7033/One's Own Bed

One's Own Bed
Date of Scene:	22 July 2021
Location:	06 Peggy's Suite - Playground
Synopsis:	Peg and Daniel share their first night at 'home' in a long while. They affirm for each other that reality is real, and remember why it's so nice to be married.
Cast of Characters:	Daniel Sousa, Peggy Carter

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Daniel Sousa has posed:
Daniel had hung around to chew the fat with May and Phil after Peggy ran off to the office for a bit, he was happy to see her back at it, it felt right, which was something he needed after all the wild uncertainty of the last... hell he wasn't even sure how long. All he knew was Peggy was back and doing better than ever, which put a bit of a bounce in his step on the way back to their shared quarters. Checking the clock, it was fifteen minutes into the 30 minutes, smiling he pulled out his note book, letting his pen pause on the page until he finally writes down a time 40 minutes from now with a grin and leaves the notebook where it lays.

After that he changed for bed and took a couple of beers out of the mini fridge he kept from the party setting them on the bedside table as he stretches out and waits for Peg to return.

Peggy Carter has posed:
True to her word, Peggy actually walks in 32 minutes after she initially took off for her office. She probably left at 30 minutes on the dot but it takes a few to transverse the length of the Playground. Still, here she is. In her dress from earlier, which she'd changed into after their jog. Her hair is mostly dry now and other than those hints of bandages over the burns on her chest, she really does look like a new woman.

She smiles over to him, arching a brow as she sees that note book on the bedside table. "...What? I told you I would be 30 minutes! I am not NEAR so late!" She huffs out with a little bit of a laugh, beginning to push her high heels off of her feet using her toes in that horrible habit she always has.

Daniel Sousa has posed:
Daniel laughs at the chiding. "Had to make a little fun while I waited," he replies sitting up as he watches her kick off her shoes. "Feel good to be back?" he asks before he pushes of the bed, to go to her side giving her a proper kiss hello, and stepping aside to let her undress, sinking into her desk chair. "For my part I can't stop smiling, I can't even describe how good it is to see you back on your feet." He doesn't need to say how worried he'd been, it showed on his face the whole time he was at her bedside, despite his best efforts.

Peggy Carter has posed:
The proper kiss is returned and then some. Even if they've got about twenty years of marriage in their heads now, the fire between them hasn't died in that whole time. If anything, this afternoon certainly livened up the feelings and simply having the energy back to kiss him like he deserves? It's grand. Peggy kisses him until they're both breathless, her arms tight around his frame, pulling back a little flushed and with her lipstick everywhere on both of them "I...suppose I should have waited to do that *after* I took the make up off." She confesses with a little laugh, reaching her thumb up to slightly clean up his lower lip.

Then she's backing off to quickly dap at her own lips before she starts unzipping her dress, happy to get out of the work day and even more eager to get into their bed. "You think it feels good? I... god, Daniel, it felt like... I don't know. I don't want to say that felt like it was *it* but... I'm bloody well relieved to be back here too. And without the months of therapy the first time took."

Daniel Sousa has posed:
Daniel is definitely smiling as he catches his breath after the kiss, looking quite funny with the love struck smile and lipstick all over. He happily lets her clean off his lips and then checks himself in the bathroom "Trust me, Peg, I don't mind one bit," he says cleaning up the rest before he turns off the bathroom light and drops into the chair again. "I'll second all of that," he agrees. "To take us from where you were at yesterday to a day like today, they really did work a miracle, didn't they?"

Peggy Carter has posed:
"I'll admit I don't entirely understand. I suppose the first time... they were trying to repair what had been done to me. Patch working it all. So even when they stablized the serum, all the damage was still there... This time, they just removed the serum... Entirely. Rewrote my body to a younger time." Peggy sounds a little befuddled by it all. She's caught up well with modern technology, but this is still above her head. "It still seems... Impossible. I'm not complaining. I'm relieved. I need to hug them all and shout at the hills if I could... I just..." She gives him a half smile as she slips out of her dress. "... there is a tiny part of me that is scared I'm going to wake... up... and this is something false written in my head."

Daniel Sousa has posed:
Peggy's not the only one befuddled by it all, "Still sounds like science fiction to me," he says though he quickly regrets those words as Peggy reveals her fears. He rises from the chair and wraps his arms around her waist so he can stare into her eyes. "I know that feeling, but as wild as this is it's real, you're really better, I'm really here, right now, we're actually both okay, it's unprecidented for us lately, I admit," he adds with a touch of wry humour. "But it's real, it's happening, and I'd say we deserve it," he says before kissing her again to add the wait of loving contact to his words.

