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With every step that she took down the corridor of Area 51, Jemma Simmons could feel her stride lengthening, her shoulders straightening.
Her fingers stole down to the false ID card in her purse, as if it were written in Braille and she could feel the letters as her touch slid across them, drawing strength from the words she knew were written there.
For anyone even remotely connected to SHIELD, ‘Peggy Carter’ was a name to conjure with – and Jemma was claiming it as her own.
It had started out as a clever idea, a way to get them into Area 51 to look for the Chronicoms that they suspected of infiltrating the top-secret Project Helius. Coulson had taken the identity of a visitor from the Department of Defense – nobody knew what he looked like anyway – but Jemma was the only one who would have a chance of understanding the scientific side of Project Helius, let alone figuring out what to do so that they could stop the Chronicoms from stealing that tech. Which meant that she needed to be there in person.
In all of the team’s rapid-fire brainstorming, it was hard to even tell who had been the first to come up with the idea: that there was a dark-haired British woman SHIELD agent who Jemma could pretend to be. But the instant that they had thought of it, everyone agreed that it was both one of the most wonderful and the most terrible plans they had ever come up with – and considering some of the plans they had come up with in the past, that was saying a lot.
The smile that Jemma gave to the guards she passed was entirely genuine: sunny and bright, with all of the borrowed confidence from that name that wasn’t hers. Peggy Carter.
Coulson’s voice came through the comm link in her ear: “I’m going through the people on the bus, but still nothing. You keep asking around the base. We have to find that Chronicom.”
Jemma had been doing just that ever since she had arrived: every person that she passed, she searched for signs of a Chronicom’s unnatural stiffness. Could it be the blonde woman with the black-and-white blouse? One of the white-coated bespectacled men deep in serious conversation in the corner? The uniformed guard talking on the phone, eyeing her suspiciously…
…wait, what?
He had barely finished hanging up the phone when he called out, “Excuse me.” Jemma quickened her steps, hand tightening around the identity card, pretending she hadn’t heard him – and he followed. “Excuse me, Miss…Carter.”
Not Agent Carter; Miss Carter. And with that pause that showed that he was no longer willing to grant her even that much of the name.
Tiny tendrils of fear started to weave their way in, like tiny cracks through the smooth serenity of glass, threatening to spread through Jemma’s fragile confidence and shatter it.
Not a Chronicom, Jemma told herself, desperately trying to keep her face arranged in the same calm confident smile. They wouldn’t need to talk on the telephone. And they wouldn’t look...uneasy.
“Miss Carter!” the soldier repeated. He stepped in front of her to block her path. “Would you come with me, ma’am?” His hand closed firmly around Jemma’s arm: this was not a request.
Jemma swallowed back a wave of fear. Oh no. She had definitely been made.
“Jemma!” came Daisy’s urgent voice over the comm link. “Don’t worry; we’ve heard everything. It’s going to be okay. We’re going to get you out! Just try to stall for a few minutes and I’ll be right there, I promise.”
Jemma was already steeling herself to deliver a wave of what she hoped was Carter-worthy indignation – and, bolstered by Daisy’s reassurance still buzzing in her ear, she let it loose. “I beg your pardon!” she snapped at the soldier. “Do you know who I am? Do you know by how many degrees I outrank you?” Her high heels scrabbled at the smooth floor as the guard hurried her down the hall, not speaking a single word in response, and not meeting her eye. “I assure you – “ she stole a quick look at the insignia on his uniform, and was pleased that she could infuse the low rank with a bit more disdain – “Corporal, when your superiors find out how you have treated me, you will most definitely regret it.”
While her words flew out at a rapid-fire pace, her thoughts spun even faster. What could she do? Was there a threat that she could make that would get the corporal to let her go? She doubted he knew much about science; perhaps she could throw enough technical language at him to convince him that she needed to go back to the lab? Or, was there any equipment in this barren corridor that she could use? There was another telephone; and an electrical panel on the wall…
The soldier pulled open a door, and broke in with an impassive, “Please wait here, ma’am,” as he ushered her through.
