She liked it. His touch. Not in some crass fashion, though it would be foolish to deny a frisson or three down her spine when his thumb curled just so across the shell of her ear. No -- what she liked instead (to her slow-growing realization) was the simple existence of companionship. Once upon a time, Peggy had been more comfortable with the people around her. Freer with her friendship and her affection. The war had made her better and stronger and more faithful by far, but it had also hollowed out small and unexpected parts of her very self: the parts that once found it so easy to lean into a lovely touch. The parts that had blazed back into life so briefly only to be extinguished again.

Most importantly, she didn't overthink it. Just as he held no intention, she assumed none. But her breath evened out. And her fingers skated the skin of his side in sudden slow lazy circles -- their apex always matching exhalation.

"Kind of you to say, truly, but--" there's nothing brave about biology. There was nothing about this punishment she was choosing to endure. It was a thing that must be survived. Peggy sighed. "Does it still hurt? It does, doesn't it?"

She threw the attention back on him. A clumsy gesture -- but one that might as well have been taught in any introductory training for intelligence work. At least at the heart of the question was a kind of genuine concern -- for all he'd shrugged off his injuries, he hadn't ignored them. Not perfectly.