Chapter Text
The men of the S.S.R. made Peggy want to scream. They made her want to scream all the time; usually because it was hard to do any proper work from up on the pedestal they built for her. Yet sometimes it was because they were so air-headed she felt like popping them with a pin and watching their heads fly around the bullpen, wheezing and sputtering until they hit a wall and sank to the linoleum floor. Of the two categories, Daniel, who was tapping the end of his pencil on the table, had been one of the most integral architects of her pedestal, and seemed to have only just realized it.
“Drum core was last month, Susan.” Jack was the latter. And sometimes, especially now, she wanted to punch him in the face. He sat leaning back in his chair with his hands folded behind his head, regarding her over his foot, which was propped up on the interrogation table.
Daniel scowled at him, but set the pencil down. He leaned on his elbows and looked at her with tired eyes. “Look, Peggy, I know you’re sick of being cooped up in here, but there’s a lot about your story that doesn’t add up.”
Peggy raised a brow.
“You’re telling me Russia sent a mad scientist and a femme fatale to destroy Howard Stark? You gotta admit it sounds crazy.”
“That’s not what I’m telling you at all, Daniel,” Peggy said, leaning forward and matching his pose. “Fenhoff went rogue. He was a psychiatrist assisting a Leviathan engineer mirroring Howard’s weapons for the Russians. That was their only intended purpose with him-- his vendetta against Howard was entirely his own.”
“So how’d he get the girl to come along?” Jack piped up.
“They were both with Leviathan. From what we can assume, Fenhoff was her handler, or at least the brains of the operation. She was the muscle.”
“The muscle,” Jack repeated skeptically.
“Yes, the muscle,” Peggy said, shooting him a baleful look. “You saw what those girls are capable of, and without a handler who knows what Dottie could be out there doing right now?” Jack had always been a sexist ass, but never at the cost of a mission; something Peggy noticed after his story on the flight back from Russia. It was a lot harder to tolerate his thick-headedness when she knew he was capable of so much better. He could be stubborn, and stubbornness she understood better than most, but this was pig-headed even for him.
“Okay.” Daniel cleared his throat. He looked at Peggy pointedly, trying to divert her eyes from burning a hole into Jack’s forehead. “Let’s break for lunch.”
“Not yet, Sousa, I want to hear why Carter’s so hellbent on finding this Russian broad,” Jack said, still sneering at her.
Peggy rolled her eyes. “We’ve been through this a dozen times, Jack, and we haven’t the time to go through it again. She’s dangerous.”
Daniel stood and tried, again, to catch Peggy’s gaze, but Peggy refused to break eye contact.
“That’s ‘Chief’ to you.” Jack looked down his nose at her, and Peggy bristled. “And I think you’re just pissed that she was sitting right under your nose and you let her go.”
“This is not about me. You saw what she was capable of under someone else’s purview, and we don’t know her intentions. So, Chief Thompson , I’d be more concerned if I were you.”
Jack was pulling his foot off the table when Daniel gave him a tired look, then directed it at Peggy. He shook his head.
“Fine,” Peggy said. She stood and brushed off her skirt. “I’m going to pick up lunch. Mine, not yours,” she said in Jack’s direction. Then she left the room, ignoring the agents’ eyes following her to her desk. She picked up her purse, pulled her coat on, and was halfway to the elevator when Daniel stepped into stride with her.
“Can I join you?” he asked, eyes down. There was an apology in his voice, tinged with something more hopeful that set Peggy on edge. He seemed to think she had forgotten how he sold her out to Chief Dooley, or that she had forgiven him for it.
“Are you going to defend Jack? Sorry- Chief Thompson ,” Peggy said, pressing the button for the elevator and meeting his eyes. The bloom of frustration that grew like a sickly vine in her chest when she first found herself on the opposite side of an interrogation table from Jack had yet to slacken, and she couldn’t help but scowl at Daniel.
Daniel sighed. “I know, he’s out of line questioning you like this. I think he’s bitter.”
“Bitter? What reason could he have to be bitter? He got everything he could have hoped for out of this whole ordeal.”
Daniel looked in both directions and rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, can we talk about this on the way? Thompson’s going to make an announcement tomorrow that I think you’re going to want to hear.”
Interest piqued, Peggy nodded despite herself and stepped into the elevator. Daniel followed and took the opposite side-- refusing to lean on the banister, Peggy noted, but standing as straight as possible with his crutch just in front of him.
As they exited the elevator and stepped into the warm May air, Daniel’s eyes darted all over the street. He was so preoccupied he kept veering from side to side like a newborn giraffe.
Peggy managed to ignore it until he almost stepped into traffic, earning a sharp honk from a passing car. She yanked him back by the shoulder and pulled him to the side.
“For goodness’ sake, Daniel, what’s got you so paranoid?” she said, scanning his face. “This isn’t like you.”
Daniel wiped his forehead and looked both ways once again. “Just a little on edge.”
“More than a little by the looks of it. Tell me what’s going on.”
“Alright.” Daniel looked around one last time and let out a breath. “Thompson’s heading a task force to track down Underwood.”
Peggy let go. A passerby wearing a black coat and hat brushed between them, and Daniel looked like he was seriously considering melting into his shadow.
“And he was going to leave me off it?” Peggy blanched. Jack had been winding her up during that interrogation; baiting her into telling him everything she knew about Dottie so he wouldn’t need her. She knew Daniel was right, he was bitter about Peggy’s success, but was he really resentful enough to risk letting a madwoman run free just to one-up her?
“He’s defending it by saying you’re-” Daniel adjusted his weight onto his crutch to make air quotes with his free hand. “‘too close to the issue.’ I tried to tell him he was being stupid, but nothing gets through that thick skull of his.”