At least it was a conference room, and not the brig.
“Corporal, really.” Jemma kept talking – she had to keep talking. If she stopped talking, that was an opportunity for the soldier to say something, or to fetch his superior, or…she didn’t know what. “I understand that you’re just following your superiors’ orders, and believe me, I appreciate your conscientious approach to your job, but really, you must know who I am –
“The accent is real, at least,” a cool voice cut in, as the door swung open. A cool English voice, made even chillier and more clipped by disdain.
Oh. Oh.
* * *
How dare she?
Who ‘she’ was, Peggy Carter didn’t know yet; she only knew that some woman had had the audacity to claim her identity. Did she think that nobody at Area 51 would have ever met her? That she herself would not be present on the day when a program as important as Helius was being tested?
And yet…under the righteous indignation, Peggy couldn’t help feeling a little admiration that someone would be so gloriously brazen as to march into a SHIELD facility and claim to be her. Whoever this woman was, she might turn out to be a worthy adversary.
It was, Peggy thought, exactly the sort of thing that she might have done herself, once upon a time.
Her heels clicked faster against the corridor’s tile floor in a rhythm as swift and furious as a gun spitting bullets as she strode towards the conference room where they were holding the impostor, nearly outpacing the soldier who trotted at her side. “What has she done so far?” Peggy asked crisply.
“Mostly just talked to a bunch of scientists and engineers,” the soldier replied, with a shrug. “She asked a lot of questions about the gadgets in the engineering lab. Actually, ma’am, the eggheads said she sounded like she knew almost as much about the gadgets as they did. They were really impressed with her. Uh, with you. Her.”
Wonderful, Peggy thought sourly. How much classified information did they give away to this impostor just because they thought she cared?
As the soldier opened the door to a conference room, a wave of words flowed out, spoken in a swift, precise, high-pitched British voice. “…appreciate your conscientious approach to your job, but really, you must know who I am – “
“The accent is real, at least,” Peggy said coolly, her voice cutting a swath of silence through the British woman’s desperate chatter as she strode into the room, and circled around to look at this impostor who had taken her name.
The woman sitting at the table was a few years younger than Peggy; slender, pale, with fine features set in a soft oval face, and an elegant little black-and-white fascinator atop her dark hair. Her eyes were lighter than Peggy’s own – hazel, she decided, before wondering why she was spending time trying to name the color of a stranger’s eyes – and had a lively, intelligent look to them, as if she were used to coming up with quick answers to complex questions. Those answers had run out, though, and now those hazel eyes were brimming with barely suppressed anxiety.
If they had to mistake someone for me, Peggy thought, at least it was someone clever and pretty.
She glanced over her shoulder at the two soldiers – the one who had brought her, and the one that had been guarding the impostor – and said in that same cool tone, “Give us the room, please.” The one who had come along with Peggy opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off with a slight lift of her hand. “You said she wasn’t armed. I won’t be in any danger. And if anyone deserves to speak to her, I do.”
The two soldiers gulped, practically in unison. Only one of them managed to stammer out, “Yes, ma’am” as they both backed out.
Peggy reached over to close the door, letting it swing heavily on its hinges – and not bothering to hide the satisfaction in her eyes when the impostor jumped at the resounding thump as it closed.
“So, Agent Carter.” Every syllable of the name had a sharp edge to it. The only thing sharper was the spike of her chilly smile a she looked down at the impostor. “Let’s begin with you telling me who you really are, and why you’re really here, shall we?”
* * *
She isn’t as tall as I thought she would be.
The thought was ludicrous, and Jemma knew that even as she was thinking it, but that was the first thing that popped into her head when Peggy Carter strode into the room.
It hardly mattered that both of the soldiers had had several inches on her; Peggy Carter still commanded the room the instant that she walked in, and Jemma could not take her awestruck eyes off of her.