Peggy Carter has posed:
"How... how do you know? They put both lives of memories in your head, didn't they? I know I have both now, but... How can you tell which one is real?" Peggy wants to be happy. She was -- is -- happy. But there's still that fear in her. She was so sold into that other life that now, having this one back, it feels almost like a trick. She sinks a bit deeper into his arms, staring up at his gaze as she looks for him to be her rock once more. He always knows what to say.

Daniel Sousa has posed:
"I know" Daniel says, "I remember things from the Framework is different for me, I wasn't eased into that other life, like you guys were, I wasn't sold on it, AIDA just crammed it all in my head, like pasting one picture over another, I can still see the lines between the two, or at least most of the time, some of the edges get blurry now and again and I don't know which is real or not but, right now," he says meeting her eyes again, being the rock she needed right now. "I know this life is real, that we're really here, you are really here, so if you can't trust yourself right now, trust me, we'll get through this, I promise."

Peggy Carter has posed:
Peggy does trust him. Through and through. With her life and so much more. So, when he says that the edges aren't blurry, that he's certain this is real, that's all she needs to hear. Peggy lets out a breath of quiet relief, her shoulders slumping a bit as she sinks forward to kiss him again, now just wearing her light summer slip from the day. The kiss isn't as headily passionate as the previous one, but just as loving. "Thank you. I know I sound... insane. I don't want to curse us. I'm just... God, is it awful to say I'm scared to be happy?" Peggy asks him with a weak laugh, pulling back enough she can finish undressing.

Daniel Sousa has posed:
Daniel happily returns that loving, reassuring kiss, long and slow, his arms tight around her, a protective shield for her to rest behind for the length of that shared kiss. "You don't sound insane, you sound like a rational person who's been insane things, HYDRA made an entire false life for you, nobody can come out of that not doubting the world come back to is real or not."

There's an understanding smile at her admission. "Trust me, I've been there." he says as he moves over to sit on the bed. "Worrying that all of this was fake, and I'd wake up and it'd all go away, heck that's one of the things on my mind that morning at the hotel in the desert, that it was just some amazing dream but I'd wake up again alone."

He reaches out for her, "But this is real and while we may have other crises or insane problems come down the pipe, right now we're both real, we're together, and we've got a little bit of peace, so if there's a time that we should be happy this is about as good as it gets."

Peggy Carter has posed:
As he mentions the hotel in the desert, Peggy just laughs. She stares at him with a wide smile, shaking her head slowly, "Even after all those years dancing around each other, you thought that was a dream? Did you dream about me a lot back then, Sousa?" Peggy asks him teasingly, using his last name the way the boys at the SSR used to.

She's then out of her slip and stockings, reaching for the light cotton nightgown she prefers for the summer. It was so much softer and simply more comfortable than anything in the medical bay. She lets a little breath of relief out. "...Better."

Daniel Sousa has posed:
"Hey we managed to talk ourselves out of being together after the kiss in my office, after that I figured the only way it'd happen was in my dreams." As for him dreaming of her often. "That's classified, Carter," he answers with a teasing grin of his own.

"I dunno, was liking the slip, and in between the slip and that," he teases as he shifts over to make room for her in their bed.

Peggy Carter has posed:
Looking down at him, that flirtatious smile returns to her lips. "Look, if you want me to wait to unwrap the present, you just need to ask. You're generally quite good at it." Peggy teases him lightly. But she's mainly eager to get into bed. A bed that isn't medical, isn't that strange dream house, is nothing but *theirs*. Familiar. Comfortable. Private.

She sinks down at his side, lacing legs beneath the covers but, as she brushes against his hip, she remembers, "Oh! You're leg... how is it... doing? After *everything*?"

Daniel Sousa has posed:
Daniel smiles back, "So you've told me," he says but he shares that same need to share this private space in peace with her, what they got up to in it was secondary.

Nodding, he says, "We should take a trip to Long Island when we can," he says. "Might be good for grounding us back here in reality."

Though as she brings up his leg he looks down at it, flexing the real muscle where it meets the artificial leg. "Much better than the old one, still a little sore though, but managble. "Want to help me get it off?" he's worn it to bed before but with their running and everything else he'd done it was probably better off than on. At least the design matched the one he had in the Framework so it was familiar ground.