Peggy sighed. “Thank you for trying. I’ll be having words with him when we get back,” she added, turning back toward the street.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“Well what would you suggest?” Peggy glanced sidelong at him, gripping her purse a little tighter.
“I’ll talk to him first.”
Peggy nodded appreciatively, but said, “He won’t trust you if you seem too invested in bringing me in, he’ll know you’re leaking his plans.”
“And you think he won’t know I’m the one who told you about it?”
“I’ll wait until after the briefing, I can say I overheard.”
“It’s not like he trusts me leagues more than he trusts you. Why won’t you let me be on your side here?” Daniel stopped again and Peggy turned around to look at him, side-stepping a passerby and folding her arms.
“Because I think you’re doing this to make up for ratting me out to Chief Dooley,” she said.
“Now why would I do that?” he said stiffly.
“I don’t know. It cost us time, my station, put people in danger. Perhaps you felt selfish.”
Daniel deflated.
“Daniel-” Peggy began, taking a step closer to him.
“You don’t have to explain,” he said, setting his jaw and looking down at the sidewalk. “I get it. You can’t trust me. I made the decision to stick my neck out for you after you lied to us for weeks, after-”
“After you found out I was conducting my own investigation and immediately assumed that I was committing treason, you mean.” Without meaning to, Peggy had ground her feet into the pavement. She could feel heat spreading from the base of her neck to her cheeks, but it was nothing compared to the deep ache in her chest.
“You’re right,” he said shortly, and she could sense the concession in it. He didn’t really believe what he was saying, he was appeasing her, and her anger flared. “I’ll keep you updated on Underwood.” He turned around and started right back to the Bell Co..
She had to stop herself from running right after him, remembering she was angry with him.
“Daniel-” Peggy bit her lip. That uneasiness was back.
Despite all that she should probably have been feeling, she felt itchy as she turned her back to Daniel retreating down the street. She had experienced the itch before, and back then she leaned into it, let it feel right.
It didn’t feel right this time, and she shook Daniel’s face out of her mind as she continued down the street, her feelings all tangled up in a ball in her chest. She just had to get down the next two blocks and she would set this right. She would talk to Angie and Angie would know what to do. Angie always knew what to say.
As Peggy turned the corner and the neon L&L sign finally came into view, Peggy let out a sigh of relief. She could see Angie through the wide windows scrubbing a spot on the bar, and she looked up just as Peggy came in. Her eyes flared wide and she shook her head rapidly, killing the feeling of safety in Peggy’s chest.
Peggy tilted her head. When she opened her mouth to ask, an ill-tempered looking man wearing a stained apron and wielding a spatula stepped right into her path. His name was Mal, if she was remembering Angie’s rolodex of coworkers correctly.
“Nah, not anymore, chickie,” he said with a thick Brooklyn accent. “Unless you’re here to pay for the damages from last time, I’ll thank you to get outta’ my diner.”
Peggy glanced over his shoulder at Angie and Angie shot her an apologetic look, quickly returning to scrubbing when Mal twisted around. She looked like she was bracing herself for something, and Peggy had the sinking feeling that there was something Angie wasn’t telling her.
“You heard me right, Queen Victoria?” Mal said, brandishing his spatula like a fly swatter.
Behind him, Angie winced.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Peggy said.
“You come in here, beat up a bunch of feds, and expect a welcome back? Either you pay for my broken door jam or I don’t wanna see you in here again. You know how expensive window repairs is nowadays?”
“Whatever the cost, I’m sure the S.S.R. will pay for it,” Peggy said, trying to keep focused on Mal. It was hard when Angie’s rag was slowing on the counter and her shoulders shrank in with something like resignation-- a look she had never seen on Angie and did not care for at all.
“Yeah, I tried that.” Mal crossed his arms and sneered at her over his bulbous nose. “They’re claiming you instigated the fight, and if you’d a’ come quietly I wouldn’t have had to replace a whole set of plates. So it’s in your best interest to go quietly this time. And I wouldn’t pull the ‘your friend works here’ card, she’s on thin ice as is.” He nodded back at Angie, and Peggy bristled.
“She had nothing to do with it,” she said instead of punching him in the nose.
“Afraid your word ain’t worth much here,” he said, lifting a wary eyebrow. The spatula bobbed with his every move and Peggy wanted to slap it out of his hand.
“If you agree to leave her out of this I might be able to get the S.S.R. to pay for your door. It’d probably cover twice her salary too, the way you pay her,” Peggy said, straightening up.
Mal grunted. “Done.”
She glanced over at Angie one more time and her shoulders relaxed microscopically. “I’ll send someone over with a check before next Tuesday.” She turned on her heel, tucked her purse under her arm, and left.
The bell jingled behind her, and it sounded like defeat.
The rest of the day lasted an age. On top of the muttering in the bullpen and her coworkers avoiding her like the plague, her head buzzed with Angie’s timorous demeanor all through the day.
As she walked home from the subway station, the summer sun was just beginning to slant through the city. It glinted off the fire escapes and window displays, catching the skyline on fire. The crowd took on its dusk ambience as Peggy made her way through. She squinted against a beam of light refracting directly into her eyes.
If her mother were there she might tell Peggy to stop frowning. “You’ll get wrinkles, Margaret. You’ve already got a head on your shoulders three times your age, you needn’t the crows feet to match, ” she’d say, tucking a curl of hair behind six-year-old Peggy’s ear. Somewhere in their backyard Michael would be climbing trees and fighting dragons while Peggy sat being doted on by Mrs. Carter. Peggy would blow the stray hair out again with an indignant puff.