The legendary agent’s hair was swept elegantly up – still dark, with just a few threads of silver woven in – with a natural wave that could not be restrained. The arch of her dark eyebrows was just as elegant; the bright red of her lipstick just as carefully-drawn, the bold color standing out in sharp contrast to her crisp navy suit. It was like armor, Jemma thought: wrapping herself in outward signs of meticulous femininity, performing what the world wanted a woman to be in these repressive mid-century decades, even as every single one of her actions defied it.
Jemma didn’t think she could admire Peggy Carter any more than she already had, but here she was.
“I asked you a question.” Agent Carter’s voice was smooth and cool, each consonant clipped even sharper than her accent – their shared accent! – already made them. “I expect an answer.” Her high heels clicked on the floor in a sharp steady rhythm as she strode towards the table, seeming to grow taller as she drew nearer. “This is a top-secret facility. Outside of the scientists and soldiers who actually work here, only a handful of people in SHIELD and the US government know of its existence. You appear out of nowhere, claiming to be me, asking questions about the most highly classified projects on a day when one of those projects is scheduled to be tested. So I will ask you one more time.” She measured out each word and motion carefully: hands placing themselves slowly on the table, feet planted firmly on the floor, eyes lowering to fix Jemma’s gaze with her own. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”
* * *
The young woman stared up at Peggy with helpless hazel eyes. “I- I’m terribly sorry,” she stammered. “I can’t tell you that.”
Peggy let out a short, incredulous “Ha!” of a laugh. “You do know who I am, don’t you? There are very few things in this organization, or this country, that I do not have clearance for.”
The young woman shook her head. “Oh, Ms. Carter – Agent Carter - please believe me, I know!” A note of sincerity rang in her voice, along with…respect? Those were not anywhere near the top of the list of emotions that Peggy had been expecting from the impostor. Defiance, perhaps; or scorn. Definitely not the earnestness that Peggy could see in the other woman’s intelligent eyes, or the hopeful admiring little smile that sat so easily on her carefully-painted lips. “But I’m afraid that I still can’t tell you.”
* * *
“That’s good!” came Daisy’s voice in Jemma’s earpiece – a little more breathless now; she must be on the move. “Just keep her going for a couple more minutes and I’ll be there.”
Jemma knew that whatever Daisy’s plan was, it was a good one – and that the rest of the team was going to help, too. But right now, she needed to not hear other people’s plans in her ear.
She suspected that she might be making a mistake, but she trusted herself – and trusted Peggy Carter. She reached up and turned off her comm.
Then Jemma looked back up to focus all her attention on the woman standing over her.
“My name is Jemma Simmons.” That, at least, she could say. Even if they could have searched their records in any reasonable amount of time, there would be absolutely no record of anyone by that name anywhere in the world – not for another thirty years. “Agent Carter, please believe me when I say that I’m not your enemy. Everything that I’m doing here is to help keep people safe and to help SHIELD.”
The door creaked as it opened again, and both women’s heads swung towards it in unison.
“Excuse me, ma’am.” It was another soldier – a new one, not either of the ones that had escorted Jemma or Peggy. Not that it was easy to tell the difference, with his nondescript bland features and crisp uniform. But something about his stiff upright posture started a tiny alarm bell ringing in the back of Jemma’s mind, and it kept going as he said, “Will you come with me, ma’am. Both of you.”
The flat cadence in his voice was not just the neutral tones of a military man.
Peggy had noticed it too, Jemma saw – the other woman’s eyes were slightly narrowed as she looked at the soldier, and her shoulders had tensed. “Where would you like us to go?” There was a hint of tension in her voice, too, so subtle that Jemma was surprised that she could detect it. How had she become so attuned to the shifts in Peggy’s voice after such a short time?
When had she started thinking of her as Peggy?
“Will you come with me, ma’am,” the soldier repeated, with exactly the same intonation as before. “Both of you.”