Peggy Carter has posed:
For just a few moments, she lays there. Pressed as long against him as possible, breathing in his scent, feeling the comforting weight of their matress behind her. Tension slowly starts leaking out of her muscles that she didn't even think she was still holding. Not a tension in being sore, but the last fingers of worrying this isn't real. Her mind finally is starting to accept it's truly real.

Then he asks if she'd help with the leg and her smile only widens. "Always, my darling." She murmurs to him, turning her head to press a kiss against the crest of his shoulder before she gently pulls back the sheets to reach for that careful connection of prosthetic and leg. It's far more modern, no straps and joints. A sheath around his leg and the high tech fit into it. She removes the bottom part first then gently eases off that sheath, fingertips reaching to slowly rub into sore muscles. "It's... strange that I just know how to do that. I'm glad, but... I never did this here. Not yet."

Daniel Sousa has posed:
Daniel too drinks in Peggy's presence, the comfort of her weight beside him, the scent of her, even though he knew this was real, he'd wondered if he'd lose her and only now could release that fear. She was safe.

The new leg is much eaiser to remove, and he nods at her comments about knowing how to remove it despite this being her first time doing so in the real world. "I think we're going to run into that a lot, we've got a lot of years in the Framework in our heads," he says as she rubs his sore muscles and he lets out a groan of relief as his leg flexes in response to her touch. "I know about movies I've never seen, weapons I've never fired, I'm even pretty sure I can fly a quinjet, it's a lot to sort out isn't it?"

Peggy Carter has posed:
A little laugh of surprise escapes her lips as she hears that. "Really now? Training by... AI, goodness. I mean, I won't complain. If you pass your certs, it'll save all of us months of training and we can get you into the field far faster. We'll just try not to think... too hard... about why you know all of it." Peggy admits softly, thinking about it is uncomfortable. But she'll take the good side of it all.

Her fingertips continue gently rubbing at his leg there, shifting a bit lower so she can get the strength of her arm into it and reach around to the muscles of his inner leg and lower thigh. "Still sore. But far better than it used to be, and you didn't go gentle today."

Daniel Sousa has posed:
"Probably going to have to double check everything just in case the Framework got it wrong, but it'll speed things up," though by his expression he'd rather not think about it too much either, or how he has twelve years of knowledge about how to be a dad.

The deeper massage gets an almost intimate groan from him, "God that feels good," he exclaims, before nodding. "I'd say, I beat twenty-eight year old you in a foot race," he grins at her, teasing, he cheated and he knows it. "This is much better though, if I tried that on my old leg I'd have fallen on my face in two seconds and if I did keep my balance, my leg would be bleeding and sore, it's almost as good as having my real leg back."

Peggy Carter has posed:
"We'll get your certification tests run as soon as you feel ready for them, and we'll see where you are. Maybe it'll all carry over. Maybe it won't. Either way, it'll be good to get an evaluation and I'm ready to have you at my side as soon as humanly possible. God, it will be nice to work together again." Peggy admits with a smile. Even in the Framework, she'd been out of the field for five years. It felt like ages since they'd gotten on a proper mission together.

Her fingertips continue that gentle massage, making certain to get every angle of his muscles and simply happy to be back in their evening routine. It helped the world feel better again. "We... *should* try to sleep, soon enough. Tomorrow is going to be long." Peggy doesn't look quite ready yet. But she's trying to talk herself into it.

Daniel Sousa has posed:
Nodding Daniel says, "I'll start in the morning, plus Sharon's pulled me into helping run a training exercise for some of the newbies, should be enlightening," he says before agreeing. "Way too long, I missed that part of us, we're a good team out there too."

Daniel smiles as Peggy tries to convince herself to sleep. "I dunno, run, and long day aside, I've got a bit of energy left," he says with a smile before he gently brushes his fingers against her cheek "Maybe we should try to burn it off, if you're in the same boat" he says before kissing her fully and deeply.

Peggy Carter has posed:
As he mentions burning off some energy, Peggy doesn't have to be asked twice. A wide grin trickles across her lips and she reaches one hand slowly up, trailing across his hip and to his stomach as she leans in for another kiss. "Oh, I think I can be convinced..." She teases him. Then they are falling into quite a deep kiss and far more enjoyable activities than talking about work.