Daniel must be heading home too. Somewhere on another sun-soaked street, he was probably devising a pitch for Thompson. He would not help her now. She just couldn’t believe it was this that finally loosed her temper.
The puppet strings yanking her upright always loosened when she turned onto hers and Angie’s street, but today they only pulled tighter as the open kitchen window reminded her of Mal’s threat. She considered turning on her heel and walking away; finding a new place to live, and stationing Jarvis at the door so Angie would never be put at risk again.
The notion knocked the wind out of her.
She halted at the corner and flung a hand out, reaching into empty air for something to brace herself against.
Blue eyes and blond hair emerged in her vision, but they weren’t Angie’s. These eyes were slanted down, squarish, the hair close-cropped. Steve, his voice, his eyes, static cutting through his voice. Someone she lost.
The cobblestones blurred before her and every muscle in her legs wobbled.
She saw Angie’s concerned frown, the little space between her lips, her eyebrows knitted over blue eyes. Ice blue eyes.
Her hands were trembling.
Breathe.
She inhaled slowly, and tried to feel the cold metal of the lamppost under her palm. She hadn’t lost Angie yet.
She remembered the first time she saw Angie. It was like looking up at a phantom. With her thin square jaw and the roiling need for something more in her eyes, Angie was the spitting image of Steve Rogers. The day Peggy was officially transferred from the military division to the Manhattan office, and the day she met Angie, was the first time Peggy felt truly alone in the city.
She was shooed out of the cramped office with an astonishing hand shake from Colonel Phillips. She could count on one hand the number of people she had seen him acknowledge with one. He clasped her hand in his, ducked down low enough that she felt his scruff brush her jaw, and muttered, “Good work, Agent Carter.” When she looked up at him, mouth open, he gave her a grizzly smile. They saluted one another, and a smattering of applause followed her out the door.
It wasn’t her first day back in the city; she’d spent the two weeks following the end of the war holed up in dimly lit meeting rooms, speeding through the discharge processes as if stopping might wake the beast they’d just sung to sleep.
Opening the door into post-war Manhattan felt like stepping into open sky. She darted from street to street, murmuring the address for her new division over and over as she sped through the jubilant schools of people.
Turning the corner around a subway station, Peggy looked up at a cream-colored building teeming with people. Men and women in their suits and business skirts pushed through the heavy double doors set below a carving of a bell and neat lettering spelling “New York Bell Co.” in big black capital letters.
Tucking her small case full of recommendation letters and belongings close, she took a deep breath and stepped inside. She went up three flights of stairs and through a door into a tiny room buzzing with activity.
In the room - more a hall, really - women crammed together in a line in front of a switchboard. The air was buzzing with women's voices, talking over one another and into their headsets until the clamor rose into a crescendo and then fell again in perfect rhythm. Compared with the exaggerated masculine grumbles of the war rooms, they were like a flock of chattering birds.
“How do you all hear anything in here,” Peggy asked a redheaded woman sitting at the end of the line.
“Hold on there, honey!” The woman shouted, one hand pressed to her earpiece, the other skimming along a thousand little switches and glowing buttons flicking on and off under her fingers.
“Of course.”
Eventually the woman leaned back in her chair and blew out a weary breath. “Wonderful weather this month, isn’t it?” That was the decided-upon callsign. This woman must be Rose Roberts, the front desk agent, as it were, of the S.S.R..
“Yes, but I’m afraid I’m allergic to pollen,” Peggy recited.
Countersign delivered, the woman offered her a friendly smile. “I heard they were bringing in a lass but I couldn’t believe it ‘till I saw it.” She held out a plump hand. “Rose Roberts.”
“Margaret Carter,” Peggy said, taking it.
“Oh we know who you are. You’re like a breath of fresh air around here.”
The women with a second of free time leaned forward, ogling Peggy and whispering to one another behind their hands.
“Please, call me Peggy,” Peggy said awkwardly.
“Alright, Peggy. Good luck,” said Rose, flashing her one more bright smile. She pressed her thumb to a button below the desk and the doors opened into the Manhattan division of the S.S.R..
Her first day was the minefield she predicted, but there was one friendly face to be found. He had big ears, a crutch for his left leg, and a quiet strength to him that was achingly familiar. Sousa stood up for her when her new Chief, Roger Dooley, tried rescinding her agent title all together. Eyeing the determined set of his jaw as Dooley berated him, Peggy resigned herself to working at the desk behind Steve’s ghost.
Hours later, Peggy wound her way through the streets again. Briefcase lighter, and stinging from her first reprimand, she felt exposed in the May breeze.
Her stomach rumbled. She paused at the street corner she was on and looked around for an empty cafe or a diner, but it was five o’clock and the sun still sat high in the sky, fat and lazy like an old tabby cat. During the war, restaurants were filing for bankruptcy as food rations grew tighter by the day. She had grown accustomed to the windows being boarded up, constricting the street so all the women rushing home funneled down the sidewalk, cold regardless of the weather.
Standing at her third intersection surrounded by hopeful buzzing, the evening sun bright on her face, reality began to set in.
The war was over. The diner Peggy retreated to after long days underground was glowing with life, the dirty windows scrubbed clean. She could see her usual seat at the end of the bar filled by a balding man with a child perched on his knee. Music wafted out the doors. People were packed around tables that were too small for their parties and leaned back against the front window. The old grubby pub glowed with life.
She didn’t know the city anymore.
She squeezed the strap of her briefcase tight and willed her heart to calm down. Without her funnel, what was she to do with all the free space? The New York she belonged to needed her. This one flowed in a steady stream all around her, so different from the city she had learned. This electricity, this warmth, had to be some kind of joke.