Jemma stood up swiftly, chair legs scraping and heels clicking as she hurried to stand next to Peggy. “Agent Carter,” Jemma murmured – she still felt that she had to call her that out loud – “please be careful. I think – “
The soldier cocked his head – just a little too stiff, a little too sharp an angle – and then Jemma was certain. He was a Chronicom.
Jemma flung herself out of the way an instant before he lunged.
* * *
There was a thunderous crash as the soldier’s fist slammed the wall.
A fraction of a second earlier, and it would have slammed into Jemma.
Peggy sprang forward. “Get behind me!” she shouted to the other woman, as the soldier heaved his fist back…out of the dent he had left in the wall? The dent that he had punched in the wall of a securely built military base?
As the man reared back again, Peggy whirled towards him, using the momentum of her own spin to add force to the thrust of her fist into the man’s chin -
- which bounced off as harmlessly as if she’d hit the wall.
Hand throbbing with the impact, Peggy dodged back, readying for another strike as her mind raced. Who was this man? Not a supersoldier: even if there had been any more of the supersoldier serum left in the world, it wouldn’t do that to a man. She knew what that looked like. This was something else entirely.
“Get him out of the room!” Jemma shouted. She was already on her feet, grabbing hold of the chair she’d been sitting in and shoving it towards Peggy. With one smooth sweep of her leg, Peggy hooked the chair with her foot and flung it in front of the man. Thrown off-balance, he stumbled backwards through the door – giving Jemma just enough time to dart in and slam it shut.
“My God, what was that?” Peggy gasped.
Jemma spun around to flatten her back against the door, desperately pressing her slender weight into holding it closed even as the sound of heavy fists started slamming into it from the outside. “Helius has been infiltrated.” Her words came swiftly, crisply, with none of the anxious uncertainty of a moment before – only a hint of hesitation to choose her words carefully as she said, “There are – saboteurs, who want to use the ion fusion power for their own purposes.”
Wham! Another thunderous slam shook the door. Peggy slid in next to Jemma, adding her own strength to the effort of keeping it shut against the assault.
Jemma flashed a swift, grateful smile, then continued: “Helius won’t work on its own, Agent Carter, not with the technological capabilities that you have at present. But the saboteurs have - a new energy source.” Another skip in the quick flow of Jemma’s words – which meant another thing that Jemma was holding back from Peggy. “Something that can overcome the amplified resonance deficiency to not only activate the device, but to turn it into a bomb.” There was no hesitation at all over the scientific terms: Jemma spoke those with complete confidence, and an intelligent precision that took Peggy’s breath away even more than the effort of holding the door shut.
“And that man out there is one of the saboteurs,” Peggy concluded, “and you’re here to stop them.”
Even as she was moving forward along the logical path that Jemma was laying out for her, some of the younger woman’s words stuck in her mind. Capabilities that you have. At present. That…was not the usual way of phrasing things.
Wham! The door jerked with the impact of another slam from the soldier outside. In perfect unison, Peggy and Jemma pushed back against it, their feet braced on the tile floor and their shoulders leaning against each other for leverage – close enough that Peggy could feel the tremors running through Jemma’s slender arm as she pushed. The younger woman was fighting against an unstoppable force, and not even a soldier, but a scientist, prepared to go into battle all by herself…
Well. It was Peggy’s fight now, too.
She tilted slightly so that her shoulder pressed reassuringly against Jemma’s, and asked, “So what do you need to do?”
Relief flooded Jemma’s smile – at finally having help, at finally being able to tell the truth – and brought another flash of light to those bright hazel eyes. “The saboteurs – they’re called Chronicoms.” Peggy filed that word away in her mind for later, nodding to Jemma as she kept listening intently. “There’s a device in the lab – an EMP emitter. Electromagnetic pulse,” she spelled out, catching the brief furrow of confusion on Peggy’s face. “It can de-activate their – er, power source.”
“So we just have to get you past him?” Peggy tilted her head back towards the door, and the soldier – the Chronicom? – on the other side.
