Chapter Text
Epilogue
Sharon was surprised to learn that M. Carter, author of ‘The Spirit of Just Men’, was a woman, and not an unattractive one at that. She hoped the picture she’d snapped earlier did those eyes justice. Eyes of someone who wants what’s not meant for them, she jotted down in her notebook. Margaret ‘Peggy’ Carter had a firm handshake and a charming accent.
“I grew up in North Yorkshire, you see.”
“What was that like?”
“Oh, exactly like how you imagined.” She poured a dash of milk in her tea. “Country manor, a house in St. James we visited from time to time, fox hunting since the age of ten.”
Sharon flipped over a page before she caught the tail end of a grin. She put the pen down, her cheeks warming.
“No, my family is middle class at best. We moved here when I was fifteen.”
“Tell me more about the book. Has it been a long time coming?”
“I started the manuscript in the spring of 1931, after I came back from a tour of southern Virginia. Of course, it wasn’t published until 1934.”
“What made you choose this particular subject?”
“There were rumors.” Peggy shook out a cigarette. Her nails were short. The cuticles were stained yellow. It was like looking into a mirror. “The days of Prohibition were numbered. I wanted to tell the story before everybody else, simple as that.”
“Have you tried it?” Sharon pressed. “Mountain liquor, I mean.”
“Of course I have. And if you’re offered a drink in Franklin, be sure to grab your coat. Because a drive and a hike would be involved.”
“Did you encounter any particular challenges? I imagine the locals weren’t exactly forthcoming.”
“No, they weren’t. It wasn’t talked about. Don’t go around asking for moonshine. You might as well be speaking in a foreign tongue.”
“But the Appalachians did open up to you in the end.”
“It took some time.” Peggy held her gaze. “They are no different from you and I. Things pained them. Things drove them.”
“By the sound of it, you’ve made some new friends.”
There was a thoughtful pause. The cigarette burned away in between her lax fingers. “I would go as far as to say even if I never wrote the book, even if the book never sold a single copy, I do not regret the trip.”
Sharon startled at the solemnity in her tone. Then Peggy smiled, breaking the spell. “I will tell you one little secret.”
Sharon resisted the urge to lean closer.
“I’ll be seeing some of those infamous bootleggers tonight.”
“Will it involve a drive and a hike?” Sharon dropped her voice too.
“It will involve a dress.” Peggy stood and held out a hand. “And I shall say no more than that.”
“For the last time, Rogers. Let go of that tie.”
“Nobody cares nohow.” Steve dropped his hand. It sure felt like he was being slowly choked. “They’re here to see the man on the cover of them magazines, not me.”
“Is that jealousy I hear?” Bucky looked at him sideways, the curve of his mouth going lopsided.
He looked the part. Always had, but tonight especially. He was the man society ladies sent passionate, perfumed letters to.
“…Yes.”
Four years living in the city melted the calluses that had once covered Bucky’s palms and fingers. But the hands cupping Steve’s face felt no less familiar. Bucky’s mouth was soft against his, something Steve could never quite capture on paper. Didn’t want to, either. This piece of Bucky was all his.
“Let’s beg off,” Steve mumbled.
“It’s your party.” Bucky nudged his nose against Steve’s cheek. “Peggy will have your hide if you bolted.”
After the trouble she went through to get all the big names here, she would.
Sometimes he thought it was a stamp on his forehead, he and Bucky. How could anyone pick up a Saturday Evening Post and not see? He drew Bucky the way he touched him. And the way he touched him…Steve still blushed remembering how Bucky put his mouth right close to Steve’s ear and growled, I sure wrung it out a hundred times thinking about your hands, your hands, your hands goddamn.
Bucky fluffed up his hair again. He was thrumming, too. People had been stopping him in the streets and asking if he? Was he? Bucky’d always shaken his head and hurried off. Tonight, the press would finally have a name to put to the most printed face.
The grandfather clock chimed. They both turned to look towards the drawing room. Behind the double doors, voices buzzed, ice clinked in glasses—noises as new and exciting as the swish, whoo-oo of the train that brought them here.
“Mom’s asking if we’re back for shuckin’ this year.”
“You bet.”
“Yeah?” Bucky pinched his skinny biceps. “Sure you can handle it?”
“Says the man who don’t carry nothing heavier than a golf club.”
Just before the doors swung open, the back of their hands grazed and held for a moment. A jolt went clean through Steve. The real white lightning, he thought, caught and burned inside him. Ain’t nothing could put it out.