As she stood there, she ran through her mental map of the city seeking out all her back alley pubs and empty diners, feeling more and more like she was in a rickety boat watching safety grow smaller and smaller on the horizon. She looked up at the street sign and turned right onto a street she didn’t know.
When the sun finally sank to the horizon and the city skyline cast a series of swooping shadows onto the sidewalk, Peggy’s feet began to ache in her shoes. She looked up at a neon sign reading “ L&L Automat” in glowing green script. It was empty save for two men sitting at separate tables.
The waitress didn’t look up as Peggy pushed open the door and took a seat at the second booth from the back. The diner was cozy and dimly lit in the waning summer sun, the radio behind the counter crooning soft jazz. A menu stained with coffee lay on the table, but Peggy pulled a book from her briefcase instead. She was hungry, but her heart still coiled in her stomach, turning away from her like a spurned child. The city she thought she knew had treated her like a stranger, and she was fragile today for reasons she didn’t feel like confronting.
Peggy got through half a page, absorbing nothing, when a slender figure in sea green approached in her peripheral vision.
Peggy looked up and came face to face with a ghost.
The woman was slim and wore a cap perched atop her dirty blonde hair. Her hips were slung to the side with one elbow propped casually in the crook of her waist, supporting the notepad she held in long-fingered hands.
But it wasn’t her ephemeral Brooklyn accent when she asked, “What can I getcha?” that drove a spike through Peggy’s chest, but her eyes. Caught in them, Peggy remembered the feeling of sitting beside Steve in that taxi cab. She remembered his focused blue eyes that were just like the ones ensnaring her now.
I got beat up in that alley, he’d told her.
“Miss?”
And that parking lot.
“Yes, I’m sorry.” Peggy blinked up at the woman - Angie, according to her nametag - and looked back down at the table.
“Alright there, English?”
“Fine.” She picked up the menu, but found she was no longer hungry. “What would you suggest?”
“Can’t go wrong with a turkey on rye, but I’d avoid the tuna melt if I were you.” Angie glanced backward at the window into the kitchen and back at Peggy, angling herself inward like they were schoolgirls sharing a secret. “Junie tries, but there’s only so much you can do to spam.”
Peggy didn’t know why she smiled at that. Maybe it was the earnest twist of Angie’s shoulders, or the way she leaned on the table with all the tenacity of a battle strategist, but Peggy could not seem to stay upset around her.
Peggy willed the haze in her head to clear before she had to face Angie. She had no idea what she would say if she slammed into a doorway because she spent five seconds imagining a life without her.
She had lost people before. That was what her episode had to be: preemptive grief. Thinking about losing people was almost as bad as losing them. It conjured the same symptoms, at least: it made her dizzy, like her chest was being sucked inwards by a vacuum.
She tried to shake off these thoughts, dropping her purse on the side table in the entryway, mind still buzzing so loudly she didn’t notice the singing coming from the kitchen, or how it stopped with the tik tik tik of the stovetop being turned on.
“Peg?” a voice cut through her thoughts, soon followed by its owner.
“Angie,” Peggy managed as Angie emerged from the kitchen.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Angie said, wiping her hands on a rag. She turned back into the kitchen, nodding for Peggy to follow her. “Everything okay?”
Peggy bit her lip and followed. She was met immediately with the smell of sausage, and something sweet and earthy she couldn’t place wafting from the stove. The rich scent felt indulgent without even eating, like being caught nibbling on a roll before her family had finished Grace.
She leaned against the counter and kicked off her shoes. Focusing on the heavenly smell, she settled a collected look over herself and opened her eyes.
Angie was leaning on the counter, wooden spoon in hand, looking at her with concern. It reminded her grossly of Mal’s spatula.
“Just work.”
Angie’s silence prompted Peggy to look up. Expecting frustration, Peggy was met instead with that sad, hopeful look she recognized but couldn’t name.
“It’s nothing personal. It’s just been a trying day.”
Angie reached back, set the wooden spoon down in the spoon rest, and folded her arms. “Want to tell me about it?”
Peggy was silent. She bit her lip and looked up at the ceiling. Where to start? “Daniel and I said some hurtful things to each other.”
“That’s too bad, English. Was it about last week?” Something about the way she said it made it seem like they’d squabbled over lunch or the morning newspaper, and Peggy’s shoulders relaxed despite herself. She nodded.
“He thinks I don’t trust him. We used to have a certain level of respect where we were… aware of the order of things around the S.S.R., but never took them too seriously, I suppose. He treated me like any other agent.” Her eyes flicked up to the ceiling again as a dreaded sting developed behind them. “I suppose I took advantage of that. But he was so quick to think the worst of me, I just don’t know how to trust him anymore.”
A timer buzzed loudly at Angie’s elbow.
“Hold that thought, English,” Angie said. She gave the timer a dirty glare, inspiring a chuckle from Peggy.
It never ceased to amaze her how easily Angie pulled them out of her-- a thought she tucked away as Angie dipped the wooden spoon into her pot and sampled its contents. Seemingly satisfied, she crossed the kitchen and pulled two bowls from the cabinet, standing on her tip-toes to reach the higher shelf. Watching her speed around the kitchen was more comforting than Peggy ever imagined when she suggested moving in together.
Domestic. It was domestic.
Aside from the tired ache behind her eyes leftover from the stress of the day, Peggy felt herself grounding in this new reality. She had never been able to just exist with Angie before. Checking over every word before she said it had been so second nature. Just how little did Angie actually know about her?
