Unexpected

Visiting Peggy

I drove.

It just seemed to make more sense that way, especially considering how much I hated riding Steve's motorcycle. As I made our way through the streets, Steve and I played 'catch up', telling each other as much as we could about our missions for S.H.I.E.L.D., though there were large sections in both of our stories that were classified. It was good to talk with Steve again. I'd missed my friend during his and my absence.

However, both of us were holding back ever so slightly during our conversation. Both of us had something big and heavy weighing down our minds. For me, it was Loki's letter, which almost seemed to be burning a hole through the pocket of my jacket. For Steve, it was the prospect of seeing Peggy once again. I tried to tamp down my own broiling emotions and swirling thoughts for now though, trying to focus on Steve. I was here to be a support to him now. He was what I needed to focus on.

The drive to Peggy's nursing home was not very long at all really. Before we knew it I was pulling in to the home's parking lot. Even as I put my car into park, I noticed Steve's hands turning into fists as his sitting posture stiffened and straightened. He pressed his lips together, his eyes staring and yet not really seeing, his jaw locked in a kind of set determination. He was under a lot of emotional stress as he peered out my car's windows at the home's visage.

It was a pretty building built of stone and brick. No doubt in the spring flowers would be planted along the sidewalks that led up to the front door. Even now, when winter was still clinging tightly to the world around us as spring started peeping in, the place seemed quaint and rather happy.

I gave Steve a moment, slowly reaching for my purse in the backseat and taking my time to unbuckle my seatbelt and turn my car off before I finally turned to him, asking in as quiet and gentle of a voice as I could, "Ready?"

"Yeah." He didn't hesitate a moment once I asked. He was out of the car in a flash, closing the door behind him, and I followed after him, walking by his side as we entered the nursing home.

The interior of the nursing home was just as quaint and clean as the outside. The wall were painted white, but large paintings lined the walls, each depicting fields of flowers and dainty cottages, making the room bright and cheery as the many windows let in the day's light. The place smelled of old-person perfume and aftershave, but it also smelled clean like lemon-scented cleaner and of the flowers in vases that lined the main lobby. In the back of the lobby area was a reception desk where a middle aged nurse in pale pink scrubs sat typing away at a desktop.

Steve and I made our way in, stopping in front of the desk. I cleared my throat, letting her know that we were there. She raised her eyes a bit boredly until her gaze found Steve. Immediately her cheeks flushed pink as she look at him, her gaze not even moving to look at me. I tried to hide a small giggle that wanted to escape my lips at how enthralled she'd suddenly become with Steve, who, I had to admit, had a figure and face that was better than the long-beloved David sculpture's. Steve merely smiled down at her, completely oblivious to her blushing it seemed, "Hi, my friend and I are here to visit a Margaret Carter... I called earlier-"

"Oh!" the woman, whose name I now saw was Nancy according to her nametag, "Oh, yes, I remember! That was you? Right."

She was obviously all aflutter, but Steve was still oblivious, "Yeah, that was me. Is it okay if we see her?"

"Oh yeah, yeah, no problem, just, er..." She pointed over towards a clipboard with several sheets of paper clipped to it, "Sign in here if you please."

Steve and I moved over to do so, filling out our names, our connection to the patient, the time and date, all that kind of info. Once we were finished, Nancy took it upon herself to guide us to Peggy's room. She walked ahead of us, speaking lightly saying that it had been a while since Peggy had received a visitor and asking how Steve and I knew her.