearer.
Hard to feel guilty. They'll be here for hours, she knows, and the sooner they get over their stilted awkwardness then the warmer they'll be. She'll be.
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"I told you I knew it," he blurts out, for lack of anything better to say. He doesn't want to address the whisper of nylons over his pants, the feel of her body heat warm under his hand. He relaxes just a fraction, lets out a long breath he'd been holding. They'll be fine, he thinks. He just has to keep his mind off of, well, everything.
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And she is staying warm. The plan, however silly, is working. Her cheeks might still be pinked with exposure to the room's colder air, but she can feel her core warming up. Her toes and fingers might still feel a little icy, but she can solve half the problem by wadding a corner of blanket up around her knuckles and tucking her fists under her chin.
"I didn't doubt you did," she confesses. "But it never hurts to practice."
Except (perhaps) when that practice gets you snowed in with the one other person to whom you feel inexorably, inevitably magnetized to.
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"Because the seventh time's the charm?" He can't help but needle her a little bit about her insistence on repetition. On the other hand, he's not opposed to the ultimate consequence of their actions, namely the way they're huddled together under the blanket. This hasn't featured in his closely held fantasies about Peggy, but it's sure to make an appearance in the future.
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She doesn't censure him. It's barely a critique, really. More like — an expectation. An understanding. An oft unspoken acknowledgement of how fickle circumstances can be and how they all go but for the grace of those who walked ahead of them, kicking rocks off the path. It's a standard she doesn't hold everyone to. Just herself, him, and the other howlies.
He relaxes. She lets her weight tip back toward his chest, laying more against him than simply beside him. If she wanted, she could probably turn her cheek and see the slant of his nose. Maybe a spray of eyelashes. But she doesn't. Seeing his face so close — hmm. She too keeps closely held fantasies and all of them (if discovered) would earn him social accolades and her a scarlet letter, of sorts.
...But, oh, wouldn't it be nice to hold his hand? Her fingers twitch under his chin. Weighing risk and reward.
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Except that now - now - her hand is just below his chin, and it would be so easy to tip his head and kiss her fingers. Just a quick brush of lips, nothing more. But he keeps his resolve and holds his head exactly where it is.
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And although she might venture a guess that Steve would disagree, she knows the power balance tips in her favour. It's her duty not to press further; closer; beyond this careful useful conceit of body heat. No doubt, he holds his responsibility tightly in his hands and imagines himself the one who shouldn't impose on her. Peggy knows he's exactly so wholesome. She also knows that's exactly why the responsibility is, in fact, hers.
Without any obvious next sentence, she lets the silence stretch. Stretch and peel, leaving only their whisper-soft breath and the occasional too-loud creak of the cot. It takes a while for her current reality to cement itself under her skin.
Two minutes; four minutes; eight minutes. Then, dreadful quiet: "Steve—?"
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"Peggy?" Her name falls from his lips easily, with a comfortable familiarity - lips that are almost, but not quite, close enough to brush the nape of her neck when he speaks.
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Having set it in motion, she needs a little courage to continue. She burrows into the miserable blanket, shoulders shimmying against his chest. And when she opens her mouth next, she veers vulnerably into the macabre. Aloud, she describes a location: a packet of letters, hidden under a false bottom in a trunk. The trunk sits at the foot of a bed in a permanent billet back in England — as close as she has to a permanent address even if she spends more time on the continent than home. It almost sounds like a parody of his gun placements and troop movements. A different kind of recitation.
"If anything were ever to happen—" she continues. To me, she means. "You should speak to the old quartermaster on base. Tell him your name and he'll give you a key."
It's only natural that she should think something will happen to her before it ever happens to Steve. He might spend more time under real fire, but — as has been well-stated already, she's familiar with his files. His limits and his hardiness. No, if anyone is making it out of this war? It's Steve Rogers.
"I would appreciate it if you made certain the letters reached their intended recipients."
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"Of course," he promises her. Steve doesn't try to reassure her that she'll be fine, that nothing could possibly happen. She deserves better than simple platitudes. So instead he splays his hand across her stomach, warm and solid, everything he can offer her without actually saying it.
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Peggy settles into the hollow made by his curling figure. She holds his centre — shivering not from the cold but from the eerie intimacy of having articulated a fear out loud. A fear of leaving him behind. Because (of course) there's a letter for him. And it spills out enough obvious truths that she almost feels bad for conjuring it tonight without making good on all the regrets she's already committed to paper. How often I thought of kissing the soot off your cheeks whenever you returned.
Instead, she trails her fingers down her own body until they hit gold and lace with his. A tight, warm grip threaded between his knuckles. Oddly, suddenly possessive. It's meant to say things she can't quite convince her tongue to touch.
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