Work Text:
Peggy walked into the Stork Club done up in the red dress she’d last worn while flirting with Steve, a nice pair of stockings and a full face of makeup. She ran her fingers gently over red lips that almost match her dress. The memory of Steve’s inability to meet her eyes, the light blush of colour on his cheekbones and the soft mumbling that had accompanied his handing her the tube of lipstick he’d somehow acquired in the French countryside almost makes her stumble on the way to the bar. The lipstick is now sitting empty on the counter of her guest bedroom at the Stark Tower. After Steve had given it to her, she’d made sure to wear it every day, and tonight was the night that it had finally run out. Peggy silently promised herself, no tears tonight, she had shed enough of them already in the last five days.
When leaving the Tower earlier that night, she’d walked past Howard and though he was up to his arms taking apart something in his lab, he’d still looked up at her, and a gentle smile had unfurled on his face when he saw what she was wearing. He’d made as if to leave , obviously intending on joining her, but Peggy had just shaken her head – tonight she wanted to be alone. After a moment, something in his eyes softened, and he gave her a smile heavily tinged with sadness, before tipping an invisible hat towards her and going back to his work.
At the bar, she orders a drink from the bartender and goes to sit in one of the plush booths, making sure to sit with her back towards the entrance, studiously ignoring all the training that tells her to do otherwise. She is fifteen minutes early, and while she waits she slowly sips her drink, ignoring both the other patrons and the snatches of conversation from outside that filter in whenever the doors to the club open. Her drink is finished. A glance at her watch says that it’s five past the hour, and for the first time it really hits her – Steve is gone. She’d mourned the last few days of course, but until now, there had still been a small vestige of hope that she hadn’t even realised was there, hope that he would meet her for their promised first dance. Steve is never late, and that hope dies, along with the future she’d imagined for them, a future filled with laughter and the occasional good natured bickering.
She takes a deep breath and stands up, heading out into the night, ignoring the taxi’s lined up in front of the club. Steve isn’t dead, of that she is certain, but deep in her bones she knows that she will never see him again. It hurts that she won’t be the one to teach him to dance, but she already has memories that she will cherish for the rest of her life. Tomorrow they bury an empty casket at a small cemetery in Brooklyn. She’ll allow herself some time to grieve, but she knows that one day she’ll be truly happy again.