The pleasant thunk of a bowl being set in front of her pulled her from her thoughts. Angie slid into the chair across from her; elbows braced on either side of her own bowl, ready to listen.
Peggy smiled lightly, letting out a bracing breath. “There isn’t much else to tell,” she said, looking down into the bowl. “It smells delightful. What is it?”
“Fagioli soup,” Angie replied, “It’s hot for it, but you looked real shaken when you left the automat today. And Ma always said home cooking is the soul’s cure-all.”
Dipping her spoon into the rich soup, Peggy relaxed more than she’d been able to in days. She rolled out her shoulders and let out a low sigh. “Smart woman,” she said.
“Don’t let her hear you say that,” Angie said. Soon Peggy was leaning back in her chair, and all thoughts of Daniel and Chief Thompson and Mal’s spatula were lost to Angie’s latest story about Sarah from 3A.
Should Daniel have been a more vengeful person, Peggy would have suspected him of setting up the week’s night shift schedule so that his and hers coincided. But he wasn’t vengeful in the least; in fact, he looked just as uncomfortable as she did.
When they shared his desk, Daniel needed to lean his crutch to his left-- his bad side. Usually, that involved Peggy sitting to his right so they could pour over files together. Today, not only was his crutch wedged right where she usually sat, but he didn’t even acknowledge her as she came in.
She briefly paused before dragging her own chair to the opposite side of the desk.
The screeching sound the old wood made against the cheap linoleum floor was especially grating in the irritable silence.
When she sat, her chair creaked, and a vein in Daniel’s forehead popped. His pen stilled and his free hand twitched.
Peggy adjusted herself quietly and set her purse down on the floor. She wished she’d brought some of the pie Angie baked if only to pointedly not offer him any.
She looked up and waited for him to meet her eyes, and when he did, words like ‘get over yourself,’ ‘you can’t ignore me forever,’ and ‘sorry’ shot to the forefront of her mind.
The anger still swirled inside her. She had the itch to hit something. She forced herself to stare at the desk instead of yelling at him.
The feeling seemed to be mutual. The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife. It coiled tight every time either of them made a sound; winding up, the fuse burning closer and closer each time.
Stubbornness seemed to be a requirement for hiring at the downtown Manhattan branch of the S.S.R..
The dimmed lamps felt like spotlights awaiting their pathetic production’s climax.
Jack made the announcement that morning that he would be heading a specialized team chasing enemy agent Dottie Underwood. The one day she worked the night shift. Telling her so had been the only words Daniel spoke to her since they arrived at eight o’clock.
Glancing up, she caught a glimpse of the document Daniel was filling in. Across the top it read ‘Underwood,’ and then below it, ‘Initial Notes - May, ‘46.’
She really wished she’d brought that pie. Pathetic as it felt to admit, it might make her feel better.
Unbidden, Angie’s voice floated into her head. “You sure?” she’d asked, already separating off a hunk of cherry pie and looking at Peggy with that same hopeful look from before. There was something else in it that time, something… sad. “ It might help smooth things over.”
She wished she had Angie’s sense for people.
The only sounds in the room were the scratch of Daniel’s pen and the occasional squeak of his chair when he stretched out his leg. They seemed to be taking turns glancing up and pretending not to notice each other.
Daniel’s pen scratched.
The clock on the wall ticked.
At least with other agents the silence was normal. Daniel’s felt like clinging to a lightning rod during a storm, waiting to get fried.
A desk drawer scraped open and closed.
When the sun finally disappeared and moths began to flit around their shared lamp, Peggy realized the slits in the blinds really had looked like prison bars.
The phone rang, breaking the silence
Daniel glanced up and their eyes met. She looked away first.
Peggy studied the inside of her purse while Daniel picked up the phone.
“Sousa.” There was an edge to his voice that had been missing earlier. “What? No, this is not the Bell Co.- how did you get this number?”
Her purse was a mess, she really ought to organize it.
“Who is this? You’re a friend of who?” Daniel waved his hand, gesturing for her to listen. When she looked up he shoved the phone at her.
“Who is it?” She mouthed at him.
He shrugged.
Peggy slowly raised the phone to her ear. “Carter.”
“Peggy!” Her blood ran cold.
“Dottie.”
Daniel’s jaw clenched.
“You don’t sound pleased,” Dottie said, “Then again, I wouldn’t be either.”
“Is this a threat?” Peggy said, shoving the receiver between her ear and shoulder, scrambling for a notepad and pen.
“I hoped you’d think more of me by now-” the rest of her sentence was lost in what sounded like wind. Something staticy in the background garbled her voice.
Peggy grabbed the pen Daniel handed her. WATER, she wrote.
Daniel squinted at it and mouthed “Where?”
Peggy missed the next words out of Dottie’s mouth as she scribbled a reply.
“-tell me you’re on the little task force Blondie’s set up to track me down?” Lapping waves were interrupted by the hum of a car engine and screeching tires on asphalt. “Peggy, we both know certain things need a woman’s touch.” The car horn sounded, and then the dial tone droned in Peggy’s ear.
She cursed and hung up the phone.
“Did you just talk to Underwood?” Daniel said, all the bitterness disappeared from his voice as his professionalism-first manner took over. She had never been more grateful for it.
“Yes. I heard water, then a car pulling up.” As Dottie’s words set in, slimy horror began to trickle into her chest. “She knows about Thompson’s operation, and that I’m not on it. She said something about ‘certain things needing a woman’s touch.’”
“Did she mention where she was going?”
Peggy shook her head.
“Well then we have to figure out how she knew about Chief’s task force. She must have someone on the inside,” he said darkly.
