Normally when Peggy and Nick went to the gym together the only part of their workout that was shared was their warm up and cool down. Nick would go off to the weight room of whatever gym they were frequenting and she would find a quiet place to do some yoga and deep stretches, usually getting on a step machine while he went for a run.

Peggy had an unbelievable urge to not leave Nick’s side though, as if she could prove to him that they should be together forever by flexing her muscles a little. She knew that it was a ridiculous thought but she wanted to be with him and be there for him even if it meant acting as a spotter when he went he hit the weights.

Nick on the other hand was wondering when Peggy would go away. He didn’t mind coming to the gym with her because it usually meant he could get a good view of her ass in the air at any given moment while she did her yoga crap in one of the quiet rooms. Otherwise he wasn’t particularly keen on having her lurking over his shoulder.

While he would normally be able to just run through the little workbook he carried around with his fitness plan on it he now had Peggy asking all kinds of questions, trying to get him to help her do the same things he was doing but having no idea what weights she should use. He couldn’t wait to finish his weights and get to his cardio because if there was one thing he knew was that the only way Peggy could be bothered to run was if a horde of the undead were chasing her.

A bead of sweat ran down his temple from underneath the ball cap he was wearing and he resisted the urge to wipe it away, keeping his focus instead on forcing his biceps to push through the burn and bring the barbell in his hands to his chest. He concentrated on keeping his core tight, back straight and muscles flexed but couldn’t ignore the feeling of someone standing just slightly too close behind him. It wasn’t unusual, girls often got into his space without even thinking how awkward that would be for him but he didn’t care for it at the gym.

Reluctantly, he dropped the bar back to the floor and turned, raising an eyebrow expectantly. “What are you doing?”

Peggy glanced around innocently before reaching out to wipe away the same bead of sweat that had finally made it to the beard along his jawline. “I’m spotting you, babe.”

“I don’t need a spot for a barbell curl,” he explained, pulling his head away childishly so she would stop touching his sweaty face. She was making him feel a bit like a little boy the way she was adjusting his clothes and wiping away his sweat. He wished she understood that there were times when sweat was okay and that was in the gym. It was the manly thing to do.

“Why don’t you go do your yoga or something?”

“Am I bothering you?” Peggy asked in a small voice and Nick couldn’t help but feel guilty at the anguished pout on her pretty face.

“No,” he tried to assure her while simultaneously assuring himself that a little white lie or two would be fine if it meant getting her out of his hair. “It’s just... you’re kind of distracting.”

“Distracting how? I’m not doing anything!”

His signature smirk creeped along his lips and he reached out to tug at the strap of her tank top. “Baby... you don’t have to do anything. Just standing there in that tight little top and those little shorts. I can’t do anything but stare at you and imagine kissing every inch of your wet body in the shower later. I can’t concentrate on what I’m doing because you’re so fucking hot and I can’t wait to get you naked.”

Peggy blushed and giggled and Nick knew he had won a small victory. She reached out and ran her hand down his arm, squeezing his bicep before stretching the short distance to bring her lips to his. Not wanting to make a big display, she pulled away just as quickly and picked up her water bottle.

“I totally understand,” she said with a sympathetic smile. “Maybe you can come do some yoga with me after?”

Nick shook his head quickly and pointed in the direction of the gym’s indoor track, “I’m gonna go for a run. I’ll come watch you for a bit though.”

“Don’t you want to get stretched out?”

The smirk returned, “You can stretch me out later, when we’re at home.”

Another giggle and he mentally patted himself on the back. She tapped his nose quickly then started backing away, keeping one eye on him as she moved in the direction of the yoga mats on the other side of the room.

“You bet I will,” she winked and Nick let out a sigh of relief as soon as she was out of his sight.

As soon as Peggy was out of his sight Nick grabbed his iPod out of his pocket and stuck the earbuds in his ears, glad to just be able to zone out with his tunes and not have to bother carrying a conversation. He was about to hit play when someone tapped on his shoulder and he turned to see the guy that had been on the bench next to him.

“Hey,” he greeted but the statement was clearly inquisitive as the guy glanced between him and the direction his girlfriend had gone in.