The light in Jemma’s eyes glowed brighter as she heard Peggy say “we,” and the sight sent a little bit of warmth through Peggy, too. “Yes, that’s right. But please don’t do anything that will put you in too much danger!” Jemma added quickly. “SHIELD needs you.”
Peggy smiled. “Right now, it looks like SHIELD needs me to help you.”
Jemma had a mission, and Peggy had to help her complete it. That was all, she told herself. Just the mission. No other reason why Peggy felt so urgently that she had to keep this extraordinary young woman safe.
* * *
Jemma felt the warmth of Peggy’s arm alongside hers, the firm strength of her muscles as her shoulders flexed against the door. With each one of Peggy’s smiles, with each word of steady reassurance, with each reminder that they were on the same side, Jemma absorbed a little more of the other woman’s strength.
Wham! The door jerked under the impact of the Chronicom’s slam. They weren’t going to be able to hold it back for much longer.
When Jemma looked over at Peggy to tell her so, she found Peggy’s eyes already on her, firm and resolved. “All right,” Peggy declared. “In about ten seconds, he’s going to hit the door again. Just before that, we pull away. He’ll be expecting more resistance than he gets, so he’ll fall forward. Then I’ll hold him off long enough for you to run for the lab.”
Peggy was going to try to fight a Chronicom by herself? “What?” Jemma cried. “No, you can’t – “
She didn’t have time to finish – Peggy was already counting down: “Three – two – one – go!”
Together, Peggy and Jemma flung themselves away from the door: Jemma springing to the side, Peggy rolling forward in a graceful somersault to spring back up again. With a screeching clash of metal, the Chronicom burst through the door – off-balance and stumbling from the sudden lack of resistance, just as they’d hoped.
Peggy was there to meet him.
Even as she dashed through the open door to the freedom of the corridor beyond, Jemma couldn’t tear her eyes away from Peggy.
She had attended a symposium once where a double-Nobel laureate had given a talk on advanced string theory, laying out the most complex ideas in swift clear language, unraveling the secrets of the universe for everyone to see.
Watching the brilliance of that mind at work was like watching the brilliance of Peggy Carter fighting.
With the swift precision of a dancer, Peggy’s foot flew up to drive the sharp point of her high heel into the Chronicom’s shoulder. The Chronicom actually flinched – a quick short-circuit spasm that meant she must have hit a crucial wire. As Peggy turned, Jemma saw the brilliant flash of triumph in her grin as she realized that for the first time, she had done real damage to her enemy. “Jemma, go!” Peggy shouted.
“No!” Jemma cried. “I’m not leaving you to face that alone!”
* * *
Oh, will you stop being brave, you marvelous woman?
Peggy didn’t say it out loud; she didn’t have time to. But she felt it with all her heart. Jemma was a scientist! She should be fleeing, not fighting. And yet Peggy couldn’t help the surge of admiration that rose up in her at Jemma’s insistence at staying by her side.
With every slam of her fist or foot into the man – the Chronicom – Peggy’s realization grew that this was not a person, or at least not entirely. That strange jerking twitch when she hit his shoulder was just the final confirmation: no human moved like that, or reacted like that.
When this was all over, she hoped she’d be able to ask Jemma all of her questions. For now, she needed to focus on the single answer that she knew: there was one spot that made the Chronicom flinch, so that was the spot that she needed to target.
Peggy spun around again, aiming another kick directly at the Chronicom’s shoulder – and then another, and another, every blow sending another shock wave up her leg as her foot hit the immovable wall of…whatever her enemy was made of. Even Peggy, with all her skill, couldn’t hit that small a target every time, but more than once, she saw the Chronicom seize up and flinch in the same way that he had before.
Once, she could have sworn she saw sparks flying off of him.