“Most likely, but we can’t exactly go up to Thompson and tell him there’s a double agent in the S.S.R. without proof.”
Daniel scooped up his crutch and got to his feet. “Exactly, so we better get some. I’ll go dig out some maps. With any luck we can pin her down somewhere on the coast. You want to get on tracking that call?”
She nodded and stood, and they split off. Focused on a common goal, the tension in the air ebbed. She needed it to be permanent. She still believed she could find Dottie, but she’d be lying if she said the idea of Dottie rogue in the city hadn’t slit a little hole in her gut and curled up inside. She needed the Daniel who believed in her.
But they had a plan now, Peggy reminded herself as she headed for the switchboard room, hoping it might quell the nervous energy roiling in her stomach.
A distraction arrived in the shape of Rose asleep in her chair, and Peggy’s expression smoothed over.
“Rose?”
Rose’s chin slipped down onto her chest and her glasses slid down her nose. She gave a light snore in response.
“Rose,” Peggy said, tapping the counter beside Rose with her nails. “ Rose, for heaven’s sake, there’s been a development.”
She snapped her fingers in front of Rose’s eyes and Rose started, the glasses finally dropping onto her chin.
“Hm-” Rose adjusted her glasses and sat up in her chair, blinking up at Peggy.
“What I am about to tell you doesn’t leave this room,” Peggy said, yanking the nearest chair to Rose’s side before she could reply.
Rose nodded and leaned in, blinking sleep out of her eyes.
“We just got a call from Dottie.”
Rose’s eyes went wide. “She called us? Directly?” her eyes flicked to the massive switchboard in front of them. “We didn’t get any alert.”
“Can you track it?”
“I can try…”
Rose held down two buttons on the switchboard, and when she paused Peggy asked, “What does it mean that you didn’t get an alert? Does that mean another call center directed it?”
“Maybe, but no one else has this number.” Rose’s nails tapped on the table, “They shouldn’t. She’d have to go through the government.”
“Or an agent.”
Their eyes met and there was a pregnant pause.
Rose let out a harumph, and said, “I’ll getcha the origin for that call soon,” and Peggy took it as her invitation to go.
“Thank you, Rose.” She stood and laid a hand on the back of Rose’s chair. “Sousa is working on pinning down where Dottie’s call could have come from, but we’re going to need something more concrete than mapwork.”
Rose nodded.
Peggy paused one last time as Rose flicked open the latch to let her back into the bullpen. “Oh- and don’t mention this to Thompson, please. Not yet at least.” At Rose’s affirmation, Peggy took a deep breath and prepared to tell Daniel the news.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” Daniel said, squinting out over the familiar span of river.
Peggy climbed out of the car and followed his gaze, watching the lights flicker on the black water for a moment before turning to the payphone tucked inside the alley. It was the same one Jarvis had used to call the S.S.R. the previous week.
“Of course not, but this is where Rose said the call came from and it’s our only lead yet,” Peggy replied, heading over to the phone and kneeling beside it. “Rose’s contact in this building’s security said so.”
“Comforting.”
Dottie’s call led them to the same dock Peggy tracked Howard’s inventions to, and saying that unnerved her was putting it lightly. She would have to ask Howard if anything else had gone missing.
“So she really did take out Krzeminski, huh,” Daniel said, the trace of confusion in his voice like hers. He wasn’t any friendlier with Krzeminski than she was, and he seemed to share her inexplicable melancholy surrounding his death.
She shot him an irritated look. “As I told you then.”
Perhaps it had been the wrong thing to say in that specific moment, but frankly it was the least offensive of Daniel’s transgressions, and her irritation was close to bubbling over. She would much rather it came out in small passive aggressive bursts than a bout of rage she would surely regret later.
Daniel’s mouth pressed into a thin line, but she turned back to the phone before he could reply.
She lifted the handset off the hook with the end of her pen and slowly brought the mouthpiece to eye level, looking for smudges of lipstick. She knew better than to test for fingerprints-- Dottie wore gloves even when they weren’t required. Even as she thought it, Peggy pictured the cheery “ballet dancer” she and Angie had had a few laughs over instead of the assassin she kicked out a window.
She glanced up at Daniel, who knelt by the curb shining a flashlight on the asphalt. His eyebrows were knitted together in his sulking fashion.
Peggy tried to focus on the single strand of golden hair clinging to the top of the box. She pulled a plastic bag and a pair of tweezers from her pocket and plucked it, then pocketed the bag. She felt Daniel’s eyes carving a hole in her.
She got to her feet and faced him. “If you have something to say, Daniel, spit it out.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, but his eyes darted back to the ground. “If anything it seems like you’ve got something to say.”
Peggy’s fist on her hip tightened, and she planted herself firmly as if preparing for a sudden wind. The lightning strike was coming. “What I said yesterday-”
“You were right. I do feel guilty about assuming you and Stark were involved, but I don’t regret telling Dooley.”
She felt her ears burning as she said, “You don’t? Those hours I spent handcuffed to a table instead of chasing down Dottie and Fenhoff were worth it to you?” So much for holding back the bout of rage.
“That’s not fair, Peggy-”
“Why? For the satisfaction? You’re so determined for Thompson to take you seriously you were willing to hang me out to dry, and where did it get you? A spot on his vanity commission?”
The chilly breeze off the river picked up and the smell of salt fractured the space between them.
Her throat burned as she swallowed a frustrated scream, on the verge of exploding. Daniel acting like assuming that she and Howard were involved was somehow worse than betraying her was making her blood boil.
He stood up and took a step closer to her-- a dangerous move with how her fist trembled at her side. “And what would you have done, exactly? You’re telling me if you found pictures placing me at a murder scene you wouldn’t get suspicious?”
