Title: There You Go Again (Making Me Love You)
Author: clarahow // clarascarters // charleybradburies (will be posted after challenge)
Fandom: Agent Carter
Characters: Daniel Sousa (POV), Peggy Carter, Roger Dooley, some mentions of other Marvel characters
Pairing: Daniel/Peggy
Length: ~1,140w
Rating: M
Summary: Like many traumatized soldiers, Daniel has trouble sleeping. It's just for different reasons.
Notes: Spoilers through the season two finale, as well as for other episodes. Formatted as snippets with time stamps and locations, all basically on different occasions. (A couple are sequences of scenes, and that's where the location doesn't change. It should be relatively straightforward but let me know if it doesn't make sense.)
Title from Maroon 5's 'One More Night.'. Enjoy!


During the first stages of sleep, before one is truly asleep but is between levels of consciousness, it’s common to experience a feeling akin to falling.

People who have experienced traumas such as those common in war are more likely than the average person to face these situations, as well as more likely to suffer nightmares and night terrors.

Nightmares and night terrors are most often reminiscent of that which the survivor has experienced previously.

+

10:12 PM - SSR New York, New York City, New York

“Aren’t you coming, Daniel?”

“I knew Howard Stark during the war...he’s not a traitor.”

“I can handle whatever these adolescents throw at me.”

It’s possible that every single interaction he and Peggy have ever had gets the chance to run through his head before he has half a hope of actually falling asleep. He’d thought himself a better investigator than many of his colleagues, and he’d paid even more attention to Peggy than he should have to begin with, and still failed to notice that she was committing treason right in their very office. Krzeminski had been right in telling him to give it up, if not for the reasons he’d thought.

He can’t convince himself she knew what would come of Krzeminski, though. He can’t help feeling like there’s something missing, like there has to be a way for her to be in the right. But he knows better, doesn’t he? His gut instinct was good - but maybe when it came down to it, he was just as blind as any other man in love.

Red, white, and blue shield. Aluminum crutch. The ritziest everything on the East Coast.

One of them was not like the others.

One of them needs to down over half a bottle of brandy just to fall asleep without his mind’s eye showing him an image of her sneering at him in an SSR interrogation room.

+

8:54 AM

“How come you’re the one who looks like he hasn’t slept in a week?”

Because, Peggy, I can’t get you out of my goddamned head.

He comes up with something clever, but he still feels disappointed that she doesn't call him out for lying, which honestly makes about as much damn sense as she does.

+

3:22 AM - Daniel’s Residence, Brooklyn, New York City, New York

It’s when he’s had the dream featuring Howard Stark for the third night in a row that he stops holding onto the evidence, and takes it to Dooley instead.

“I knew that everyone else would jump on the chance to discredit her, Chief. I needed to be entirely sure of what the evidence amounted to before I said anything. She’s one of the best agents here -”

“Who only remains here because of who she’s slept with, Sousa, and now is apparently committing treason because of that guy’s successor, too. You gotta defense for that? High-and-mighty Carter pulling her skirt up for this guy?”

“Well, considering they worked together during the war, I imagine he’s one of the few men she knows who actually shows her an ounce of respect.”

“Sousa, if that were a deciding factor, she’d be crawling into your bed. Hate to break it to ya, but I have a feeling that ain’t the story.”

+

1:43 AM - Daniel’s Residence, Los Angeles, California

“I think you’re in love with her.”

It’s ironic, really, that people conjure the image of falling when they talk about love. Now, that’s practically all he sees. Peggy falling.

Should it feel worse that he almost lost someone who’s never been his than that he’s now lost the chance to move on from her?

Probably not.

Does it?

Invariably.

Because he was in love with her...and in running he’d hurt even more people than himself. There was now a trail of people he’d left behind, and he still couldn’t help feeling like losing his previously-impending marriage to Violet was worth the fact that she’d saved Peggy. If none of them had known a nurse, and she’d still refused to go to a hospital...he wouldn’t be imagining her dying, he’d have been there. He’d have had to hold her as she bled out. He feels like he needs a whole ‘nother bottle of whiskey just for thinking about it, as if the recurring image of her dropping down onto those spikes wasn’t terrifying enough.

Coffee. That’s what he needs. Some strong, hot coffee.

Okay, some Irish coffee.

+

8:33 AM - Jarvis Residence, Los Angeles, California

“You look terrible.”

“Says the woman with the rebar hole through her abdomen.”

Not that she was even capable of looking terrible, but the point remained.

If he could remember what the point was to begin with, anyway.

“You didn’t call me here to ask about my emotional state.”

She hesitates, and Daniel curses himself for noticing.

“Right.”

+

11:29 PM - Daniel’s Residence, Los Angeles, California

She smells like peaches and her skin tastes like salt, and for the most part it’s smooth - aside from the numerous scars, and those, Daniel takes even more time on, being just forceful enough not to tickle each time he kisses her.

She’s both greedy and sensitive, and it’s difficult to get her to stay in the same spot for more than a second or two, but once he does pin her down she’s wet enough to be ready for him without delay, with both of them on their sides so they can be close without either having to lean upon the other.

2:15AM

When Peggy comes for the final time before she falls asleep - the third time that night, because she was full of energy and lust and love and Daniel certainly wasn’t going to deny her that - she moans his name into his mouth and collapses back down to the bed, one hand still tethered to his hair. Daniel sneaks his lips down her neck and kisses the shape of an upside-down around her shoulders and breasts before settling next to her.

7:30AM

He makes half an attempt to get Peggy up, too, but she only goes from grumbling to growling and he figures he’ll just leave her with a kiss and a note. She is actually on vacation, after all...and it’s not like she’d gotten that much sleep.

Not that he’d gotten any more than she had, but Daniel had an office to run.

And maybe, just maybe, a woman who’d still be here at his place tonight to welcome him home.

"Good point."