On every outward loop of her spin, Peggy flicked her gaze towards Jemma – her eyes kept pulling back to her, as if they were being drawn by one of those electromagnets that Jemma had spoken of. The younger woman was scrambling across the hall, quick intelligent gaze darting up and down as she searched for something, anything, to use to help Peggy. Why aren’t you running? Peggy shouted inwardly.
Suddenly, she saw Jemma’s eyes light up, and saw her dive for a metal panel on the wall, tearing it away and flinging it aside to reveal an elaborate tangle of wires. “Aha! I’ve got this!” Jemma crowed, and Peggy’s heart leaped to hear such triumph in her voice.
Of course, Peggy realized. That strange twitching, the sparks – the Chronicom must have some sort of electrical enhancement. If Jemma could unravel that chaos of electrical wires into something that could hurt their enemy…
“Tell me when!” Peggy shouted. New plan: hold him off long enough for Jemma to work, and then to steer him towards the electrical wires.
No need for those high-heeled kicks anymore – Peggy flung her shoes off, sending them clattering down the hall, and dropped into a low, defensive posture. A human enemy would have changed their stance too, but the Chronicom just kept pressing forward, as constant and inexorable and expressionless as before.
Peggy dodged and weaved, drawing the Chronicom backwards, little by little, while his massive fists pounded towards her. Thud! A blow caught her on the left shoulder. It felt as if her arm had been slammed in a door – but she didn’t have time to stop; she just brought up her right arm instead, and kept punching back.
She only dared one look back at Jemma. The younger woman’s delicate features were set in an expression of furious intensity as her deft small fingers pulled wire after wire out of the chaos, clamping and twisting and winding them together in gestures so swift that Peggy doubted that she could have followed them even if she weren’t in the middle of a fight. It was breathtakingly brilliant, and Peggy wished that she could watch every second of it.
A firework-bright spray of sparks flew out of the electrical panel. “Now!” Jemma cried.
* * *
Heart pounding furiously and fingers tingling from the sting of electricity, Jemma dodged away. She caught Peggy’s eye for the briefest of moments as the other woman stole a glance back over her shoulder to mark the spot where the wires twisted together.
She hoped Peggy had seen her smiling back.
With that same swift fierce grace that she always had, Peggy spun around, as if she were retreating to get her back against the wall. The Chronicom surged towards her, dead-eyed and single-minded – right into the exposed wires.
As Peggy and Jemma dodged back, the Chronicom’s limbs flailed and thrashed, jerking stiffly like a puppet whose strings had all been tugged in random directions. Bits of cinderblock flew off of the walls as the Chronicom’s fists smashed into it. Through all of it, his face stayed utterly blank and expressionless, even as his body twisted and writhed in the throes of the electrical current.
Then he gave one last mighty spasm, crashed to the ground, and fell still.
The only sound left was the ragged gasping of the two women’s breath.
Jemma was the one who managed to speak first. “Thank you.” It sounded unnaturally loud in the ringing quiet of the corridor. “I – I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been there.”
“What?” Peggy shook her head, staring in wondering incredulity at Jemma. Her cheeks were flushed; her hair tumbled down over her shoulders; her eyes sparkled with the exhilaration of victory. “I mean – you’re welcome, and thank you,” she said, acknowledging the compliment with a quick, breathless laugh, “but you were the one who knew how to defeat it. You could have run away, but you stood your ground and kept going, and you were brilliant.”
Peggy Carter admired her? Pride rose up to warm Jemma all the way through her being, even as she shook her head, protesting, “It was just a basic electrical wiring trick. “You were the one who went hand-to-hand with a Chronicom – a kind of foe that you had never seen before. You had no idea how they operated, no idea what they wanted, no idea how terribly they could hurt you – “ Jemma was shocked to hear her voice wavering, and cut off before it could break outright.
Peggy was already shaking her head, already moving forward towards her. “You were the one with a mission.” Peggy’s voice was softer, almost gentle now. “I knew I needed to keep you safe.”