“I would have at least done my due diligence before reporting you to the chief, and- our situations are nothing alike! Your position isn’t nearly as precarious as mine, you knew exactly what the consequences would be for me-”
“You think my position is set in stone, huh? Like a guy with one of these-” Daniel waved his crutch, “-is a valued member of the team? You think Dooley would’ve pinned a medal on me for reporting you like if Thompson got there first?”
“So yours was a sacrificial play, was it? Agent Daniel Sousa catches rogue secretary Peggy Carter in her devastating betrayal of king and country?” Peggy scoffed. “Thought that catching me in the act would earn you some respect?”
“It wasn’t about me, Peggy. What is it with you and thinking everyone has some personal vendetta against you? Sometimes people do the right thing because it’s right, and they don’t think about you when they do it. I thought you of all people would get that.”
Peggy had opened her mouth to retort, but now she closed it.
She blinked hard, gaze fixed on the moths fluttering about the light affixed to the wall across the street.
“I didn’t mean that.”
Steve’s voice rang in her head, but clarity wrought by days of suppressing Daniel’s betrayal refused to let the grief in.
Perhaps holding onto the rod and daring lightning to strike had not been the smartest choice, but the shock cracked every bone straight in their sockets.
The wind whispered over the river, the black water shimmered; just as pure a night as before. But no river was as shallow as the refractions of moonlight across its surface.
As Peggy glanced at Daniel, she noted, No. Much lay churning beneath the light.
Her eyes finally met his again, and she uncurled her stiff fingers. “Well. Did you find anything?” she said after a long silence.
Daniel cleared his throat and adjusted his crutch. It scraped deafeningly against the sidewalk. “No.”
They stood for another long moment before Daniel spoke again: “So are we heading back?”
Peggy looked over at the car they’d taken, hood shining innocently in the moonlight, then back at Daniel. His earnestness which usually endeared him to her only made her hands squeeze again into fists, and she couldn’t fathom sitting in bitter silence with him all the way back to the S.S.R.. But it was close to two in the morning, she had left all her things at the office, and she didn’t see any other viable option.
She still had half a mind to call Jarvis for a ride home as she gave a short, “Yes,” and followed him to the car.
Peggy kept her eyes out the window as Daniel drove. Watching the buildings they passed, she caught a word or phrase glinting off the signs in the passes between street lamps. There was never enough time to read a full sentence. Peggy was a codebreaker, and she didn’t like how the night turned everything into a cypher.
Daniel had never been a mystery to her, even if he could, on occasion, surprise her. He sat rigidly in the driver’s seat. She could practically hear him creak like an old chair when he switched pedals.
When he caught her looking, she shifted her eyes up to the rearview mirror. Some distance behind them an expensive-looking car changed lanes and came to a quiet stop at the curb. It was too dark to see the driver. Peggy might have just been looking for something to focus on other than the dead air between herself and Daniel, but it sent a chill down her spine.
Daniel opened the door to the bullpen for her with perfunctory politeness, and as they moved past Rose they wordlessly agreed to pretend like the silence between them was natural.
While Daniel packed up for the night, Peggy went for the phone. She dialed in the number and waited.
“You’ve reached the Stark residence, how may I help you?” Not Jarvis’s voice, but a woman’s. She giggled into the phone, and Peggy heard another voice in the background. She wrinkled her nose and held the phone a bit further from her face.
“Is Howard in? Tell him it’s urgent.”
“Howard, sweetie, you’ve got a call. They say it’s urgent, ” the woman giggled again.
“Every call I get is urgent, tell them to leave a message. Urgently.”
“ Howard. ” Peggy said, louder this time.
“Hey, I know that voice!” There was the muffled sound of the phone changing hands, and then Howard was right in her ear. “Peggy!” he shouted.
Peggy held the phone even further from her face. “Howard, how sober are you?”
“Sober enough for a chat with my favorite lobsterback, what’s going on?”
‘Lobsterback’ wasn’t good. On the Howard Stark Drunkenness Scale, it was at least a seven. ‘Redcoat’ would’ve been ideal, it was only a four.
“Did you discover anything else missing after the Fenhoff Fiasco?”
“A few things.” She could hear the smirk in his voice.
“A few dangerous things.”
“You ever seen a beautiful woman loose in the city with an Italian-made trilby? That might knock a few unsuspecting fellas down for the count.”
Peggy pinched the bridge of her nose. “Did you discover anything else missing from your vault?”
“Nothin’ new, no. It’s all right here, don’t worry.” He was grinning into the phone again and Peggy had a feeling that that woman was wrapped around him like a tangled fishing net.
“Thank you Howard, you’ve been most helpful as always.”
“Always happy to be of service.” He hung up.
Peggy sighed and allowed herself a moment to roll her eyes before heading back into the bullpen.
She was halfway through repacking her purse before she recovered the bagged blonde hair in her pocket. She stared at it for a moment before setting it in her drawer, trying to summon a feeling towards it. Hatred, confusion. But all she could feel was a dim sense of dread more attributed to the man shuffling around the bullpen turning off lights than the master assassin loose in New York.
He was still wandering around putting away maps and abandoned coffee cups. She thought she could feel his stern brown stare on her back when she headed for the door.
The alternating clack of Daniel’s foot and crutch on the linoleum floor followed her all the way to the train. That sense of dread did too.
