durare | let's play.

[Some months back, Steve buried Peggy Carter, and with her the hopes for a dance, a life, something more. It's been one thing after the other ever since, and it's only now that things have mostly settled that he could mourn her properly, her and everyone else he has ever lost.

He doesn't go to New York. He misses his old stomping grounds, certainly, but he doesn't feel like getting mobbed by the press at the moment. Instead he heads into Metropolis, on a motorcycle and carrying a sketchpad, recently bought—you can tell by the lack of drawings, though he hasn't drawn in some time. Too much to do.

Meeting Diana had been something of a shock. Where Steve had spent the time between the forties and the 2010s under the ice, Diana had seen all of it, the good and the bad, the best of humanity and the worst of it, and he's since grown to cherish the time they spend together, their friendship. Also the coffee, because even if caffeine doesn't work on him in quite the same way anymore, at least it tastes better than the tin can coffee they used to have to content themselves with.]

Hey. [His voice is worn and a little sad, even as he reaches out to take the coffee, sticking his pencil behind his ear the same way he used to back in Brooklyn, when he and Bucky were younger. On the page is a sketch of Peggy Carter, smiling.] Sorry I couldn't come last month. Had some cleaning up to do.

[The Accords disaster, for one thing. Checking on Bucky, for another.]

I saw the news.

[ Diana says with a small smile. She'd heard all about Lagos and the bombing of the United Nations in short order, the Accords that had created two factions. She's not too certain about what happened after that, or why, but it seems like the situation's calmed. At least, it looks that way from his presence here.

She looks down at what he's been sketching, curious to see a lovely dark haired woman. Lost love, she thinks, when she sees the haunted look in his eyes, a deep sadness that echoes with her own. ]

This must be Ms. Carter.

[ She notes, taking a seat beside him and crossing her legs. There is a bag of donuts she sets between them, but she's more interested in this particular bout of melancholy. ]

Did something happen?

[He will eat the donuts later, when he's done with the sketch. For now he looks down at the sketch, at Peggy's smile in shades of grey. His memory is objectively pretty damn good, like a steel trap, but some small part of him can't help but wonder: did he get it right? Did he get the curve of her smile, the bright fire in her eyes?

He sighs.]

Yeah, that's Peggy. [He takes a sip of his coffee, careful not to spill it on the page where Peggy smiles up at him, her likeness trapped in the forties, the days he knew her well.] I—

[He stops. Breathes out.]

We were going to go for a dance, y'know? [His Brooklyn accent fades in then, slurring some of his words together.] She was pretty insistent I give her one, before she—died.

[The smallest of hitches in his breath. God, he misses her so much.]

You'd have liked her.

[ There is a familiarity in heartbreak, and Diana commiserates. She's looking down at the sketch, the image of a lovely young woman who -- if things had turned out differently, perhaps would have married Steve, and they would have started a family together. Done all the things normal people did; breakfast, waking up to the other, everything people who are not them can never appreciate.

They will never have these things. These blessedly normal things; and Steve wears the look of a man who knows this truth intimately. Missed connections, things that will never be -- and she nods. ]

I would have, if you are that fond of her. [ Diana smiles, putting a hand lightly on his. ] It's difficult, outliving the people you love. What was she like?

let's play.

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