“Is that your girlfriend, dude?” Nick nodded and the guy reached out and firmly shook his hand. “Goddamn. That’s all I have to say. What is she, like 18 or something?”

“Twenty-three.”

“Looks 18, damn. You are one lucky son of a bitch,” the guy shook Nick’s hand again before going back to his own workout.

Nick chuckled softly, catching a glimpse of his girlfriend through the window of the yoga studio at the other end of the gym. He knew he was lucky but he felt even better when other people knew it.

~*~

After finishing up at the gym Nick had driven straight to their nearest Whole Foods thinking that Peggy still had to buy whatever it was that she needed for dinner. What he didn’t know was the grocery plan had been a ruse all along and now Peggy was left wondering what the hell she was going to buy to make it seem like she knew what she was making. 

It felt as though he had been sitting in the parking lot forever waiting for her and Nick was beginning to get restless. He had already checked his email and his Twitter, going through dozens of replies and chatting with a few fans. He had scrolled through his Facebook (a decoy profile without any of his information that still gave him the ability to keep up with his family) and played a few rounds of Angry Birds but still his girlfriend was nowhere to be seen.

He wasn’t the most patient of people and soon found himself getting grumpy as the wait drew out longer. He had one hand on the steering wheel and the other elbow on the centre console, leaning against his palm. A long finger was stretched up the side of his face and he was staring at the door of the grocery store as though he could will Peggy to walk out of it.

His eyebrow shot up as soon as he caught sight of her walking through the door with her arms full of bags. She had made it seem as though she were just grabbing a couple things not filling the fridge. It hadn’t been that long since they’d dropped a couple hundred dollars on groceries so he wasn’t sure why they needed quite so much.

He reached out and popped the trunk of the BMW sedan as she approached, not feeling overly compelled to get out and help her. He hadn’t so much as changed positions by the time she got in the car but he didn’t really feel bad about it.

Her hair was frizzy from sweating at the gym and she felt like a total mess - not normally how she would present herself in public - but Peggy was determined to keep up her own charade. As soon as she sat down in the car she knew Nick was going to have an attitude. He got a look on his face any time he was annoyed and it was unmistakable.

“Sorry I took so long,” she apologized, leaning over to kiss him soundly.

He went to pull away but she moved forward again, deepening the kiss while running one hand into the back of his hair. She felt him relax as her tongue found its way into his mouth and he cupped her face in both hands. He was easy and she knew how to play him like a harmonica - suck or blow, didn’t matter, it still got him going.

“It’s okay,” he said quietly as they broke apart, his thumbs running over her cheekbones.

The expression in his face had changed considerably in a matter of seconds and Peggy felt relieved to have gotten him out of his funk so easily. There had been other times where the task wasn’t as readily accomplished.

Nick closed the distance and kissed her again, the moment becoming more heated as hands moved from faces and hair to backs, arms and breasts. Peggy knew that things were going to get out of control if they didn’t wrap it up and she didn’t want to be banned from Whole Foods for life for making out in the parking lot.

She moaned against his mouth, rubbing the scruff on his chin as she pulled out of the kiss, “Let’s save this for home. Shower, remember?”

“Shower,” Nick nodded, not able to put together too many other words at that particular moment. Turning forward he hit the ignition button to start the car and headed towards home.

Peggy knew that his mind was only on one thing - sex. Normally he wouldn’t have let a moment go by without asking what was in the bags, what she had bought and what was for dinner because when his mind wasn’t thinking about her naked underneath him it was thinking about food. She chuckled as he anxiously moved around the end of weekend traffic, getting visibly frustrated with every red light and every car that got in his way. He didn’t come close to beating a land-speed record but Peggy was still impressed by how quickly Nick had managed to get around all the drivers out for a Sunday ride and get them to their own home.

Just before he hopped out of the car Peggy grabbed his forearm. “We need to unload the groceries first,” she reminded him.

“Can’t they wait?” he whined pathetically.

Peggy chuckled as his impatience and shook her head negatively. “No, there’s stuff in there that needs to go in the freezer in the basement.”

