America's Sweetheart (Steve Rogers) - 1

14

Present Day

"How've you been Peg?" Steve asked as he sat at the bedside of Peggy Carter. She was his last link left to Mo, but with her health the way it was, soon he wouldn't even have that. Just the exhibition and there was always a risk of that being taken away too.

"Fit as a fiddle." She smiled as she looked at him from where she lay. "You haven't aged a bit." Her sense of humour was still there. "What's your secret?"

"Ice, and plenty of it." He smirked and glanced at the pictures that were on the table next to her. One of her and her husband Daniel, another of the children, grandchildren. Then lastly one of her and Mo – obviously taken before the war.

Peggy noticed him looking at it. "That was taken a week before war was declared..." she confirmed. "You didn't really see her in a dress much after that."

He shook his head. "Only time was at the Stork Club. The only night I ever got to dance with her." That night they'd celebrated the destruction of another Hydra facility. While the Commandos were drinking themselves unconscious at a bar, Steve and Mo had escaped to the club as he'd promised her a dance.

"Mo wasn't much of a dancer. Our mother tried to force ballet lessons on her, but she just hated it."

"Well if she stepped on my feet then I didn't notice." She could have broken them, and he still wouldn't have known any different. He'd been too engrossed in her, like they were the only two people there. Thankfully there had been no cameras there to document that night.

Peggy laughed, before coughing a little – Steve now passing her the glass of water. She took a few sips and then was fine again. "A man in love, that's what you were."

"I still am." He admitted with a smile.

"I had my suspicions, but of course nothing came to light until you took the plane down. That was when I really knew. The idea of marriage and children never really appealed to her, until she met you." She looked at the picture again. "Losing her was a double blow, my mother never really recovered. First Michael and then Mo...it was too much for her."

Steve knew he had to ask, otherwise it would play on his mind. "After I went down...what was she like?"

"Distraught." Peggy stated. "She never even told me what that last conversation over the radio was about – I suppose I shouldn't have enquired but whenever I asked she just went pale. I'd never seen her that way, part of her died when you did."

Steve thought back again to the conversation, about how desperate Mo had sounded. "I'm sorry Peg." He bowed his head knowing that it was his fault. No matter what anyone would tell him, he'd always carry the blame.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, I think in the back of her mind from the moment that radio went silent, she already decided that she couldn't live without you." She became a little upset now. "Twenty one is too young, even if it didn't seem like it back then."

He passed her a tissue. "The world's certainly changed, that's for sure."

"For better and for worse – but Steve, I wouldn't blame you if you chose to move on and neither would she. You have another chance of happiness."

Happiness.

Steve wasn't even sure what that was anymore. "I know...but I guess my focus is now on doing my duty – just like it always has been."

Peggy shook her head, "and what about the duty to yourself?"

"I can't move on from her Peg, people say I shouldn't keep living in the past but they haven't been through what I have, haven't lost what I have. It's not that simple."

"Nothing is ever simple." Peggy replied. "If it was then we'd all lead very boring lives indeed."

He chuckled. "That's true. Yours has been anything but boring from what I've heard."

"Yes, well...I've certainly been kept on my toes in my lifetime – but all good things must come to an end." She looked at him seriously. "Just...make the most of what you have, I'm sure you've realised by now that you don't know what you have until it's gone."

Steve couldn't have agreed with her more.