There was only one other rider on the red eye train. He was slumped over in his seat with a scarf wound around his face, making it impossible to tell how old he was or what he looked like. Something about him was terribly familiar though: he was utterly spiritless. Hunched over like all the men she rode home with from Camp Lehigh. He could have been one of them for all Peggy could tell. She knew more than a few P.O.W. 's who had returned ashen-faced from the camps unable to shake the chill, some of whom were once cheery and talkative men. Now they kept their heads down and fell asleep on the three a.m. train.
This night had not gone the way she hoped it would. And because she learned in a freezing boat on an eastern European sea sometime in ‘42 that the stars could light a path often neglected, she looked up as she walked. Far above the street among the rows and rows of apartments, a light winked out. Peggy couldn’t help feeling extraordinarily small.
It was as clear as a Manhattan summer sky could be, but it still yielded only the brightest star, a single prick of light in the stuffy sky.
Even the lone star was comforting, but Peggy felt foolish smiling ruefully at the sky, so she turned right up the stairs to the penthouse.
She rummaged through her purse for her keys and came up empty.
“Oh, fantastic,” she muttered, and planted her hands on her hips. In a moment of well-deserved self pity, she looked down.
Right as a cricket hopped onto the porch beside her foot. Then onto the toe of her shoe.
For a moment she felt ridiculous, but she had little left to lose tonight so she tilted her head at it and said, “Is that how it is?”
The cricket sprang back into the ferns beside the stairs.
She dug a pin out of her hair and got to work-- for exactly five seconds before the door opened inward and Peggy stumbled forward right into a pair of knees.
Peggy yelped as she hit the floor, and her roommate knelt down beside her, a hand landing on her shoulder.
She waved it off and sat upright, greeting worried blue eyes lit in slivers of moonlight. A rush of appreciation for Angie flooded through her, and she took her offered hand.
“Jesus, English, what are you doing down there?” Angie asked.
“Left my key at the office,” Peggy muttered.
Angie glanced over Peggy’s shoulder and frowned, pulling her robe tighter around herself. “You’re home early. Something happen?”
Peggy opened her mouth and closed it again. She sighed and rubbed her forehead, feeling a headache coming on. When she looked back up, Angie’s expression grew more worried, and Peggy gave her hand a reassuring squeeze–
She was still holding Angie’s hand. Her eyes shot to their joined hands and met Angie’s halfway there.
They both quickly let go.
She looked back up at Angie and saw a flicker of hurt in her eyes, her collarbones flaring with the slow schooling breath she drew.
Peggy wanted to take her hand again, but the moment passed and she figured she deserved the beat of reproachful silence that followed.
“Angie, I-”
Angie’s eyes shot back up to hers, hope and apprehension written all over her face. Peggy could have grimaced with the familiarity of the mixture.
“Why are you awake?”
“Fancy called,” Angie said shortly, eyes flicking over Peggy’s shoulder at the grandfather clock. She looked Peggy up and down, taking in her wrinkled skirt and mussed hair before taking her arm and gently tugging for her to follow. “Said something was going down tonight, so I waited up.”
Concern twisted her mouth in that childish way of hers that lifted her eyebrow along with it, and Peggy felt an overpowering rush of fondness for the expression as Angie led her to the kitchen.
Exhaustion hit her like a truck as she slumped in her chair, and she braced both elbows on the table, if only to avoid exacerbating Angie’s worry. She vaguely heard Angie sweeping around the kitchen preparing her tea, propping herself awake on the occasional creak and slam of cabinet doors until a saucer slid between her elbows.
She let the steam warm her face and loosen the ache between her eyes before swinging her gaze back up to Angie, who held her own teacup close between both hands, seemingly numb to the heat through the thin porcelain. A result of spilling a few too many cups of coffee on herself, most likely. Her eyes hovered on Angie’s left hand around the curve of her index finger hidden by the teacup that she knew bore a splotchy burn scar from exactly that.
“English?”
Peggy was staring. She ran her fingers through her tousled hair and tried to focus, but words wouldn’t congeal in her head.
“Peg?”
She picked up her teacup and took a slow sip, letting the hot smooth sweetness fill her mouth-- a perfect cup of tea. She smiled weakly and opened her eyes. It felt like prying open a honeyed trapdoor.
“Thank you, Angie, I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Her eyes stuck on the spot around the curve of Angie’s finger as the first trickles of guilt over her harsh words to Daniel began to wind their way through her. They wrapped up her heart and pressed in with thorny limbs, and then a gentle arm wrapped around her shoulders.
“Peg,” Angie said softly in her ear.
Her hair whispered across Peggy’s cheek and she let her head drop onto Angie’s shoulder. She fit perfectly there in the crook of Angie’s neck.
“Peggy, I’m getting worried. Give me something,” Angie said, giving Peggy’s shoulder a squeeze.
“‘M sorry, Angie,” Peggy murmured. “It’s been a long night.”
“Uh huh. Alright, Mata Hari, Let’s get you to bed.” Angie moved out from under Peggy.
She groaned a little, but soon Angie was sliding an arm around Peggy’s waist and urging her out of the chair.
She made it through brushing her teeth and washing her face with Angie at her elbow, and managed to get to bed without the guilt rising again.
As she was swinging her legs up to tuck in for the night, Angie paused in the doorway. “I hope you’ll tell me what this is about tomorrow,” she said, a hand braced on the doorframe.
In the shaft of moonlight streaming in from a break in Peggy’s curtains, every curve and delicate line of her profile was gilded in blue. With her face shrouded in shadow she looked like a picture of Hollywood grace.
Something seized in Peggy’s chest, and the image branded itself on the insides of her ribs, so fragile.
Then the sensation darkened. She never told Jarvis about her investigation with Daniel. So how had Angie known to wait up for her?
Biting down on the question, she nodded.