Nick let out a grunt and hit the button to open the trunk. He couldn’t resist peeking into the bags to see what all Peggy had purchased before sticking his arms through the handles to pick up as many as he could.

“Do you want some help?” she laughed, watching him haul the bags out of the trunk.

Nick would have waved her off if he had a free hand but instead just shook his head. She laughed all the way into the house, coming into the kitchen through the garage door. Just as they crossed the threshold Peggy stopped short, Nick almost crashing into the back of her.

“What the hell?” he complained, desperate to put the plastic bags down now that they were digging into his skin.

“The alarm didn’t go off,” Peggy said nervously, rooted to the spot next to the door.

Nick didn’t like the situation any more than her but he couldn’t check it out unless she moved. “I have to put these bags down,” he told her, bending down to release them just as the kitchen door swung open.

Alarmed by the sudden movement, Peggy screamed and jumped back, hearing and feeling the sharp crack as her head soundly connected with Nick’s while he stood back up from putting the groceries on the floor. She grabbed the back of her skull in pain, feeling a searing heat go through her scalp.

“What on earth are you two doing?” her mother asked innocently from where she’d walked into the kitchen. “Are you okay?”

“What are you doing here?!” Peggy exclaimed, eyes wide. “I didn’t see your car outside!”

“Your dad forgot the layer dip and went home to grab it,” her mother said innocently and Peggy wanted to scream.

“The what?! What are you...” she trailed off, realizing Nick hadn’t said a word the entire time. Turning, she noticed that he was kneeling on the floor just behind the piles of bags, holding both hands firmly over the lower part of his face.

“Oh my god!” she squealed. “Honey, are you alright?”

He didn’t say anything, merely shook his head negatively before slowly taking both hands away from his face. Peggy nearly fainted at the sight of all the blood that was cupped in Nick’s palms, clearly gushing out of his nose and from his top lip.

“Oh my GOD!” she exclaimed for a second time, frantically yelling at her mother to bring her a towel. Once the kitchen towel was in her hand she tried to press it to Nick’s face but he intercepted, snatching it away from her. Wordlessly, he held it in his own hands, keeping it on his nose which wouldn’t seem to stop bleeding.

“I don’t know what to do,” Peggy admitted to him, wanting to reach out and help him even though he was shying away from her, clearly in enough pain that he didn’t want to be touched.

“What the hell happened in here?” her father’s voice boomed through the kitchen and Peggy let out a frustrated groan. She needed answers as to why her parents were in their house but first she needed to stop the geyser of blood that was bursting out of Nick’s face.

“Mom scared the crap out of me and I smashed my head into his,” she explained meekly.

Instantly her father took charge of the situation. Peggy knew that in any other situation he would have helped but she was genuinely surprised that he gave a crap about Nick enough to not want him to bleed out all over the kitchen floor.

“Grab me another towel, an ice pack and a damp face cloth,” the older man instructed before kneeling down on the floor next to Nick. “Can you get up on your own?”

Nick wanted to tell the guy to fuck off and that he could handle a bloody nose on his own but truth be told he couldn’t. The pain in his face was unbelievable. He had been standing back up at the same time Peggy jumped back so his mouth was just at the perfect height to make contact with her head. It was a total freak coincidence that it happened like that. Surely, he thought, she had broken his nose.

He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d had a nosebleed that wasn’t drug-related and didn’t know what to do to stop the bleeding. Another concern was the pain in his mouth. He hadn’t tried to speak but it felt a bit like his tooth had gone through his lip because his mouth was full of blood too. As if admitting defeat, he nodded and got to his feet, stumbling over to a bar stool next to the kitchen island while Peggy’s father, Steven, set up a first aid station of sorts.

“Hold this on the back of your neck and tilt your head back,” he instructed, putting the cold ice pack in Nick’s free hand. Nick hesitated and Steven sighed, running a hand over his thinning hair. “Look, I’ve coached football for half my life and I played for the other half. You’re just going to have to trust that I know what I’m doing here. I’ve seen this a million times before. Can you trust me?”

With another reluctant nod the ice pack was on his neck, his head was back and Steven was far too close to his face for his liking.