“And you did,” Jemma replied, just as softly, lifting her gaze to meet Peggy’s. “I’m fine.” She even managed a smile – and then didn’t need to try as hard to keep it, as she added, “You were incredibly brave.”
To Jemma’s utter amazement, Peggy’s eyes shone brighter in the glow of that compliment, and her smile rose higher. “So were you.”
Another wave of warmth ran through Jemma. Her nerves had already been singing with the tension of capture and combat and rapid-fire thinking, and now they tingled even more, as if some of that electrical current were running through her – or as if that current had jumped back to her from the sparks of Peggy’s glorious smile, and the shine of her lovely dark eyes. She could spend all day basking in that glow, set afire by its warmth.
Her fingers stole down to touch the false identity card again: the first proof of her own courage, the object that bore the name of the beautiful, powerful woman before her -
- and then she darted forward, head tilting up and eyes closing as she kissed Peggy Carter on the lips.
* * *
Peggy’s eyes flew open even as she realized that Jemma’s had closed.
Her arms came up to circle the younger woman in a swift embrace – the left one still ached from the impact of the Chronicom’s fist, but Peggy could hardly feel it amid the swirling adrenaline of combat and sudden rush of new emotion that rose up within her. She had wanted this the whole time, she realized: to hold Jemma, to keep her safe within her arms. Such fragility, such brilliance – it needed to be treasured.
Those small deft fingers that had unraveled the diabolical tangle of electrical wires were now gentle on Peggy’s hair, smoothing down the disorder of her once-careful curls and sending a shiver through her as they brushed against the back of her neck.
There was a strange familiarity to the taste of Jemma’s soft lips. She sank deeper and deeper into the kiss, reveling in the softness, even as she tried to figure out how she could possibly recognize anything about this sensation that was so beautifully new.
Then she realized: Jemma was wearing the same lipstick that Peggy used herself. Somehow she had guessed that correctly, when she was choosing her disguise.
Peggy let out a soft laugh – part amusement at the coincidence, part overflowing emotion at the wonder of what had just happened – as she drew back, breaking away from the kiss to look into Jemma’s now-open hazel eyes.
“I can’t believe I did that!” Jemma gasped. Her mouth was open, too, in a wide, wondering smile.
Peggy smiled back, smoothing down the younger woman’s hair in a gentle mirror of the gesture that Jemma had just given to her. “Neither can I,” she said softly. “But I’m very glad you did.”
Somewhere in the distance, a siren was going off. How long had that been happening?
The world was moving on, and Jemma needed to go fight another battle.
From the little disappointed crumple at the corners of Jemma’s lovely eyes, Peggy could tell that Jemma knew just as well as she did what had to happen next, but Peggy was the one who made herself say it. “You should go.” She cradled Jemma’s soft cheek in her hand, and looked steadily into her eyes to share her own strength with her. “You have enemies to fight. And you’re going to beat them.”
Jemma nodded. “All right.” Her smile was still close to the surface, even in the midst of the tension of the battle to come and the sorrow of leaving this wonderful moment. “Thank you. For everything.” She leaned forward to drop one more kiss on Peggy’s lips.
“If you ever find yourself here again, or in California…I’ll be here.” Peggy knew better than to ask where Jemma was going next; there was no way she’d be able to get an answer.
For some reason, that made Jemma laugh again. “I know you’ll be here.” Then the smile faded into seriousness as she promised softly, “I will try to find you again. It isn’t entirely up to me whether I’ll be able to come back…but I do want to try.”
“Good,” Peggy said, her voice just as soft. “Now, go.” She gave Jemma one last smile, and was rewarded with another brilliant light in those intelligent hazel eyes. “Save SHIELD.”
Jemma gave a wordless nod – she couldn’t bear to actually say ‘goodbye’ either – and turned to run down the hall.
As the sirens blared, and the sounds of running footsteps started to charge towards the corridor where she stood alone, Peggy Carter straightened her clothes, lifted her chin, and prepared to take on whatever was coming her way.