Back to You [An Endgame Continuation]

Mysterious Motives

Peggy chuckled softly, and when she looked away, I realized I had thought that last part out loud.

"Um.. Can I..." I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Take a.. shower, before you tell me everything you know?"

After a moment of hesitation, she nodded and reached down to help me up. When I finally got to my feet, I noticed her hands were lingering on the sides of my body, as if afraid to let me stand on my own.

I looked down at her face and saw her expression clouded over in worry.

"Hey," I whispered, reaching up a hand and caressing it down her cheek and across her jaw. "I'm okay."

I felt her head move up and down, but her hands stayed put anyway. "I.. didn't know what what was going to happen to you," she whispered, and the longer I glanced between both her eyes, the more she appeared to be on the verge of tears. "Of course I began to assume the worst." She turned her head away.

"Well, it feels like it's going away now," I assured her, and I took one of her hands and wrapped it inside my own.

"You feel really cold," she warned, her brows still furrowed in doubt.

I loosened my grip. "I need a shower."

She glanced around my face for a moment before taking a deep breath. "Alright," she said, beginning to step away. "Think you can manage it?"

"Mmm." I stepped forward and closed the space she had created. "Might need some help."

She looked over at me knowingly, her expression trying to soften as I pulled her back into my chest. Her body still felt tense, and I ran my hands up and down her arms to calm her. "Peg, relax," I whispered as I pressed my lips against her forehead, then moved down to her temple, her cheek. Her jaw.

"No, it's not that," she whispered in an exhale, and when my mouth covered hers, it took a moment for her to regain her train of thought. "Steve," she said into my mouth as my touch made her grip onto my arms. "Steve, there's something you should know." She surrendered in another moment of bliss. Then, "It's important."

I loosened my arms around her waist as I slowly broke away, my eyes asking her what she could be talking about.

She took a few reluctant steps back, and I watched as she walked over to the kitchen table and showed me the box of files she managed to steal in our escape. There were several vials of the neurodegenerative on the table, which explained why she had known what it was.

As I walked closer, I saw the box had an assortment of letters written on it.

𝐿𝑅𝑆𝐷𝐹𝑁𝐵𝐻𝑂𝐹// секретный

"What does that word on the right mean?"

"Classified," she said as she moved around the table, her breathing still returning to normal. "I was searching through my old chemical records to try to match something with the serum. It doesn't look to be connected to those letters on the box." She thumbed through the files for a second. "But as I was sorting through, I had a feeling.. this might." She pulled her hand out of the box, and out with it, a dark scarlet cover with a star I knew all too well.